Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Human Rights Revisionism And The Canadian Parliamentary Coalition To Combat Antisemitism, Susan Ferguson, James Cairns

Journalism

This article focuses on the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism (CPCCA): a self-appointed group of parliamentarians dedicated to extinguishing what it calls “the new antisemitism.” Working from a Gramscian perspective, we identify key discursive strategies in coalition publications and testimony and argue that despite the CPCCA’s pretence to being a forum for liberal-pluralist debate, in fact it is engaged in an ideological reframing of human rights designed to restrict political debate. It does so, paradoxically, by drawing on the language of left-liberalism, which contrasts with recent ideological interventions aiming to secure the priorities of the neo-liberal state.