Fascism is nothing without the police: How racist policing protects wannabe authoritarians from mass movements
Written by: Lahari Nanda
With the recent death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, Canada’s police have once again been exposed as the pawns of archaic institutional structures.
Noam Chomsky, renowned philosopher, writes in his book The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism that the police in the Middle East, Latin America and North America have always been a tool for the unquestioned use of brutality and torture, most of whom been funded and organized into special units by the United States.
But looking only at North America, Canadian and American police have long been the gatekeepers of institutionalized racism, discrimination and systematic violence.
Details of Paquet’s cause of death have not yet been released for fears of altering the memories of witnesses, according to a CBC article. The same article reads that Paquet’s family suspects the cause to be twofold: racial bias and discrimination based on mental health and ability.
Racial bias has been historically built into the political and social systems of Canada and the United States. In Canada, first the bias was against Indigenous people, and then it grew to include all non-white people with a specific bias against Indigenous and black people. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) was the most essential cog in this system, upholding the “law” of discrimination. But Canada isn’t a fascist state, or at least isn’t at present.
According to Marlon Nye, “the roots of modern fascism lie within the tyrannies of colonialism,” in an essay about the relationship between fascism and colonialism, which established systems of “distance” between White colonizers (British turned Americans) and African-Americans soon after US independence.
He argues that the practices of “distancing” or discriminating against Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) has created a normal for White people in the US, Canada and Britain, wherein fascism is not seen as an absurdity.
The police are the conduit of this absurdity, serving as the pawns of institutionalized “distancing.” Colonial Canada instead conducted individual fascist activities, maintaining authoritarian control over non-white groups of people. Herein, white settlers received privileges, or human rights as they have come to be known since 1948. The RCMP implemented the exclusionary economic and political policies of Canada’s colonial government, and without them, the government might not have been able to carry out “microfascisms.”
Read more about microfascisms here.
This rise of a fascist state in North America is also evident in President Trump’s handling of the protests following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin. Trump tweeted warning protesters of bullets being fired at them if they didn’t disperse or control their protests.
But fascist states are not confined to North America. Since Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, began his second term in office in 2019, his policy execution has become overtly fascist, and not on a micro-scale.
The Indian Police have regularly been a part of Modi’s nationalist agenda, which targets Muslims in India. Recent protests regarding the Citizenship Amendment Act saw the unlawful arrest and beating of Muslim students and protesters across the country.
Here too, the police were required by law, unless they wished to resign or be fired, to execute the discriminatory, unconstitutional agenda of Modi’s government on behalf of legislators. Were the police not a part of this, elected officials would have no practical conduit of their agenda.
However, “for there to be peace, there needs to be parity,” said Probal Dasgupta, an expert in linguistics. Although his statement pertained to the conflict between India and China in 1967, the concept behind it can be applied to the relationship between police and citizens of a country. It can be amplified to encompass an equitable relationship between the police of Canada, the United States and India and their people.
Rightly so, for there to be peace and for micro fascisms to be quelled, the police and civilians of nations need to be seen as equal, where a police officer too must undergo due legal process if they convict a crime.
A potential solution to the police’s blind following of politicized orders is to make them independent of governments altogether, thus removing the obligation to follow all given orders.
But the fact remains: the police are an indispensable tool for the spread of fascism. In light of recent events including the death of George Floyd and Regis Paquet, it is more evident than ever that the police need to be equal to civilians.
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