‘Like 1984’: Canada government tries to erase Nazi celebration from history
Social media netizens are invoking George Orwell’s 1984 after Canada’s ruling party Monday tried to erase its recent celebration of a Ukrainian Nazi war criminal from the country’s records.
Canada’s Liberal government has come under heavy fire for honoring Yaroslav Hunka last week during a visit by Ukraine Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelenskyy. During World War II Hunka volunteered for the Waffen SS by joining the First Ukrainian Division, also known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division or the SS 14th Waffen Division.
On Friday the now-98-year-old Hunka was introduced in Canadian Parliament by House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota as “Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero” for fighting against Russia in World War II. The Nazi was treated to a standing ovation by Parliament members.
The backlash has led to Rota’s resignation as speaker and several apologies from politicians, including from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who blamed the “deeply embarrassing” incident on “Russian disinformation.”
On Tuesday the Liberal Party sought to erase the scandal from the country’s official history. Government House Leader Karina Gould, who was photographed holding hands with Hunka prior to Zelenskyy’s speech in Parliament, put forth a motion to strike the incident from the record.
“I would like to ask unanimous consent to adopt the following motion,” Gould announced in Parliament. “That notwithstanding any standing order, special order, or usual practice of the House, the recognition made by the speaker of an individual present in the galleries during the joint address to Parliament by His Excellency Volodymyr Zelenskyy be struck from the appendix of the House of Commons debate of Thursday, September 21st, 2023 and from any House multimedia recording.”
Conservative Party members voted the motion down.
Gould took to social media to declare she “did not know [Hunka] would be there,” despite being photographed with him beforehand, and warned other MPs “to stop politicizing” the scandal.
But Gould’s motion was slammed across social media, with some users drawing comparisons to the ruling party in 1984, which struck all inconvenient truths from history.
One user cited the following quote from the classic novel:
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.
“Like the ruthless dictatorial government in Orwell's book '1984’, Canada's Liberal/NDP government tried to rewrite history and erase their mistakes,” another user tweeted.
“Canadian government votes to ‘strike the record’ aka delete history from ‘any House multi-media recording’. Debate is immediately silenced. #1984,” wrote another.
