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      The Taliban Uses Violence Against Women as a Bargaining Chip

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      After the collapse of the Afghan government last August, the only significant challenge to the Taliban’s primitive totalitarianism was mounted by women in big cities — the capital Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif in the north, and Herat in the west, among others. The Taliban’s approach to women’s rights brought fears of violence that engulfed the country in the 1990s when the Talibs first won power. But Afghan society has undergone considerable changes since then, and many Afghan women refuse to accept the militants’ restricted approach to their right to work and education.

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      In response, the Taliban have deployed various oppressive measures. In September, they replaced the Women’s Affairs Ministry with morality police, which enforces the armed group’s strict religious doctrine on the country. At the same time, while trying to confine women to their homes by forbidding them to work or study, the Taliban are using the threat of violence against women as a bargaining chip against the Western powers.

      Violent Tactics

      In September last year, the Taliban attacked the media to prevent them from covering the women’s protests in Kabul. Two Etilaatroz journalists were tortured. Etilaatroz is one of the leading Afghan newspapers and a critical voice mainly focused on investigative journalism. An attack on the newspaper was a clear signal for everyone covering the protests against the Taliban.

      Since the armed group took control of the country, at least 318 media outlets closed in 33 of 34 provinces and, according to the International Federation of Journalists, 72% of those who lost their jobs are women.

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      But the Taliban quickly changed their tactics to tackle women’s protests through more intimidating methods, including nighttime house searches to locate those who dared raise their voice. Tamana Zaryabi Paryani, a member of the movement demanding rights to work and education, is just one of the women taken from their homes in Kabul in the middle of the night; her whereabouts remain unknown. Some families report being contacted by detainees from Taliban prisons in undisclosed locations.

      The Taliban deny capturing, detaining or killing women and other opponents. This tactic aims to mislead public opinion, the media and policymakers in Western countries. The situation may be even more critical in the provinces, beyond the eyes of the media. In September last year, the Taliban killed a former police officer with the ousted Afghan government in front of her family in Gor province; she was pregnant at the time of her murder.

      There is no way to assess the true number of disappeared women across the country. Some of them are known by the media, such Mursal Ayar, Parwana Ibrahimkhel, Tamana Paryani, Zahra Mohammadi and Alia Azizi. Most of them belong to the protest movement against the Taliban’s policies. Azizi worked as a senior female prison official in Herat and went missing when the Taliban took control of the city. Amnesty International urged the Taliban to investigate the case and release her “immediately and unconditionally” if she is in their custody.

      Last week, the UN repeated its call and asked the Taliban to release the disappeared women activists and their relatives. The German Embassy, currently operating from Qatar, has called for an investigation into the missing women. It is entirely possible that the Taliban will eventually release some of the captives, claiming that they were rescued from the clutches of the kidnappers, in order to portray themselves as a responsible government.

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      Gang rape is another tactic that the Taliban deploy against women in detention. The Independent reports that last September, bodies of eight detainees arrested during a protest in Mazar-e Sharif were discovered. According to reports, the girls were repeatedly gang-raped and tortured by the Taliban. Sexual assault is a many-sided weapon against women in a society based on strict honor codes. Some of those who survived the rapes were killed by their families.

      In January, The Times reported that the staff in the government-run Mazar-e Sharif Regional Hospital claim that they receive around 15 bodies from Taliban fighters each month — mostly women with gunshot wounds to the head or chest.

      Bargaining Chip

      Violence has been the Taliban’s primary tool both in war and during negotiations with Western powers. Over the course of two decades of conflict, the Taliban used violence as a means to win recognition as a political force. During their talks with the US and the Afghan government, the Taliban escalated violence to enhance their position at the negotiating table. Now, they are pursuing the same strategy by trading repression for recognition.

      Since the Taliban took control of the country, women’s rights are a constant subject of ongoing diplomatic discussions that have so far brought no result. The international community has failed to press the Taliban to form an inclusive government and respect women’s rights.

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      But the armed group wants the international community to recognize their government. In January, a Taliban delegation was invited to Oslo to talk with Western powers and representatives of Afghan women for the first time. At the meeting, Hoda Khamosh, a civil society activist, asked the Taliban delegation: “why are the Taliban imprisoning us in Kabul and now sitting here at the negotiating table with us in Oslo? What is the international community doing in the face of all this torture and repression?”

      Since then, nothing has changed. The reality is that the Taliban used the talks in Oslo as an opportunity to make an international appearance to advertise their government. They are deploying precepts like women’s rights to force more international engagement. While Norway was criticized for inviting the Taliban and offering them exposure, Switzerland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that it invited the Taliban to talk about “the protection of humanitarian actors and respect for human rights.”

      The Taliban is an ideological, zealot religious movement, and years of experience suggest that they are unlikely to revise their position on women’s rights and other fundamental issues, including human rights and political pluralism. Talking about women’s rights in Western capitals is just an opportunity for them to normalize their regime and travel abroad. Human rights violations, particularly violence against women, not only serve the Taliban’s ideological purposes but have turned into a convenient bargaining chip against the international community.

      It is critical that Western powers support fundamental human rights in the country without providing the Taliban with opportunities for blackmail, implementig realistic measures to press the group to release activists and to respect women’s rights. First, it is important to maintain or escalate the current sanctions regime against the Taliban leadership. Second, making sure that there is no rush to recognize the Taliban regime mong foreign governments is another key leverage point.

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      Third, there is a need to appoint a special rapporteur to monitor the human rights situation and document violations to hold the Taliban accountable. Fourth, it is important to extend and support the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan to help monitor the human rights situation in the country.

      Finally, the international community can continue its humanitarian support through UN agencies and other organizations without recognizing the Taliban. Recognition of the group will not only increase human rights abuses but will send the wrong signal to other extremists in the region. All these measures will reduce the Taliban’s ability to use violence as a bargaining chip against the international community.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The Pashtun-led Taliban Could Break Apart Both Afghanistan and Pakistan

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      More than a century ago, the Russians and the British played the Great Game for the control of Afghanistan. Immortalized in Rudyard Kipling’s “Kim,” this game defined three generations of soldiers, spies and diplomats. As the remarkable Rory Stewart records, the Great Game never ended. The Soviets and the Americans carried on where the Russians and the British left. Now, a new great game is about to begin.

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      As is well chronicled, Afghanistan emerged as a buffer state between the Russian and British empires. Dominated by the Pashtuns, this state remained an inchoate entity of competing ethnic groups, feuding clans and autonomous villages. As Tabish Forugh and one of the authors noted in an earlier article on Fair Observer, this Pashtun-dominated order crumbled when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The Taliban brought back this order in the 1990s and are establishing Pashtun primacy yet again.

      New Life to Old Identities

      Modernity has not been kind to Afghanistan. Until the 1970s, this country was a land where hippies showed up to smoke pot and have a good time. Older Pakistani friends reminisce about driving from Peshawar to Kabul to buy videotapes of Bollywood movies and bask in the relatively liberal milieu of Afghanistan. When the Soviets intervened in 1979, this idyllic version of the country disintegrated. For all the efforts of Soviet troops, engineers and administrators, communism failed.

