A collection of interesting articles highlighting the growing menace of far-right white supremacist extremist terrorism.
Something to ponder over: why are the religion or beliefs of non-Muslim terrorists and extremists either not mentioned in news headlines and articles, or downplayed on TV news channels? Are the perpetrators Christian, Jewish, Zionist, Atheist or Agnostic? Newspapers and media channels claim to be fair, balanced and unbiased, so why the double standards when the perpetrator is seemingly a Muslim (with “Islamic terrorism” or “Muslim extremist” or similar words appearing in the headline or article)?
Jump to:
1. Attacks by White Extremists Are Growing. So Are Their Connections
2. How Many Attacks Will It Take Until the White-Supremacist Threat Is Taken Seriously?
3. White power ideology’: why El Paso is part of a growing global threat
4. Stanwell Tesco stabbing: ‘Far-right’ knifeman admits attack
5. Did American Right-Wing Trolls Radicalize The Quebec Mosque Shooter?
6. Five of the top far-right figures are British. We’re world leaders in hate
6. How Many Attacks Will It Take Until the White-Supremacist Threat Is Taken Seriously?
7. White power ideology’: why El Paso is part of a growing global threat
8. Five of the top far-right figures are British. We’re world leaders in hate
9. Leader of Nigel Farage’s party resigns over anti-Islam messages
10. ‘The Great Replacement’: The Violent Consequences of Mainstreamed Extremism
11. Far-right fundraising not taken seriously by UK, report finds
12. Europe’s right-wing extremists try recruiting from police, army
13. Incubating Hate: Islamophobia and Gab
14. Interesting Report – Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch masjidain on 15 March 2019
15. New Report finds Christchurch terrorist radicalized on YouTube and Facebook
16. Vox article – Psychologists surveyed hundreds of alt-right supporters. The results are unsettling
17. Interesting Article – The Far-Right Plot to Flood Radio Airwaves with Racism
Article 1: Attacks by White Extremists Are Growing. So Are Their Connections
“An analysis by The New York Times of recent terrorism attacks found that at least a third of white extremist killers since 2011 were inspired by others who perpetrated similar attacks, professed a reverence for them or showed an interest in their tactics.
The connections between the killers span continents and highlight how the internet and social media have facilitated the spread of white extremist ideology and violence.
In one instance, a school shooter in New Mexico corresponded with a gunman who attacked a mall in Munich. Altogether, they killed 11 people.”
Source – Attacks by White Extremists Are Growing. So Are Their Connections:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/world/white-extremist-terrorism-christchurch.html
Article 2: How Many Attacks Will It Take Until the White-Supremacist Threat Is Taken Seriously?
“There was, it seems, no time to avert the massacre.
The anti-immigrant, white-nationalist manifesto heralding an imminent attack was uploaded to the online message board 8chan only minutes before a shooter killed at least 20 people out shopping on a late-summer Saturday in El Paso, Texas.
But in another sense, if U.S. authorities confirm that the document was written by the 21-year-old white male suspected of committing the atrocity, then there was plenty of time—numerous years in which violence by far-right, white-supremacist extremists has emerged as arguably the premier domestic-terrorist threat in the United States. The government may be working to prevent these violent acts, but it’s devoted less attention and fewer resources to the toxic ideology that knits them together.
The Anti-Defamation League recently reported that right-wing extremists were linked to more murders in the United States (at least 50) in 2018 than in any other year since 1995, when Timothy McVeigh bombed an Oklahoma City federal building. The organization also found that in the past decade, roughly 73 percent of extremist-related fatalities have been associated with domestic right-wing extremists, relative to about 23 percent attributed to Islamist extremists.”
Source: How Many Attacks Will It Take Until the White-Supremacist Threat Is Taken Seriously?
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/08/how-can-fbi-fight-far-right-extremism-ideology/595435/
Article 3: White power ideology’: why El Paso is part of a growing global threat
Defining white nationalism
“At the center of contemporary white nationalist ideology is the belief that whiteness is under attack, and that a wide range of enemies – from feminists to leftwing politicians to Muslims, Jews, immigrants, refugees and black people – are all conspiring to undermine and destroy the white race, through means as varied as interracial marriage, immigration, “cultural Marxism” and criticism of straight white men.To people who believe in white supremacist conspiracies, demographic change is an “existential threat to white people”, said Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a professor of education and sociology at the American University, and a senior fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.
