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‘The Great Replacement’ – Decoding the Christchurch Terrorist Manifesto

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Abstract

The far-right terrorist attack of Christchurch was staged ‘in real life’ (IRL) with the purpose to create maximum impact through dissemination online. Facebook is said to have removed no less than 1,5m videos of the terror attack during the first 24 hours, which demonstrates the magnitude of terrorism as an act of strategic communication (Falkheimer, 2013:44-55) or as Marsh and Mullholland argue: “the attack seemed orchestrated for the social media age” (CNN 2019/1). Tarrant thus has much in common with ISIS who painstakingly staged their executions as emblematic hybrid media narratives with the purpose of a maximum of impact (Krona 2019). This is one of the first and key take-aways from the ‘manifesto’ of ‘third position’ radical right ideology terrorist Brenton Tarrant released online (of course – and its content presented extensively below): his understanding of the world and his communication with the world is shaped by the Internet and its specific communication culture. His identity-formation as much as radicalization was driven by the hyper- medial environment in which it was aimed to unfold meaning (Madisson 2016).
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INSIGHTS
‘The Great Replacement’
Decoding the Christchurch
Terrorist Manifesto
ANDREAS ÖNNERFORS ·MARCH 18, 2019 ·12 MINUTE READ
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Terrorism as theater in the age of Internet
‘Bühnensucht’ is a German expression denoting an irrational longing to
take the stage or as Jenkins put it already in 1974, “terrorism is theater”
(Jenkins 1974:7). In the age of online communication and social media, the
stage is the same as the Internet and the audience that interactive mix of
producers and consumers, the so-called ‘prosumers’ of online ‘user
generated content’, where it is di"cult to determine the borders between
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production and consumption of what Bauman has called ‘autotelic
violence’ (2017:30).
MOVING FROM IDEA TO ACTION, COGNITIVE AND
BEHAVIORAL LEVELS OF RADICALIZATION (ÖNNERFORS
2018:27).
The far-right terrorist attack of Christchurch was staged ‘in real life’ (IRL)
with the purpose to create maximum impact through dissemination
online. Facebook is said to have removed no less than 1,5m videos of the
terror attack during the first 24 hours, which demonstrates the magnitude
of terrorism as an act of strategic communication (Falkheimer, 2013:44-55)
or as Marsh and Mullholland argue: “the attack seemed orchestrated for
the social media age” (CNN 2019/1). Tarrant thus has much in common with
ISIS who painstakingly staged their executions as emblematic hybrid
media narratives with the purpose of a maximum of impact (Krona 2019).
This is one of the first and key take-aways from the ‘manifesto’ of ‘third
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position’ radical right ideology terrorist Brenton Tarrant released online
(of course and its content presented extensively below): his
understanding of the world and his communication with the world is
shaped by the Internet and its specific communication culture. His
identity-formation as much as radicalization was driven by the hyper-
medial environment in which it was aimed to unfold meaning (Madisson
2016).
In one of his bizarre Q&A-sections possibly mimicking the ‘Ask-me-
Anything’ format of Reddit, Tarrant states (2019:17): [Q] From where did
you receive/research/develop your beliefs? [A] The internet, of course. You
will not find the truth anywhere else. Radicalization as the “rational
response to degeneration” is driven by a dynamic between online and
o#ine socialization “in the flesh or online” (Tarrant 2019:36). He comes out
as a true believer of the libertarian and counter-hegemonic destabilizing
e$ect of the free Internet and more peculiar, the Internet as a source of
liberation, a way back to explore pure identity and uncorrupted truth:
Once the corporate and state medias grip
on the zeitgeist of modernity was finally
broken by the internet, , true freedom of
thought and discussion flourished and
the [ [O]]verton window was not just
shifted, , but shattered. . All possibility of
expression and belief was open to be
#
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The main elements of the terrorist narrative
If online ontology and epistemology of Tarrant is a significant part of his
radicalization process as much as of his life reality, let us now turn to its
cognitive dimensions. What are the ideas driving the terrorist to his actions
(for a model, see Önnerfors 2018:27-30)? A quantitative analysis of the
manifesto was carried out by the Swedish Defence Research Agency FOI
with the so-called ‘profile risk assessment tool’ (PRAT, SVT 2019). The
analysis demonstrated compelling parallels to Norwegian terrorist Breivik
taught, , discussed and spoken. . This open
and often anonymous discussion
allowed for information, , outside of the
states and the corporation control, , to be
accessed often for the first time. . The
result is obvious. . People are finding their
way home. . Finding their people, , finding
their traditions, , seeing through the lies of
history, , the brainwashing of the
institutions and they angry, , they are
energized and yes, , against their
degenerate societies, , they are
radicalized.. ( (Tarrant 2019:35 2019:3536).36).
