UPDATED

India wakes up to 'startling accusations' of government involvement in B.C. killing

Canada expels Indian diplomat as it investigates India's possible link to Sikh activist's slaying

 Joly's statement

ROB GILLIES

 Mon, September 18, 2023 







Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly, left, and Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic LeBlanc, right, speak to reporters in the Foyer of the House of Commons on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Ontario, Monday, Sept. 18, 2023, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canadian authorities had intelligence that India’s government may have had links to the June assassination of a Sikh activist in Canada.

 (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

TORONTO (AP) — Canada expelled a top Indian diplomat Monday as it investigates what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called credible allegations that India’s government may have had links to the assassination in Canada of a Sikh activist.

Trudeau said in Parliament that Canadian intelligence agencies have been looking into the allegations after Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a strong supporter of an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan, was gunned down on June 18 outside a Sikh cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia.

Trudeau told Parliament that he brought up the slaying with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G-20 last week. He said he told Modi that any Indian government involvement would be unacceptable and that he asked for cooperation in the investigation.

Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said the head of Indian intelligence in Canada has been expelled as a consequence.

“If proven true this would be a great violation of our sovereignty and of the most basic rule of how countries deal with each other,” Joly said. “As a consequence we have expelled a top Indian diplomat."

The Indian Embassy in Ottawa did not immediately answer phone calls from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Canada has a Sikh population of more than 770,000, or about 2% of its total population.

“Over the past number of weeks Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar,” Trudeau said.

Trudeau said Canada has declared its deep concerns to the Indian government. "Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.”

Trudeau said his government has been working closely and coordinating with Canada’s allies on the case.

“In the strongest possible terms I continue to urge the government of India to cooperate with Canada to get to the bottom of this matter,” he said.

Trudeau said he knows there are some members of the Indo-Canadian community who feel angry or frightened, and he called for calm.

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Canada’s national security adviser and the head of Canada’s spy service have travelled to India to meet their counterparts and to confront the Indian intelligence agencies with the allegations.

He called it an active homicide investigation led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Joly said Trudeau also raised the matter with U.S. President Joe Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Joly also said she would raise the issue with her peers in the G7 on Monday evening in New York City ahead of the United Nations General Assembly

Relations between Canada and India have been tense. Trade talks have been derailed and Canada just canceled a trade mission to India that was planned for the fall.

Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said if the allegations are true they represent ”an outrageous affront to our sovereignty.”

“Canadians deserve to be protected on Canadian soil. We call on the Indian government to act with utmost transparency as authorities investigate this murder, because the truth must come out," Poilievre said.

Opposition New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh, who is himself Sikh, called it outrageous and shocking. Singh said he grew up hearing stories that challenging India’s record on human rights might prevent you from getting a visa to travel there.

“But to hear the prime minister of Canada corroborate a potential link between a murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil by a foreign government is something I could never have imagined,” Singh said.

The Khalistan movement is banned in India, where officials see it and affiliated groups as a national security threat. But the movement still has some support in northern India, as well as beyond, in countries like Canada and the United Kingdom which are home to a sizable Sikh diaspora.

Modi expressed “strong concerns” over Canada’s handling of the Punjabi independence movement among the overseas diaspora last week during a meeting with Trudeau at the G-20, according to a statement released by India’s Ministry of External Affairs

The statement described the Sikh movement as “promoting secessionism and inciting violence” against Indian diplomats. It called on Canada to work with India on what New Delhi said is a threat to the Canadian Indian diaspora.

The World Sikh Organization of Canada called Nijjar an outspoken supporter of Khalistan who “often led peaceful protests against the violation of human rights actively taking place in India and in support of Khalistan.”

“Nijjar had publicly spoken of the threat to his life for months and said that he was targeted by Indian intelligence agencies,” the statement said.

The human rights advocacy group Sikhs For Justice says peaceful protests will “shut down” Indian consulate offices in Canada next week, with new intelligence appearing to link the Indian state to a high-profile murder in British Columbia.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, president of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, was gunned down in the Surrey temple’s parking lot after evening prayers on June 18. Nijjar, 45, was a prominent community leader and supporter of Sikh separatism. On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealed national security authorities had obtained “credible” intelligence that “agents of the government of India” were behind the grisly killing — something the World Sikh Organization of Canada and others had suggested shortly after Nijjar’s death. Protests were slated to take place outside Indian consulates in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver next Monday, according to Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, legal counsel for Sikhs for Justice. Global's Rumina Daya reports.

