My email inbox was quarantined because of the litany of horrible, antisemitic, threatening messages I received following the school board discussion on masking. Enough is enough.
Three years ago, the first case of COVID-19 was diagnosed in Wuhan, China. Since then, more than 6.6 million people worldwide have died and 650 million people have been infected, some of whom will experience significant disability as a result of long-COVID.
Tragic as the last three years have been, I am not writing today about COVID-19, masks, vaccines or anything medical. I am not writing as a physician, nor am I writing as a school board trustee. I am writing in part as an anthropologist, concerned about society. I am also writing as a Jewish-Canadian woman, concerned about the breakdown of human civility.
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What ails us — what is perhaps the biggest threat to our wellbeing at this moment — is the normalization of aggression, violence and disruption, a pattern of behaviour that threatens democracy.
I anticipate that some of you will retort that “divisiveness” is the problem. That’s a red herring. We can hold differences of opinion, respectfully. We can have ideological and epistemological disagreements without resorting to ad hominem attacks and racism, antisemitism, misogyny or bigotry.
My understanding of the world around me may be rooted in western biomedical science, while another person is rooted in mysticism, or religion, or other systems of “knowing.” There is a vast array of beliefs, values, and practices whenever a group of people meet. We speak different languages, we have disparate life experiences, we see through lenses of privilege and poverty.
The problem we face today isn’t about whether you heed the local children’s hospital’s request to put on a mask to help curb the spread of respiratory diseases, any more than it is whether you believe that the Earth is flat. We must agree to disagree and carry on with civility.
It is never acceptable for people to yell, heckle, harass or intimidate others. Irrespective of anyone’s position on health or education policy, or any substantive issue, it is inappropriate to inundate a person with emails and phone calls that swear, use racist, antisemitic and misogynist slurs, or threaten violence. Perhaps you lean politically to the left, while your neighbour leans to the right. You still cannot call each other “maggots” and “child abusers” and “crazy.”
While kind-hearted, compassionate people outnumber those who are merely looking for a fight, the increase in hate on social media and in real life is dangerous. People who are themselves polite and respectful rarely organize themselves with the same vigour as those whose purpose is to undermine democracy.
We recently discussed returning to a temporary mask requirement at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. What could have been a thoughtful debate was disrupted repeatedly. As with the occupation of Ottawa, people in the room wore flags draped over their shoulders. “Freedom Fighters” were identified in the crowd. They organized the night before, planning to serve trustees with bogus “court summons.” The police had to evacuate the building to remove the raucous crowd that would not let the chief of staff of CHEO speak.
My email inbox was subsequently quarantined because of the litany of horrible, antisemitic, threatening messages I received following our discussion. Phone calls on my OCDSB machine said that I’m a “ki–,” “f–king c–t,” and “deserve the hate I get … ”
The attacks, over the last three years, on physicians, nurses, health researchers, community advocates, journalists — targeted harassment of women, and particularly Jewish women and BIPOC women — bode badly for all of us. Have we learned nothing from history?
To those who cry that their “freedom” has been infringed upon, look around, study human history, gain perspective on what lack of freedom means. To those who speak of “child abuse,” please realize there are children who experience actual abuse. Use your energy to support mental health for them, not to go after doctors or nurses. And stop using “crazy” as an insult. Mental illness is not a way to slander others. Nobody deserves hate, period.
I’ve said it before: Enough is enough. We can choose not to be plagued by uncivility.
Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth, MD, CCFP, FCFP, PhD is a family physician, Ottawa public school board trustee, and anthropologist.