The Radical Right During Crisis - Группа авторов

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href="#ulink_82e74eaf-5864-584d-afb6-e9f12d534e45">5 It is precisely the mutual reinforcement of facing a perceived existential threat, coupled with the conspiratorial narrative of a culpable establishment, that serves to legitimise violence and empower individuals to act upon this “threat”. Thus, even if such acts are committed by lone actors, they take place in the context of open hostility towards minorities, “elites”, “old parties”, and democratic procedures.

       From radical milieus to terrorist subcultures

      Right-wing terrorists are often linked to radical milieus from which they receive not only ideological, but also infrastructural and organisational support. These support structures are integral to traditional forms of (right-wing) terrorism. However, some of the most recent perpetrators of right-wing terrorist attacks did not rely on group logistics or specific networks to carry out their actions. Although the individuals who committed the attacks were not integrated into far-right organisational structures and could therefore not expect any support from them, they still conformed to extremist subcultures that follow their own norms and values. For example, the perpetrators of both the Christchurch and Halle attacks in March and October 2019, respectively, uploaded so-called manifestos online, which contained many references to relevant Chan communities, demonstrating that they saw themselves as part of a transnational virtual subculture of white supremacists.

      With these performative online actions, perpetrators consciously address a transnational audience, formulating their ideological set pieces in such a way that transcends national borders and languages and can be understood by a far-right audience “in the know”. Thus, this digitally mediated form of right-wing terrorism can no longer be understood in the absence of the wider transnational context. In particular, image-based forums such as 4Chan and 8kun (previously 8Chan) are used by the extreme right not only as a space for inspiring new lone actor terrorists, but also as a means to express their ideology with humorous and ironic discourses, thereby making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between organised action and individual acts of provocation.

       Trivialising mass violence

      One key tactic here is to reach out to the wider spectrum of the far-right sub-movements; that is, individuals who do not necessarily fall under the extreme end of the spectrum, but who may hold anti-immigration sentiments, support radical right-wing populist parties and politicians, and/or believe that freedom of expression is threatened by a culture of “political correctness”. Amongst the extreme right, these sub-movements are referred to as the “normies”; the far-right view such individuals as potential target audiences that can be radicalised through exploiting the above grievances.

       Grasping the intangible

      In terms of long-term prospects, it is important to place more attention on the cultural practices of the radical online milieus from which right-wing extremists emerge. Above all, this requires familiarity with transnational online cultures of the far-right; namely, their codes, ironic references, language, and frames. Corresponding clues could then be matched with more conspicuous features that point to the planning of violent acts. Such nuances and sub-text can be difficult to identify, and therefore stronger analytical capacity within and across tech companies is important. Whilst hashes may help to identify certain images, an additional level of human content moderation is vital to decipher these codes.

      Reem Ahmed is a researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy and doctoral candidate at the University of Hamburg.

      Maik Fielitz is a Doctoral Fellow at CARR and a researcher at the Jena Institute for Democracy.

      Barbara Manthe

      The racist attack in Hanau on 19 February 2020 has left Germany with the question of whether the problem of radical right terrorism has been wrongly addressed so far. After the murder of Walter Lübcke in June 2019 and the anti-Semitic attack in Halle in October the same year, the Hanau attack was the third fatal crime in just nine months. The series of attacks seems to be an expression of a radicalised right-wing terrorist milieu that inspires perpetrators

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