What appeared as a harmless series of lectures for journalism students, soon turned out to be one of the first Swedish cases of the issue of ‘academic freedom’ as a battlefield of radical right mobilization. During fall of 2019, the Department of Media, Journalism and Communication at the University of Gothenburg arranged a lecture series… Continue reading “Sweden heading towards ‘academic freedom’ as battlefield of the radical right”
While racism has always been an integral part of radical-right ideology, the West German radical right scene started with extensive racist activities in the late 1970s. Since then, agitation against migration has become a more central theme of radical right activism. Migration was certainly never a “new” phenomenon to the German society: (mainly labour) migration… Continue reading “Racist violence in West Germany before 1990”
Lack of reporting and coordination between federal and local law enforcement are just some of the challenges with tracking hate crimes like anti-Semitism. The Halle synagogue shooting in Germany, which occurred on October 9th, 2019, during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, serves as a tragic reminder that anti-Semitism among the radical right often directly… Continue reading “Unquantified Prejudice: The Challenges Of Tracking Hate Crimes”
In the last month, European countries witnessed a series of events that reinforce the surge of radical and extreme right movements, such as the rise of Vox as the third political force in Spain, the independence march of nationalism in Poland, or recent Italian polls predicting that radical right parties might reach 51.5% in the… Continue reading “The Role of Sovereignism for European Radical/Extreme Right Parties”
The hateful actions of the furthest fringes tend to be tolerated, downplayed or even ignored. In October 2019, England’s national football team played what should have been a humdrum European Championship qualifying match against Bulgaria in Sofia, the country’s capital. But the match soon made headlines for all the wrong reasons, being stopped twice because… Continue reading “Football fandom and fascist generals: Bulgaria’s radical right”
Call for Chapters Routledge Handbook of Non-Violent Extremism: Groups, Perspectives and New Debates Background For a long-time overshadowed by jihadi extremism, non-violent (or vocal) extremism has been the centre of inflamed political and academic debates throughout the world (Cordesman, 2017; Gilligan, 2019; Hamid, 2016; Wali, 2013; Whitespunner, 2018). This debate is fuelled by the massive… Continue reading “Call for Chapters: New Routledge Handbook on Non-Violent Extremism”
For decades, anti-Semitism has been a steady ideological feature of radical-right violence and terrorism in Germany. The suspect in the terrorist attack on a synagogue in the German city of Halle in October, 27-year-old Stephan B., was driven by anti-Semitism and a radical-right worldview. After the murder of Walter Lübcke in June, this was the second deadly… Continue reading “Anti-Semitism Continues to Be a Steady Feature Among Germany’s Radicals”
Militiamen of Ukraine’s nationalist movement are espousing white supremacist views. This is one of the challenges Ukrainian President Zelensky is facing. On October 10, during a “marathon” press conference in Kiev, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that it is impossible to separate the opposing forces of the Ukrainian army and the forces of the self-proclaimed republics in the… Continue reading “Zelensky Struggles To Contain Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Problem”
The Nazis of my generation grew up. They have kids now. But they still carry the hate of their teenage years. On the day the Berlin Wall fell, as it happened, I almost died. Constipated from too much chocolate, I battled for my life in an east-Berlin hospital with my panic-stricken mother at my bedside,… Continue reading “30 years after the Berlin Wall fell, the far right has come of age”
Throughout world history, women have not only been targets of the radical right, they have also been one of the leading forces combatting them. In July of 2019, Donald Trump launched an attack on four female congresswomen who have consistently challenged his use of rhetoric that has time and time again risked inflaming racial tensions… Continue reading “Women’s History Of Combatting The Radical Right”