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in terms of the intentions to kill and the use of a language of power. In
terms of negative emotions, Tarrant expresses anger and sadness on a
higher level than Breivik. There is a clear division between ‘us’ and ‘them’.
Other personality traits are introversion in combination with
purposefulness, fearlessness and a low degree of compassion. All in all, a
toxic mix. In qualitative terms, we can see the following main themes and
concepts addressed in the manifesto:
(1) WHITE DECLINE / WHITE GENOCIDE
‘The Great Replacement’ or ‘ethnic substitution’ (Renaud Camus,
Washington Post, 2019) conspiracy theory is all about that the white race is
exposed to the threat of extinction through a form of reversed
colonialization. Tarrant is obsessed with birthrates (mentioned 12 times),
population statistics, reproduction and ‘replacement fertility levels’
(fertility is mentioned 24 times). Falling levels of the purported indigenous
European population will inevitably cause ethnic/cultural/racial
replacement. The reasons behind the disastrous decline are the
destruction of traditional family unit and nihilism and the development is
propelled by mass migration by ‘invaders’. This apocalyptic language of
deluge and the threat of turning into a domestic minority on the brink of
extinction is for instance also very prominent in the German PEGIDA-
movement.
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TITLE PAGE OF TARRANT’S
MANIFESTO. IN THE CENTER OF THE
CIRCLE, WE FIND THE SS-SYMBOL
‘SCHWARZE SONNE’ (‘BLACK SUN’).
(2) BLATANT AND MANICHAEAN (HOWEVER CONDITIONAL) ISLAMOPHOBIA
There is no doubt that Tarrant’s manifesto is essentially ‘counter-jihadist’
and islamophobic in the sense that Islam and Muslims are portrayed as the
major and existential threat to white/European supremacy. The manifesto
is saturated with ‘counter-jihadist’ and islamophobic enemy images,
repeating stereotypes that have circulated in anti-Muslim propaganda
ever since. However, and that is related to the next element of the
narrative, it is not Islam or Muslims per se that is/are evil ‘they’ turn into
existential enemies in the very moment ‘they’ transgress ‘their’ natural
environment and turn into ‘invaders’.
(3) ETHNOPLURALISM, MIXOPHOBIA AND ‘RACIAL AUTONOMY’
Tarrant is not against other people, cultures or religions per se, but
adheres to the ‘ethnopluralist’ and ‘mixophobic’ faction (Bar-On, 2013) of
the far right hailing a peculiar version of diversity: Every people ought to
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live in its own organic culture and environment, uncorrupted by the
influence of outsiders. Hence, he is also strongly against the US-ideal of a
‘melting pot’. Racial di$erences are evident and are determined by a
climate theory that supports racial apartheid. As with other
ethnopluralists, there are a number of contradictions such as: what to do
with ethnic minorities in relation to white majorities and white settlers in
climates that not originally can be understood as Western or European
(such as in South Africa or Australia) and what about intermarriages?
Tarrant’s ideas of ecologically motivated ethnopluralism are tightly
connected to his eco-fundamentalism.
BACK SIDE OF THE CHRISTCHURCH
TERRORIST MANIFESTO, EIGHT
IMAGES OF ‘NATURAL PURITY’,
JOINED BY THE ‘BLACK SUN’
(4) ECO-FUNDAMENTALISM / ECO-FASCISM / GREEN NATIONALISM
Tarrant mentions repeatedly that he considers himself an ‘eco-fascist’,
“preserving and exulting nature and the natural order” through ‘green
nationalism’, a peculiar element of his cognitive universe that stands out
as compared to other right-wing terrorists. Overpopulation and migration
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go against his idea of ethnopluralist climate theories. He expresses also
strongly anti-modern and anti-capitalist sentiments and blames
capitalists and socialists alike to have destroyed nature and the
environment. Climate change also justifies reduction of the world
population. It is the ‘invaders’ who kill the planet due to their fertility rates.
