Linking hate speech or extreme language with humor looks disturbing, since it is assumed that prejudice, intolerance and fanaticism are humorless per se. Memes have a frequent presence in our daily lives. They flood our timelines on different social media platforms, usually to provide us with a smile. Originally, the term “meme” was coined by… Continue reading “Memes of Hate: Countering Cyber Islamophobia”
Anti-Muslim hate crime, which spikes following terror attacks, is inextricably intertwined with racism. This article has been difficult to write because I was hoping that, in 2019, I would not need to start talking about international terrorism and how it can impact the streets of Britain. Instead, we are focusing on the terrible events that happened… Continue reading “Anti-Muslim Hate Crime Is a New Form of Racism”
Decent people everywhere are still reeling from the tragic, senseless violence of Christchurch massacre. It appears that the accused killer was a product of the violent, hateful meme culture of the radical right online. Furthermore, he chose to livestream his rampage on a favorite platform used by anti-Muslim extremists: Facebook. Unfortunately, for many of us… Continue reading “Analysis of Anti-Muslim Images and Text on Facebook”
The Christchurch mass murderer acted alone, but the core ideas in his manifesto are widely shared by Islamophobic actors in Europe and beyond. Almost eight years since the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, killed 77 people on July 22, 2011, his ideas and methods inspire right wing extremists in Europe and beyond. Despite the difference… Continue reading “Lone actors with shared ideas”
After a radical right-wing terrorist murdered 50 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, President Trump downplayed the threat of white nationalism – a threat he has helped to fuel. Updated March 16, 2019: The death toll of the New Zealand terrorist attack has now risen to 50 and President Trump has since defended Fox News host… Continue reading “Trump Says White Nationalism Isn’t A Growing Threat. He’s Lying.”
Terrorism as theater in the age of Internet ‘Bühnensucht’ is a German expression denoting an irrational longing to take the stage or as Jenkins put it already in 1974, “terrorism is theater” (Jenkins 1974:7). In the age of online communication and social media, the stage is the same as the Internet and the audience that… Continue reading “‘The Great Replacement’ – Decoding the Christchurch Terrorist Manifesto”
On February 1st 2019 a workshop was organized by the Zentrum für zeithistorische Forschung (ZZF) (Centre for Contemporary History) in Potsdam, with Frank Bösch, Yves Müller, Dominik Rigoll, Sarah Schulz, Julia Kleinschmidt, Christoph Schulze, Anke Hoffstadt, Henrike Voigtländer and Sebastian Bischoff, to name only those present on stage. The purpose of this workshop with approximately… Continue reading “Conference Report: “Right-Wing Extremism as a research object in Contemporary History””
To date, the notion of gateway organizations has in the most part been used to help explain processes of radicalization in relation to Islamic extremist Islam. Since September 11, 2001, the radical right has been on the rise in terms of popularity and reach across Western states. The 9/11 attacks, the subsequent war on terror… Continue reading “Gateway Organizations: Understanding the Lure of the Radical Right”
As I sat down this morning and switched on my computer. I couldn’t help but notice the headline in the Spectator, ‘The Islamophobia’ problem. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that the author was Douglas Murray. In his latest tirade of anti-Muslim scaremongering, Murray was contemplating the roots of Islamophobia. For Murray, Islamophobia – in… Continue reading “Islamophobia is not Fiction or a Harry Potter Fantasy: It’s Racism and it’s time we accepted that”
Is it entirely unreasonable to expect that Italy’s populists in power, though unavoidable, will end up like many governments before them – mugged by harsh reality? One of the most famous clichés in Italian contemporary political historiography is the phrase, lifted from Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa’s novel Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), “For everything to stay… Continue reading “Matteo Salvini – Italy’s salvation?”