  

‘Credible evidence’ India behind alleged assassination of Sikh leader, says Trudeau

India rejects as ‘absurd’ allegation by PM that it was responsible for fatal shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil
Leyland Cecco in Toronto

THE GUARDIAN

Tue 19 Sep 2023 

Justin Trudeau has said there is “credible evidence” India is responsible for the alleged assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Canadian Sikh leader, a claim Delhi dismissed as “absurd”.

The Canadian prime minister told the House of Commons of Canada on Monday that, in recent weeks, national security authorities had been probing allegations that New Delhi was behind a state-sponsored assassination.

“Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” he said. “Canada is a rule-of-law country, the protection of our citizens in defence of our sovereignty are fundamental.



“Our top priorities have therefore been one, that our law enforcement and security agencies ensure the continued safety of all Canadians. And two, that all steps be taken to hold perpetrators of this murder to account.”

Trudeau said the alleged killing “is contrary to the fundamental rules by which free, open, and democratic societies conduct themselves”.

The foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, said Canada had expelled a “key Indian diplomat” and “expects India to fully collaborate with us and ultimately to get to the bottom of this”.

India’s ministry of external affairs said in a statement it “rejected” statements by Trudeau and his foreign minister, adding that allegations of India’s involvement in any act of violence in Canada are “absurd and motivated”.

“We are a democratic polity with a strong commitment to rule of law,” the statement read.

The ministry said it would expel a senior Canadian diplomat in response to Trudeau’s claims. New Delhi’s decision reflects its “growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities”, the foreign ministry said.

The allegations from Canada’s prime minister are likely to further strain relations between the two nations. Trudeau said he raised the issue “in no uncertain terms” with the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, when the two met briefly in New Delhi last week for the G20 summit.

The New Democratic party leader, Jagmeet Singh, who is Sikh, said there must be consequences for the assassination. “To hear the prime minister of Canada corroborate a potential link between a murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil by a foreign government is something I could never have imagined,” he said.

“We will ensure that no rock is unturned, that every possible link is examined.”

The Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, said the allegations, if true, “represent an outrageous affront to Canada”, adding that citizens should be free from extrajudicial killings.

He added: “Canadians deserve to be protected on Canadian soil. We call on the Indian government to act with utmost transparency as authorities investigate this murder, because the truth must come out.”

In June, Nijjar was shot and killed in front of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia. He was a strong advocate of the Khalistan movement, which seeks an independent homeland for Sikhs in India’s Punjab region.

New Delhi had previously alleged Nijjar was part of a plan to murder a Hindu priest in Punjab, offering a bounty of nearly $12,000 (£9,688). The fatal shooting of Nijjar led many to accuse India of playing a role in the killing.

“Today, the prime minister of Canada has publicly said what Sikhs in Canada have known for decades – India actively targets Sikhs in Canada,” said the World Sikh Organisation.

The diplomat expelled by Canada is the head of the Research and Analysis Wing (Raw), India’s foreign intelligence agency in Canada. “We’ll hold the perpetrators accountable and bring them to justice,” said the public safety minister, Dominic LeBlanc, adding the RCMP was leading the murder investigation.

The Indian high commission in Ottawa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The announcement comes a week after Trudeau was in New Delhi for the G20, where there were signs of tensions with Modi. After the meeting, Modi’s office said the Indian leader had “strong concerns about continuing anti-Indian activists of extremist elements in Canada”.

India and Canada have been negotiating a trade agreement, but talks have been paused.

India responds to Justin Trudeau’s accusation it was involved in Sikh leader’s killing

Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
Tue, 19 September 2023

India has responded to Justin Trudeau’s allegations of New Delhi being involved in the killing of a separatist leader on Canadian soil.

Mr Trudeau told the Canadian parliament on Monday that the Indian government could be behind the death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was killed on 18 June in the parking lot of a gurudwara in Surry, British Columbia.

The Canadian prime minister said he had raised the killing with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi "personally and directly" during the G20 summit in September.

“Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” Mr Trudeau said.

A top Indian diplomat, who was the head of the country’s intelligence agency, has also been expelled as a consequence, Canadian foreign minister Mélanie Joly said.

New Delhi has retaliated by expelling a senior Canadian diplomat. The foreign ministry said the move reflects India’s “growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities”.

“The concerned diplomat has been asked to leave India within the next five days,” the foreign ministry was quoted by news agency ANI as saying.

The foreign ministry in a statement earlier in the day said “similar allegations” of the alleged involvement in the killing “were made by the Canadian prime minister to our prime minister, and were completely rejected”.