      By February 1989, Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan. Later that year, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union itself imploded in 1991. The loosely allied mujahideen turned their guns on each other and a bloody civil war followed. The Tajiks, the Uzbeks and the Pashtuns were at each other’s throats. Eventually, the Pakistani-trained, Islamabad-backed, Pashtun-led Taliban triumphed in 1996. Their rule was cut short by the 9/11 attacks in 2001, which brought American intervention and began a 20-year experiment with democracy.

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      Sadly, the democratic experiment has failed too. In June 2021, Forugh and one of the authors wrote that President Ashraf Ghani occupied “his fancy palace in Kabul thanks to the barrels of American guns,” and, once the Americans left, he would be toast. Americans established a presidential system based on their own model that was destined to fail in a famously diverse and fractious society. Note that the US leaders after World War II chose parliamentary democracy for Germany and Japan, two industrial societies with a far higher degree of homogeneity. If Washington blundered at the beginning, its decisions were catastrophic at the end. Today, democracy is dead and buried, the fanatical Taliban rule the roost and ethnic identity is replacing fragile multiethnic Afghan nationalism.

      The Rise of Ethnic Nationalism

      As stated earlier, Afghanistan is where two expanding empires met. The British had digested modern-day Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, then British India. The Russians had taken over an odd assortment of clans and khanates in Central Asia, many of whom were descendants of Genghis Khan and Timur. Just like the boundaries drawn by the British or the French, the Russian ones were arbitrary too. As ethnic nationalism rises in Afghanistan, it will spill over into Central Asia.

      As late as February 2020, the US State Department declared that “a secure and stable Afghanistan [was] a top priority for the Central Asian governments.” It encouraged these governments to boost economic and trade ties with their Kabul counterparts. American hopes for “stable governance of multi-ethnic, Muslim-majority countries” now lie in tatters. Kazakhstan demonstrates that Russian realpolitik of supporting strongmen has triumphed.

      Yet even the Kremlin cannot hold back the tide of ethnic nationalism that is unfolding in Afghanistan and spreading to Central Asia. The Tajiks led by Amrullah Saleh and Ahmad Massoud have the tacit, if not explicit, support of the Tajikistan government. The Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum fled to Uzbekistan when the Taliban took over. As the Pashtuns leave not even scraps at the table for others, it is only natural that minority ethnicities are looking across the border for a better future. Just as in former Yugoslavia, ethnic nationalism is now on the rise in Central Asia.

      Pakistan’s Frankenstein Monster’s Problem: Radical Islam

      To a large degree, Pakistan has fostered, if not created, the ethnic nationalism now rising in Afghanistan and spilling over into Central Asia. It is an open secret that Pakistan’s military elite created the Taliban. As Ishtiaq Ahmed explains, “the Garrison State” has always been paranoid about its lack of strategic depth. The loss of East Pakistan that won independence as Bangladesh in 1971 has scarred the Pakistani psyche and made the country’s political elites double down on political Islam. In the 1980s, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq moved Pakistan along a fundamentalist arc. Jihad became the order of the day not only against the Soviets in Afghanistan but also against India, which he sought to “bleed through a thousand cuts.”

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      Zia was not an exception to Pakistani hostility to India. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the man Zia ousted through a military coup and hung on the gallows, vowed to wage a “thousand year war against India.” In 1974, Pakistani mobs massacred thousands of Ahmadis and, instead of delivering them protection or justice, Bhutto brought in a constitutional amendment declaring the Ahmadis non-Muslims. The same year, he declared Pakistan would go nuclear, claiming “We shall eat grass but have our bomb.” Islamic fundamentalism and Pavlovian anti-India ethos drive Pakistani state policy regardless of whether the country is under civil or military rule. 

      Backed by the US and Saudi Arabia, the Pakistan-backed mujahideen brought the Soviet Union to its knees. Against India, Pakistan has followed an asymmetric strategy of championing irregulars, insurgent and terrorists from its very inception. In the first of a three-part series analyzing the fallout of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, Rakesh Kaul points out how Pakistan supported a Pashtun jihad in Kashmir as early as 1947. The marauding tribesmen killed Kaul’s great-grandfather, “tied his dead body to a horse and dragged it through the streets to terrorize the local population into submission.”

      Starting from the 1980s, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) unleashed terror as an instrument of state policy against India. First, the ISI backed the violent Sikh insurgency for an independent state of Khalistan, a strategy that it continues with till today. Second, the ISI supported the insurgency in Kashmir that blew up in 1989 and persists till today. Third, the ISI created and supported militant jihadist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed to overwhelm India through multiple terrorist attacks. With a crisis-ridden economy and much smaller military, Pakistan has bet on asymmetric terror tactics and nuclear deterrence to tie India down.

      However, Pakistan is discovering that when you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. Like Victor Frankenstein, the Garrison State has created a monster: radical Islam. Since the 1980s, Pakistan has become intolerant, sectarian and violent. Minorities have faced persecution and suffered ethnic cleansing. The case of the animistic Kalash people in Chitral is a case in point. Many documentaries have recorded how they have faced persistent persecution and forced conversion. As a result, a mere 3,500 Kalash are left and they may not survive for too long.

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      Radical Islam was meant to be a tool the Pakistani state used against its neighbors. Now, it has spread like cancer throughout all aspects of the country’s life. Instead of Pakistan’s corrupt and inefficient government, madrasas now provide education for refugees and lower-class Pakistanis. Many of them are hardline and churn out jihadis by the thousands. For instance, most of the Afghani Taliban leadership graduated from the madrasa Dur-ul-Uloom Haqqania.

      Religious figures can now bring the country over a standstill in an instant. Violent protests repeatedly erupted after French President Emmanuel Macron said that Islam was in crisis. Terror attacks within Pakistan have shot up. Roohafza, a sugary syrupy drink, has replaced whiskey in officer messes. Many officers now sport flowing beards and offer prayer five times a day. In the words of Javed Jabbar, Pakistan has experienced “a steady retreat into showy religiosity and visible piety in the public domain and in most media.” A new law makes it compulsory for every child to learn Arabic.

      Pakistan finds itself in a bind. It has to direct the thousands of jihadis graduating from madrasas against external enemies to avoid internecine strife. In fact, it is only a question of time before radical Islamists will infiltrate all organs of the Pakistani state. The Taliban’s victory has convinced them that Allah is on their side. The risks of a general like Zia or a cleric like Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini taking over and unleashing nuclear terror or nuclear war are getting higher by the day.

      Radical Islam and Pashtun Pride Make an Explosive Cocktail

      If radical Islam is dangerous, radical Islam combined with ethnic nationalism is terrifying. After 20 years, the Pashtun-led Taliban is back in power. They are surging with confidence after humbling the world’s superpower. This time, they are battle-hardened, better trained and savvier than their predecessors from the 1990s. The Taliban also have a strong sense of history and look back to the expansionist 18th-century Ahmed Shah Durrani as a model to follow. 

      Durrani was a historic figure who sent troops to Central Asia, defeated the Marathas in the historic 1761 Third Battle of Panipat with assistance of local Muslim rulers and created the modern nation of Afghanistan. Durrani’s young nation soon fell victim to the Great Game and lost much territory to the British. Led by Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, the British delineated the modern-day border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Till date, many Pashtuns have not accepted this border.

