| Summary: |
This article examines two cases of state funding cuts to the most prominent and active Arab community organisations operating in Canada, the Canadian Arab Federation and Palestine House. It contextualises the cuts within broader ‘crisis of multiculturalism’ debates imbued with anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racism and the silencing of Palestine advocacy efforts; arguing that the shift to a neoliberal multiculturalism, emptied of anti-racist politics, along with the construction of national identities around a set of western ‘core values’ has advanced a marginalising politics that demarcates a ‘civilisational’ border which excludes Arabs, Muslims, and by extension Palestine solidarity. Curtailing freedom of expression, partly through funding cuts, thus becomes a key mechanism for disciplining dissent in racialised communities.
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