The Radical Right During Crisis

While not all those who encounter COVID-19-related extremist pieces will take the next step along the path of radicalisation, some will. Given all that we do not know about COVID-19 and all that we fear, people’s concerns leave them vulnerable to internalising racists’ messages about the inferiority of non-white cultures and the threat of multiculturalism to western lives. Experientially, radicalisation online appears to be most true with young people, whose knowledge of the internet, desire for answers, and continuing journey of self-discovery combine to leave them most amenable to radical content, a reality that extremist groups cater to online.

Meanwhile, by closing schools and essentially halting community interactions, we necessarily have had to cut off a critical element in combating the spread and acceptance of racist messages: a robust, real-life counter-narrative to racist rhetoric. Isolated at home, people are not so able to have stereotypical narratives or caricatures exposed as divorced from reality, to see the richness we gain from living in a diverse society. In these unsettling weeks ahead, there are things to be done to prevent radicalisation during our time of social distancing. Social media platforms need to monitor content not only for false medical information, but for radical racist content.

But we too, as individuals, need to be critical consumers and disseminators of news. We should think about how we pass our time in isolation, particularly if there are young people in our homes, to prevent ourselves from being caught up in hate-filled narratives and sucked into the rabbit-hole of extremist content online. With concerns about a global pandemic, adding to it worries about racism and radicalisation may feel too much to bear. However, this is something we have to consider and be vigilant against, as we are also at a critical moment in the long-term psychological health of our nation.

Dr Bethan Johnsonis a Doctoral Fellow at CARR and a researcher in history at the University of Cambridge.

1“Coronavirus: Teens Arrested Over ‘Racially Aggravated’ Attack,” BBC News, March 6, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-51771355; “Coronavirus: Arrests After ‘Racist Attack’ in Southampton,” BBC News, March 21, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-51988868.

2Hunter Walker and Jana Winter, “Federal Law Enforcement Document Reveals White Supremacists Discussed Using Coronavirus as a Bioweapon,” Yahoo! News , March 21, 2020, https://news.yahoo.com/federal-law-enforcement-document-reveals-white-supremacists-discussed-using-coronavirus-as-a-bioweapon-212031308.html.

3Millennial Woes, “AMA Clip: Pandemic, Self-Isolation, Globalisation,” YouTube video, 12:14, posted March 18, March 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDcvS7aOe90.

4Morgoth’s Review, “A Virus for the Viral Age (With Keith Woods),” YouTube video, 14:39, posted March 14, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7MOuAf4wlw.

5Way of the World, “The Deadly Virus of Globalism,” YouTube video, 10:17, posted February 2, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfEsPAkr0Sc; Morgoth’s Review, “A Virus For The Viral Age (With Keith Woods),” YouTube video; “Video no longer available,” YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22MuxIOUXWY&feature=emb_logo.

6Way of the World, “The Deadly Virus of Globalism,” YouTube video; “Video no longer available,” YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22MuxIOUXWY&feature=emb_logo.

7Way of the World, “The Deadly Virus of Globalism,” YouTube video.

8Way of the World, “The Deadly Virus of Globalism,” YouTube video; Account now suspended, tweet from @NationalistTV.

9Millennial Woes, “AMA Clip: Pandemic, Self-Isolation, Globalisation”.

10“Video no longer available,” YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22MuxIOUXWY&feature=emb_logo; “Video no longer available,” YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y96pzlQJPEs&feature=emb_logo; @AmyMek, tweets now no longer available; Richard B. Spencer, “Radix Live: Bernie’s Bust,” Periscope , https://www.pscp.tv/w/1LyxBNRjBQzxN.

Sabine Volk

On a Monday evening in early April 2020, around 1,000 users are waiting for a YouTube livestream, hosted by Lutz Bachmann, co-founder of the Dresden-based protest movement Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident (PEGIDA). For the second time already, Bachmann’s YouTube channel “LUTZiges”—a pun of his given name and the German word lustig (funny)—invites to a “virtual evening march”.

Since October 2014, PEGIDA had been mobilizing against the “Islamization” of Europe, the political “elites”, and the established media. 1On a weekly basis, PEGIDA organizers and supporters demonstrated in Dresden. They marched through the city centre and gave speeches with xenophobic and anti-elitist content on some of the most iconic squares. The marches, always scheduled on Mondays, aimed to re-perform the “Monday demonstrations” which toppled the GDR regime in the fall of 1989. 2

Over the years, participant numbers consolidated at around 1,500 supporters per demonstration. In February 2020, numbers peaked again at 3,000 or so during the 200th march of PEGIDA, marked by the visit of Björn Höcke, a high-ranking politician of Germany’s far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD). 3

In the spring of 2020, when countries all around the world shut down public life as a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, it first seemed as if the lockdown would finally disrupt PEGIDA’s protest ritual. Indeed, the demonstration planned for Monday, 16 March 2020, was cancelled due to the ban of association in public. 4Yet, the group quickly adapted and took up “virtual evening marches” as a new form of protest.

Based on ethnographic observation of the first two YouTube broadcasts, PEGIDA aims to make its online version as similar as possible to its street events by following the offline format and procedures. The livestreams started with PEGIDA’s anthem, featured several speeches, and ended with the performance of the German national anthem. Even the march still played a role—in the form of a high-speed display of a video of the march during PEGIDA’s 200th event. Throughout the YouTube events, the organizers kept their well-studied roles: Wolfgang Taufkirch as serious host, Lutz Bachmann as funny moderator, and Siegfried (“Siggi”) Däbritz as bad boy.

Similarly, the invitees were more than familiar. Some of the best-known figures of the German speaking far-right scene livestreamed or sent video messages from their living rooms to address PEGIDA supporters, including Michael Stürzenberger (activist and blogger from Munich), Christoph Berndt (activist and AfD politician from Brandenburg), Heiko Hessenkemper (AfD politician from Saxony), and Martin Sellner (cover boy of the Austrian Identitarian movement). All four are recurrent guests of PEGIDA, in particular at special occasions such as the organization’s anniversaries or Christmas editions. 5

The speeches featured the usual topics. Importantly, however, PEGIDA’s key frames were now adapted to the lockdown. First, PEGIDA criticized the politics of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. They denounced the restrictions to public life, rejecting the cutting back on civil rights such as the freedom of association. Organizers yet again drew parallels between the current state of German democracy and the dictatorships of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Third Reich. Second, the speakers also continued to discriminate against people of immigrant and Muslim background, accusing them of not respecting the restrictions to public life—in contrast to the allegedly socially responsible PEGIDA supporters. Third, the speakers praised the movement and its supporters for constituting not only Germany’s economic backbone, but also for being the guardian of civil liberties and Europe-wide leader in peaceful protest politics in times of crisis.