"Such unsubstantiated allegations seek to shift the focus from Khalistani terrorists and extremists, who have been provided shelter in Canada and continue to threaten India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity," India said, adding that the country was concerned over the inaction of the Canadian government.

"We are a democratic polity with a strong commitment to rule of law."

A sign outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple is seen after the killing on its grounds in June 2023 of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in Surrey 

(REUTERS)

India has previously denied any involvement with Nijjar's killing even as it has condemned the rise in support for the Khalistan movement in the West with a sizeable Indian population, such as Canada, the UK and the US.

Mr Nijjar, 46, was a prominent leader of the Sikh secessionist movement that called for a separate homeland for the religious community to be carved out of India's Punjab state.

Canada's allegations against the Indian government come at a time when relations between the two countries are at an all-time low with New Delhi accusing Ottawa of allowing the Khalistan movement to thrive. Trade talks have been derailed and Canada just canceled a trade mission to India that was planned for the fall.

India accused Canadian "political figures" of "openly expressing sympathy for such elements".

"The space given in Canada to a range of illegal activities including murders, human trafficking and organised crime is not new," the statement read.

"We urge the Government of Canada to take prompt and effective legal action against all anti-India elements operating from their soil."

Mr Modi expressed "strong concerns" over Canada's handling of “anti-India activities of extremist elements” during a meeting with Mr Trudeau during the G20 summit, New Delhi had said.

Mr Trudeau responded by saying that Canada will “always defend freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and freedom of peaceful protest and it is extremely important to us... at the same time we are always there to prevent violence and to push back against hatred”.

The Canadian prime minister reportedly raised Nijjar’s killing with US president Joe Biden and UK prime minister Rishi Sunak.

“We are deeply concerned about the allegations referenced by prime minister Trudeau,” said White House national security council spokesperson Adrienne Watson.

“We remain in regular contact with our Canadian partners. It is critical that Canada’s investigation proceed and the perpetrators be brought to justice.”

Explainer: what’s behind the growing tensions between Canada and India?

Justin Trudeau has said there is ‘credible’ evidence that Indian government agents were behind the alleged assassination of Sikh leader


Guardian staff and agencies

Tue 19 Sep 2023 

Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, announced on Monday that there was “credible” information linking Indian government agents to the murder of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia in June.

The announcement marks a significant worsening of bilateral ties between the two countries at a time when India is already unhappy that Canadian authorities are not cracking down on Sikh protesters who want their own independent homeland.

On Tuesday, an Indian government spokesperson called the allegations “absurd and motivated”, adding that “similar allegations were made by the Canadian prime minister to our prime minister, and were completely rejected.”

Canadian authorities also say they have expelled a “key Indian diplomat”. The diplomat is the head of India’s foreign intelligence agency in Canada.
Who was Hardeep Singh Nijjar?

On 18 June this year Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia.

Nijjar had campaigned for an independent Sikh nation – known as Khalistan – to be carved out of India’s Punjab state. He was wanted by Indian authorities and had been designated as a “terrorist” in July 2020.

He had been warned by Canada’s spy agency about threats against him, according to the World Sikh Organization of Canada, which alleged he was “assassinated in a targeted shooting”.

India’s Punjab state – which is about 58% Sikh and 39% Hindu – was rocked by a violent Khalistan separatist movement in the 1980s and early 1990s, in which thousands of people died. Today, that movement’s most vocal advocates are primarily among the Punjabi overseas diaspora.

Why is India focused on Canada’s Sikh community?

Canada is home to one of the largest overseas communities of Indian origin, which number approximately 1.4 million out of an overall Canadian population of 40 million. About 770,000 people reported Sikhism as their religion in the 2021 census.

Canada has the highest population of Sikhs outside their home state of Punjab.

Khalistan flags are seen outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Sahib in Surrey, British Columbia where temple president Hardeep Singh Nijjar was gunned down in June. Photograph: Darryl Dyck/AP

India has often complained to Canada’s governments about the activities of Sikh hardliners among the Indian diaspora who, it says, are trying to revive the insurgency.

In June, India’s foreign minister hit out at Canada for allowing a float in a parade depicting the 1984 assassination of then-Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi by her bodyguards, perceived to be glorification of violence by Sikh separatists.

In 2018, Trudeau assured India that Canada would not support anyone trying to revive a separatist movement in India but he has repeatedly said he respects the right to free speech and assembly of protesters to demonstrate.
What does this mean for Canada-India relations?

The two countries, which earlier this year said they could agree the outlines of a trade deal by the end of 2023, have now frozen talks on the agreement. Canada gave few details while India cited “certain political developments”.