A similar argument was brought forward in the PEGIDA-movement:
“Beleites continues with an extensive
discussion of the disadvantages of
migration and interprets European
generosity as cementing colonial
patterns of behaviour. . Population growth
constitutes an ecological threat. . Mass
migration causes brain-drain, , uprooting,,
and alienation. . The controversial Italian
population geneticist Cavalli-Sforza
claimed that moving people outside the
ecosystem to which they are acclimatized
goes against human nature. . Since there
is no standard climate, , there can also be
no standard human being. . This
argument holds North America as a
#
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(5) INFERIORITY / VULNERABILITY COMPLEX
One striking element is Tarrant’s recurring underlying complex of
inferiority and vulnerability that he expresses. Despite of the theoretical
supremacy of the ‘West’ and the white race, there is an existential fear of
decline and destruction that does not add up (this paradox is according to
Kristian Steiner a typical element in the construction of enemy images).
The invaders are currently superior when it comes to fertility, but also
socio-cultural cohesion and traditions. In a retrotopian sentiment, Tarrant
laments the decline not only of Western birthrates, but of Western
civilization, which apparently has gone o$ the tracks through
forceful example of migration leading
only to a cultural abyss. . ( (Önnerfors
2018:1052018:105-106) 106) and “The preface to
Hennig’s book thus amalgamates eco-
fundamentalism with anti-Americanism
and essentialist assumptions about the
natural order of races ( (and religions))
within given climates and adapted to
pre-existing preconditions. . All these
factors speak against migration..
((Önnerfors 2018:106) 2018:106)
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industrialization, modernization and capitalism and the destructive
ideologies of liberalism and ‘nihilism’. The worst kind are however those
who give up their own origins, for instance converts.
(6) CONSPIRACY THEORIES (CTs)
Although not a prominent element of the manifesto as such (apart from
the replacement CT as such), there are a number of references to CTs, such
as ‘globalism’, the purported control of media, Marxist and corporate
control, the ‘anti-white media machine’ and the mysterious “X” that are an
issue. “x groups” seem to refer to secret plotters.
[Q] Why attack immigrants when “x” are the issue? [A] Because the “x”
groups can be dealt with in time, but the high fertility immigrants will
destroy us now, soon it is a matter of survival we destroy them first.
(7) ENEMY IMAGES
Apart from the Muslim ‘invaders’ that are omnipresent in the manifesto,
Tarrant points out a host of ideological enemies: conservatives (due to
their economism), Antifa, Marxists, Communists and ‘Turks’ (there is a
clear anti-Ottoman/anti-Turkish twist throughout the manifesto). He
specifically also points out Merkel, Erdogan and Khan.
(8) MASCULINITY
True masculinity is demonstrated through violent action and martial,
death-defying ethics with clear parallels to Traditionalist ideas. The
manifesto hails the soldier who is prepared to sacrifice himself for the
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higher cause.
Terrorist motives ( (revenge, , agitation, , inciting violence, , e!ects of
direct action, , creating fear and change))
Tarrant outlines extensively his motivation behind to turn to terrorist
action:
The terrorist act is interpreted against the great frame narrative of
white genocide: fight against invasion and revenge for previous
terrorist attacks and warfare stretching back to the loss of
Constantiople in 1453 and the Crusades.
Tarrant consciously aims at to incite violence, he claims, and to further
societal divides.
The inner enemy is the ‘nihilistic, hedonistic, individualistic insanity’
in Western thought.
Tarrant wants to split the NATO between Christian and non-Christian
countries, he is clearly anti-Turkish.
His aim is also to incite violence in the US by fueling the controversy
over the 2nd amendment with the ultimate aim of civil war,
balkanization and the destruction of the ‘melting pot’-ideal, the racial
(spatial) division of the US into white and non-white territories. The
issue of indigenous populations is not addressed.
Tarrant says that two game-changing events for him were the Swedish
terrorist attack of April 2017 and the French general election of the
same year. He expresses hatred of Macron, but likewise of Le Pen.
