Members of alt-right militia groups from around the world have been targeting a Kelowna brewery online for hanging up an Antifa, or Anti-fascist, flag.
Oliver Glaser, Owner of Boundary Brewing, says he put the flag up in his brewery following the Charlottesville protests in August.
“I understand that people see [Antifa] more extreme and that they are not pacifist, they go out and they counter neo-Nazi and hate group protests, and they are not the ones to sit there and take a beating,” Glaser admits “But that being said, I don’t support all their actions. It was not about that. The flag for me was supporting the premise and the ideals of being anti-fascist and pro-love and tolerance.”
A video of him hanging the flag up was posted on the breweries Facebook page, which went unnoticed for weeks, until Glaser says a member of the Okanagan 3 percenters, a local chapter of an American militia group, shared it with members of other alt-right associated groups, including Sons of Odin.
“The way that it exploded and it went viral and the kind of hateful, you know, vile messages that we received as a result of it was unexpected.”
Glaser says the breweries Facebook page received messages and comments calling him, among other things, a domestic terrorist, communist and pedophile, and his breweries Google page has gotten close to 100, one-star reviews. He’s even received phone calls and e-mails.
“I was getting comments from people in Norway and southern United States and all over the U.S.,” he says “I mean most of the negative comments came from the Unites States, most of the negative reviews came from the States.”
Glaser admits he did expect there would be some controversy but thought it would lead to conversation and intelligence discourse.
“I do think that there is social responsibility and I feel like being against fascism is never a bad thing and that was my initial goal,” he says “I’m a German of German heritage, my children are German citizens, I make German beer and there’s a lot of history that goes with that.”
Although he's taken the flag and his Facebook page down for now amid concerns for his family's safety, Glaser says he's not deterred and will continue to speak out against intolerance.
“In the end I’m going to look at it as a badge of honour that I managed to piss off people that I don’t want to have in this brewery anyway.”