India is Canada’s tenth largest trading partner and plans for a trade deal have been in the pipeline for over a decade. However, in 2022, bilateral trade between the two amounted to just C$13.7bn out of a total of C$1.52 trillion of all Canadian trade, according to Statistics Canada.

After rejecting the allegations in a statement on Tuesday, the Indian government urged Trudeau to take actions against, what it termed, “anti-India elements” operating from inside Canada and followed this up by ordering a senior Canadian diplomat to leave the country.

Reuters contributed to this report

Canada trade minister is postponing

a planned trade mission to India

Fri, September 15, 2023 

Canada's Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development Mary Ng speaks at a Lunar New Year celebration in Ottawa

By Steve Scherer

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng is postponing a trade mission to India planned for October, an official said on Friday, reflecting increasingly tense diplomatic relations just days after India's prime minister scolded his Canadian counterpart at a G20 summit in New Delhi.

"At this time, we are postponing the upcoming trade mission to India," said Shanti Cosentino, a spokesperson for the minister, without giving a reason.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who held formal bilateral meetings with many world leaders during the G20 summit, snubbed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, allowing only a short, informal meeting on the sidelines five days ago.

Canada has the highest population of Sikhs outside their home state of Punjab in India, and the country has been the site of many protests that have irked India.

"They are promoting secessionism and inciting violence against Indian diplomats, damaging diplomatic premises and threatening the Indian community in Canada and their places of worship," India's government said after the leaders met.

Earlier on Friday, India said it had paused trade talks with Canada. Canada made a similar announcement earlier this month, saying such a pause was needed to "take stock".

Only about four months ago the two nations said they aimed to seal an initial trade agreement this year.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer in Ottawa; Editing by Chris Reese and Matthew Lewis)

Trudeau Says India Involved in Killing of Khalistani Supporter, Sparks Diplomatic Row

Firstpost

Sep 19, 2023  

Trudeau Says India Involved in Killing of Khalistani Supporter, Sparks Diplomatic Row

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has accused India of being involved in the killing of a Khalistani supporter. Canada has also expelled a senior Indian diplomat. This was done in an emergency parliament session held by Trudeau. 

Canada’s Foreign Minister Melanie Joly has demanded India to comply with their demands. 

Meanwhile, India has dismissed Trudeau’s allegations and slammed him for supporting anti-India activities. India has also expelled a Canadian diplomat and asked the envoy to leave within the next five days.

MODI SECRET POLICE ACTIVE IN CANADA

DeSantis' weaponization of education turns deadly

Chauncey DeVega
Mon, September 18, 2023 

Ron DeSantis Saul Martinez for The Washington Post via Getty Images

On Saturday, August 28, a white supremacist armed with an AR-15 rifle murdered three Black people at a Dollar General Store in Jacksonville, Florida.

The victims have now been laid to rest, but the atmosphere of racist violence, hatred and general antipathy towards Black and brown people in the Age of Trump continues. There will be more white supremacist hate crimes and terror attacks against Black America; this is the American Way and has been so for centuries.

The Associated Press reports:

Mourners at the funeral service for Angela Michelle Carr applauded the Rev. Al Sharpton as he criticized laws that allowed the gunman to buy an assault-style rifle years after he was involuntarily committed for a mental health examination. He also denounced white supremacists who demonstrated outside Disney World a week after the Aug. 26 killings in Jacksonville.

"How many people have to die before you get up — whether you're a Republican or a Democrat — and say we've got to stop this and we've got to bring some sanity back in this country?" Sharpton said. "Have we gotten so out of bounds that we've normalized this stuff happening?"

Carr, 52, worked as an Uber driver and was sitting in her idling car outside a Dollar General store when she was shot multiple times. The gunman then went inside and killed A.J. Laguerre, a 19-year-old store employee, as he tried to flee. Jerrald Gallion, 29, was fatally shot after walking through the front door with his girlfriend, who escaped.

The Associated Press story continues:

While they insisted the focus should be on Carr's life, ministers speaking at her funeral repeatedly criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate who had made a "war on woke" a central issue of his campaign while downplaying the existence of racism.

"Rhetoric and other policies and governors have made it comfortable for people to come out of the closet with their hatred of those of us whose skin has been kissed by nature's sun," Bishop Rudolph McKissick Jr., The Bethel Church's senior pastor, said during Carr's funeral.