Swedish candidate for MEP Sara Skyttedal of the Christian Democrats
repeated exactly this ideological position in an interview only a day
after the terrorist attack (DN 2019).
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Was the terrorist attack a part of strategic communication? Tarrant is
ambiguous/contradictory. One the one hand he says that it was not a
PR-stunt for his ideas, on the other hand he says that the media
impact matters.
Some interesting details
Tarrant’s travel account of unease through France where he realizes
that the ‘invaders’ are everywhere and that the lives lost in WW1 not
are remembered (forgotten sacrifices of freedom).
Tarrant says he was in contact with the ‘reborn Knights Templar’
around ‘Knight Justiciar’ Breivik, whom he admires deeply.
Christians ought to align with the anti-Islamist views of pope Urban II
who started the crusades.
Pro-Trump (‘symbol of renewed white identity’) and Pro-Brexit.
There are elements in the manifesto as well as displayed during the
terrorist attack that suggest Tarrant had contacts/sympathies with
violent islamophobic extremists from the Balkan countries.
General description of the manifesto
The manifesto in the version I have received as a pdf counts 74
unpaginated pages. When converted to a word document, it translated to
15 434 words (this might not be the precise figure). The manifesto can be
divided into the following parts:
Title page
Title: The Great Replacement
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Subtitle: Towards a New Society We March Ever Forwards
In between title and subtitle is placed a circle with 8 subsections, titled
clockwise ‘environmentalism’, ‘responsible markets’, ‘addiction-free
community’, ‘law & order’, ‘ethnic autonomy’, ‘protection of heritage and
culture’, ‘worker’s rights’, ‘anti-imperialism’. In the center of the circle, we
find the SS-symbol ‘Schwarze Sonne’ (‘Black Sun’). The symbol appears on
the Twitter account @Cyber_Drifter, oddly with a communist hammer and
sickle in the centre. It was posted 19 January 2019 (accessed 15 March 2019).
[https://twitter.com/Cyber_Drifter/status/1086661543364837376]
The image as used by the Christchurch terrorist was also published on
Reddit.
Part 1 Introduction (p. 1-3)
A poem written by Dylan Thomas is followed by a general introduction in
which the perpetrator outlines his main argument: the white race is under
attack and threatened by imminent extinction.
Part 2 consisting of three Mock interviews
Mock interview 1 (4-18)
The terrorist pretends in the future to have been interviewed answering
general questions about himself and his motives.
Mock interview 2 (18-19)
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The terrorist pretends in the future to have been interviewed by ‘my
people’ and supporters.
Mock interview 3 (19-22)
The terrorist pretends in the future to have been interviewed by
‘detractors’ and those that oppose his beliefs/methods.
Part 3 Section I “Addresses to various groups” (23-28)
Starts with an altered version of a poem by Rudyard Kipling. Addressed to:
1) conservatives, 2) Christians, 3) Antifa/Marxist/Communists, 4) To Turks.
Part 4 Section II “General thoughts and Potential Strategies” (29-72)
In this largest section of the manifesto, 38 topics are addressed in shorter
or longer paragraphs.
Part 5 Section IV [Section III apparently missing or wrong count] (72-73)
Back side: a collage of eight color images, heavily masculinized and
feminized imagery together with the idealization of natural purity,
martial ideals, the benefits of rural life and traditional/natural gender
roles.
