Toronto Star
December 10, 2024
Peter Smith, a reporter and researcher with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, says the recent acceleration of hate toward South Asians “started on the far right … and has elbowed its way into the mainstream,” becoming more prevalent on applications such as X, Instagram and TikTok.
The idea that immigrants are “taking over” or stealing jobs from white Canadians is a core tenet of the Great Replacement, a racist conspiracy theory that says there is a co-ordinated global effort to replace white people in North America and Europe.
The far right has seized upon anxieties about different groups over the years — whether it was Muslims in the mid- to late 2010s, as terrorist attacks by ISIS were constantly in the news, Chinese people during the pandemic, or the “globalists,” often seen as a code word for Jews. In recent years, the far right has been focused on gender identity and inclusion of transgender people in schools, Smith says.
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