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      The Taliban are expansionists. In the north, the Tajiks and the Uzbeks will fight a guerilla war, ensuring their eventual retreat. To the west lie Turkmenistan and Iran, two ethnically distinct entities where the Taliban cannot expand. To the south and east lies Pakistan where the Taliban trained and where their Pashtun kin reside. Furthermore, the Pashtuns have a deep memory of raiding and ruling the plains of Indus and the Ganges. When Babur swept down from modern-day Uzbekistan to modern-day Pakistan and India through the Khyber Pass, he defeated a Pashtun sultan who was ruling Delhi.

      When Pakistan won independence, Pashtun opinion was divided. Some like Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar wanted a homeland for Muslim Indians in the shape of Pakistan. Others like Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a friend of Mahatma Gandhi, fought for a unified India and then for an autonomous Pashtunistan. Still others wanted reunification with Afghanistan. Worryingly for Pakistan, Pashtun refugees have streamed into the country from Afghanistan since 1979. Encyclopedia Britannica tells us that there were “about 11 million Pashtun in Afghanistan and 25 million in Pakistan in the early 21st century.” Multiple estimates indicate Pashtuns to be over 15% of Pakistan’s population. In Afghanistan, they comprise about 42% of the population. Once all-out ethnic conflict erupts in Afghanistan, Pashtun identity is only likely to strengthen.

      So far, the Punjabi elite running Pakistan has co-opted the Pashtun elite by giving it plum positions in the state apparatus, especially the military. The ruling elite has also used Pashtuns to fight wars and proxy wars in Kashmir since 1947 when both India and Pakistan emerged as two independent entities after the partition of British India. During the 20 years of US presence in Afghanistan, cross-border incursions into and violent incidents in Kashmir declined because Pashtuns were too busy fighting a jihad at home. Now, these jihadis will turn their attention to Kashmir.

      Not all jihadis are fixated with Kashmir. Some of them are sworn enemies of the Pakistani state such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. With the victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistan may have achieved its long-cherished strategic depth against India, but it now has the tail of the Pashtun tiger in its hands. Pakistan’s ISI has no option but to deploy Pashtun jihadis against India in Kashmir. Failure on the Kashmir front could trigger Pashtun dissatisfaction against Punjabi leadership.

      A tiny wrinkle many forget is that Pashtuns see themselves as a warrior people and the natural leaders of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. They have successfully beaten back the British, the Soviets and the Americans. Pashtuns see the Punjabis as soft, loud and showy. Like the Balochs, the Sindhis, the Muhajirs and others, Pashtuns resent the Punjabi domination of Pakistan. Furthermore, many Pashtuns regard the banks of the Indus, not the Durand Line, as their natural border.

      Blood Borders

      Pakistan’s Pashtun problem is a particular example of a more widespread phenomenon. Most of the current borders in Africa, the Middle East and Asia are colonial legacies that do not make sense. In 2006, Ralph Peters published a controversial article in Armed Forces Journal titled “Blood Borders” where he argued for redrawing “arbitrary and distorted borders.” Peters took the view that “significant ‘cheated’ population groups, such as the Kurds, Baluch and Arab Shia” deserved their own states. He blamed “awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries,” not Islam, for much of the violence in the Middle East and South Asia.

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      Since 2006, many analysts have slammed Peters. The US has resolutely upheld the stability of the borders in former British and French colonies even as it has championed the independence of nations once under the Soviet yoke. That policy might be nearing the end of its shelf life. In its moment of triumph in Afghanistan, Pakistan might have set wheels into motion that will lead to its own disintegration.

      Today, Pakistan is held together by an anti-India Islamic identity. The different linguistic ethnic groups that comprise Pakistan have long been pulling in different directions. Therefore, Pakistan has fostered a siege mentality among its people and created an identity that looks to Arab, Turkish and Pashtun conquerors of India for inspiration. Pashtun identity is far more cohesive, time-tested and real. After humbling the US, Pashtuns are unlikely to play second fiddle to the Punjabis for much longer. Inevitably, they are bound to take charge of their own destiny as they have done many times in the past.

      To add fuel to the fire, Pakistan’s economy is in dire straits. Last year, the International Monetary Fund instituted yet another bailout and released $6 billion to Islamabad in November. Over the last three years, the Pakistani rupee has fallen by 30.5% against the US dollar. Inflation and unemployment are running high. In such circumstances, anti-India rhetoric is useful, desirable and essential to keep the country together. 

      Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has repeatedly condemned India’s “descent into fascism” and claimed that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP’s parent organization, of being Nazi-inspired entities. This puts pressure on Khan’s government and his military backers to act against such a toxic neighbor and evil enemy. The trouble for Khan and his delusional friends in Islamabad is that state coffers have little money to fund conflict with a far more prosperous and numerous India. Khan and co are riling up a mob that they are bound to disappoint. The last-ditch effort to keep Pakistan together would be war with India and, if Islamic radicals were to seize power in Islamabad, the risk of nuclear war would only turn too real.

      Whether conflict with India is conventional or nuclear will be determined by circumstances in the future. It is clear that the Taliban have unleashed ethnic nationalism not only in Afghanistan but also in neighboring Central Asian states. Inevitably, the Pashtuns in Pakistan will be infected by that sentiment as well, especially as Islamabad leads the country to economic and military disaster. The scenario Peters conjured of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier tribes reuniting with their Afghan brethren and creating Pashtunistan would then come true. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan would no longer be the same again.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The Fusion of Polish Nationalist Groups and Roman Catholicism

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      It should not come as a surprise that in Poland, a country where “Catholicism has gained institutional status and an official place within civil society,” religion is being exploited for political activism, including radical ones.

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      Of course, not all nationalist far-right groups have connections with religion and the churches, but in contemporary Poland, the majority of far-right organizations are considered Catholic. According to one expert on the Polish nationalist movement, Catholicism in its nationalistic depictions has various dimensions — civilizational, moral, historical and political. This makes Polish right-wing groups an exception and an interesting topic in the field of studies on the far right, particularly as, for some scholars, “religion remains conspicuously absent in concepts of the radical right.”

      National Radical Camp: A Key Expression

      The National Radical Camp (ONR) serves as an example of how a far-right group frequently uses religious argumentation in its political activity. Strong attachment to God is part of the ONR’s ideological guidelines. The first point in the guidelines called, “Salvation — an ultimate goal of a human being” can be perceived as ONR’s confession of faith. The group says that these guidelines are the commandments of “the traditional Catholic Church” that lead people to discover truth. Belief in God, as an undisputed principle, also becomes a guiding rule in political life. The group further states: “Highlighting the enormous role of Catholicism, which for thousands of years has been a cultural principle, a pillar of Polishness and an anchor of national identity, we pursue the vision of Great Poland as a country soaked with Catholic spirit.”

      The idea of building a nationalist program on a firm religious base extends into the ONR’s publications, both online and in print. For example, in the group’s National Horizon magazine, there is an article on the above-mentioned first ideological principle. Since the contemporary ONR is inspired by another organization operating under the same name in the 1930s, the piece highlights historical continuity. Belief in God and obedience to religious principles are seen as an inherent part of the nationalist tradition.

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      An important point of reference for the author of the National Horizon article is Pope Leo XIII and the pre-conciliar church and customs in general. The author notices new challenges for the church and Catholics, especially the modernist movement within the church, claiming that “the modernists took our holy mass away.” Liberal democracy is listed as another contemporary threat. The author of the article goes on to claim that this political system fools people with ideas of freedom and civil liberties. Therefore, Catholic priests “raised in liberal spirit” cannot be seen as ONR’s allies.