Image 1: a man in the (Nordic) woods with his hound
Image 2 (opposite): a little girl hugging a woman
Image 3: a group of three people pictured from behind having a picnic in a
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forest
Image 4 (opposite): two armed commandos
Image 5: heavily equipped elite soldier in (Scottish?) landscape
Image 6 (opposite): mother kissing her baby child
Image 7: a farmer woman together with her daughter, sowing
Image 8 (opposite): a man together with his son, fishing
Images 1-4 and 5-8 are joined at their intersections with the SS ‘Black Sun’
symbol
Topics addressed in the section ‘General Thoughts’
The topics addressed in this section are arranged in the same fashion, with
a heading, a body of text and a final sentence in ALL CAPS. They range
from a few lines to about a page in length. These are the ideas expressed: •
blame our own weakness, • rape of European women, • diversity means
weakness and a bit later, • diversity and equality cannot coexist /
hierarchies are motivated, • ‘radicalization is the rational response to
degeneration’ ( a long and very interesting passage), • assimilation is a
failure , • green nationalism is the only true nationalism, • kill high profile
enemies: Merkel, Erdogan, Khan, • we are embedded in history and legacy
of the past, • martial ideas of heroism and soldier ideal, • the invader is an
existential threat => the unarmed invader is the real threat, • march
through institutions for those who can, • populism is the true source of
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political legitimacy, • you cannot hide from the inherent apocalypse, •
emotions rule over facts: you need to engage people through emotional
appeal, ‘be passionate’, • no profits for non-whites: take direct action
against capitalism’s tolerance towards foreign labor, • kill drug-dealers
(Duterte style), • Europe is the homeland of Europeans, • do not wait for a
signal, engage in direct action, • to become a minority is the highway to
hell, • kill all enemies, • do not emigrate to the countryside, take the fight
in the cities, • support ‘brother nations’, • accept mortality and death for
the higher good, • it is not only numbers that need to be addressed, but
our motivation, • birthrates are the key to the future of the white race
(repeatedly treated in separate points), • there is no democratic solution, •
NGO’s helping migrants across the Mediterranean are ‘involved in the
genocide of the European people’, • we are not allowed to lose history, but
need to act now, • the people in Europe have to live separate lives and
cultures in their respective ethnicity (ethnopluralism), • leaders will
eventually reveal themselves, • direct action is the key to change
(repeatedly stated), • conflict needs to be incited, destabilization is a goal
in itself => violent change, • economic globalization is an enemy of ‘racial
autonomy’, the principle of cheap labor is to be attacked (minimum wage,
unionization proposed), • let the melting pot US boil over (the new civil war
needs to come), • defy taxation
Dr Andreas Önnerfors is a Senior Fellow at CARR and Associate Professor
in the History of Ideas, University of Gothenberg. See his profile here:
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© Andreas Önnerfors. Views expressed on this website are individual
contributors and do not necessarily reflect that of the Centre for Analysis
of the Radical Right (CARR). We are pleased to share previously
unpublished materials with the community under creative commons
license 4.0 (Attribution-NoDerivatives).
Thanks
Special thanks go to: Tobias Hübinette, Rasmus Fleischer, Pontus Näslund
Stagling, Torbjörn Jerlerup and Raluca Radu for providing with input.
Helpful were also postings by Chip Berlet and Christer Mattsson.
References
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Bar-On, Tamir. 2013.
Rethinking the French New Right
. London: Routledge.
CNN 2019/1. “How the Christchurch terrorist attack was made for social
media”,
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/15/tech/christchurch-internet-
radicalization-intl/index.html
CNN 2019/2, ”The internet is radicalizing white men. Big tech could be doing
more”,
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/17/tech/youtube-facebook-twitter-
radicalization-new-zealand/index.html
DN 2019. ”Orbán och Macron är lika destruktiva” [Orbán and Macron are
both destructive] https://www.dn.se/nyheter/politik/sara-skyttedal-
kristdemokraterna-orban-och-macron-ar-lika-destruktiva/
Falkheimer, Jesper. 2013. “Terrorism, medier och propaganda. In:
Vetenskapssocieten i Lund Årsbok 2013
. Vetenskapssocieten: Lund.
Jenkins, B.M. 1974. “International Terrorism: a New Kind of Warfare”.
The
Rand Paper Series
(Vol. P-5261). Santa Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation.
Krona, Michael. 2019. http://michaelkrona.com.
Madisson, Mari-Liis. 2016.
The Semiotic Construction of Identities in
Hypermedia Environments: The Analysis of Online Communication of the
Estonian Extreme Right
. Tartu: Tartu University.
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Önnerfors, Andreas and Steiner, Kristian. “Introduction” in Önnerfors,
Andreas and Steiner, Kristian. Eds. 2018.
Expressions of Radicalization:
Global Politics, processes and Practices
. Palgrave: London.
SVT 2019. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/foi-om-garningsmannen-i-
christchurch-aldrig-sett-nagon-som-ar-sa-lik-breivik
Washington Post. 2019.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/new-zealand-suspect-
inspired-by-far-right-french-intellectual-who-feared-nonwhite-
immigration/2019/03/15/8c39fba4-6201-4a8d-99c6-
aa42db53d6d3_story.html?
fbclid=IwAR1cCDpyw7eixBfZG3u9s2TggME_wKjQQuIBDjTrzcAuUA6aP-
V9qNZZgPA&noredirect=on&utm_term=.9fd86c6573b9
Views expressed on this website are individual contributors and do not
necessarily reflect that of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR).
