Life imitates fiction, sometimes, and not in ways that you’d expect.

This week, for example, I published a book called Recipe For Hate. It’s a novel.

Without giving away the plot, I can reveal that Recipe For Hate is about fanatics insinuating themselves into positions of power and influence. It’s about radicals clashing in the streets. And it’s about some people believing that extremism can be a virtue.

Sound familiar?

As I was writing the book, I would love to say that I foresaw Brexit, President Donald Trump, and the rise of extremism on the Left and the Right – extremism that resulted in murder in places like Charlottesville. But I didn’t. 

Last week, when touring to promote Recipe For Hate, I ran into my friend Adrienne Batra, editor-in-chief of the Toronto Sun. She suggested I write a column about how, nowadays, life is indeed imitating art.  
There are three reasons for the political and social upheaval we are seeing across the Americas and Western Europe. Three reasons for why our assumptions about politics have been upended.

One, the racist Right – whose leaders this newspaper has long been at the forefront of exposing, by the way – have gotten smarter. Starting with Knights of the Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, far Right haters have dispensed with the Klansmen’s robes and the cross burnings. They have changed their public image. Now, they march in polo shirts and carry Tiki torches – and they offer slogans that are “pro white” and not “anti” minorities.

These racist leaders have studied, and copied, the proven PR techniques of mainstream political parties. They have presented a kinder, gentler face to the media and the voting public, and it has paid off (see Trump, Brexit, above).

Two, their timing has been impeccable. In the Seventies, the extremists railed against fluoridation and the metric system. In the Eighties, it was abortion and gay rights. In the nineties and beyond, however, the racist Right have targeted immigrants and refugees. And it’s paid dividends, in a big, big way.

It isn’t racist, of course, to oppose higher levels of immigration. It isn’t intolerant to want to debate how many refugees a country wishes to welcome.

But a variety of factors – Middle Eastern wars, Islamic extremism, severe climate change – have resulted in millions of immigrants and refugees looking for better places to live. Many North Americans and Western Europeans have grown uneasy about the immigrant wave. And that, more than any other factor, has resulted in stunning political change – from Brexit in the U.K., to the National Front in France, to Trump in the U.S. 

Thirdly and finally, the fanatics at the fringes know that solutions, these days, are pretty hard to come by. In 2017, the challenges we all face are complex, as are the solutions. So, the “alt-Rightists” and the “white nationalists” offer simple and seductive promises. They push emotional buttons, not moral ones.

And that’s why the haters are on the march, everywhere.

I wish I had foreseen all of that when I wrote Recipe For Hate, but I didn’t.

Now that Western society is being shaken to its foundations, however, all of us will be affected, in one way or another.

And that’s not fiction.

Warren Kinsella is the author of Recipe For Hate, published across North America and Europe by Dundurn Press.

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Please come!  I will be there after the discussion with a limited number of copies of Recipe For Hate!  The panel starts at 7 p.m. in the Eaton Theatre.  Link here.

Holocaust Education Week Program
Confronting Holocaust Denial: A Canadian Experience

Just over thirty years ago, the infamous Holocaust denier and rabble rouser Ernst Zündel (1939 – 2017) published and disseminated pamphlets promoting Holocaust denial from his home in Cabbagetown, Toronto. Zündel was eventually charged under the Canadian Criminal Code, section 181, of spreading false news through his notorious publications. The lengthy and complex legal proceedings of the 1980s galvanized the Canadian Jewish community and defined an era characterized by social justice, an increased awareness of Holocaust education and the fight for the truth. To explore this pivotal moment in Canadian history, the Neuberger in partnership with the Royal Ontario Museum presents a panel of esteemed speakers who witnessed these events unfold and were part of the history making process. Panel moderator Bernie M. Farber, former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) was at the forefront of fighting Holocaust denial in Canada and is a recognized expert on hate crime. Among his many publications is From Marches to Modems: A Report on Organized Hate in Metropolitan Toronto (1997), a seminal work on the changing landscape of Holocaust denial in Toronto. Panelists include Gerda Frieberg, Holocaust survivor, business woman, activist and former chair of the CJC’s Ontario Region; Warren Kinsella, a Toronto-based journalist, political adviser and commentator; and Bill Dunphy, a veteran investigative journalist who extensively covered the trials.

Program Partner:
Holocaust Education Week
Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre

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One night, we were gathered around the kitchen table in Calgary, me and my pals were, and my Dad was listening to us. The conversation turned to astrology. I started making fun of people who believed in it. 

“What a bunch of idiots,” I said. “They actually believe their personalities can be determined by the position of stars jillions of miles away. Morons.”

My chums joined in. Soon, we were loudly making fun of psychics, homeopathic medicine and the religious, too. 

My Dad, who was a scientist, spoke up. “Gentlemen,” he said, in that quiet way he had, “there is nothing more cruel than mocking others for their harmless personal beliefs.”

And that stopped us cold. 

Anyway. We have a new Governor-General, and she is a scientist too. In recent days, she got together with some fellow scientists and mocked people who believe in God, homeopathy and astrology. 

Here’s direct quotes of what she said:

“Can you believe that still today…we are still debating and still questioning whether life was a divine intervention or whether it was coming out of a natural process let alone, oh my goodness, a random process.

…[or that] taking a sugar pill will cure cancer if you will it good enough and that your future and every single one of the people here’s personalities can be determined by looking at planets coming in front of invented constellations.”

According to the CBC, here, the folks there all had a good laugh. They thought people who believe those things are idiots, too, and  are therefore worthy of ridicule. Ho, ho. 

But, you know, they’re not. And, just for the record, I’ve always thought astrology was kooky and that holistic medicine was goofy, too. I’ve always lacked proof that God, you know, exists. 

But. 

Since that long-ago day my Dad taught us a lesson, I’ve religiously believed this: if a person believes something imaginary is real, and they’re not hurting anyone else, they should be left alone. If someone thinks they’re a “Leo” (as I apparently am), who fucking cares? Would it kill anyone to let them keep believing that?

People get through tough times by believing in imaginary things. For example, can you believe there is actually someone in Canada  who believes her title is “Her Excellency, the Right Honourable, C.C., C.M.M., C.O.M, C.D.”? Can you believe that this unelected person believes she is the “vice-regal” emissary of a family in Britain who are “royal” because God personally chose them?

Ho, ho. Can you believe that? Don’t you want to mock a person who believes that? 

Personally, I don’t intend to. If she wants to believe in harmless fictions, let her.

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…with my pals Supriya and Matt on AM640 this morning! You can listen in here.

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