      Interestingly, the application form for those wishing to become a member of the group includes a question about their attitude toward the Catholic Church. Religiosity might therefore be one of the decisive factors in the admission process. This appears important for recruitment since many activities organized by the group include religious practices. Wreath-laying ceremonies or other occasions, gatherings of ONR’s members and followers on various anniversaries, and celebrations of historical events are usually accompanied with prayers or followed by attendance of holy mass. ONR’s regional divisions also gather for a common Christmas Eve supper or to visit cemeteries on All Saints’ Day.

      Although these activities do not seem like standard practice within the far-right scene, they might be treated as a characteristic of many other Polish groups. In her work, scholar Dominika Tronina scrupulously tracked similar religiously focused activities of another far-right group, the All-Polish Youth. Of course, in Catholically oriented groups, religion is also used to support specific political positions, matters concerning the family or certain conservative educational policies.

      The Polish Radical Right and Wider Trends of Secularization

      Ardent Catholicism of far-right groups in Poland becomes even more interesting as we acknowledge that the religiosity of Polish society is currently on a downward trajectory. The recent publication of the opinion polling institute CBOS leaves no doubts about this trend, especially among young Poles. Public opinion polls show that the percentage of people between the age of 18 and 24 describing themselves as religious fell from 93% in 1992 to 71% in 2021. This means that the proportion of declared young non-believers tripled within this period.

      At the same time, religious Poles have become less scrupulous in the practice of religious rituals. The percentage of young people regularly going to mass or practicing their religion dropped from 62% to a mere 26%. The trend can be seen within society as a whole — with a decrease of believers from 94% to 87% in the last quarter century — but it is strikingly evident within younger generations.

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      The new quantitative evidence summing up the secularization process of the last 30 years surprises even Poles themselves. What has been discussed and suspected has now been proven with exact numbers. Although the phenomenon deserves deeper understanding through research, several possible explanations have made their way into public debate in recent months.

      One of them is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the religious practices of Poles. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020, entrance to churches has been temporarily restricted and many people have become used to practicing their religion at home. Another reason is a growing negative assessment of the church and clergymen due to the surfacing of sex scandals, both in Poland and abroad.

      It might also be hypothesized that many Poles are simply tired of the instrumentalization of religious arguments, which have repeatedly been used as justification for political (and social) decisions. For example, the clash of religious and non-religious motivations became apparent during recent debates over changes in Polish abortion laws. Decreasing acceptance of the intertwining of public life with religion is also evident when looking at the number of students attending Catholic catechism classes, falling rapidly in recent years.

      The increase in secularization could have an impact on many aspects of social and political life in the future. Since Polish far-right groups attract predominantly young people — who are increasingly secular — it might be interesting to observe whether decreasing religiosity of society will have an impact on the activities of ONR and other similar groups.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      A Focus on Violence Creates Blind Spots in Assessing the Far-Right Threat

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      In the aftermath of terrorist attacks in Madrid (2004) and London (2005), many Western governments developed countering violent extremism (CVE) strategies, with the UK’s PREVENT scheme, launched in 2007, being considered the world’s first of this kind. What these CVE programs (more recently “prevention” was added turning the initialism into P/CVE) had in common is their focus on jihadist-inspired extremism and their claimed focus on preventing violence rather than policing “extreme” religious or political beliefs.

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      CVE measures have been criticized for many reasons, but the declared emphasis on preventing political violence has been crucial and justified: The only significant threat that “Islamist” extremism can pose to Western societies has been violence. However, this article is not about jihadist-inspired violent extremism. Instead, as national policymakers subsequently sought to apply their CVE strategies to the rising threat of right-wing extremism, multifaceted threats of far-right movements and challenges have emerged.  

      No Thought Police

      When in the mid-2010s the far-right threat could no longer be ignored, Western governments expanded their CVE programs to respond to the new threat environment. This response was guided by the conviction of convergences between different forms of extremism and governments’ intentions to avoid accusations of double standards.

      However, applying such an ideologically neutral lens has hampered a holistic threat assessment and the development of effective prevention and intervention measures. In particular, the adoption of preexisting CVE terminologies, principles and programs to counter the far right has created blind spots by focusing mainly on violent extremism.

      The unprecedented risk of far-right terrorism and political violence cannot be overstated, but how can we move toward a broader threat assessment beyond the focus on violence, which characterizes current P/CVE strategies in several countries, including Australia? Australia’s national CVE program, Living Safe Together, for example, was set up to prevent and counter violent extremism, defined as a person’s or group’s willingness “to use violence” or “advocate the use of violence by others to achieve a political, ideological or religious goal.” Similarly, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation recently emphasized that it “does not investigate people solely because of their political views.”

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      From a law enforcement perspective, focusing on violent (or otherwise criminal) acts appears appropriate in a democratic society where dissenting, even radical, political ideas should not be unduly curtailed or criminalized. However, the line between political views and advocating violence is often difficult to draw. This poses a challenge for combating (violent) extremism of any kind, not only but especially on the far-right of the political spectrum where violence against the “enemy” is often an integral element of the political ideologies.

      Research on far-right online spaces, from Facebook and Twitter to alt-tech sites such as Gab, consistently finds not only occasional calls for violence, but also high levels of What Pete Simi and Steven Windisch refer to as “violent talk” — messaging that cultivates, normalizes and reinforce hatred, dehumanization and aggressive hostility toward minority groups and the “political enemy.”

      While stressing the “important distinction between talking and doing,” Simi and Windisch argue that “Violent talk helps enculturate individuals through socialization processes by communicating values and norms. In turn, these values and norms are part of a process where in-group and out-group boundaries are established, potential targets for violence are identified and dehumanized, violent tactics are shared, and violent individuals and groups are designated as sacred…. In short, violent talk clearly plays an important role in terms of fomenting actual violence.”

      Identifying calls for violence linked to real-life plans to commit violent acts and violent talk that advocates violence is both challenging and crucial. However, the focus on violence in countering the far right tends to overlook other threats that are specific to radical or extreme right-wing movements.                   

      Community Safety

      The 2019 terror attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, by an Australian far-right extremist sent shock waves around the world, but it has had particularly severe and lasting effects on the sense of physical safety among Muslim communities, especially in New Zealand and Australia. For many, it has been a painful reminder that anti-Muslim hatred can lead to violence.

      When asked about far-right activities in Australia, Adel Salman, president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, stated: “Muslims feel threatened. We don’t have to look back to the very tragic events in Christchurch to see what the results of that hatred can be.” A recent large-scale survey among Australian Muslims confirms these community fears, with 93% of respondents expressing concerns about right-wing terrorism.

      While Australia has seen incidents of far-right violence in the past, none of these acts have ever been classified as terrorism. However, the reemergence of radical and extreme right-wing groups and their actions in the 2020s, while mostly non-violent, has nevertheless given rise to significant safety concerns among communities targeted by the far right. This has had tangible effects on these communities.

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      Our research found, for example, that far-right mobilization against a mosque in a regional town of Victoria fueled fear of personal safety among the Muslim communities. Many felt so intimidated that they would no longer leave the house alone or after dark; some even questioned their future in Australia.

