25 MAR 2019 | EXEPOSÉ
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Features
FEATURES EDITORS: Niamh Elstone Neha Shaji
Regarding radicalisation
I
Neha Shaji, Features Editor, reflects on far-right terrorism in the wake of Christchurch
N 2011, Anders Brevik murdered 77 people he considered “supporters of multiculturalism” in Norway. In 2015, Dylann Roof entered a black church in South Carolina, shooting nine people dead in the hopes of triggering a race war. Late last year, an anti-Semite murdered 11 Jewish men and women in a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Just over a week ago, Brenton Tarrant in New Zealand entered a mosque in Christchurch, killing what is presently estimated to be 50 Muslim men, women, and children as they were in prayer. Indeed, the easiest train of thought is to believe that white supremacists are caricatures of inhumanity, heads unevenly shaven and swastikas tattooed into their arms with ballpoint pens. It is easiest to declare a cut and dry separation between these cartoonish distortions at home in BlackKklansman, and the alt-right boys one is vaguely friends with, clad in crisp linen suits and ‘ironic’ fedora hats. But this line separating the two has always been blurry, as Tarrant’s manifesto included several ‘memes’ that the internet tolerated, passed off as amusing ‘incel’ circlejerks, and several references to Internet forums that are, again, ignored as an amusing cesspit the woke liberal could peruse and laugh at.
The fear of ‘replacement’ is a common thread in far-right websites Gang expert Jarrod Gilbert spoke to a New Zealand publication about how it was interesting that whilst the media has kept a close eye on ISIS and other such groups using the Internet to radicalise youth, as well as on-the-ground tactics, such a perception has not been afforded to white terrorists being radicalised online. This may be, however, due to the veneer of intellectualism that online racism flourishes best under - “tending to be more quasi-intellectual. At least more engaged in their philosophical underpinnings as evil as they are and they tend to be more international. So they don’t hang out on street corners, they tend to exist online.” This twisted internationalism was evident in New Zealand; the terrorist manifesto contained shout outs
to an international community of fascism, citing inspirations in Europe and the United States (where he wished to cause a “race war”). These are not people who make edgy jokes for the sake of being edgy; although on the thread where Tarrant posted his intentions there were multiple people egging him on and justifying his crimes. Milo Yiannopoulos, a discredited alt-right figure who had his Twitter platform removed and a following of prejudiced fans, had his Australian visa revoked after comments he made about the massacre. These are not the skinheads from 1980s B-movies or prison trauma films, these are real people with massive followings coating prejudice under a film of intellectualism to achieve liberal ju st i f i c at ion for their presence. D i s cou r se about the radicalisation of ‘angry white men’ online has sprung up, however, women are not an untouchable market here. The New Statesman spoke to Alexandra (name changed), who adopted extreme views after being radicalised on the imageboard site 4chan. She, whilst claiming views stating that the ‘Aryan’ race was more intelligent than other races, opted to play victim by drawing attention to the fact that she did not announce her gender on the site due to its misogynist culture. However, it is interesting to note that whilst these radicalised modern alt-right women claim to not follow misogynist views, they seem to follow the rest of these radical views including suggestion that entire races should be wiped out, and that refugees are a plague on society. This reflects a group of self-interested individuals who are drawn to such sites online; oppression towards me is bad, whilst oppressing others is only right.
This radicalisation is, however, not confined to the internet. It would be easy to blame a subreddit, or a groupchat for wider societal issues brought about by far more insidious forces than a 4chan thread. Only a day after the Christchurch terrorist attack, the Daily Mirror ran a headline referring to Tarrant as a ‘blonde, blue-eyed boy’ who ‘became a killer’. They were in a mosque, they were immigrants. This boy, however, was once blonde, and blue eyed,
Image: US Army Reserve
and his friends were mean to him because he was chubby. Print media’s role in this radicalisation is not to be forgotten, there are countless headlines exiling and dehumanising Muslims, refugees, Black people, trans people. These headlines pour humanity into white terrorists, charting every childhood photo of theirs, whilst herding the ‘Other’ into an inhuman mass – this contributes just as much as any Internet forum with angry keyboard warriors. Again, after the Christchurch shooting, an entire squadron came out of the woodwork to insist that Pewdipie, a gaming YouTuber whose name Tarrant
shouted as he exited his car, was just an innocent human being and was not to be blamed at all. The issue is that nobody was blaming this YouTuber – yet humanity is immediately foisted onto him, and all of the other figures Tarrant was allegedly inspired by even before the bodies of the victims were identified. Debates rise about gun control in the aftermath of a far-right white terrorist – a noble debate, yet one that is often the immediate response to a white terrorist instead of their radicalisation or racism, whilst Islamophobia is the knee-jerk reaction to an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist. The fear of ‘replacement’ runs through several of these internet sites. That ‘white culture’ should be replaced by immigrants moving in and turning the entire country into an ethnic enclosure. The fear of white genocide is a common thread as well, that the classic ‘Aryan’ features would be replaced by ‘lesser’ features, that the blondeness and the blue eyes would be erased by alleles carrying dark hair and brown eyes (note this fear, and have another look at the Daily Mirror headline). The fear of the birth rate dropping, and of immigration replacing the stream of bonny blueeyed babes - of jobs being stolen rather than rightly deserved, and of a race of people that by virtue of existence, deserved to oppress others. These may seem like amusing, rather idiotic ideas that the educated liberal would scoff at. One would point out that these countries where far right racism flourishes the most are colonies founded over the bodies of indigenous peoples. However, it is not a game of academia on the internet, as ironically pointing out that colonialism existed would not only receive justification, but appreciation for the ‘civilizing mission.’ These websites, and indeed, halls of debate, foster these views by giving such views
a platform in the name of freedom of speech. Alumna Katie Hopkins took to Twitter to broadcast her response to the Christchurch massacre. She commented that no mosques were shut in solidarity with Christians being killed elsewhere, defended Fraser Anning who blamed Muslims for their own massacring, and retweeted her own videos from last year about preserving white culture was recently hosted at this University debating the rights of migrants. These views are not merely on the internet but on your campus. Radicalisation of this sort is encouraged under freedom of speech, and it should be brought to notice that these are the same views that lead to shootings like Tarrant’s, Brevik’s, or Roof’s. I do not state that far-right white terrorists are the only dangers to humanity. The point made that this insidious form of radicalisation is not often targeted by watchlists due to profiling, and often allowed on mainstream channels of discourse under the guise of freedom of speech.
Headlines paint humanity on terrorists while exiling and othering their victims However, it is not these terrorists and their childhoods one needs to remember and make Netflix documentaries about. If one (rightly) will not remember the names of ISIS or Al Qaeda terrorists, there is no need to glorify and raise these murderers to a desecrated pedestal of ‘angelic blue eyed boy gone wrong’. There is a need to sit up and remove these views from a global discourse, and punish when required – an alarmingly small amount of white male terrorists are on watchlists, proving that method of racist profiling is inadequate. These men, and the ideas they learnt from a global indoctrination, are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people. Such as Melvin Wax, 88. Cecil Rosenthal, 59. Rose Mallinger, 97. Susie Jackson, 87. Makram Ali, 51. Daoud Nadi, 71. Kamel Darwish, 38. Atta Elayyan, 33. Hussein Al-Umari, 35. Sayyad Milne, 14. Zeeshan Raza, 38. Tariq Omar, 24. Mucad Ibrahim, 3. And more. And more.