Writing at Jacksonville Today, Dan Scanlan highlights the response by Black clergy to the white supremacist killings:

It is time to preach against a culture of violence and death, said the Rev. William Barber II, head of Repairers of the Breach. a group based in North Carolina that says it combats immoral and illegal policies against LGBTQ people, labor and voting rights, criminal justice and other policies that negatively affect the poor and marginalized.

The movement aims to "take back the microphone" from lawmakers who spew hatred in their policies against others, Barber said.

[....]

"They are rising up to take back the mic from those who for far too long used the public mic to fill the airwaves with hateful and divisive lies about Black people, Black history, LBGTQ brothers and sisters, immigrants and women."

Scanlan continues:

The clergy all pointed to DeSantis, a Republican presidential nominee, for his push to relax gun laws, repeal diversity initiatives and stop what he terms "woke indoctrination" in schools.

"A philosophy put forward by the governor of this state, a philosophy that has barred classroom lessons on race, and classroom lessons of sexual orientation and gender identity; a philosophy that blocked Advanced Placement African-American studies," said The Rev. Mark Thompson. "And we learned just yesterday that he is pushing to replace the SAT, which isn't great, with the CLT, the classic learning test which teaches everything Western and nothing modern or progressive."

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Rev. Sharpton, Rev. Barber II, and the other Black clergy quoted above are correct: Ron DeSantis (and other leading Republican politicians) have cultivated an environment that normalizes and encourages the type of white supremacist violence that killed three Black people on that horrible Saturday in Florida several weeks ago.

The evidence is overwhelming and obvious.

DeSantis has declared an Orwellian-thought crime war on "woke" and "critical race theory" in Florida – which he intends to spread across the United States. In practice, this means the literal whitewashing of Black America's history (and the country's history more generally) to serve the supposed needs and interests of "white people" as part of a larger project of fascist patriotic education that is designed to squash resistance and create a compliant ignorant public.

DeSantis' intent is irrelevant; racism and white supremacy are not a matter of intent but of outcomes and results.

DeSantis' and the larger Republican fascist and white right's plans to erase the real history of Black America and the color line include teaching that white on Black chattel slavery was basically a type of jobs program and not a centuries-long institution of human trafficking, torture, rape, murder, war, dislocation, and exploitation on a global scale that killed many millions of Black people. Such a reading of history is inaccurate, based on lies and willful distortions of fact and historiography, intellectually dishonest, and is right-wing dogma and disinformation masquerading as "scholarship".

Social theorist and cultural critic Henry Giroux, has correctly described DeSantis' weaponization of education in the service of a white supremacist fascist agenda as being an example of "apartheid pedagogy". In an essay at the LA Progressive, he explains:

Apartheid pedagogy is about denial and disappearance—a manufactured ignorance that attempts to whitewash history and rewrite the narrative of American exceptionalism as it might have been framed in in the 1920s and 30s when members of a resurgent Ku Klux Klan shaped the policies of some school boards. Apartheid pedagogy uses education as a disimagination machine to convince students and others that racism does not exist, that teaching about racial justice is a form of indoctrination, and that understanding history is more an exercise in blind reverence than critical analysis. Apartheid pedagogy aims to reproduce current systems of racism rather than end them. Apartheid pedagogy most ardent proponent is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who has become America's most prominent white supremacist.

Apartheid pedagogy is a form of white supremacy; white supremacy is inherently violent. Apartheid pedagogy is not new. Its roots can be traced back to slavery, the end of Reconstruction, and the Jim and Jane Crow terror regime and "separate but equal". Today's attempts by the "conservative" movement to reverse the gains of the civil rights movement are but a continuation of that centuries-long white supremacist political project to protect and expand white privilege and white domination over every area of American life. Apartheid pedagogy as seen in DeSantis's Florida is also part of a much larger global project as seen in Orban's Hungary, Putin's Russia, and other parts of the "Western" world, to end multiracial pluralist democracy.

Related

DeSantis flustered when pressed on guns, kicks out Black man who mentioned Jacksonville shooting

DeSantis' intent is irrelevant; racism and white supremacy are not a matter of intent but of outcomes and results. For example, DeSantis has supported gerrymandering, voter suppression, voter harassment, voter intimidation, arrests for largely non-existent "voter fraud", and other policies targeting the Black community in Florida as a way of keeping him and other Republicans in power. Rolling Stone highlights how DeSantis still refuses to publicly and in direct terms condemn neo-Nazis and other white supremacists and to disavow their support of him. One of DeSantis's senior campaign staff members was recently fired after he posted a campaign video online that featured Nazi imagery. DeSantis and his spokespeople claim that they had no knowledge of the staffer's white supremacist politics. Such a denial has no credibility given the larger pattern of white supremacist and other racist behavior by DeSantis and his administration and supporters. The white supremacist mass murderer in Jacksonville envisioned himself as a soldier in that global struggle. Signaling his devotion to that evil cause, he wore a Rhodesian army patch on his tactical vest.