      Similar public safety concerns exist among many targeted communities. For example, after a series of anti-Semitic incidents, including verbal abuse and swastika symbols displayed near a synagogue, a representative of the Jewish community in Canberra stated in a 2017 New York Times interview that “For the first time in my life, I don’t feel safe in Australia. I have little children who don’t feel safe playing outside.”  

      Such community concerns around public safety are not caused by violence or advocating violence by far-right networks but by public expressions — such as online, graffiti or postering — of exclusivist views of white supremacy, racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism or homo- and transphobia. These community perspectives have hardly been taken into account in the current violence-centered threat assessment of right-wing extremism and radicalism.

      Mainstreaming Hatred

      When representatives of communities targeted by far-right mobilization speak about these threats, they often do not clearly differentiate between manifestations of hatred such as racism, anti-Semitism or homophobia and deliberate political actions of far-right groups or individuals. For their lived experience, it seems to make little difference as to whether the abuse or threat is perpetrated by someone who is affiliated with a far-right network or not.  

      When I interviewed an LGBTIQ+ community representative for a study on far-right local dynamics, for example, she noted experiences of transphobic abuse in the streets and that many in her community would avoid certain public places for fear of being subjected to such aggression. Although the locally active white nationalist group was described as holding particularly aggressive homophobic and transphobic views, the problem was portrayed as a societal one — it was not about the political ideology but the public climate of exclusion and intimidation.

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      This points to a second underappreciated factor in the current far-right threat assessment: its potential to mainstream exclusivist, hateful and dehumanizing sentiments. A literature review on extremism and community resilience concluded that far-right movements “exert disproportioned levels of agenda-setting power as they manage to attract high media attention through their message of fear and anger.” Christopher Bail referred to this as the “fringe effect” in his study of anti-Muslim fringe organizations in the US that, he suggests, “not only permeated the mainstream but also forged vast social networks that consolidated their capacity to create cultural change.”

      The potential to spread exclusivist, hateful messages from the fringes into the societal mainstream needs to be considered when assessing far-right threats, even when there is no use or advocacy of violence. The risk of promoting exclusivist sentiments toward minority communities and fueling social division poses a significant threat to a pluralistic society, especially given that significant segments of the population already hold negative views on certain groups and may, under certain conditions, be receptive to some of these narratives pushed by the far right.

      Undermining Democratic Norms

      Strengthening commitment to democratic values has been a central piece in some national governments’ strategies to combat right-wing extremism. However, such an emphasis tends to be absent or underdeveloped in national contexts where countering extremism focuses on political violence. Here, the problem of far-right mobilization undermining democratic norms and processes is not a common feature in the public debate.

      If it is mentioned at all, it is presented as a process of advocating ideologies that contradict liberal democratic principles of equality. Researchers have argued, for example, that far-right discourses tend to “challenge the fundamentals of pluralist liberal democracy through exclusivist appeals to race, ethnicity, nation, and gender.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      But far-right actions may also be able to influence democratic decision-making processes. When far-right groups held a series of disruptive street protests against a local mosque application in an Australian suburb, our fieldwork suggests that these protests may have influenced the local council’s decision on the mosque planning permit. The council deferred the case to avoid making a “contentious” decision, as one study participant maintained, adding that a small group of far-right protesters sought to “intimidate” councilors to vote against the mosque.

      Another community representative interviewed for our study explained the council’s deferral with a reference to the previous far-right street protests: “You wouldn’t want to say yes [to the mosque application], because that’s when the trouble would start again.” The far-right protesters did not engage in a legitimate form of democratic deliberation about the local mosque; instead, their actions seemed to undermine the democratic process by creating a climate of intimidation.

      Beyond Political Violence

      The threats that far-right movements can pose to liberal democratic societies are complex and manifold, and they certainly include the risk of political violence and hate crimes. But the potential of the far right to cause serious harm to communities and the democratic order goes beyond the use or advocacy of violence.

      Strategies to prevent and combat right-wing extremism need to acknowledge this complexity. A focus on terrorist acts and violence makes sense in the context of combating jihadist-inspired violent extremism, which has never had the capacity to threaten the stability of democratic principles and institutions, to spread its ideologies into the societal mainstream or to create widespread concerns around safety so that people were too scared to leave their homes.

      Without downplaying the threats of any form of violent extremism, there is a need for more nuanced and holistic approaches to assess, prevent and counter right-wing extremism. This would require us to take into account the capacity of far-right mobilization to create fear in many parts of our communities, spread divisive and socially harmful ideologies, and undermine the legitimacy of democratic norms and institutions. There are no quick fixes, and this article is not the place to propose a comprehensive strategy.

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      What is clear, though, is that the answer does not lie in the repression or criminalization of dissenting, radical political views. Instead, preventing and countering the far right should pay more attention to the concerns of targeted communities and take action to support and empower these communities. This is also related to the need for effective anti-racism and anti-homo/transphobia programs, which have been central components of government strategies to prevent the proliferation of right-wing extremism in several Western countries.

      Our efforts against far-right ideologies is also a struggle for democracy — a struggle US President Joe Biden recently called “the defining challenge of our time.” Given the prevalence of far-right assaults on democratic principles and institutions, strengthening citizens’ commitment to democracy and human rights should be considered a key element in a holistic strategy to counter the far right. This would require a much stronger role of civil society actors in this commitment for a democratic culture as well as a more place-based focus on supporting local pro-democracy community initiatives.

      None of these considerations are new. They have all been tried and tested in other countries, such as Germany, where the comprehensive federal program Live Democracy! forms a crucial element in the government’s commitment to combating right-wing extremism. Every national context is different, of course, but far-right threats go beyond political violence in all societies.   

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Can a Non-Lethal Eco-Terrorism Strategy Pay Off?

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      In 2025, the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh is hit by a killer heatwave. The astronomical temperatures resulting from solar radiation kill 20 million people.

      In the wake of this climate disaster, a new movement arises in India: an eco-terrorist network called the Children of Kali. The Hindu deity Kali, “She Who Is Death,” is the goddess of doomsday, and her “children” seek, through extremist measures, to avenge the deaths of their countrymen and to halt the march of climate change.  

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      Such is the premise of Kim Stanley Robinson’s “The Ministry for the Future,” a climate fiction novel that plays out how humanity will handle the climate crisis over the next decades. The scenario is far from science fiction, however. With the right ingredients — environmental disaster, government inaction and public support, combined with non-lethal and well-publicized tactics — eco-terrorism could prove a fiery cocktail.

      Special Interest Extremism

      Both premises, the killer heatwave and the eco-terrorist network, are based in reality. Last year’s Intergovernmental Governmental Panel on Climate Change report predicted more intense heat waves of longer durations, occurring at a higher frequency globally. Within the next decades, mean temperatures could be at least 1.5˚C above pre-industrial levels, leading to intense heat waves and driving higher mortality and poverty rates.

      The second premise, the growth of eco-terrorism, sprung up in the late 1970s. At the turn of the century, the FBI identified the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) — radical environmentalists and animal rights activists, or what the bureau calls “special interest extremism” — as “the most active criminal extremist elements in the United States.”

