When studying the violence of far-right organizations in Western countries, it is crucial to look beyond their mere formation. Behind the scenes of this violence, there are purported intellectuals from scientific and philosophical backgrounds who espouse extremist views, often leveraging the principles of freedom of speech and thought. Some of these individuals even hold specialized academic positions, playing a role in shaping the minds of future generations within universities and educational institutions.
Their ideologies and writings imply a threatening racism disguised in scientific and legal arguments. They use a sophisticated and graceful language that appears civilized, but is actually the foundation and justification of many acts of violence, killings, and contempt by the far-right towards non-white peaceful civilians of other ethnicities and identities in European countries and USA.
Cultural Context
As violent, far-right ideologies continue to challenge principles of equality, tolerance, coexistence, and integration, the notion of «scientific racism» has emerged. This concept reached its zenith in 1920 but waned after the devastation of World War II. However, the controversy surrounding it appears to be resurfacing, as Western intellectuals are once again embracing «White» groups and organizations, providing justifications for their ideologies and actions under the guise of protecting white identity rather than overt racism.
Another current still propounds the idea of inherent inequality among different races as an established scientific fact! The English quarterly journal «Mankind Quarterly» stands at the forefront of specialized scientific journals supporting scientific racism, to the extent that it has been described as the «journal of white supremacy». It has been published from Scotland since 1960.
Right-wing extremists run a series of think tanks, websites, newspapers, publishing houses, and scientific forums, such as American Renaissance (AR or AmRen), an online magazine that started in 1990, and Scandza Forum that is held annually for white supremacists from all over the world in Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland).
Theorists and Intellectuals
1. Renaud Camus: Theorist of “The Great Replacement"
Renaud Camus is a French author, historian, and politician. His anti-African-and-Muslim-immigrants views and statements emerged in the early twenty first century on several occasions and conferences for the far-right in France. He published his well-known book Le Grand Remplacement (The Great Replacement) in 2011, in which he presented his views that claim that France and Europe are at risk of being colonized by immigrants.
His views can be summed up as follows:
First, the traditional French community shall be substituted by another coming from Morocco and Sub-Saharan Africa. Second, the Christian French community that is built on secular values shall be substituted by a Muslim community, which shall be controlled by extremist Muslims over time. Third, current French governments accept such a shift by letting Muslims out-breed them on their own land.
The Great Replacement theory is based on the fact that the French culture is only that of White Christians, and that any immigration from other countries to France is a huge threat to that culture, almost an “invasion". According to Camus, the upcoming Islamic identity diametrically runs counter to secularism and the French identity. He does not believe in statistics or population-based studies, for he believes they are all misleading and falsified.
According to Camus, the issue at hand is the significant birth rates within immigrant families or French families with immigrant heritage. In his view, there is a clear colonization happening, with Africans being the colonizers and a substantial exodus from one continent to another taking place. He emphasizes that this matter is not solely about Islam, but primarily about African immigration. Camus argues that the demographic colonization of France by African and Muslim immigrants poses a greater threat than the historical French occupation of other nations. He asserts that successive governments tolerate and allow this colonization to occur, unaware of the irreversible consequences it entails.
In 2014, the French Judiciary condemned Renaud Camus on charges of inciting hatred and violence for offensive statements he made against Muslims in late 2010 in a public meeting in Paris, where he described Muslims in France as “the armed wing of invasion, invaders who seek to make the lives of the native population impossible, forcing them to succumb to them or else flee and leave their land".
Despite Camus' denial of responsibility for any violence committed by violent right-wing extremists in relation to his alleged theory, the individual behind the Christchurch shooting of two mosques in New Zealand in March 2019, which resulted in the deaths of 51 worshippers and numerous injuries, named his widely-known 80-page online manifesto «The Great Replacement».
2. James Mason: Theorist of Accelerationism
James Mason is an American neo-Nazi politician who introduced Accelerationism. His views were published in a newsletter in 1980, then were collected in a book titled Siege: The Collected Writings of James Mason. He said, “Following the fall of countries and societies, white supremacists will be the only survivors in this full-scale war".
The writer's thoughts are based on urging white people, particularly those in extremist groups, to carry out a bloody revolution and bring about a race war that restores and protects the white man's status, in order to get rid of his enemies from other races, particularly Jews, whom Mason believes are the source of evil corruption in any society. Mason insists therefore that Jews must be destroyed, followed by the worldwide political structure that supports them. To attain these objectives, we must embark on revolutions, terrorism, and bloody wars.