We are pleased to share previously unpublished materials with the community
under creative commons license 4.0 (Attribution-NoDerivatives).
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#CHRIST CHURCH #ETHNO-NATIONALISM #ISLAMOPHOBIA #NEW ZEALAND
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$
Serious Issue. Serious Analysis.
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Positioned within linguistic profiling research as in Shuy’s work (The language of murder cases: intentionality, predisposition, and voluntariness. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014), this study introduces the concept of ‘conceptual burstiness’ to computer-assisted sociolinguistic profiling, demonstrating how to uncover investigative leads within terrorist threatening communications. Leveraging corpus analysis methods and semiotic clues, the study chiefly utilises AntConc (a software tool developed by Anthony, AntConc (Version 3.5.8) [Computer software]. Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, 2019) to scrutinise word frequency and concordance lines, revealing distinct lexical preferences and their semantic proximity as recurrent thematic elements colouring the semantics of criminal texts. As a case study, the article examines 20 public statements attributed to notorious figures: the far-rightist Brenton Tarrant and jihadists Osama bin Laden, Abubakar Shekau, and Abubaker al-Baghdadi. Analysis conducted revealed repeated lemmas making up around 21.65% of the entire texts and encoding the semantic nature of the terrorist texts, giving rise to propelled conceptual burstiness categories as: (i) a function of the discursive purpose to which different lemmas converging within the same semantic fields are used in the forensic texts (e.g. introducing a radical concept and persuading the audience); and (ii) a reflection of the regularities in symbolic capital and repertoire of concepts to which the authors adhere. These discernible patterns reflect each author’s adherence to religious or ethnonationalist ideologies, patterns of violent-pathway language, agendas of control and dominance, and attribution practices that signal ideological stances and characteristic rhetorical devices. Integrating insights into the threat assessment framework TRAP-18 (Meloy & Gill, J Threat Assess Manag 3(1):37, 2016), the study offers a ‘post-diction’ (i.e. retrospective) lens on traditional risk assessment methods. The analysis of conceptual choices reveals patterns aligning with TRAP-18 categories of proximal warning behaviour and distal characteristics of terrorist communications, enhancing security and law enforcement professionals’ predictive ability and identifying pathways to radicalisation, fixation, identification with violent individuals and groups, desperation, or ‘last resort behaviour.’ The conceptual burstiness method promises insights for counter-terrorism efforts, informing accelerated investigatory and intervention protocols and objectionable content moderation online.
... Terrorists have increased their online presence and use of the Internet for the purposes of orchestrating and livestreaming their terrorist attacks, recruitment, radicalisation to terrorism, incitement to hatred, and communicating threat messages [12,44]. Communicated threats constitute one aspect of risks and dangers of terrorist content online [18,21]. ...
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Unlike one-to-one threats, terrorist threat texts constitute a form of violence and a language crime that is committed in a complex context of public intimidation and are communicated publicly and designed strategically to force desired sociopolitical changes (Etaywe, 2022a). Contributing to law enforcement and threat assessors' fuller understanding of the discursive nature of threat texts in terrorism context, this paper examines how language is used dialogically to communicate threats and to construct both the purpose of threatened actions and the victims. The paper uses a critical discourse analytic approach and takes a set of eleven digital threat texts made by two jihadists as a case study. It draws on van Dijk's (1995) concept of ideology, the law enforcement-based taxonomy of threat types (Napier & Mardigian, 2003), van Leeuwen's (2008) model of social actor representation and discursive construction of purpose of social actions, and Martin and White's (2005) Engagement system. The analysis reveals victims specified and genericised, excluded and adversary. This linguistic construction is underpinned by a dichotomous conceptualisation of the social actors' affiliations, positions, values, cultural activities, goals, and material and symbolic resources. The threats are delivered to the victims, agents acting on their behalf (e.g. security forces) or property associated with them (e.g. oil refinery), and are of two primary types-direct, and veiled. The former are predominant and serve inter alia to augment the public-intimidation impact of terrorist discourse. Threatened violence is of goal-, means-and/or effect-oriented social purposes, which suggest a categorisation of threats based on these purposes. The analysis reveals a dialectic, refutative nature of argumentation, and a discourse pregnant with heteroglossic utterances that contract (i) to close off and disalign with state officials' contradictory voices, and (ii) to produce tension, providing clues to terrorists' motivations and what constitutes the heart of political violence.
