ROTHENBURGER: We need to choose our words well. We can’t assume our clever remarks are always interpreted the way we mean them. Some will take them literally when they shouldn’t. They’ll hear what they want to hear
CLERK OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL Michael Wernick
said Thursday what everybody else has been thinking but hasn’t wanted to say.
“I’m worried that somebody is going to be
shot in this country this year during the political campaign,” he said during
testimony to the Commons justice committee.
He was supposed to be there to talk about the
Wilson-Raybould affair but took the opportunity to express his deep concerns
about what’s happening to Canada. For his effort, he’s been accused in the
media of being partisan, but I say, thank you.
We all seem to be afraid of talking about the
ultimate potential result of the verbal bullying that has become a part of life
in this country, and others — that if we refuse to rediscover civility, leaders
are going to be targeted by lone-wolf zealots who take loose talk as license to
commit violence. They will see themselves as heroes.
A prime example lives south of our border.
Many worry about the safety of Donald Trump but nobody says it for fear it will
provide encouragement to the crazies who think they can solve everything with
guns. But we need to acknowledge it.
We need to understand that using the wrong
words, or using them poorly, can be as dangerous as using them in anger.
Wernick referred to the “vomitorium of social
media” and the role politics plays in extremism. I like that word “vomitorium.”
I confess it’s one I hadn’t heard of before. It comes from the Latin word for
“spew forth,” and was the term used for large exits from arenas designed to
efficiently move crowds in and out, but came to be mistaken as referring to
places the Romans went to vomit, presumably after a drunken party.
“Vomitorium” conjures up vivid and
appropriate images of the questionable wisdom spewing forth from social media
these days.
“I think it’s totally unacceptable that a
member of the Parliament of Canada would incite people to drive trucks over
people after what happened in Toronto last summer. Totally unacceptable,” he
added.
He was obviously referring to the rampage by
a man who killed 10 pedestrians with a van last year on the streets of Toronto,
and to the exhortation by Conservative Senator David Tkachuk at the “United We
Roll” pro-pipeline rally on Parliament Hill: “I know you’ve rolled all the way
here, and I’m going to ask you one more thing: I want you to roll over every
Liberal left in the country.”
Tkachuk defended his remarks by saying he
meant it “figuratively, not literally,” and that everybody at the rally knew
that. Though it’s impossible to know what everybody else — whether at the rally
or hearing his speech later — thought he meant, he most certainly could not be
suggesting Liberals be targeted for violence. In fact, Wernick’s use of the
Toronto tragedy in the same breath as Tkachuk’s unfortunate remark was a bit
much, but it highlights the problem.
We need to choose our words well. We can’t
assume our clever remarks are always interpreted the way we mean them. Some
will take them literally when they shouldn’t. They’ll hear what they want to
hear.
So, how about this? How about we think before
we talk?
Wernick went further: “I worry about the
rising tides of incitements to violence when people use terms like ‘treason’
and ‘traitor’ in open discourse. Those are the words that lead to
assassination.”
He’s right that we throw such words around
much too freely. When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Kamloops a few weeks
ago, the so-called Yellow Vests — which have been associated with the “United
We Roll” convoy — showed up with placards accusing him of treason. That’s free
speech but free speech isn’t always used for the best reasons.
Look up the definition of treason or traitor
and it applies to the betrayal of one’s country, of seeking to overthrow the
system and defeat the laws of the land. Certainly not about building pipelines.
Under no proper definition of treason or traitor do those words apply to our
prime minister.
I don’t believe the folks who roll and rally
and wave placards want bad things to happen to people but Wernick was issuing a
warning that language is imprecise. We aren’t very good at using it. We use the
wrong words, and we put them in the wrong places. We make assumptions, often
incorrectly, that others have the same background on issues as we do, that we
come from similar experiences and, therefore, understand things in the same
way.
We make accusations without thinking twice about what we’re really saying. Words hurt. Words incite. They provoke hate. And they can trigger the worst kind of actions.
This week came news of 100 gravestones in a
Jewish cemetery in France being desecrated, followed by a rash of anti-Semitic
comments on social media. It’s disgusting and it’s happened before, including
in Canada. When it happens, we condemn it, but it’s increasing.
Just as cemeteries are an easy target for
haters, words are an easy weapon. If it happens often enough, it begins to feel
normal, and that’s when it becomes really dangerous.
Politicians and the media have to re-examine
what their own roles should be in dampening down this tide. The responsibility,
though, is a collective one.
If we don’t all start being more careful with
what we say, Wernick’s fears might turn out to be justified. Use the right
words, and we can put a stop to it.
About Mel Rothenburger (aka The Armchair Mayor)
Mel
Rothenburger is the former Editor of The Daily News in Kamloops,
B.C. (retiring in 2012), and past mayor of Kamloops (1999-2005), and previously served
as Chair of the Kamloops School Board and Chamber of Commerce Director.
He was
elected Director for Electoral Area P in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District
in November 2014, and continues in that role.
Mel is
the recipient of the Queen's Jubilee Medal (2003), the Rotary International
Paul Harris Fellowship award (2006), the BCYCNA Eric Dunning Integrity Award
(2008), the Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award — Jack Webster
Foundation (2011), the Glacier Media Group President's Club Award (2011), and
the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce President's Award (2012).
He
can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
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