Nationalism a bigger worry in trigger-happy U.S.
The world sees the U.S. declining rapidly
LONDON — “White nationalist terrorism.” “America’s new civil war.” “‘Domestic terrorists’ devastate the U.S.” After two mass shootings rocked the United States last weekend, headlines from Sydney to Paris depicted the bloodshed as the United States battling itself.
International reactions to previous mass shootings focused on the ubiquity of guns in the United States — a culture that many people around the globe see as alien — and their role in making it the world’s most violent highly developed country.
But in the days since a gunman killed 22 people and injured dozens more at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, attention has shifted to the toxic mixture of racism, nationalism and terrorism — along with the easy availability of firearms — and to President Donald Trump’s role in inflaming ethnic divisions. The horror was only compounded by a shooting hours later in Dayton, Ohio, that left nine people dead.
“People are used to the fact that in the United States, every month, a lot of people are killed by someone for no apparent reason,” said Josef Janning, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, based in Berlin. “And now it comes together with this trend in Western society of gut-feeling, tribal politics that inflames people rather than educate them.”
‘White Nationalist Terrorism’ in America
Minutes before the El Paso shooting, a hate-filled screed was posted online, apparently by the gunman, saying “this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas” — an echo of Trump’s description of immigration as an invasion. The statement espoused white supremacy, denounced immigration and praised the gunman who killed 51 Muslim worshippers in March at mosques in New Zealand.
It was that aspect of the attack, reflecting the rise of ethno-nationalism seen in many countries, that drew the most attention around the world. Spain’s El País newspaper framed the El Paso shooting as the “greatest racist crime against Hispanics in modern United States history.”
Eight Mexican citizens were killed in the El Paso massacre, and the news hit hard in Mexico, blanketing news coverage and social media, often with the phrase the Mexican government used, calling the attack an “act of terrorism.”
Some nations, such as Uruguay and Venezuela, issued warnings for their citizens travelling to the United States to beware of indiscriminate violence fuelled by hate, racism and discrimination.
Alejandro Hope, a crime analyst in Mexico City, noted that many countries have problems with white nationalism and hate speech, but said the combination of factors in El Paso was uniquely American.
“In Europe, there are violent extremists, ideological polarization and hate speech spread massively on social media,” he said on Twitter. “But there are not, save a few exceptions, mass shootings.”
“The problem is the unceasing availability of firearms in the U.S.,” he added.
Hateful Rhetoric With ‘Echoes of Trump’
The world has paid close attention to the increasingly bitter racial and political conflicts in the United States, and to Trump’s habit of throwing fuel on the flames — a pattern that was noted again and again in international responses to the shootings.
“People are very worried about what’s happening to the United States, about where the country is headed, in a way they weren’t a couple of years ago,” said Leslie Vinjamuri, the head of the United States and the Americas program at Chatham House, a London international affairs institute.
“Now people see the white nationalism, they see a president who uses racist language, who has no problem undermining the most fundamental norms, so they are seeing the gun violence in a different light,” she said.
Before taking office, Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, said that Mexican immigrants included drug dealers and rapists, and spent years promoting the false theory that president Barack Obama was born in Kenya. As president, Trump declined to condemn white supremacist marchers, reportedly described predominantly black nations as “shithole countries,” denigrated minority public figures and repeatedly described Latin American immigration as an invasion.
In an editorial, the French newspaper Le Monde linked Trump’s words to the spread of violent ideologies. “The president of the United States cannot be held directly responsible for the two killings of the weekend,” it said, “but his speech fuels hatred.”
The Times of India carried the news headline “Fingers point at Trump for stoking racism and xenophobia.”
Mark Pitzke, a writer for the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, wrote in an opinion column headlined “America’s new civil war” that the El Paso gunman’s statement of “cultural and ethnic displacement” included ideas once considered on the fringe that have become mainstream in recent years.
“For a long time, such thoughts remained consigned to obscure forums online,” Pitzke wrote. “Then the insanity spilled over into the real world, thanks to Twitter, Fox News and, above all, thanks to Trump, who often propagates radical conspiracy theories and employs their representatives to warm up the crowds at his election rallies.”
On Monday, a day after the second attack, #WhiteSupremicistInChief was trending on Twitter, as tens of thousands used the hashtag to share comments about the attacks and their views of Trump.
Former president Felipe Calderon of Mexico pointed to a firearms market in which guns sold in the United States flow into Mexico, where killings have reached the highest rate in more than 20 years.
In New Zealand, that country’s government reacted swiftly after a mass killing, banning semi-automatic weapons within weeks. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern
said she did not understand why the United States had not taken action on gun reform.
But where mass shootings once prompted bewilderment that the United States did not change its laws, increasingly they are met with grim resignation.
“Every time there’s an outcry about guns and a demand for change and then it doesn’t lead anywhere, and what people take from it is that obviously the majority culture in the United States does not want guns regulated,” Janning, the Berlinbased analyst, said.