Framing the Long Arc of Fascism with Naomi Klein and Aaju Peter

Schedule
4:30pm: Opening Remarks
4:40pm: Aaju Peter, Inuk lawyer and activist (joining virtually)
5:00pm: Naomi Klein, journalist and author
5:40pm: Audience Q&A

In this keynote lecture, Inuk lawyer Aaju Peter and journalist Naomi Klein will examine the historical throughlines and impacts of colonialism, fascism, and climate injustice.

First, Aaju Peter will address the shared struggle for Inuit sovereignty across Danish Greenland and Canadian Nunavut borders and how recent threats from Donald Trump impact Inuit self-determination. Naomi Klein will then trace the historical arc of fascism, from colonial genocides to climate apartheid. She will explore how this resurgence is due to a faulty retelling of the story of European fascism as a rupture in modernity rather than as a throughline of racial capitalism. Finally, she will argue that fascism does not simply repeat; it compounds, but so does antifascism.

This lecture serves as the keynote for “The Long Arc of Fascism,” a full day symposium on Friday, April 10.

This event is free and open to the public. 

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Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, columnist, and the international bestselling author of nine books published in over 35 languages including No Logo, The Shock Doctrine, This Changes Everything, No Is Not Enough, On Fire, and Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World which won the inaugural Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction in 2024. A columnist for The Guardian, her writing has appeared in leading publications around the world. She is the honorary professor of Media and Climate at Rutgers University and is Associate Professor in Geography at the University of British Columbia where she is founding co-director of UBC’s Centre for Climate Justice. Her new book, End Times Fascism: and the Fight for the Living World, written with Astra Taylor, will be published in September 2026.

Aaju Peter was born in Arkisserniaq, a northern Greenland community. In 1981, Aaju moved to Iqaluit, in Nunavut, Canada where she learned Inuktitut and English, which has helped her succeed in her work as an interpreter. Her interests led her to the Arctic College where she took Inuit studies. Aaju has travelled in Greenland, Europe, and Canada performing lamp lighting ceremonies, traditional Inuit songs, and displaying sealskin fashions. Aaju graduated from the Akitsiraq Law School in 2005 and was called to the bar in 2007. She has been involved in documentaries such as Angry Inuk, Tunniit: Retracing the lines of Inuit tattoos, Arctic Defenders, and most recently Twice Colonized. Today, Aaju is advocating for Inuit rights to sea; and sealskin products as well as the Inuit right to be involved in issues related to Arctic waters. In December 2011, Aaju received the Order of Canada for preserving and promoting Inuit culture.