DeSantis has repeatedly used fascist and other violent language and imagery including a promise to "slit throats" if he takes control of the White House in 2025. He is now promising to order extrajudicial killings of "drug dealers," i.e. brown people from Latin and South America, who are caught trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally while wearing backpacks. DeSantis has made no such threats about shooting white people who fit the same profile at the U.S.- Canada border.

In all, such violent language is an example of what law enforcement and national security experts have termed "stochastic terrorism."

In an excellent article at the Washington Post, historian Brooks Marmon makes this intervention:

The efforts of DeSantis and other Republicans pushing to remake education policy and restrict the teaching of history resemble the information control strategies deployed by the government in Rhodesia (today's Zimbabwe) during the Cold War, as it tried to avert the global tide of decolonization. The leaders of this White settler colony in southern Africa used tactics including sleight of hand, outright bans and restrictions on access to information to maintain power. These efforts resulted in an increasingly violent and polarized society as Black anti-colonial nationalists escalated their resistance.

The determination of this small clique of Whites and their ability to hold out against world opinion until 1979 shows that while reactionary tactics may not be sustainable in the long run, they can garner unexpected success and create lasting divides that are difficult to surmount.

While there is a difference in degree, curbing the discussion of the United States' history of racism, segregation and slavery puts American conservatives in the same camp as Smith's Rhodesia — using a selective version of the past and attempting to strictly regulate access to information to bolster their own political project. The similarities expose the reality: information control is a tool of despots, and it's ultimately rarely effective. Instead of winning anyone over, such strategies just deepen societal fissures.

Few observers in the mainstream news media and political class have publicly connected Ron DeSantis's white supremacist policies to the year he spent as a high school history teacher in Rome, Georgia. Such a failure is not a surprise given the mainstream news media's desperate attempts to elevate DeSantis as a "reasonable" and "respectable" alternative to Donald Trump, and general unwillingness to properly adapt to the country's democracy crisis and the existential danger embodied by neofascism and resurgent white supremacy. At the Independent, Joe Sommerlad explains:

The current Republican governor arrived at the Darlington School aged 23 after graduating from Yale University.

He had been born in Jacksonville in September 1978 to working class Italian-American parents, his father a TV engineer and his mother a nurse, going on to study at Yale and then Harvard Law School, after which he joined the US Navy in 2004, where he served as a legal advisor to SEAL Team One and was stationed at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq before being discharged, thereafter working as a special assistant US attorney in Florida and then seeking election to Congress in 2012.

His year as an educator was chronicled by The New York Times last year in a report that investigated the allegation that he had partied with students.

One former student told the newspaper they remembered seeing him at one such event: "As an 18-year-old, I remember thinking, 'What are you doing here, dude?'"

Asked how his presence at such events was received, another was dismissive: "It was his first job out of Yale, he was cute. We didn't really think too much about it."

Another student, Danielle Pompey, claimed Mr DeSantis had treated her unkindly as a student, alleging this was because she was Black.

"Mr Ron, Mr DeSantis, was mean to me and hostile toward me," she told The NYT.

"Not aggressively, but passively, because I was Black."

She also claimed that, during a history class on the American Civil War, he had made arguments for the justification of slavery, saying: "He was trying to play devil's advocate that the South had good reason to fight the war, to kill other people, over owning people – Black people.

"He was trying to say 'It's not OK to own people, but they had property, businesses.'"

Another former student, who asked not be named, said Mr DeSantis's views on the Civil War were so well known that they were made the subject of a parody video for the school's video yearbook.

The NYT reports that the video contains a snippet of a student imitating Mr DeSantis and saying, "The Civil War was not about slavery! It was about two competing economic systems. One was in the North…," before the clip cuts to a student dozing off at their desk.

Given what his former students have said about their time with him, DeSantis' apartheid pedagogy and apparent embrace of the white supremacist Lost Cause ideology and other lies and distortions about the color line and America's history (and present) should not be any surprise at all.

Decades of research has shown that education level is positively correlated with reducing racism and prejudice in general. However, that dynamic does not override the fact that there are many "highly educated" racists and white supremacists. DeSantis and the other racial authoritarians and white supremacists in the "conservative" movement and larger white right increasingly fit that profile in the Age of Trump.

