The barricades have not all been dismantled yet, the trucks have not all been towed away. But the siege of the uninformed in Ottawa has finally been broken. Nagging question: is this the end of something or the beginning of something?
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
This “something”?
I struggle to put all of this into words…
But this pandemic has done something extraordinarily frightening: it has given flesh and blood life to the trolls that once only existed on the internets. They had their parallel universe Woodstock, in Ottawa, for three weeks.
This rise of misinformation has scared me for years. I chronicled three years ago1 about a woman who, contradicted by the facts, had this answer which prophesied the mental schema of the besieged of Ottawa: “It does not change absolutely anything in what I wrote, I think it. »
It’s the time: just think it for it to be true, even if it is false.
Fortunately, no one died in Ottawa. But we are “dealing” with something close to group psychosis, which flirts with sect dynamics.
Have you listened to them for three weeks? Have you found a single argument that is, say, rational? The beginning of a reflection that can materialize in public policy?
Not me.
First, the majority of protesters’ complaints fall under provincial jurisdiction. The majority of health measures hated by the occupants are imposed by the provinces. Not by the federal. Justin Trudeau has no leverage to tell François Legault: OK, the mask in schools, Frank, it’s over…
But in the minds of these people, yes. Hence the occupation of Ottawa, the seat of federal power. In their minds, the federal being the highest level of government, the federal must be able to order the provinces to do – or not to do – something, right?
Simple answer: no.
Then, yes, the federal government holds the key to the decision that served as a pretext for this occupation: dropping the vaccination obligation for truckers going to the USA. But it’s a bilateral decision, which the Americans don’t seem about to let go of. Even if Ottawa had decided to comply with the demands of the pack, unvaccinated truckers could not have put a single tire on the territory of the United States.
The most destabilizing: the confidence of the demonstrators, by launching nonsense. I have lost count of the falsehoods hurled at Ottawa with a manly certainty borrowed from the heroes of Hollywood films…
Take Pat King, one of the convoy leaders. A guy who didn’t hesitate to film himself saying that the Prime Minister of Canada should be shot, a guy who doesn’t even hide his racism. Before his arrest on Friday, Mr King made a video for his 356,000 Facebook followers – yep! — to explain to protesters in Ottawa what they should do to avoid arrest…
King advised them to wave a white shirt in front of the police. Or, at worst, white underwear. “They can’t touch you if you’re waving a white flag. This is international law…”
As so often with misinformed conspirators, there is a grain of truth in what Mr. King said. Since the dawn of time, the white flag has indeed been the signal that a belligerent party wants a ceasefire, to negotiate a surrender. It’s codified in the Geneva Conventions2 that govern conduct in times of war…
Not for relations between protesters and the police!
During the siege, this same Pat King hammered home the message to his followers that the police did not have the authority to enforce the law, especially because the Ottawa police chief had… resigned. Lots of people believed it. Go read this paper Guardian on the level of disconnection of the last protesters3. It’s mind-boggling.
There are even, now, conspiracy theories about the leaders of the movement, who would be in cahoots with the great international conspiracy of…
Excuse me, I’ve lost track of conspiracies in conspiracies.
A final myth circulated in Ottawa: the intervention of the police on horseback, Friday, would have made a death. But the dead, no one finds him. He was not taken to hospital. Paramedics did not attempt to help him before his death. No family says: “Our dear X is dead…”
There is no death, in short.
But for the diehards, for the misinformed who live in parallel universes, the media would hide said “death”. They think you can hide a dead person nowadays, dead from being very publicly trampled by a horse in front of dozens of cameras.
I quote an exchange between a TVA journalist and a demonstrator, Saturday evening, reported by Olivier Niquet4…
Protester: The guy who got pounded on by the horse died there.
Demonstrator: Are you saying that? ! What’s on TV?
Journalist: We confirm that this information is false…
Demonstrating, raising his voice: AH NO, IT’S VERY NOT FALSE!
“It’s very not wrong…”
It would be poetic if it weren’t the motto of misinformed movements that have decided to leave the internet, invade reality… and occupy it.