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      ELF attacks included arson, sabotage and vandalism; other environmental extremists have been linked to what is known as tree-spiking to prevent deforestation and the sabotage of whaling and sealing vessels. The era of nuclear expansion was accompanied by attacks on nuclear installations: Between 1966 and 1977, 10 terrorist attacks took place across Europe, while between 1969 and 1975, US nuclear facilities faced 14 actual and attempted bombings and 240 bomb threats.

      These acts of eco-sabotage certainly feel a far cry from today’s conception of terrorism as violence, often lethal, targeted at civilians. Yet it does qualify: In 2002, following 9/11, the FBI defined terrorism as “the unlawful use, or threatened use, of … committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population … in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

      Despair Rising

      It is difficult to be precise about the number of eco-terrorism incidents because so little research within the field of terrorism is conducted on this particular type. The 2020 Global Terrorism Index merely notes that it falls outside its main categorizations. However, it appears to be on the rise. Last year, The Hill reported that the FBI was investigating 41 incidences of eco-terrorism in Washington state alone, including the derailing of a train that resulted in 29,000 gallons of crude oil being spilled. In September 2021, 53 activists from Insulate Britain were arrested while attempting to block the London Orbital Motorway.

      As deadly natural shocks become increasingly common worldwide, the specter of future eco-terrorism looms much more prominently now than it did two decades ago. In the wake of the UN Conference of the Parties climate summit (COP26) that took place in Glasgow, Scotland, in November, it is more evident than ever.

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      The conclusion of COP26 has widely been received as more of a whimper than a bang. A sense of disappointment, if not failure, greeted the final agreement despite what many have called historic achievements. Thousands of youth activists on the streets of Glasgow channeled the sense of fury felt by the leaders of countries most vulnerable to climate change. Such frustration may have its own consequences.

      According to a 2021 global survey on the impact of climate fears, despair is rising. The youth is scared and angered by governmental paralysis when it comes to the climate emergency. The division between the global south and the global north in the wake of COP26 is ever more acute, with rising resentment that the developed world is failing to fund the now urgently needed adaptation and mitigation measures. With escalating numbers of desperate people, extremist ideologies can find fertile ground.

      Sabotage, Ecotage

      As climate disasters worsen and public sentiments shift, radicalization may well follow. So, if eco-terrorism were to arise, what might it look like? A 2020 paper published in the Journal of Strategic Security explored exactly this thought experiment. Much like the now-inactive ELF, 21st century’s eco-terrorists would likely start with industrial sabotage, or “ecotage.” They might expand to fossil fuel plants, airports and container ships.

      Targeting humans, not infrastructure, as happens in Robinson’s novel, seems comparatively unlikely. In general, climate activism is associated with high regard for the sanctity of life. Even ELF guidelines emphasized the need to protect life during group actions, and that the goal of attacks on property is to cause targeted economic harm to industries that degrade the environment.

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      Lethal action would be left to fringe elements, which is a possibility we can’t rule out. But the saboteurs of Robinson’s fiction, who carry out targeted assassinations of major investors in fossil fuels and take down planes to reduce air travel, are likely to remain the bogeymen of ecological activism.

      How effective might such a non-lethal strategy of eco-terrorism be? A well-targeted campaign of attrition, wearing down governments and greenhouse gas-emitting corporations, would be costly and challenging to guard against. With maximum costs imposed on fossil fuel economies, they might simply choose to concede to the terrorists’ demands.

      Already technologies abound that are environmentally friendlier and less costly. The International Renewable Energy Agency’s 2021 report found that 62% of renewable energies are cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives. With viable alternatives in reach, governments and private companies might concede to a policy change as the least costly strategy. Although governments might not admit to it, research has suggested that they often do yield to terrorist demands. Between 1980 and 2003, half of all suicide terrorism campaigns were closely followed by substantial concessions from the target government.

      Oxygen of Publicity

      Terrorism survives on “the oxygen of publicity,” to quote former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Research on eco-terrorist tactics has emphasized how well-designed and well-publicized acts of ecotage might galvanize public support if the public endorses the group’s goals and isn’t repulsed by its tactics.

      Public endorsement is certainly on the table. A majority of US voters now strongly believe in the need for climate action. An estimated 6 million people joined the climate protests around the world in September 2019, including peaceful occupations and roadblocks. According to a 2021 global survey on climate change conducted by the United Nations Development Program, one in three people said that climate change is an emergency and that the world should urgently do everything necessary in response.

      Every action necessary to respond to the climate crisis has instead included government crackdowns on non-violent ecological activism. Research from 2013 emphasized that there has been no documented evidence of harm to humans resulting from actions by radical environmentalists nor of violence being deployed to cause injuries or death. Yet in 2004, a senior FBI official described animal-rights extremism and eco-terrorism as “our highest domestic terrorism investigative priority.” As recently as 2020, the UK included organizations like Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion in its police counterterrorism guide alongside violent right-wing extremists.

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      These tactics are misguided. Although eco-terrorism does meet the definition of terrorist strategies, the consequences are, as yet, largely non-lethal and governments should respond appropriately. For one, it is more challenging to negotiate with, and concede to, terrorist organizations. Labeling climate-action groups as eco-terrorists runs the risk of undermining their stated objectives, stifling legitimate political dissent and preventing progress toward much-needed climate goals.

      Moreover, some groups have argued, the eco-terrorism designation has been used as an intentional tactic by corporations and governments to quash lawful campaigning. Research published by the Journal of Strategic Security suggests that this disproportionate response might fuel the radicalization of the groups and individuals most likely to turn to extremism.

      Siberia is burning, Shanxi is sinking, Alabama is rocked by tornadoes. Climate disasters will continue. Governments might stand by and watch or, worse, employ counterterrorism tactics against climate activists. In turn, the outraged might answer the call to arms.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Proscribing the Far Right: Is Spain Doing Enough?

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      Proscription, the listing of some groups or organizations as terrorists, has become a crucial counterterrorism initiative adopted by liberal democratic governments. Despite the criticism proscription has caused due to it occurring at the discretion of individual states, it has proved to be an effective preventative strategy.

      Since the banning of the far-right National Action in the United Kingdom in 2016, other countries have followed suit. In Germany, groups like Combat 18 and Citizens of the Reich have been proscribed as terrorists. Canada has done the same with Combat 18, Blood and Honor, Three Percenters, Aryan Strikeforce and the Proud Boys.

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      Spain has also designated particular organizations as terrorists. Their legal prosecution has affected the nature and activity of the far right at the national level.

      Hate and Radicalization in Spain

      In 2017, the educational SM foundation launched a study on the behaviors and attitude of Spanish millennials. The study unveiled the increasing ideological radicalization of that generation, as one in five young individuals (out of a total sample of 1,250) supported either the extreme left or right.

      Four years later, Spain witnessed an anti-Semitic speech delivered in front of 300 attendees at an event held at the Almudena cemetery in Madrid to commemorate the Division Azul (Blue Division), a group of 14,000 young men who fought for Adolf Hitler in World War II. Torn between bewilderment and outrage, Spaniards wondered about the speaker but also about the speech.

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      The inflammatory speech was given by Isabel Medina Peralta, an 18-year old history student, member of the Francoist party La Falange (The Phalanx) and a self-described fascist and national-socialist. Her comments are currently being investigated by the prosecution office in Madrid as a hate crime.