Of course, they would never use that language to describe their values and beliefs and political project because such transparency would mean that they would not be allowed platforms and positions at leading publications, think tanks and interest groups, educational institutions, in the news media, in the Republican Party and "mainstream" "conservative" movement, and across civil society. Instead, these "educated" white supremacists and racists present themselves as defenders of the "Western tradition", "conservative values", "legacy Americans", "patriotism", "real America", and "(White) Christian heritage."

DeSantis and the other leaders of the Republican fascist party and larger white right know the real power of the Black Freedom Struggle as an example of one of the world's most successful pro-democracy movements.

They are working very hard to prevent the teaching of those lessons. Why? Like the fascists and authoritarians and demagogues in other countries and earlier eras, today's neofascists, both here in America and around the world, know that to win the present and future they must control the past.

Evangelical Christians need Republicans. Does the party need them?

David Smith in Washington DC

THE GUARDIAN
Sun, September 17, 2023

Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP

When Donald Trump recalled how his three US supreme court justices helped repeal the nationwide right to abortion, the audience rose to its feet and erupted in whistles, whoops and prolonged applause. But even as the former president basked in the religious right’s moment of triumph, he went on to deliver a warning.

“I will say politically, it’s a very tough, it’s a very tough decision for some people, but very, very hard on elections. Very, very hard,” Trump told a gathering of Christian conservatives in the ballroom of a Washington hotel. “We had midterms and this was an issue, you know.”

He added: “Now we can win elections on this issue but it’s very delicate and explaining it properly is extremely important. Many politicians who are pro-life do not know how to properly discuss this topic, which is so important to the people in this room, so important to millions and millions of people in our country.”

Related: Losing Our Religion review: Trump and the crisis of US Christianity

It was a rare moment of sober reflection during an hour-long speech that otherwise had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It also offered a glimpse of the dilemma facing evangelicals as they push the Republican field to embrace their extremist agenda in next year’s presidential election.

Other top Republican candidates for 2024 also trod carefully on abortion at the Family Research Council’s Pray Vote Stand Summit on Friday. The tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy did not mention the word at all. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, cited his state’s six-week abortion ban in a single sentence. Only Mike Pence, the devout former vice-president, unambiguously committed to a 15-week “national standard”.

The caution signaled Republicans’ awareness of how politically radioactive the issue has become, as evidenced by last year’s midterm elections and other votes in states such as Kansas, Ohio and Wisconsin. A USA Today/Suffolk University poll in June found that 80% of Americans oppose a federal abortion ban, including 65% of Republicans and 83% of independents.

But the religious right looks to be making more headway on other issues. Trump, who got by far the most enthusiastic reception, declared: “On day one I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children.”

Former president Donald Trump speaks during the Pray Vote Stand Summit, 15 September 2023 in Washington. Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP

Earlier, DeSantis, touting his war on “woke”, boasted that Florida has outlawed puberty blockers and gender surgeries, prohibited “gender ideology” in schools and prevented teachers forcing students to identify their pronouns. “We’re not doing the pronoun Olympics in the state of Florida,” he told the conference.

Trailing Trump in opinion polls, DeSantis brought some attendees to their feet by barking: “Do not tell me that a man can become a woman. Do not tell me that a man can get pregnant and expect me to accept that.”

DeSantis’s book The Courage to Be Free was on sale at the conference venue, the Omni Shoreham Hotel, along with titles such as Busting the Barricades by Laura Ingraham, Tucker (about the rightwing host Tucker Carlson) by Chadwick Moore, Blackout by Candace Owens, Woke Inc by Vivek Ramaswamy, The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump and The Greatest Speeches of Donald J Trump.

Attendees wandered through an exhibition hall offering “biblically responsible retirement plans”, “science and statistics for the pro-life movement” and Christian-friendly children’s books. A whiteboard asked people to write their favorite scripture while a lifesize cardboard cutout of Ronald Reagan had a speech bubble playing on one of 40th president’s most famous lines with : “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this hall!”

The backdrop helped imbue religious conservatives with confidence that the presidential contenders will keep their values front and centre.

Anita Stine, 84, a Trump supporter from Irvine, California, said: “I believe that the Republican candidates are going to pursue them strongly because they’re biblical. Not take a life through abortion, not try to claim that you’re a man when you’re a woman – the principles in the Bible are just put right there for us to read and to follow and God’s word is truth.”

But many interviewed by the Guardian tempered such optimism with the hard-headed realism and patience that was rewarded with the fall of Roe v Wade after nearly 50 years of striving.

