Far-Right Extremisms and Prejudice: Global Islamophobias and Antisemitisms

It is, perhaps, the link to the Christchurch attacker, whose attack and motives are linked to a range of white supremacist groups and an Islamophobic narrative that ties this youth to the epithet, ‘far-right’. However, as an Indian, he presumably did not draw from white supremacist narratives, while his ideological underpinning as a Christian contrasted with that of the Christchurch attacker’s Neo-Pagan inclinations. It is hard to see, from what we know, what may mark this youth as being politically right-wing, yet he has been called a ‘far-right’ extremist rather than a ‘Christian’ extremist. Conversely, those inspired by militant neo-Islamic jihadism ideology are never termed far-right extremists. But a clear link of this youth to typical far-right ideology is Islamophobia.

Islamophobia and Contemporary Far-Right Extremism

As much as far-right extremism has roots in white supremacism, often linked to a Christian or (Neo-)Pagan heritage⁴, Muslims will typically be cast as an out-group. Nevertheless, hostility to Muslims is not inherent. The Nazis sought allies amongst Arab nationalists, and the Muslim leader, Hajji Amin Al-Husseini (1895-1974), mufti of Jerusalem, spent much of the 1930s in Germany. However, for European – and hence Western – minds, the spectre of Muslims as threat has brewed as an image from at least the time of the Crusades⁵. Meanwhile, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and then the 9/11 attack have heightened a perception of Muslims as the prime enemy, related also to the end of the Cold War and the need to manufacture a new enemy⁶.

Examples of Western Islamophobia are rife, even at the political table: in the USA, Trump’s travel ban on primarily Muslim countries; in the Netherlands, the rhetoric of populist politicians such as Geert Wilders; and the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, mocked Muslim women in burkas as letterboxes, which resulted in, or, he may argue, coincidentally coincided with, a spike of assaults on Muslim women⁷. While not only a facet of the political right, smearing and targeting of Muslims is part of the playbook of many populist politicians. Meanwhile, from the American Proud Boys to the British English Defence League, militant violence and intimidation are often targeted against Muslims⁸.

Outside the West⁹, Muslims have become the particular fixation of militant Hindu nationalists. While the memory of Mughal conquests and tension with Pakistan is part of this, it has also been fed by colonial narratives. In the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny, or First War of Independence of 1857, it served British purposes to paint Muslims as disloyal and liable to revolt. In Sri Lanka, following the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, the search for a new enemy by militant Buddhist nationalists led to Muslims becoming the target of choice. For militant Zionist settlers, Palestinians (who are not all Muslims) have been cast as like the biblical Amalekites, the fiercest enemies of the Jewish people who must be expelled from the land of Israel to fulfil God’s commands.

Being right-wing politically does not, of course, make anyone inevitably Islamophobic. But across the far-right, Islamophobia is built into the national and international networks. For instance, Hindu nationalists have developed alliances with European Neo-Pagan extremists, and the Trump-Modi bromance seemed to have a strong Islamophobic sentiment¹⁰.

Intersectional Prejudice: Muslims, Jews, Blacks, Women, Etc.

Some castigate intersectionality as politically-correct rhetoric; however, it highlights at least two well-documented features of prejudice¹¹. First, prejudice often hits hardest at the intersection of oppressions, so Black women – more than simply Black people or women – often bear the bigger brunt of discrimination. Second, prejudice does not normally occur against just one group; Islamophobes typically hate many others, and targets of typical far-right hatreds include Jews, socialists, Blacks, intellectuals, and women amongst others.

Focusing on antisemitism, the Nazi connection of many groups means we should expect this prejudice. The controversial Republican congresswoman, and Trump advocate, Marjorie Taylor Greene has suggested that Jewish space lasers were responsible for last summer’s forest fires in California¹². The 2017 Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, USA, saw open chants of “blood and soil”, an old Nazi chant – though these days it may also reference the Great Replacement theory in which white supremacists believe Muslims are demographically taking over Europe and other Western nations (Jews are often believed to be orchestrating this)¹³.

Antisemitism also links to Hindu and Buddhist extremists, with the former having direct Nazi links. During the 1940s, an agreement was reached for some Hindu nationalist information to be placed in German newspapers in return for antisemitic content being spread in India amongst Hindus¹⁴. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan militant Buddhist nationalist Anagarika Dharmapala drew direct parallels between his hatred and incitement of violence against Muslims in the 1915 riots to Jews¹⁵. As such, despite Western roots, antisemitism is part of both the Hindu and Buddhist far-right.

An exception is, of course, militant Zionist settlers, though they do attack Jews who defend the rights of Palestinians – the 1990s Oslo peace process was derailed in large measure by a militant Jew murdering Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Moreover, many right-wing Jewish figures readily work alongside antisemites; much US Evangelical Christian Right support for Israel is not based upon a love and respect for Jews, but a belief that when all Jews return to Israel it will usher in Jesus’ Second Coming, with a resultant Middle Eastern war killing almost all Jews¹⁶.

Antisemitism is not only limited to the far-right, having deep Christian roots, and with left-wing antisemitism existing¹⁷. There is also a modern trend of Muslim antisemitism which counters traditional Islamic understandings of Jews as ahl al-kitab (People of the Book) and ahl al-dhimma (protected people, often dhimmis), drawing instead from Western, especially colonial and Nazi, impulses¹⁸. While I have focused on antisemitism, it is not to downplay such things as prejudice against Black people, indigenous peoples, or women, with a diminution of women – and violence against them – being typical of the far-right.

No Benign Bigotry

It has not been my aim to argue that what marks out far-right extremism is Islamophobia. Rather, I have tried to note the often complex webs of prejudice that are today increasingly focused on Muslims as a common enemy by not just militant groups, but also populist politicians even in mainstream settings. The UK’s Baroness Warsi recently described Islamophobia as a socially acceptable prejudice, because it could pass the ‘dinner table test’¹⁹. In other words expressing it would not make one a social pariah, nor would it be considered out of place in polite conversation. The study of prejudice during the twentieth century has, however, taught us that there is no benign bigotry. Our stereotypes of groups, and words against them, all too readily lead to discriminatory actions and even killing or genocide. Prejudice against one of us, is probably also hatred against another of us, and undoubtedly a harm to all of us²⁰.