Students for Western Civilisation’s latest postering campaign is a protest against recent threats—some of them realized—to remove or tear down a number of symbols of European-Canadian history, culture and identity.
The targeted symbols include, at least: the name and sculpture of Egerton Ryerson at Ryerson University, in Toronto (1); the name (2) and sculpture of Sir John A. MacDonald and other sculptures of Canadian Prime Ministers (3); a sculpture and other commemorations of Edward Cornwallis in Halifax (4); a sculpture of King Edward VII in Toronto (5); a sculpture of Winston Churchill in Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto (6); the images of Sir Robert Borden and William Lyon Mackenzie King on our bank notes (7); and the South African War Memorial at Queen Street West and University Avenue, in Toronto (8).
We see these attacks as among the first of many in what will become an ongoing process of ethnocide against European-Canadian culture. Ethnocide is defined as “the deliberate destruction of the culture of a people”.
In each case, the perpetrators provide their rationales, usually by citing notions of “diversity”, “inclusion” or the idea that the land does not, or did not always, belong to European-Canadians. But we feel no obligation to engage with the arguments of those who aspire to destroy us, because our destruction is not debatable.
We acknowledge that cultures evolve, change, and progress with time. However, we do not view these destructive threats as part of an internal evolution among European-Canadians, instead we see them as an external attack on the culture of one people at the hands of other peoples. This is an infringement on our cultural autonomy. We feel that attempts to couch these attacks in the rhetoric of “justice” or “equality” are disingenuous and that the true motivation of this ethnocidal phenomenon is a bid for cultural and political power by non-Europeans who harbour sentiments of resentment and contempt towards European people.
We are aware that many, if not most, if not the vast majority of European-Canadians support maintaining these symbols, but are afraid to speak up due to an intellectual climate wherein assertions of “white” or European identity are heavily policed and oppressed, and that those who dare to object face great social, financial, physical and even legal risk in doing so. This is why European-Canadians require formal institutions and representatives to speak on our behalf. Students For Western Civilisation aspires to fulfill that need by continuing to advocate for the cultural and political interests of European-Canadians and European Civilisation wherever it exists.
1 http://torontosun.com/2017/07/04/student-leaders-target-ryerson-statue-in-canada-150-campaign/wcm/4ba10a16-4870-49bc-929d-8a7d7b00dfee
2 http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/removing-macdonalds-name-1.4268975
3 https://www.change.org/p/wilfrid-laurier-university-stop-the-statue-project
4 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/cornwallis-statue-halifax-protest-removal-1.4206909
5 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/dumping-statue-in-the-don-river-a-statement-about-colonialism-performance-artists-say-1.4376266
6 http://nationalpost.com/posted-toronto/winston-churchill-society-not-happy-after-bronze-statue-of-former-british-pm-moved-after-35-years
7 http://www.macleans.ca/news/viola-desmond-king-borden-historians/
8 https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/09/03/what-should-we-do-with-torontos-controversial-statues.html
9 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/dumping-statue-in-the-don-river-a-statement-about-colonialism-performance-artists-say-1.4376266