These conspiracy theories refer to demographic shifts in dramatic, violent terms, as a kind of “genocide” or a “great replacement” of one people with another. The idea of “replacement” is central to this movement: “You will not replace us! Jews will not replace us!” white nationalists and neo-Nazis chanted as they marched with flaming torches through Charlottesville, Virginia. It has echoed in the manifestos of mass murderers, and the chants of Charlottesville marchers, since being coined by a French white nationalist writer and conspiracy theorist in 2011.”
Source – ‘White power ideology’: why El Paso is part of a growing global threat:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/04/el-paso-shooting-white-nationalist-supremacy-violence-christchurch
Article 4: Stanwell Tesco stabbing: ‘Far-right’ knifeman admits attack
“A knifeman who slashed a 19-year-old Bulgarian in a Tesco car park after praising the Christchurch terror attacker has admitted attempted murder.
Vincent Fuller, 50, thrust a blade through Dimitar Mihaylov’s car window in Stanwell, Surrey, on 16 March.
Prosecutors said the attack, a day after 51 Muslims were gunned down in New Zealand, was an act of far-right terrorism.
Fuller denies this, but accepts the stabbing was racially motivated.
Before the attack, Fuller declared support for Christchurch shooting suspect Brenton Tarrant in a Facebook post.
“I am English, no matter what the government say kill all the non English and get them all out of our of England,” he wrote.
‘Kill Muslims’
He later approached Mr Mihaylov’s car and shouted “you are going to die” as he swiped at him through the open window, prosecutors said.
His victim sustained wounds to his hands and neck.
Before the car park stabbing, Fuller had approached the home of a neighbour – who is of south Asian descent – armed with a baseball bat.
He went on to indiscriminately attack occupied vehicles, and was reportedly heard shouting “white supremacy” and “I’m going to kill Muslims”.
Source – Stanwell Tesco stabbing: ‘Far-right’ knifeman admits attack:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-49369683
Article 5: Did American Right-Wing Trolls Radicalize The Quebec Mosque Shooter?
Source – Did American Right-Wing Trolls Radicalize The Quebec Mosque Shooter?
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/opinion-drimonis-montreal-mosque-trolls-shapiro_n_5ad95a7ee4b029ebe0228dc1
The following is a list of Twitter profiles visited by Quebec City mosque killer (Alexandre Bissonnette) in weeks leading up to the shooting/terrorist attack in which six worshippers were killed and nineteen others injured.
Article 6: Five of the top far-right figures are British. We’re world leaders in hate
“Five of the world’s top ten far-right activists on the internet are British, a new report into online extremism has found.
Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka Tommy Robinson, Katie Hopkins, and Carl Benjamin aka Sargon of Akkad – are all British-born and amongst the ten most influential far-right activists online.
…The other, less obvious factor, says Ganesh, is that the nature of the global dialogue between these figures drives their popularity. “Exclude Milo from this, but Paul Joseph Watson and Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins, they’re particularly useful for the far-right. They translate this idea about cultural decline and attacks on the West and the UK from foreigners, primarily Muslims, into something for American audiences as well. They are trying to bridge some of that distance.” These narratives – that there are, for instance, Muslim controlled “no-go” zones in Birmingham – confirm the worldview of a sympathetic foreign audience, and drive funding and influence. (American think tanks, such as the Middle East Forum, have given money to Tommy Robinson).”
Source – Five of the top far-right figures are British. We’re world leaders in hate:
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/hope-not-hate-uk-far-right
7. White power ideology’: why El Paso is part of a growing global threat
Defining white nationalism
“At the center of contemporary white nationalist ideology is the belief that whiteness is under attack, and that a wide range of enemies – from feminists to leftwing politicians to Muslims, Jews, immigrants, refugees and black people – are all conspiring to undermine and destroy the white race, through means as varied as interracial marriage, immigration, “cultural Marxism” and criticism of straight white men.To people who believe in white supremacist conspiracies, demographic change is an “existential threat to white people”, said Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a professor of education and sociology at the American University, and a senior fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.
These conspiracy theories refer to demographic shifts in dramatic, violent terms, as a kind of “genocide” or a “great replacement” of one people with another. The idea of “replacement” is central to this movement: “You will not replace us! Jews will not replace us!” white nationalists and neo-Nazis chanted as they marched with flaming torches through Charlottesville, Virginia. It has echoed in the manifestos of mass murderers, and the chants of Charlottesville marchers, since being coined by a French white nationalist writer and conspiracy theorist in 2011.”
8. Five of the top far-right figures are British. We’re world leaders in hate
“Five of the world’s top ten far-right activists on the internet are British, a new report into online extremism has found.
Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka Tommy Robinson, Katie Hopkins, and Carl Benjamin aka Sargon of Akkad – are all British-born and amongst the ten most influential far-right activists online.
…The other, less obvious factor, says Ganesh, is that the nature of the global dialogue between these figures drives their popularity. “Exclude Milo from this, but Paul Joseph Watson and Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins, they’re particularly useful for the far-right. They translate this idea about cultural decline and attacks on the West and the UK from foreigners, primarily Muslims, into something for American audiences as well. They are trying to bridge some of that distance.” These narratives – that there are, for instance, Muslim controlled “no-go” zones in Birmingham – confirm the worldview of a sympathetic foreign audience, and drive funding and influence. (American think tanks, such as the Middle East Forum, have given money to Tommy Robinson).”
Source:
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/hope-not-hate-uk-far-right
9. Leader of Nigel Farage’s party resigns over anti-Islam messages
The leader of the new pro-Brexit party backed by Nigel Farage abruptly resigned on Wednesday after the Guardian asked her about a series of deleted anti-Islam Twitter messages sent before she took on the role.
Catherine Blaiklock, the leader of the Brexit party, repeatedly retweeted posts from far-right figures as well as sending her own messages. Among the messages she shared was one by Mark Collett, a former British National party (BNP) activist, referring to “white genocide”.
The term is often used in extreme rightwing and racist online activism of the sort seen as having inspired the man suspected of shooting dead 50 people last week at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Read full article here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/20/leader-of-pro-brexit-party-catherine-blaiklock-resigns-over-anti-islam-messages
10. ‘The Great Replacement’: The Violent Consequences of Mainstreamed Extremism
On 15 March 2019 a terrorist attack occurred in Christchurch, New Zealand. The attack was livestreamed over Facebook, and has subsequently been shared with millions of people worldwide.5 In total, 51 civilians were killed and 50 more injured in the shootings. It is alleged that the perpetrator outlined his motivations in a so-called manifesto, which was leaked to the extreme-right-wing board ‘Politically Incorrect’ on the fringe imageboard 8chan and Twitter. This document specifically mentions what the author calls ‘the Great Replacement’ as the motivation behind the attack.
The core ideas behind this conspiracy theory have been present in far-right circles for years,6 however research by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) into extreme-right milieus reveals the extent to which this theory has come to dominate not only violent extreme-right groups on ‘dark social’ platforms, but also the language and ideologies of far-right, xenophobic and nativist groups and political parties across Europe and beyond. In particular, the centrality of the so-called Great Replacement theory to the Christchurch attack requires policymakers to reassess the threat posed by groups who continue to espouse and spread this theory online.
This paper outlines the origins and main arguments of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, its proponents, the tactics used to disseminate this concept, and the extent to which it is being politically mainstreamed, to illustrate how this concept has come to dominate the transnational extreme-right.
Read the full report here:
https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/The-Great-Replacement-The-Violent-Consequences-of-Mainstreamed-Extremism-by-ISD.pdf
11. Far-right fundraising not taken seriously by UK, report finds
An “unwillingness” by the UK government to engage with the threat posed by far-right extremists is creating a vacuum in which such groups can flourish, according to a study by a Whitehall thinktank of their fundraising activities.
The report warns that the focus placed on Islamists has meant that counter-terrorist authorities tasked with looking into financing have made little attempt to understand how far-right individuals and groups raise funds.
Calling for cross-border collaboration with the private sector, the report by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) emphasised the importance of financial leads in investigations such as the one into the killing of the Labour MP, Jo Cox, by the extreme rightwing terrorist Thomas Mair.
Read full article here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/31/far-right-fundraising-not-taken-seriously-uk-government-extremists
12. Europe’s right-wing extremists try recruiting from police, army
The extremist groups are showing interest in weapons and explosives, according to Europol.
“In order to build up their physical abilities and combat skills,” the report says, “members of extremist far-right groups are attempting to win over members from the military and security services in order to learn their expertise in the area of surveillance and combat readiness.”
They are also trying to take advantage of martial arts events.