Mason was arrested more than once in 1994–1999 for several reasons. In 2015, the neo-Nazi terrorist network Atomwaffen was founded, which believed in the use of violence and terrorism. Mason was the main advisor to the network, and his book Siege its main approach.
3. William Luther Pierce: Nuclear Terrorism
Supporters of White Terror's dreams of creative chaos and the illusion of nuclear terrorism are largely linked to American neo-Nazi author and physicist William Luther Pierce's (1933–2002) novel, The Turner Diaries, published in 1978. A study made by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) concluded that there is an association between the novel and no less than 200 murders and 40 terrorist attacks over the past 40 years. The novel is a fiction that explores the diaries of the hero Earl Turner, a member of a clandestine white-supremacist organization who aims to overthrow the US government, social and media institutions dominated by Jews, African Americans, and other minorities. Turner forms his own unit that operates in coordination with other cells in the organization to carry out guerrilla actions and acts of terrorism, which may eventually topple the regime.
The novel is considered an inspiration to a crime wave in the 1980s where a group named The Order emerged. Its most prominent member was Timothy McVeigh, who detonated a truck bomb packed with ammonium explosives—similar to those described in the novel—at Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people. When McVeigh was arrested, pages from the novel were found in the front seat of his car. Moreover, several experts believed that the storming of the United States Capitol following Donald Trump's loss in the last elections was a simulation of a scene from the novel.
4. Richard Spencer: Founder of AlternativeRight.com
Richard Spencer was first to introduce the concept of the Alternative Right in 2010 to describe the trends based on white nationalism. The concept was highly controversial in the media and intellectual circles during the US elections which Trump won in 2016, when Spencer celebrated his victory with Nazi salutes on November 21, 2016. This led to the defection of some groups from the Alt-Right to form the Light Right.
Spencer's views regarding the White Identity and belief in absolute white supremacy in all fields are summed up as follows: “Race is real, race matters, and race is the foundation of identity". He called against refugees, homosexuals, and feminist movements, and called for building a new society, a “white ethno-state" for Europeans through a peaceful ethnic cleansing campaign.
5. Martin Sellner: Between Racism and Multi-Ethnicity
Martin Sellner is the leader of the Identitarian Movement in Austria (IBÖ) and the Defend Europe campaign. He is actually the leader of the Europe-wide Identitarian movement for his proficiency in English and popularity on social media, and herein lies the real risk. He disseminates notions of ethnic supremacy and racism towards minorities in Europe. Security services intercepted communications between him and Brenton Tarrant, the right-wing extremist of New Zealand who carried out the Christchurch attack, where the latter donated €1500 to Sellner's movement in January 2018.
Sellner claims he is not racist, but rather believes in multi-ethnicity and the right of every civilization to keep its own independent identity. This in fact practically means racial segregation.
6. Nick Land: Theorist of Dark Enlightenment
Dark Enlightenment is an anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian philosophical movement founded by the American Curtis Yarvin. However, the English philosopher Nick Land developed and propagated this theory, which has become the theoretical and ideological reference of the Alt-Right. In his book The Dark Enlightenment published in 2013, Land introduced his views that are clearly based on freedom's incompatibility with democracy. He believes that democracy has run out of gas and that elections lost their credibility and purpose. He also believes that racial integration is a lie and that Western reality has proven that white people are still superior to black people in the US and Europe despite equality laws.
7. Alain de Benoist: Theorist of Ethnic Differentiation
Alain de Benoist is a French journalist and philosopher born in 1943, a founding member of the Nouvelle Droite (New Right), and leader of the ethno-nationalist think tank GRECE. He is known for opposing human rights and representative democracy. His writings inspired the Alt-Right in the US.
Ethnic Differentiation is based on the fact that peoples and cultures can flourish on their native land only, that cultural and racial admixtures are factors of degradation, and that multiculturalism is a failed project that only results in a loss of orientation, violence and crime, and a potential “ethnic war" in Europe between Europeans of European descent and Europeans of Arab or Islamic origins.
Tip of the Iceberg
Far-right terrorist operations seem to be only the tip of the iceberg. There is yet a more dangerous, wider base rooted firmly in the minds of some intellectuals, specialists, and the European and American public, which shall become the justification of rejecting the other and resorting to all illegal routes to eliminate him.
This is an ongoing, exploitable philosophical justification for carrying out terrorist operations that may involve the use of nuclear weapons to attain the allegedly lofty aim of white supremacy in its geographical scope, annihilating the other racially, religiously, or culturally.