      Medina’s case is just the tip of the iceberg of a much larger problem: the increasing presence and relevance of extremist groups in Spain. That increase has been partly driven by a growing sense of dissatisfaction toward the political elites and rising immigration, with the subsequent perception of economic and cultural threat this may represent.

      It is such factors that, in turn, facilitated the relative success of far-right parties like Vox, which was founded in 2013 and holds 52 seats at Spain’s Congress of Deputies, the lower house of parliament. Spain has ceased to be an “exception” among European countries that have witnessed the steady growth of right-wing radicalism since the mid-2010s.

      Legislation

      Spanish law does not condemn any display of Nazi and fascist symbology unless it is related to criminal behavior. In other words, it does not punish the display of extremist symbols unless they are accompanied by active conduct. It is criminal actions and messages that allow for law enforcement to get involved, rather than the use of symbols. The mere display does not make the act a crime. The only exception to this is Law 19/2007 of July 11 against violence, xenophobia, racism and intolerance at sporting events. The law states that the display of Nazi symbology could lead to a fine of up to €3,001 ($3,400) and a six-month ban from attending any sporting event.

      However, there are some existing laws in Spain that could be used to enable the proscription of extremist groups. For example, the Spanish penal code, specifically Article 510, states that those who publicly encourage, promote or incite hatred, hostility, discrimination or violence against a group because of their ethnicity, religious beliefs or sexual identity will be “punished with a prison sentence of one to four years and a fine of six to twelve months.” This also applies to those who produce or disseminate material that encourages, promotes or incites violence against groups.

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      Article 510 also allows the prosecution of those who publicly deny, trivialize or extol genocide and other crimes against humanity. Article 515 of the Spanish penal code could also be applied in prosecution and proscription processes. Section 4 of this article, in particular, states that associations or groups are punishable if they promote discrimination, hatred or violence against people, groups or associations by reason of their ideology, religion or beliefs, ethnicity or gender.

      Where the Spanish penal code would not be enough to proscribe an extremist group, the  Rome Statute of International Criminal Court may be employed. Article 7 on crimes against humanity specifically indicates that a group may be prosecuted under international law if it is responsible for the persecution of a community or collective based on political, racial, national, ethnic, culture, religious, gender or other grounds. When inciting, promoting or motivating such persecution, international law should be applied as a preventative measure.

      Organized Extremism in Spain

      Proscription in Spain began with the dissolution of the neo-Nazi organization Sangre y Honor (Blood and Honor) by Spanish judges, who condemned 15 of the 18 defendants to prison terms of up to three and a half years. Several extremist groups remain active in Spain today.

      Democracia Nacional, a far-right party founded in 1995, is one example. Its current leader, Alberto Bruguera, and 14 other members of the party have been accused by the special public prosecutor on hate crimes for attacking a mosque in Barcelona’s Nou Barris neighborhood in 2017. The prosecutor has requested a 10-year sentence for its leader. The party’s vice-president, Pedro Chaparro, has also been accused of threatening photojournalist Jordi Borras in 2015.

      Alianza Nacional is another problematic group. In 2013, a judge in Vilanova i la Geltru, a city in Catalonia, sentenced three leaders of the organization to two and a half years in prison due to the dissemination of Nazi ideology online. Their message spread hatred against black and Latinx groups as well as immigrant communities and liberal multiculturalism. They blamed these groups for taking the jobs of Spaniards, along with fostering the use, abuse and trafficking of drugs, amongst other crimes.

      Hogar Social is a neo-Nazi group that is well known for its campaigns to collect and share food “only for Spaniards” as well as to squat in buildings.Some of its members have been prosecuted and were due to be judged in December 2021 for inciting hatred and attacking a mosque in March 2016 after a terrorist attack in Brussels, Belgium. They face potential sentences that range from one to four years in prison. The leader of Hogar Social, Melisa Jimenez, was arrested in 2020 and later released for attacking the Socialist Party headquarters and displaying resistance to authorities.

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      Bastion Frontal is a neo-Nazi group related to the French organization Social Bastion. It was established during the COVID-19 pandemic in the working-class neighborhood of San Blas in Madrid. The group claims to have around 100 active members who are between the ages of 15 and 25. The creation of Bastion Frontal was mainly triggered by the decay of Hogar Social and the rise of VOX, but it does not identify with the latter due to it being a constitutionalist party. Instead, Bastion Frontal aims to abolish the Spanish Constitution. Although its members claim to have a physical headquarters, Bastion Frontal’s presence is mainly online. The prosecutor’s office in Madrid has filed a complaint against the group because of hate crimes due to its threats against unaccompanied minors from Africa, including Morocco.

      Echo Chambers

      Spanish society has been going through a process of polarization, which has been pointed out by academics and civil society actors. The situation, as scholars have mentioned, has remarkably worsened during the pandemic, mainly due to the amount of time people have spent in front of their screens. In particular, young adults are amongst the most vulnerable. In this context, isolationism and echo chambers have further contributed to the strengthening of an already growing extreme right.

      Spain’s practice of prosecuting after crimes against human rights have been committed is only a relatively effective strategy, as it focuses on the individual rather than on the social, economic and ideological networks that the individual relied upon to carry out the violence.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The Role of Animals in National Socialist Propaganda

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      Circulating on Telegram channels lately has been a 12-second video of a Chihuahua puppy snuggling up to a tiny, chirping chick, eventually resting its head upon the chick and falling asleep. The caption reads, “Love Animals, Hate Antifa.” If such a politicized caption to an innocuous video proves a surprise to readers, the purveyor of the content will come as a shock: WAP1488, an unabashed neo-Nazi community with more than 1,000 subscribers.

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      This is just one of a score of videos with the “Love Animals, Hate Antifa” label circulating in recent months, and one small part of an even larger phenomenon of national socialists using animals to promote their message. Defying the more commonly-identified brutal aesthetic, certain national socialist circles have jumped on a bandwagon elsewhere used on dating profiles and in advertising: gain appeal by featuring animals.

      From Telegram to Reddit

      WAP1488 serves as one of the most unadulterated manifestations of this attempt to wed animal rights and national socialism. The name of the organization alone signals its ideological disposition — the numbers being a reference to the “14 Words,” a slogan of the white power movement, and to the Nazi salute “Heil Hitler” (“H” being the eighth letter in the Roman alphabet).

      “There was widespread support for animal welfare in Nazi Germany among the country’s leadership,” the group’s pinned post reads. “Adolf Hitler and his top officials took a variety of measures to ensure animals were protected.” What follows is a list of the various conservationist and anti-hunting efforts by the likes of Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goring, men more widely known for their role in orchestrating World War II and the Holocaust.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The post goes so far as to observe that “Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels described Hitler as a vegetarian whose hatred of the Jewish and Christian religions in large part stemmed from the ethical distinction these faiths drew between the value of humans and the value of other animals,” a statement followed by an observation that “Hitler planned to ban slaughterhouses in the German Reich following the conclusion of World War II.” This last comment is perhaps most jarring to mainstream audiences, given the morbid irony of Hitler’s use of slaughterhouses in the form of concentration and extermination camps that killed millions of Jewish people, individuals with disabilities, sexual minorities, Romani, intellectuals and political opponents.

