Lately, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, gave his annual end-of-year press conference. It was against the backdrop of a botched planned armed attack against the state which happened in Germany. Guterres addresses the increasing threat of terrorism which he says comes from the extreme right, neo-Nazis and white supremacists, in Western nations. He was actually pointing to another of the many threats to global peace and security. And he had to because global peace and security was the reason the UN was created. He’s ever on podiums to call attention to issues that potentially can trouble mankind. The last he did before the latest call was at COP27 where he reiterated the need to reverse the negative effects of climate change.
With regard to terrorism it’s not the first time Guterres would warn of the threats to peace. Western nations that he refers to this time have equally identified extremist groups in their countries as constituting threats to internal security. According to Guterres, “…we must be very clear and very firm in condemning every form of neo-Nazism, white supremacists, any form of anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim hatred.” The latest manifestation of what he says is the occurrence in Germany where some citizens plan to violently overthrow a democratically elected government. Now a discussion of citizens in western countries described as extremists or terrorists requires some careful dissection. I state this because, for me, the threats here aren’t just about taking up arms against the state as seen in Germany. It also includes millions of citizens whose mentality and disposition show they either don’t believe in or are deeply suspicious of the democratic process. So, in a way this category too is on the periphery of the mainstream; it’s a threat.
Such people are in the United States where, in recent years, even political office seekers say they won’t accept the outcome of any election that goes against them. I submit that their disposition is as dangerous as that of citizens who are described as extremists. The extreme position of doubters of the democratic process was demonstrated when they invaded the Capitol Hill in the US. Long before this incident, hardly would elections take place in most western nations in recent years without concerns being expressed about the possibility of far right political parties taking over the government. This is a regular concern each time France and Italy vote.
More than ever before, the UN and European Union watch elections in much of Europe with increasing trepidation. They don’t want far right or fascist governments that can overturn gains in Europe with regard to democracy and freedom. So each time an election in Europe ends with a centrist political party in power, they release a sigh of relief. Generally, both the UN and EU are wary of the far left and the far right wherever they exist. Now, the tags Guterres uses in his submission have some political undertones and as such require some unbundling so that readers are better informed. However, if I fully explain them as a political scientist is wont to do this will take space that I don’t have. Worse, I may end up sounding like a political science lecturer rather than a journalist. Guterres’ tags include extreme right-wing, white supremacists, neo-Nazism, anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim hatred. Going by their activity, one word links the categories, showing why they are such a source of concern for the UN Chief – terrorism. This is broadly defined as the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
The word terrorism and what it connotes has often been used to describe the actions of people from other parts of the world, like those who carried out the 9/11 attacks on US soil. Now westerners themselves are the ones who constitute the threat, and their respective governments have been expressing concerns. This thing didn’t start today. Concerns over extreme actions were once raised about the far left or radical left as it is called in the US. The fear back in the 1950s into the 1980s was that far left groups, generally in the form of socialists and communists, would disrupt the capitalist form of the economy and democratic governments in the West. With the end of the cold war, leftists in this categorisation became less the threat than those on the right, particularly the nationalists. Even this word is rather fused and needs to be broken down. The shortest explanation though is that many who would have been regarded as nationalists – helping to haunt communists – during the cold war now include some in the categories of extremists that Guterres mentioned.
The foregoing may be a bit complex to grasp for the reader who isn’t familiar with all the terms used in ‘government’ and political science to explain diverse political orientations in a polity. Nonetheless, if the reader understands that one can express love for one’s country to the point that such expression of love threatens other people’s fundamental rights as humans, then they get who an extreme nationalist is. This summarises how some westerners have become terrorists to their fellow citizens and their nations, and really many who regard themselves as nationalists in the US and in parts of Europe now constitute such a threat. Their action takes diverse forms. Sometimes they make hate speech that can spur others to kill people. They can incite people against legally constituted government as the attack on Capitol Hill demonstrated. And when they start to reject democratic practice and the way of life of the West to the point that they take up arms against the state, terrorism is raised to a different level. It was what happened in Germany.
When Guterres broadly named groups that constituted terror threats, he expressed his wish that all would come together to stop the threats. With some of the violent occurrences witnessed across the West, however, there’s cause for more concern. Reason? The matter is complex, and curbing the activities of extremists in western nations is more so. For instance, the extremist groups mentioned have their different characteristics, and sometimes different objectives. More than this, the rise of these extremist groups has taken different paths in each western nation. In some, their activities are either milder or stronger than others, and extremists in a nation may hate the guts of equivalent extremists in another nation just because they belong to different nations.
By way of brief explanation of Guterres’ tags, extreme right-wing are identified as mostly white, and their political preference leans towards extreme conservatism, white supremacy; they are ultra-nationalists and authoritarian. The white supremacist group in the West includes persons who believe that white people constitute a superior race and should therefore dominate society, typically to the exclusion or detriment of other racial and ethnic groups.
On the other hand, neo-Nazism is rooted in pre-war Germany’s Nazi doctrine that included antisemitism, ultranationalism, racism, xenophobia, anti-communism, and creating a “Fourth Reich.” These days neo-Nazism comprises social and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazism has organised international networks, which is why this one may be more dangerous than other groups that Gutrerres mentioned. Antisemitism is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews and it was once manifested in expressions of hatred of or discrimination against individual Jew or organised pogroms by mobs, police forces, or genocide. Anti-Muslim may refer to a political current that views Islam as a threat to Western civilisation, and there’s as well Islamophobia which is prejudice against, hatred, or bigotry towards the religion of Islam and Muslims.
The foregoing shows that the days are gone when terrorism in its classic sense is seen to come from the outside. The western world now has its groups that work against it. The enemies are within, constituting a threat to the values the West has always been known for, and which it wants to see replicated in continents such as Africa. The greater complexity, as already inferred, is how to exorcise extremist groups from nations where they’ve become the enemies in the house, and are growing in their numbers. US Capitol Hill happened and it was stopped. Germany happened and it was nipped. But that doesn’t mean the problem is gone.