Michael Case, 68, from Beltsville, Maryland, said: “I want the candidate that’s going to win. I’m very focused on winning this year. So if I had to pick right this second, I would pick Trump.”

Amelia Monroe, a college student, listens to Donald Trump at the Pray Vote Stand Summit in Washington, 15 September 2023. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Case, who is retired from working at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, personally favors a federal abortion ban at six weeks or even less but acknowledged: “I’m still against abortion but you’ve got to recognize that there are a lot of people who have a different view and so we need to turn their hearts and minds and that takes a little time. It’s OK to be a little bit pragmatic and win.”

Younger voters agree on the need for step-by-step expediency. Lily Tu, 19, a student from Stockton, California, praised Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, who during the first Republican primary debate pointed out that a national abortion ban would not pass the Senate and urged Americans to “stop demonising” the issue.

“I like Nikki Haley’s approach because she seems really down to earth in the way that she was having realistic expectations,” she said. “If they’re promising immediate change, that’s not really going to happen. But I trust in those who will take the smaller steps that will maybe lead towards that ultimate goal.”

Jimmy Hammond, 74, a pastor from Lumberton, North Carolina, and a Vietnam war veteran, is adamantly opposed to abortion. “It’s not a political issue with me; it’s a biblical issue,” he said. “Abortion is not right: it’s killing the child and a woman don’t have that right with her body because God gave her her body.”

Hammond is sceptical that any of the candidates will take such a hard line on this or other religious right priorities. He said: “I’m not at all confident any of them would do what is right about it. They’re going to do what’s politically motivating them most of the time.”

Trump, who bills himself as the “most pro-life president” in American history, has been deliberately vague on where the movement goes post-Roe. In June he said: “What I’ll do is negotiate so people are happy.” His reluctance to endorse a federal ban has exposed him to attacks from Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, a major anti-abortion group, and others on the right.

Pence told reporters on Friday: “He promised to govern as a conservative in 2016 but what I want voters to know is he makes no such promise today. In fact, President Trump has actually blamed election losses in 2022 on overturning Roe versus Wade. He’s joined other voices in this campaign trying to marginalize the right to life as a state-only issue.”

Trump’s circumspection may have cost him the vote of Ken Oliver, 59, from Williamsburg, Virginia, who said he prefers the clarity of DeSantis on abortion and gender identity. “Former president Trump, despite all the merits and many good things he did, is relatively weak in comparison to other candidates, and especially governor DeSantis, on these issues, which are core issues for social conservatives.”

Oliver believes that a federal abortion ban can be achieved incrementally. “We’re not looking back. We’re looking forward. We need to build a consensus around limitations to abortion, whether it’s six weeks or 15 weeks or 20 weeks. Why shy away from that?”

Trump remains well ahead of every major Republican demographic in the race for the party nomination. He has a roughly 35 percentage-point lead over DeSantis and Ramaswamy among evangelical Christians, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll this week, despite him having been found liable for sexually abusing a New York woman in 1996 and indicted over hush-money payments to an adult film star.

Mike Pence, the former vice-president, speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit, on 15 Friday 2023, in Washington. Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP

Since early in Trump’s presidency, some evangelicals have likened him to Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who, according to the Bible, enabled Jews to return to Israel from their exile in Babylon. From this perspective, Trump’s own behavior and beliefs are less important than his identity as a vessel of God’s will. Voters say they are choosing a president, not a pastor.

Elaine Beck, 75, a Christian media personality from Tucson, Arizona, said she knows Trump personally and is confident he will pursue the religious right’s goals in a second term: “It has to be God’s way or no way and I believe that God is working in President Trump’s life to help him see that, just like he does you or me or anybody else.”

However, even as they push a hardline agenda, evangelical voters may find their leverage over Republican candidates waning. Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University, wrote on the Politico website that the religious right’s grip on the party is weakening with every election cycle.

Trump can therefore afford some erosion of support among evangelicals, Burge argued: “That’s because Trump’s real base of support in the 2016 primary contest came from a rising group in the GOP whose impact has been largely unnoticed: Republicans who hardly ever darken the door of a church, synagogue or mosque.”

Pence, however, denies that the ground is shifting beneath his feet. He told the Guardian: “No, I really believe that the majority of Republicans cherish faith, cherish freedom, cherish those conservative values.”

“As I travel around Iowa and travel around New Hampshire, the warm reception that we receive from almost everybody affirms to me – as someone who’s been in the conservative movement as an evangelical Christian – that the support for our traditional values is alive and well in the GOP today.”