      Beyond these written arguments articulating Nazi care for animals are scores of photographs and videos of Nazis with animals. Not only is there an array of images of Nazi soldiers playing or relaxing with German Shepherds and cats, but also dozens of images of Hitler posing with dogs, rabbits and fawns. At times, the images do not feature humans at all, and yet they still publicize this line of reason, typically through tea-cup-sized animals perched among Nazi uniform.

      This is not just a strategy of WAP1488, though. It is a tactic used by many supporters of national socialism. Telegram channels such as the NSDAP International (almost 10,000 subscribers), the NSDAP (more than 5,000 subscribers) and the nSDAP International (almost 2,500 subscribers) now all fairly prominently feature animal-centric images and rhetoric.

      Meanwhile, on Reddit, several subreddits discussing national socialism post both official Nazi propaganda of animals and unofficial Nazi-animal content. Perhaps exemplary of this is one private subredding called r/awwschwitz, which describes itself as a subreddit “for pictures of adorable or cute things that one would not normally associated with positive emotions,” and which an observer characterized as a dispenser of “all your cutesy Hitler needs.”

      More than just cute photos and references to Hitler’s alleged vegetarianism, a common refrain among neo-Nazis across various platforms is one claiming that the current German animal welfare legislation is the descendant of Nazi policy. In fact, contemporary national socialists depict Nazis as being trailblazers of animal rights and preservation of the natural world. The obscuring of these “facts” are then denounced as attempts by biased media to unjustly vilify Nazism and all its devotees.

      The Nazi Regime

      Universal cuteness of fuzzy baby animals aside, it appears that there exists a propagandistic through-line between the arguments of Nazis then and certain national socialists now. Current national socialists rely heavily upon the plethora of staged animal-Nazi propaganda produced and initially disseminated in and by the Third Reich itself. Scholars such as Norbert Bromberg and Verna Small, Arnold Arluke and Boria Sax and Jan Mohnhaupt have described high-ranking Nazis as demonstrating a public interest in animal welfare due to some mixture of personal affection for animals and political messaging.

      To the latter point, it is clear that many of these images were staged rather than natural displays of affection, as signaled by the unnatural poses and contexts of the photographs — soldiers patrolling war-zones bending over to play with cats, Hitler staring off into the distance flanked by a dog standing on hind-legs in the same pose, and kittens curled up in Nazi helmets that dangle from fences. All of these images may simply exist because the regime felt that an articulated interest in animal welfare for the purposes of presenting a compassionate and trustworthy side to the public, but also to normalize their social Darwinist ideas and vilify racial, ethnic and religious others that they strove to paint as cruel toward animals.

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      In the Third Reich, the “other,” and Jewish people in particular, were characterized as brutal toward animals. This was most frequently discussed in relation to alleged cruelty in the kosher butchering process, which Nazi propagandists noted as being evidence of Jews’ “other” status and depicted as ritualistic and sadistic. Meanwhile, Nazi attacks on intellectuals — particularly Jewish ones — also made use of animal welfare issues, claiming that Jewish scientists engaged in the practice of vivisection (operating on live animals for experimental purposes), tormenting their test subjects and fulfilling Jewish bloodlust.

      Curiously, the Nazis also produced a plethora of propaganda that painted these “others,” their enemies, as animals in their own right, the only animals for which the Nazis did not show any care. The Nazis waged a relentless propaganda campaign dehumanizing their opponents, particularly Jewish people. Nazi propaganda depicted Jews as rats, snakes, spiders and other unpopular animals.

      It is significant to note the animals most often chosen: those with multiple appendages, such as spiders and octopuses, to reflect the narrative of Jewish control over society; or dangerous, poisonous or diseased animals. The snake, for instance, harkens back to parallels of the creation story and Satan in the form of a snake, whilst rats carry diseases and spiders fatal venom.

      Today’s National Socialists

      National socialists today rely upon the exact same framing of these issues, though with an expanded pool of racial, ethnic and religious communities to vilify and with one additional purpose. Juxtaposed with other national socialist content, be it animal-Nazi propaganda or otherwise, are images of the “other” as subhuman or as animals, as well as animal cruelty perpetrated by non-white peoples.

      In the latter case, the most commonly used scenarios are Jewish kosher slaughter practices and Kapparot (used by some communities in the lead up to Yom Kippur to cleanse the person of sin through the transference of sins to a chicken, which is then ritually killed in the street); halal slaughter practices by Muslim communities; the killing and consumption of dog meat in China and South Korea (taken as metonyms for all Asian cultures); detusking elephants and other killings of large animals; and vivisections by pharmaceutical companies.

      The examples have been carefully selected, attempting to characterize non-white people as inherently violent, as Kapparot and the Yulin dog meat festival are annual, while the vivisections, religious slaughtering and big game hunting are relatively common practices. National socialists use these moments of violence against animals to make audiences wonder: Would these “others” attempt to mainstream such practices if given the opportunity?

      Embed from Getty Images

      Beyond this, though, is an implication of supremacism, with white people displaying the more advanced emotions of empathy and compassion absent in the “uncivilized” communities that commit animal cruelty. The videos and images are incredibly violent — blood spurting, animals squealing and resisting their victimization, and carcasses in disrepair. Aside from being graphic in their own right (as any slaughter video, kosher, halal or otherwise, is want to be), the cruelty in these videos may be said to also encourage audiences to extrapolate — if this is how these communities treat innocent animals, how might they treat white people?

      Using a Different Brush

      Finally, in addition to the obvious attempts to paint the Nazis as less brutal than these other groups through their contrasting approaches to animal welfare, the use of animal content is meant to chip away at mainstream anti-Nazi sentiment. These images clearly seek to generate an implicit connection between viewer and subject, resulting in the humanizing of individuals involved in a regime considered so brutal that it is widely denounced as unequivocally inhumane.

      As social media commenters in these sections — even those professing not to be radicalized but mere observers of said content — have noted, seeing and hearing about Nazis’ care for animals has the effect of chipping away at the whole evil characterization of the Nazis as depicted in mainstream history. According to the logic of neo-Nazi propagandists, if Nazis were not always cruel and instead cared for innocent animals, then the stories about Nazism — and by extension national socialism — are exaggerated; if stories of their cruelty are exaggerated in this regard, then perhaps they are dramatized in other areas as well, such as in relation to the Holocaust. Meanwhile, if Nazis were caring for animals, i.e., the innocent, then it would stand to reason that they vilified communities that were not innocent and instead the bloodthirsty “others” living in Germany. Thus, neo-Nazis use animal welfare concerns to pull at a thread of the metaphorical tapestry of Nazi evil, a thread that they want to tug to the point where it entirely unravels.

      It warrants reiterating that absent from this modern national socialists analysis is any acknowledgment of the unprecedented violence and cruelty of the Nazi regime. No matter how many kittens SS officers held or dogs that Adolf Hitler posed beside, the reality is that the most brutal butchers of life were the German National Socialists themselves. All of the torturous behaviors Nazis projected onto the “other” —  experimenting on and brutally slaughtering living beings — were acts that Nazis committed against other humans.

      Advertisers and people on dating apps use animals in their content to grab attention, appear relatable and induce those positive thoughts that incline the viewer to further consider them. While for different goals, the same is true for national socialists today. Thus, a puppy falling asleep with a chick speaks less to national socialist interests in the cute and more with their hope that, in time, they can draw viewers near and make them dream of a national socialist world.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More