The Christchurch Terrorist Attack: White Supremacism, Ethnic Nationalism and the Far Right
As the fallout from the Christchurch shootings becomes ever more pronounced in the light of time for reflection, analysis and discussion, it is clear that there are a number of significant matters that are important to state in light of what we know now but did not know at the moment of the horrific attacks on Friday afternoon.
In any sociological analysis of the causes of extremism and radicalisation, it is a matter of fact that the background of the individual is scrutinised. In exploring patterns of socialisation, identity formation as well as issues relating to alienation and exclusion, it is possible to get a handle on the development of an ideological perspective that leads an individual to pursue acts of horrendous violence in the name of some greater cause.
We have come to terms with the fact that, in this case, the primary suspect is a self-identified white supremacist, who viewed the world in Manichean terms, regarding Islam and Muslims as a combined category of a movement and its people who are not merely a blot on the landscape but deserve to be depopulated. This is because they somehow present a risk to the survival of the white nation itself. Of course, there is no perspective on the nature of this whiteness; that is, its own internal diversity or the historical legacies of class formation, colonialism, orientalism, Eugenicism or white nationalism that have defined the space occupied by whiteness. But this perspective is also an odd combination of it: there is palpable fear presented in relation to the ‘other’, whose motivations are to seemingly take over through population expansion. At the same time, there is a decrying of these ‘others’ for their primitive, backward and hateful natures, thus seemingly legitimising ethnic nationalism and white supremacism.
Some would regard this as a reality of Islamophobia. They would be accurate in this instance. Islamophobia is not merely a response to a sense of cultural dilution at the hands of some regressive other. It extends into notions of ethnic cleansing of these groups. There is much to expand on the nature of the motivations of the main suspect behind these attacks, which align with the activities of other individual actors apparently acting on their own. All have carried out an act of ultra-violence in the name of defending against the loss of privileges associated with whiteness at one level but also the fear of being overtaken by hordes of primitives. These kinds of ideas have motivated far right extremists in the last few years in the number of places in the Global North, including in Norway, Canada, England and now in New Zealand. The reasons for these are structural, cultural and political.
Over the last two decades in particular, men have faced considerable challenges to their positions in society, especially in the labour market and in educational terms. This is the result of the improving positions of women in these settings but also because globalisation means that the average young white man has to compete far harder than ever before and where his privileged urban post-industrial patriarchy can no longer be sustained in the light of an increasingly interdependent world. The rage against the loss of supremacy results in the venting a certain fury against these now significant others.
There was a time, well before the events of 9/11, where multiculturalism and diversity were seen as assets that contributed to the wellbeing of nations, where differences among people result in an enriched lived reality that benefits all in the pursuit of human values. But multiculturalism became distorted when the political and media classes began to shift attention away from these notions because they associated the concept with a risk of polarisation, radicalisation and ultimately terrorism. It is not beyond the realm of many who have a classical education to think that too much diversity can lead to the fragmentation of the nation itself. Alas, the experiment with diversity was over before it began, which has led to further polarisation and entrenchment in various physical concentrations within urban spaces.
What social scientists will explore as the nature of downward social mobility, housing policies and gateways that limit access to certain forms of accommodation as explanatory factors in what leads to patterns of residential clustering, certain opinion makers and political voices would argue that this outcome is solely an example of self-styled segregation. This is a blatant falsehood and a deliberate misdirection. It ignores history, past public policy and ongoing patterns of social economic inequalities that affect all. And in the final domain, the question of politics has become far more pervasive than ever. Populism, nativism and ethnic nationalism go hand-in-hand as a ruse to mask the failures of domestic policy and the ongoing shenanigans of interventions in faraway lands in pursuit of some greater foreign policy objective that routinely leads to catastrophe and destabilisation in those spaces as the norm.
In the pursuit of attention-grabbing headlines, sensationalist messaging presented as newsworthy items, and the bold ideological motivations of certain press Barons (it is no surprise that Australian news and media output is almost entirely under the sole purvey of Rupert Murdoch), Islam and Muslims are demonised on such an extensive basis that to be Islamophobic is to be normal. It takes a critical mind to distance oneself from what politicians and media outlets are actually saying, but for the less thinking individual, such words are gospel.
The attacks in Christchurch were not the result of a random mental health victim on a rampage. They were calculated, cold and clinical. The assailant had a clear agenda — as he identified himself in his own writings. He aimed to sow fear and discord by broadcasting his actions all over the world. He alluded to Eurocentric heroism, which borders on ethnic cleansing — i.e. a ‘kebab-removalist’. The air, thick with Islamophobia, gave him the licence he felt he could legitimately mobilise into political violence and terrorism. The sympathetic voices embolden some while radicalising others. And, thus, the circle is complete.
It is not always the case that far right extremists take a pilgrimage of sorts before they are somehow radicalised, turning their newfound ideological perspectives into weaponised political violence and terrorism. The case in relation to the New Zealand shooter appears to be unusual in this regard. Of course, there is a real chance that he was radicalised during his travels, possibly in the Balkans, although this is conjectural rather than factual at this stage. In the course of time, it will be possible to determine where and how he was first radicalised, but it is clear that his radicalisation was significantly enhanced online. Undoubtedly, his references to the siege of Vienna by the Ottomans or the idea of ‘kebab-removalist’ in particular appeal to a certain anti-Muslim sentiment, the later with contemporary connotations, namely the war in Bosnia. What extremists find in this region is the memory of the Ottomans who held power over a period of 650 years, during which it was able to annex territories that are now in the Balkans, South East Europe, the Caucuses, North Africa and across the Middle East. But in many of the areas of Middle Europe today, these Ottomans are seen by some as invaders who only pillaged villages and raped women.
In the wider context of growing Islamophobia across the world today, these anti-Islam and anti-Muslim voices grow louder at a time when politicians in Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Poland evoke populist sentiment. This is especially the case as many of these countries were directly affected by the Syrian refugee crisis that began in 2015, and which saw over half a million people walking through the Balkans on their way to countries like Germany. Overall, the far right in Europe does focus on the historical dynamics of Ottoman history and Christian Europe. For example, Anders Breivik made clear links, seeing himself as a Knight Templar, saving Christianity from the invasive Muslim ‘other’. These notions appeal to young men who are at the fringes of their societies, burying themselves in the discourses of the far and radical right online, with its focus on hate towards differences, women and groups with diverse sexual preferences or leanings. All of it supports the projected inherited importance of the average white male who has to club together with greater cause in order to a) save the ‘white nation’ from ‘invasion’ through immigration and mixing and to b) eliminate these ‘other’ undesirables as they are breeding at excessive rates and unless checked they will fully absorb the ‘white nation’.
There is a tragic absence of historical, political or social depth to these perspectives, which are effectively ideologically instrumentalised to create a ‘race war’. The likes of Breivik and the New Zealand white supremacist want a reaction to their terrorism that starts this ‘race war’.
My new book Islamophobia and Radicalisation — A Vicious Cycle comes out in August 2019.
