Alt-right hate bleeds north

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This article was published 15/08/2017 (2438 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rev. Meghann Robern had been minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Winnipeg for only two weeks before she saw painted on a church sign something that she was more used to seeing in past ministries in the United States — hate-related graffiti.

Arriving at the Wellington Crescent church on Sunday before the service, Robern, who was recently minister of a church in Tennessee and before that lay minister of another in California, said she immediately saw offensive words of the type linked to the alt-right movement in the United States.

And it made Robern think about the tragic events just the day before in Charlottesville, Va., where a woman was killed and scores more injured when a man reported to idolize Adolf Hitler drove his vehicle into a group of people demonstrating against a white nationalist rally.

“It is very clear there is a direct correlation,” she said on Wednesday.

“I agree with other leaders in Winnipeg and Canada the link is real and palpable.

“Some of our parishioners noticed it and some didn’t. I immediately went in and came out and covered it up.

“Then I told them during the service about it and that we’re in this for the long haul.

“We are for justice, truth and reconciliation… this is a community concern and this congregation is part of the larger community.

“But they picked the wrong target.”

Winnipeg police are investigating after receiving a report on Sunday about the hate-related graffiti on the church sign.

Other graffiti was later spotted on the street by other citizens, but the one on the sign is the only graffiti that has been reported to them so far, police spokeswoman Const. Tammy Skrabek said.

“That’s the only report on graffiti we’ve received in the last seven days.”

A spokesman for Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, located on the other side of Academy Road from First Unitarian, said they were not hit with graffiti.

The hate-related slogans were painted on the street and park benches on the crescent stretching from Academy Road to the bridge over Omand’s Creek, with several referring to U.S. businessman and philanthropist George Soros saying things such as “Soros white extinction”, and others that say “lost white civilization”.

Soros, a Jewish billionaire financier, describes himself on his website as a “prominent international supporter of democratic ideals and causes for more than 30 years”, but it is because of this support he has become a target by various alt-right groups who believe he is funding a plot against them.

Mayor Brian Bowman said he is sickened by the vandalism. He said in a statement the graffiti was “especially disturbing” in a city that “takes pride in its rich diversity.”

“These intolerant acts of hate are reprehensible and offensive to our community and will not deter our ongoing efforts towards strengthening inclusiveness in our city. I am personally sickened to see this in our city and call on Winnipeggers of all backgrounds to join me in denouncing acts of hate like this.

“Together we can build an even more inclusive city that everyone can be proud of.”

Bowman said he has already called the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg and the city has already removed all of the graffiti.

Adam Levene, president of the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg, said the graffiti didn’t go as far west as the Rady Centre.

“It is a terrible thing and it is inappropriate,” Levene said. “It’s an act of anti-Semitism.

“Even if it happens once it is too much. It’s deeply upsetting both to the Jewish community and the entire community.”

But Levene also sees it as an opportunity to educate the public about why the words are hurtful.

Aidan Fishman, interim national director of the League for Human Rights for B’nai Brith Canada, said the graffiti is not only anti-Semitic, but it has echos of past conspiracy theories targeting Jewish people in history.

“It is important for people to condemn it,” Fishman said.

But Fishman said thankfully, across the country, the graffiti in Winnipeg appears to be the only to be the only examples of alt-right or neo-Nazi words vandalizing property.

Helmut-Harry Loewen, a retired University of Winnipeg sociology professor who has fought for decades against hate groups and is now a member of FF1-Fascist Free Treaty One group formed earlier this year, said there have been a few alt-right groups trying to set up in Winnipeg that his group has been working against.

“It hasn’t been this bad in Winnipeg since the 1990s,” Loewen said, noting a group member had found a Nazi swastika defacing a washroom wall in a downtown coffee shop on Wednesday and notified police.

“It is also troubling how many people are willing to express outright neo-Nazi statements online. There is a willingness to publicly express and have open preaching of hate.”

Loewen said he also knows what Bill Harcus, the former head of the Manitoba Ku Klux Klan chapter in the 1980s and early 1990s, who was stabbed to death last year after years of keeping a low profile, along with changing his name, would be thinking now.

“There’s no question he would likely feel quite empowered these days in the wake of Trump’s election,” he said.

Tom Ethans, Take Pride Winnipeg’s executive director, said their graffiti-removal crews work under the direction of the city’s crews.

“It is hate graffiti so we need to take them off as soon as possible. Any kind of hate graffiti should be removed immediately. You don’t want to provoke hatred and violence.”

As for a police investigation into the graffiti, Ethans said they are taking photographs of the graffiti before crews remove it.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca