The work.

I have been fortunate to grow up in Canada. 

I grew up in a peaceful country. I came of age after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the domestic extremist attack in North America known as the Oklahoma City Bombing. It was easy not to give too much thought to extremist forces. It was easy to focus on “ordinary politics”.

Of course, I knew that that extremism still existed on the fringes. Illiberal extremists were an unfortunate and unavoidable reality, but not one that required much of my attention. 

Today, it requires more attention.

The opponents of liberalism reduce politics to a conflict between their friends, on one side, and their enemies, on the other. They reject a view of the world in which all of us have equal, innate, moral dignity and worth. They believe in natural hierarchies with themselves, of course, on top. They reject that peaceful discussion, and negotiation about disagreement, are realistic possibilities. They believe in might-makes-right, and rule by force. 

They deny that there is any other way.

A breakdown in the perceived global consensus around liberalism and global cosmopolitanism became harder to deny after the success of the Brexit referendum in the UK and the election of Donald Trump in the United States. 

For those who still couldn’t believe the threat to liberalism was growing, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 was a much ruder wake-up call. Murderous attacks by extremists in the years that followed have shocked us, but, I fear, not enough. 

In the years that followed undeniably extremist forces have risen on our political right, where some of us might expect to see allies. Instead, those right-wing extremists have introduced poisonous categories and hateful language that undermine the pluralism and peaceful coexistence that characterize free societies. 

It is a mistake to dismiss concerns about the extremism of popular politicians and pundits because they become popular. Hate can be mainstream. Authoritarianism can be mainstream. Both have been mainstream.

The far-right in Canada is not as imminent a threat to Canadians as sitting dictators are to the people they try to control. But it is inconvenient for dictators (and for all those who press for a world organized by violence, hierarchy, and force) that liberal democracy is a success. It creates problems for dictators when one can point to liberal democratic countries, to our peace, our security, and our prosperity, and say, “Violence isn’t all there is. There is another way.” 

The inconvenience of liberal success is the reason that some of the world’s most powerful autocratic leaders fund and support not only misinformation meant to erode social trust, but also extremist forces and illiberal thinkers working to undermine the liberal order. 

We should believe the dictators who perceive our success as a threat. It is crucial for liberals to recognize extremism. It is crucial that we present a defence of liberalism and democracy that leaves no room for authoritarianism to claim to be part of our shared goals. 

To recognize extremism in a country such as Canada, we must first recognize that extremist forces are not merely “lost boys” or forces for uneducated, ignorant violence. 

Extremism has roots in its own intellectual traditions. Extremist movements have sophisticated, organized, pragmatic leaders who have helped their various movements not only to persist in years where the political ground was not fertile, but to make the threat they pose to liberalism hard to understand for those who sit up and take notice. They can be indirect, clever, and even subtle. They hide their agendas. Not everyone we have to worry about waves a swastika in public. 

Speaking for the movement I come from, we are used to fighting for economic freedom against good-faith interlocutors playing by a set of rules we understand. 

In contrast, recognizing extremists requires extra time and attention. It requires alertness to extremist activism that deliberately hides its true nature and goals by co-opting previously normal debates, messaging, or symbolism. It is not only exhausting, but it can make anyone trying to keep up feel paranoid. 

The high cost of engaging with these forces and the resulting erosion in trust and goodwill is part of the point of this strategy. 

The far-right are opportunistic, and, when it suits them, pragmatic. They don’t hammer away at the most extreme policy goals. They attach their activism to more popular political developments, such as debates about changing relative social status, immigration, or changing ideas about gender. 

Most recently and alarmingly, the far right have erupted as a source of antisemitism and Islamophobia under the cover of our attempts to reckon with the tragedy of Hamas’ attack on Israel and the war in Gaza. They fan the flames of what was until recently more latent discrimination, endangering people first and foremost, but also our rights to speech and assembly and our faith in one another. 

Our defence of liberalism must be aware of that ongoing assault. 

Liberalism entails a commitment not only to freedom, but to political equality and the rule of law. Liberalism is not merely concerned with tax rates, regulation, and annoying, paternalistic interventions, but is at base a demand for equal freedom, for freedom from oppression for everyone. 

Liberalism is founded on our belief in innate equal moral worth. Liberalism is concerned with dignity. With our ability to come together to push back through political mobilization and democratic institutions when the promises of liberalism aren’t kept.

Here, liberals in countries such as Canada can learn something important from those who did not grow up as lucky as I have. 

People who have been denied democratic citizenship do not take it for granted or wonder how much it really matters. People who have had their rights to work, to assembly, and to education stripped do not wonder about whether a fight for equality is important. People who risk jail or worse for fighting oppression do not wonder how best to empower the government to put “reasonable” limits on speech.

Liberals in stable liberal democracies have been able to take a lot for granted for a long time. It has been shocking for us to see old victories, and old allies, slipping away. It will be work to get back to fighting form. 

That work is worth it. Thank you for your courage and your sacrifices and hard work to demonstrate it. Thank you for fighting for the freedom of all of us.