Read full article here:
https://www.dw.com/en/europes-right-wing-extremists-try-recruiting-from-police-army/a-50557142
13. Incubating Hate: Islamophobia and Gab
Islamophobia has become a digital rallying cry for white supremacists and other extremists online. Xenophobic, derisive, and disinformative content appears with regularity in conversations about Islam on the fringe social media site Gab – a platform that bills itself as “the free speech social network” but that researchers argue features high levels of hate and conspiracy in comparison to Twitter, which it is modeled upon (Zannettou et al., 2018). We provide an overview of Islamophobia online, detailing prior research that describes the integral role that sites like Gab, 8Chan and Voat play in spreading harmful and defamatory content to larger publics on Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter. Then, in collaboration with the social media analytics firm Graphika, we describe results from a quantitative analysis of Gab. Pulling from the complete database of all Gab messages assembled by Pushshift.io, we focus in on four months of data from the Summer and Fall of 2018. We then search the set for Islam-relevant hashtags, derogatory terms, and the names of Muslim U.S. political candidates who ran in 2018 – in the end compiling a set of 188,763 posts. We find that a significant proportion of the material about Islam and Muslims is derogatory.
Read the report here:
Incubating Hate: Islamophobia and Gab
14. Interesting Report – Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch masjidain on 15 March 2019
Here’s an excerpt from volume 1, p. 104, under the section “The nationalist far right, the radical right and the extreme right-wing”:
“To the right of traditional right-wing conservative and libertarian opinions is a political space that has been called the far right. It is occupied by a range of ideologies, orientations and patterns of thinking. These include a strong form of nationalism that is not so much an ideology80 but rather an orientation that holds that western civilisation and its values are under threat from non-native (or alien) elements, whether people (particularly immigrants) or ideas (such as multiculturalism). It is this form of far right thinking that is primarily relevant for our inquiry. There are other far right patterns of thinking – including “deep-state” conspiracy theories (such as QAnon)81 or anti-feminist ideologies (such as “incel” ideology).82 While sexist attitudes often form part of extreme right-wing thinking and anti-feminist ideologies can act as a gateway to other extreme right-wing ideologies,83 these patterns of thinking are of less relevance for our purposes. Right-wing extremism experts Tore Bjørgo and Jacob Aasland Ravndal have provided a simple taxonomy of the nationalist far right, which for the purposes of this report, we adopt.”84
15. New Report finds Christchurch terrorist radicalized on YouTube and Facebook
Quotes from the article:
Youtube
“The two platforms that had the biggest impact on the shooter’s mindset: YouTube and Facebook.
Following the attack that left 51 people dead at two Christchurch mosques in March of last year, the New Zealand government launched an independent inquiry into the spree killing. The results of that report paint a picture of how the shooter, white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, came to commit such a heinous act.
The report specifically found that YouTube played a major role in radicalizing the man.
“What particularly stood out was the statement that the terrorist made that he was ‘not a frequent commentator on extreme right-wing sites and YouTube was a significant source of information and inspiration’,” said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern while discussing the report. “This is a point I plan to make directly to the leadership of YouTube.”
Tarrant was a fan of the once-prominent far-right YouTuber Stefan Molyneux, as well as other figures on the right such as white nationalists Richard Spencer and Lauren Southern. According to the report, Tarrant even donated money to right-wing organizations and Freedomain Radio, which was created by Molyneux. YouTube banned both Molyneux and Spencer from the platform this past summer.”
Facebook
“Facebook also played a role in the radicalization of the Christchurch shooter, according to the report.
Tarrant frequently posted Islamophobic rhetoric in far-right Facebook Groups such as The Lads Society Season Two, United Patriots Front, and True Blue Crew. He also spoke about inspiration he pulled from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf on the social network.
In one particularly interesting exchange, pointed out by Vice, Tarrant’s mother calls him a “neo-Nazi” in a Facebook message. Tarrant was bothered by this because he worried Facebook’s moderation systems would detect the word and take action against his account.
Mashable reached out to Facebook for comment and will update this piece when we hear back.”
16. Vox article – Psychologists surveyed hundreds of alt-right supporters. The results are unsettling
Link to full article: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/8/15/16144070/psychology-alt-right-unite-the-right
17. Interesting Article – The Far-Right Plot to Flood Radio Airwaves with Racism
Quote 1:
“This is just one example of “groyping” – a new far-right tactic to ambush unsuspecting spaces on the internet and radio airwaves, and flood them with far-right, racist conspiracy theories and jokes.”
Quote 2:
“The conspiracy theory that white British people are going to become a minority is one of the key messages being pushed by groypers. This particular bit of racist crankery comes from some demographic modelling conducted in 2010 by the highly controversial Oxford professor David Coleman. Coleman created several demographic projections, one of which suggested that white Brits could become a minority by 2066. This speculation was widely covered by the media in 2013, but very few outlets mentioned Coleman had been a member of the Eugenics Society and was a co-founder of anti-migrant campaign group Migration Watch.”
Link to full article: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3exp3/groyping-far-right-propaganda-tool-alt-right
Please share and spread.
