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Unpopular opinion but being connected to many people impacted by terrorist designation - let me be clear that calling for its expansion to white supremacists won't work. It is fundamentally regressive law and targets Black, Indigenous, Muslim, Sikh, left communities by design.

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@theJagmeetSingh

Yesterday was an act of domestic terrorism. The Proud Boys helped execute it. Their founder is Canadian. They operate in Canada, right now. And, I am calling for them to be designated as a terrorist organization, immediately. Sign here if you agree

Ndp.ca/ban-proud-boys

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10:23 PM · Jan 7, 2021

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We need to dismantle security state, esp post 9/11 security state, and not allow for its expansion under any guise. There is no "appropriate" left reason for more criminalizing or securitizing laws. Global war on terror and its ongoing aftermath must be dismantled, not bolstered

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Having organized w/security certificate detainees, west coast warriors raided, land defenders targeted by Sitka, countless refugees & permanent residents facing deportation & admissibility hearings on security grounds, I know anti-terror legal infrastructure is rotten by design.

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There's lot of questions in this thread, and also more moves in Canada and US by state officials to implement domestic terror/counter terror measures against white supremacists & neo-Nazi orgs. Here's expanded rationale for why this will backfire & not lead to increase safety.

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1. Do we need to label white supremacists as 'terrorists'? Like, people being organized and dangerous white supremacists, neo-Nazis, fascists isn't enough that we feel the need to finder 'stronger' language like terrorism? Shouldn't NAZIS shock us and mobilize us into action?

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In that sense, white supremacy & fascism are already terrorizing force & are underlying forces that must be named & confronted. What is whiteness, as power construct, if not terrorizing violence of colonialism, imperialism, enslavement, & racial (& relatedly, caste) apartheid?

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2. Importantly, "terrorism", and sedition & insurrection, are all state-defined terms. Their invocation is to signal threat to state & its legitimacy. These are words most commonly deployed against those considered *outside* the state, and hence *as* threats to the state -

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e.g Indigenous, Black, Muslim, Arab, Sikh, anarchist, left communities in the US and Canada. It is oxymoronic to think that anti-terrorism can be deployed against white supremacists by the state's legal/judicial/political apparatus when, in fact, whiteness *is* the state.

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White supremacists are deeply invested in white supremacy as nation-building. Naming white supremacist orgs as 'terrorist' places them as anomalies or marginal (being 'un-Canadian' or 'un-American'), rather than central organizing & ideological force of violence in US & Canada.

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This is political and ethical hypocrisy - as evident in numbers of state and police and military officials who are active in white supremacist orgs, and is essentially a form of white innocence.

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Issue is not that state doesnt have enough tools at its disposal - it's that state has chosen not to & will not disrupt white supremacist orgs willingly; calls for more strict 'counter terrorism' is smoke and mirrors; there are technically lots of existing tools at their disposal

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3. While it is arguable that some concepts can be reclaimed from right, like freedom, terrorism is not one of them. Terrorism, both as socially-constructed racialized concept, and as political/juridical set of state policies, maintains and extends entrenched forms of oppression.

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This isnt just discursive debate (ie what is terrorism, or can definition of terrorism be expanded); there are material consequences for War on Terror. Governing through criminalization & securitization is not neutral terrain; it is fundamentally & foundationally a racial regime.

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Eqbal Ahmed reminds us: "The next point about our terrorism is that posture of inconsistency necessarily evades definition... Not one defines the word. All of them explain it, express it emotively, polemically, to arouse our emotions rather than exercise our intelligence."

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Global War on Terror (already a war *of* terror) was conjured up in public imagination to further gendered, colonial-capitalist white supremacy; it is simply implausible to assume the architecture of the war on terror will subvert very same systems it is intended to entrench.

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4. Many people have luxury of not knowing how anti-terror, counter-terrorism, or national security laws and policies actually work and how rotten they are. Most glaring example is deportation & increasing use of non-existent and so-called secret "evidence" against people,

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esp Muslim, Arab, Kurdish, Sikh orgs as well as left organizations such as PFLP or FMLN, being labelled as 'terrorists' or accused of being affiliated with 'terrorist entities' to escalate the state violence of detention and deportation of non-citizens.

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We need to actually dismantle this violent security state, especially the post 9/11 security state, that has and continues to wreak so much violence in people's lives and we must not allow for its expansion under any guise.

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5. To think some kind of 'racial equality' can be achieved in anti-terror legislation - those that argue that as long as white supremacists are included within these laws and policies, then it's 'okay' - is to give long-time cover to anti-terror laws & funding and infrastructure,

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which will only then continue to expand & target oppressed communities and movements. This is same trend in carceral state and supposedly 'left' reasons for its expansion, like accountability for gendered violence, that never materializes while carceral state warfare continues.

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Similarly, justifying anything under cover of anti-terror or legislation expands police powers, surveillance, criminalization through secret trials, preemptive detention, disappearances & torture in blacksites, CVE programs, military interventions, extradition & deportation.

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War on Terror has been one of linguistic & legal contortions that, by design, allows state to fortify policing & surveillance powers. More of War on Crime or more of War on Terror will not end fascism or white nationalism; it will only fuel it & target more oppressed people.

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There is no short cut; we fight reactionary and violent revanchist forces by confronting them, organizing against them, mobilizing against them, educating in communities etc; we simply cannot expect a state invested in & upholding the violence we want to end to do this for us.

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