Remembrance Day is observed on November 11, the date on which Germany signed an armistice with France, Britain, Canada, and other allied countries in 1918, ending the hostilities of the First World War. We remember those who gave their lives for freedom and democracy, in the Great War and others that followed.Another important day in history also falls in November, and is also worthy of remembrance. In 1938, on the night of November 9-10, German Jews were subjected to a pogrom that came to be known as Kristallnacht, literally “Crystal Night” but more commonly referred to in English as the “Night of Broken Glass.” Promoted and orchestrated by Germany’s National Socialist regime, Kristallnacht resulted in the vandalism, burning, and destruction of more than 1,000 German synagogues. Thousands of Jewish businesses were vandalized and looted. Dozens of Jews were murdered by their fellow German citizens. The regime instructed police and fire departments not to intervene, except to protect non-Jewish property.Canada in the 2020s is not Germany in the 1930s. But Remembrance Day should remind us why free societies must guard against political ideologies, parties, and movements that punish dissent, treat citizens unequally, and restrict basic freedoms in the name of a supposedly greater good.Kristallnacht did not arise in a vacuum. It was the result of hundreds of laws that Germany had passed during the previous five years. By the early thirties, the National Socialists were the most popular party in Germany, democratically winning far more seats in Parliament than any other party. Together with the communists, the National Socialists received more than 50% of the popular vote: the majority of Germans supported the express goal of ending democracy, accountable government, the rule of law, and the individual rights and freedoms of citizens. Neither Kristallnacht nor the Final Solution of murdering millions of people could have happened without Germans having first repudiated their free society and its respect for basic human rights and constitutional freedoms.The 1933 Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service excluded Jews and the “politically unreliable” from the civil service, and from organizations, professions, and other aspects of public life. The 1935 Nuremberg laws defined Jews not by religious belief but by ancestral lineage, and mandated their immediate and concrete segregation from “Aryans.”.German law restricted the number of Jewish students at universities, as Canada once did as well. Jewish officers were expelled from the army. Jewish university students were not allowed to sit for doctoral exams. Germany’s law societies cooperated with the regime in forbidding the admission of Jews to the bar, and later revoking the licenses of all Jewish lawyers. Laws restricted reimbursement of Jewish doctors from public (state) health insurance funds, and prohibited Jewish doctors from treating non-Jewish patients. Laws prohibited Jews from serving as tax consultants, veterinarians, public school teachers, auctioneers, gun merchants, and midwives. The media, controlled by the government, banned Jews from writing editorials. Jewish actors were forbidden to perform on the stage or screen, and Jews were eventually barred from all cinemas, theaters, sports facilities, and health spas. Jews were required to register their domestic and foreign property and assets, a prelude to the gradual expropriation of their material wealth by the state. Jewish-owned businesses were “Aryanized” by firing Jewish workers and managers, and forcing the sale (at prices fixed below market value) to non-Jewish Germans.Eventually, Jews were obliged to carry identity cards that indicated their Jewish heritage. By the time Kristallnacht took place, the passports of German Jews were stamped with an identifying letter “J.”Many people today blame Kristallnacht simply on racism.However, the truth is broader, deeper, and far more complex.Bias and bigotry by themselves, directed at minorities who belong to the “wrong” race or who espouse “incorrect” political beliefs, inflict harm up to a certain point. However, when citizens respect each other’s individual freedoms of expression, religion, conscience, association, and peaceful assembly, a free society allows for healthy and peaceful interactions between people, which over time tends to undermine bias and bigotry. Bias and bigotry are unchangeable parts of human nature; the only thing that changes over time and space is the group against which they are directed. When laws are based on the principle of equal rights for all and special privileges for none, ideological hatred is restricted rather than unleashed..Freedom today is threatened by Marxist narratives that divide people into two groups: oppressors and oppressed. The old Marxism says that society is in a perpetual state of war between evil capitalists and good workers, a war that will end when oppressed workers defeat, conquer, and crush the capitalist oppressors. The new Marxism says that society is in a perpetual state of war between oppressors (men, light-skinned people, settlers, and heterosexuals) and the oppressed (women, dark-skinned people, Aboriginals, and sexual minorities). Outwardly, the old economic Marxism looks different from the new cultural Marxism, but they are substantively the same.This new cultural Marxism has infiltrated many of Canada’s institutions: the media; government bureaucracies; universities; law societies; the police; Crown prosecution services; and the judiciary. Numerous Canadian laws and policies require Aboriginal Canadians to be treated differently than Canadians of Asian, European, and African ancestry. Our Criminal Code requires judges to consider race and ancestry when imposing sentence on those convicted of crimes. Social conservatives are prosecuted by human rights commissions — and ordered to pay as much as $750,000 — simply for peacefully expressing their opinions against the woke LGBTQ narrative. Many Canadians cheered when laws in 2021 turned some Canadians into second-class citizens simply for exercising their right to bodily autonomy by refusing to get injected with a new vaccine. Those — like Dr. Frances Widdowson — who speak out against woke ideology are criminally assaulted on campus, and this is knowingly condoned by police. Police fail to enforce the law when crimes are committed by those who have the “right” skin colour, or who advocate for the “right” cause. Cancel culture remains rampant as ideologues seek to silence opponents rather than debate them. Law societies police the speech of lawyers, and require lawyers to submit to ideological training as a condition of keeping their license to practice law and earn a living. Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons impose new, unproven orthodoxies on doctors, and commence disciplinary proceedings against dissenting doctors rather than engaging in scientific debate. Under Marxist intersectionality theory, truth at universities is no longer discoverable through reason but through “lived experience” that only the “oppressed” have access to, such that whites must always defer to the opinions of non-whites. Some university job postings exclude applicants who are male or white or both. After the unproven and unsubstantiated claim that 215 children were buried at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, 33 Canadian churches burned to the ground, almost all of them due to arson or suspected arson, with only nine arrests.Canada in the 2020s is not Germany in the 1930s. Our democratic heritage, culture, and institutions date back to before our country’s founding in 1867, in contrast to Germany’s democracy which ended after a mere decade. We should be thankful that Canadian liberties rest on the great English bedrock of Magna Carta, parliamentary democracy, and natural rights. There is a good reason it has taken until quite recently for such well founded ideals to come under serious attack from cultural Marxism. We must wake up now and realize that the steady and relentless assault on Canadian rights and freedoms will not simply wind itself down and go away.John Carpay, B.A., LL.B., is the President of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca).
