"... a global fight to root out racist right-wing ideology following last week's deadly attack on two mosques in Christchurch."
That is a worthy aim, and one which has been pursued by many thousands of anti-Fascists of all hues since the founding of the Nazi Party in Germany,1920, and Mussolini's National Fascist Party in Italy, 1919. The trouble is that it's not as easy to identify the extreme right as it once was. When the S.A. paraded through German cities in the 1920s, you had an enemy you could recognise; it's not so easy now. There are still fascist groups who take to the streets in Europe and the USA, and it's possible to identify them easily. The Christchurch attacker, Brenton Tarrant, however, though an obvious right-wing extremist, wasn't even on a terrorist watchlist, nor does he seem to have appeared on right-wing demonstrations anywhere.
The problem, of course, is that Tarrant, and others like him, including jihadis, are being radicalised by the internet in the privacy of their homes. Even if identified by the security forces, it does not follow that they are planning terrorism. We sometimes describe terrorists radicalised in this way as "lone wolves", but I believe this to be a slight misnomer. If these people, jihadi and fascist, are being radicalised by what they see on the internet (the Dark Web, in Tarrant's case), then, strictly speaking, they are not acting alone. They do not have the support of an organised group, but they do have a cyberspace community from which they draw inspiration and strength. As Foreign Policy says:
"...the perpetrators operate in isolation from each other without direct communication or formal cooperation between them. But that doesn’t mean that these lone actors and autonomous cells don’t draw inspiration from each other."
There are, of course, many examples of so-called "lone wolf" attacks, many of which can be found listed on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Yet, if we look deeper, even the most murderous and disturbed of the "lone wolves" has operated with some support, logistical or otherwise. Take the case of the right-wing extremist, Timothy McVeigh, who carried out the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. As Wikipedia says:
" Terry Nichols was convicted of conspiring with him, though his involvement was limited to helping mix the fertilizer and other bomb ingredients; McVeigh had threatened to harm him and his family if he did not help".
Robert Gregory Bowers, who has been charged with the murders of eleven people during the Pittsburgh Synagogue attack on October 27 last year, drew much of his "inspiration" from websites such as Gab and other extremist outlets. Should we continue to use the term "lone wolf"?
Here in the UK, I myself have noted that the struggle against far-right ideas has changed, if not become more difficult, in recent years. In the 1970s, when arguing against the National Front and others, describing the neo-Nazi past of NF leaders and their aims was highly effective, and it was a relatively straightforward matter to discredit the NF and others. It comes as an unpleasant surprise to learn that one in twenty British people does not believe the Holocaust took place. As WW2 becomes further away in time, people's understanding of what the Holocaust was, and what Fascism is, seems to be weakening. As "The Guardian" says:
"One in 20 British adults do not believe the Holocaust happened, and 8% say that the scale of the genocide has been exaggerated, according to a poll marking Holocaust Memorial Day.
Almost half of those questioned said they did not know how many Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, and one in five grossly underestimated the number, saying that fewer than two million were killed".
Besides this, it comes as a nasty shock to learn that some counter-terrorist experts now believe that far-right extremists pose a serious threat in my home turf of the north of England, following the Christchurch attack. The highest number of referrals to Prevent have been made in my home region. One expert, "Simon", told the BBC:
"We've got former mill towns and cities across the north where this ideology, that white people are supposedly superior to everyone else, is growing and becoming more entrenched. I've no doubt that there are far-right extremists across the north who are planning to use violence to target Muslim or Jewish communities.They'll harbour the ambition to copy what happened in Christchurch"
Lest we dismiss this as alarmist, let's not forget that one Yorkshire fascist, Thomas Mair, murdered Jo Cox, MP, and that Leeds, in particular, has a grim history of neo-Nazi violence dating back to the 1970s. Remember also, that while the fascists in UK don't have the same access to firearms as their "brethren" have in the USA, hate crime continues to rise across Britain. As the BBC says:
"The number of religious or racially motivated hate crimes in England and Wales, increased from 37,417 in 2013-14 to 79,587 in 2017-18, according to the Home Office."
Jacinda Ardern is right to call for a campaign against racism worldwide, but I don't see it happening when the threat of Islamic terrorism remains so serious. Also, I doubt that "the Fash" will change their ways because of the horror and condemnation of the Christchurch massacre. In their twisted little worlds, they will be gloating about it and someone, somewhere, will be planning their next attack.
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