Thursday, June 30, 2016

PEGIDA Canada Hate Speech Challenge

When we last wrote about PEGIDA Canada, it was in relation to their reaction to the mass shooting that took place in Orlando. In a post discussing the tragedy, they implicated the Quran in the murders as an example of hate speech against LGBTQ. One individual, who along with others had joined the group to challenge PEGIDA Canada's bigotry, noted that the Christian Bible also contained verses that would be considered objectionable. PEGIDA Canada's response was telling in that it indicated that they didn't even know the basic tenants of their own faith, much less Islam which they claim expert knowledge of:


Even if this were true (and it isn't), the PEGIDA Canada Facebook administrator doesn't appear to realize that he or she is throwing Jews under the bus since the Torah is comprised of what Christians regard as the first five books of the Old Testament. But then, like Christians and Muslims, most Jews don't follow every single tenant of their faith either.

We should note that PEGIDA Canada later seems to have removed this thread on their page as well as kicking off those individuals who joined to challenge them. Had such a purge have occurred to PEGIDA Canada members and supporters on another Facebook page, no doubt they would be crying, "censorship!" proving that they don't understand that word as well. Since it is their site, they are free to have whomever they wish participating, just as they banned this writer when she provided evidence that active neo-Nazis were members; the neo-Nazis are still members in good standing.

One part of PEGIDA Canada's response we really failed to address though was this second part:

Secondly ,[sic]what do you consider exactly hate speech in our posts .[sic]

Well, where would they like us to start?

How about this one as a first example?


This was one of several PEGIDA Canada posts we took screenshots of that were related to the Syrian refugee crisis. And though Ron Baker wasn't referring to specific individuals when he called for the genocide of people based on their religion (where have we heard that call being made again?), we think it would be appropriate to put a human face on those he would like to murder:


It's very easy to call for the death of other human beings on line or in response to a news article. It might be harder when you put a face to those people:


Now having collected these screenshots, we decided to do just that. We would put faces to the people whom PEGIDA Canada members and supporters dehumanize and who's deaths they seem to eagerly desire:


What now follows is a little art project we decided to engage in combining the hate rhetoric of PEGIDA Canada supporters with the targets of their hatred:




























PEGIDA Canada wanted to know which of their posts would constitute hate speech.

Done.

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