Understand it to counter it
The danger of not understanding contemporary fascism is it can hide in plain sight, writes Andrew Dean.
Some time after the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre massacres on March 15 last year, the alleged killer’s ideas remain live in far-right political circles. Online commenters still celebrate his manifesto, which circulates freely. The alleged perpetrator of one recent US shooting, which left one person dead and three injured, wrote of his support for the alleged Christchurch shooter and his manifesto.
But the New Zealand public’s understanding of the origins of far-right attacks remains limited. Where do racist mass shootings come from? Is there an active far-right in New Zealand – and what are its international connections? How do we ensure that something like this never happens again?
The Government’s responses to the events of March 15 have focused on technology companies and automatic weapons. It is to its credit that it moved swiftly to limit access to the latter. And while it will be a longer struggle to hold the tech companies accountable, the Government is taking the right steps there.
However, these responses are not enough by themselves. It is not simply up to politicians to resolve the problem of an expanding and radicalising farright. A wider culture, one that stands opposed to fascism, needs to be more fully embedded in New Zealand. The first step is for all of us to more fully understand the origins and nature of the farright today, so we can identify and, ultimately, counter it.
To do that, we need to know more about contemporary fascism. The media has already begun investigating the alleged perpetrator’s background, but we need much more of this reporting, whether through a documentary or a series of longform investigative pieces.
It would be helpful if this work took in the wider national and international contexts. Such sustained work, one hopes, will emerge after the alleged attacker’s trial, in order to avoid contempt of court proceedings.
Work of this nature must be publicly accessible and nationally discussed. It was only in the wake of the Christchurch attacks that long-displayed white supremacist symbols began to be recognised as such. Christchurch tradesman Philip Arps was convicted of sharing a video of the mosque shootings, yet for some time he had driven around the city with the price of his insulation on the side of his vans, $14.88 per square metre.
This is a direct reference to a white supremacist slogan – 14 for the ‘‘14 words’’ of American white supremacist David Lane, and ‘‘88’’ for the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, which here means ‘‘Heil Hitler’’. His business featured other Nazi branding. All this had been hidden in plain sight for some time.
The danger of not
It is not simply up to politicians to resolve the problem of an expanding and radicalising far-right.
understanding contemporary fascism is further shown by the controversy surrounding white supremacist organising at the University of Auckland. Administrators refused to take any active stand when a far-right group pasted up posters around campus rehearsing beliefs about ‘‘white genocide’’.
Vice-Chancellor Stuart McCutcheon said there was a ‘‘balancing act [. . .] between the rights of the people to free speech and the rights of people not to be upset by things’’.
However, after the events of the last decade, it should scarcely require reiterating that free speech debates are not appropriate ways to respond to far-right organising.
One cannot remain neutral on Nazi imagery and the intimidation of ethnic minorities, nor should one let the ‘‘debate’’ play out – there is no real debate to be had with actual Nazis. White supremacists need to be identified as such, and combatted.
To aid us, we can turn to recent books like Fascists Among Us: Online hate and the Christchurch massacre , by Australian writer Jeff Sparrow.
It explains the significance of far-right references to obscure historical battles, to books that few of us have heard of, and to long-buried theories about the environment and population decline. Sparrow notes that online manifestos of convicted and alleged far-right terrorists over the last decade tend to cite and gain inspiration from each other. Read together, they form a political programme for the farright.
To repair our society following the Christchurch attacks, we must learn to identify – and fight – these dangerous actors and their appalling propaganda. We can all play our part in the struggle to end the hate spreading online and through our communities, and replace it with hope. This is difficult and uncomfortable work, yet necessary if we are to build a better society. Perhaps we could each think of this as our own ‘‘Christchurch call’’.