... Altogether, the Halle synagogue shooting fits into a pattern of far-right terrorism on a global level: 'All of them speak to the same audience of white nationalists online, hoping to inspire them to commit their own acts of violence' (Basra et al., 2019). The Halle shooter 'invoked the unifying grand narrative of white-nationalist terrorism today', the conspiracy theory of the 'Great Replacement' of the white race, orchestrated by the Jews, which also was cited in the Christchurch and El Paso manifestos (Basra et al., 2019;Önnerfors, 2020a;Koehler, 2019). ...
Chapter
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... I både The Great Replacement og 2083 forbindes kvinner med reproduksjon, sex og barneoppdragelse, ikke arbeid eller et liv i offentligheten. Begge steder ses også den seksuelle revolusjonen, og oppløsningen av den tradisjonelle kjernefamilien til fordel for et mer selvrealiserende og individualistisk orientert verdisett, som noe som har lagt vestlige territorier åpne og sårbare for fremmede «invasjoner» (Walton, 2012, s. 7;Önnerfors, 2019). ...
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One aspect of threat of terrorist public communication is incitement to violence and legitimating it (Tsesis, 2017). This paper contributes to understanding how bonds tabled in discourse are exploited to legitimize 'Our' violence and to delegitimize ‘outgroups’. I argue that the inciting texts drive the strategic use of bonds to achieve a main rhetorical function: legitimizing violence. The patterns of bonds, geared as a basis for perception and (de)legitimation, are investigated as realized in a set of incitement texts communicated publicly by the former al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, and the far-rightist, Brenton Tarrant. The analytical approach mainly draws on Knight's (2010) social semiotic approach to bonding to identify the account of bonds as evidence of and entry points to (de)legitimation. The patterns of bonds across each terrorist's texts are then labelled thematically based on what is (de)legitimated. To identify reference to reasons of (de)legitimation, Van Leeuwen's (2007) semantic-functional strategies of critique and (de)legitimation are used. To map the rhetorical structure level-style of (de)legitimation, the classic appeal strategies – pathos (appeal to incitees' emotions), logos (rational arguments) and ethos (authority-based arguments) – are identified. Findings showed that both authors tended to deploy (i) communing bonds to legitimize 'Our' violence and (ii) condemning bonds to delegitimize outgroups (mainly, their actions, values, and membership), chiefly via moralization, rationalization and authorization, and by drawing on authors' ethos and logical reasoning. Keywords: affiliation, incitement, legitimization of violence, bonding, ideological schema, violent extremist discourse
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A través de la difusión de elementos informativos (es decir, cualquier ítem creado y difundido con la finalidad de transmitir información) en la sociedad digital, la desinformación modifica 1) la ideología social y política de los usuarios de las redes sociales y de otras herramientas digitales, así como su cosmovisión o conjunto de ideas sobre la realidad; 2) la actuación ética del sujeto en el mundo, lo que incluye actos violentos, terroristas y de terrorismo estocástico; y 3) las condiciones de veracidad que se le otorgan a un hecho para etiquetarlo como veraz, lo que deviene en el fenómeno de la confusión epistemológica, mediante el cual se otorga veracidad a un hecho por el mero deseo de que sea verdadero, en lugar de apelar a voces de autoridad reconocida.
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One of the most widespread conspiracy theories in contemporary time in Europe is that of Eurabia, the fear of Muslims replacing the Christian population with Islam. The theory is also often named after Renaud Camus’s book from 2011 titled the Le Grand Remplacement (‘The Great Replacement’). Camus argued that European civilisation and identity was at risk of being subsumed by mass migration. This notion of replacement, or white genocide, has echoed throughout the rhetoric of many anti-migrant far-right movements in the West. Chris Allen (2010) defines Islamophobia as the negative positioning of Islam and Muslims as the ‘other’, posing a threat to ‘us’. The archetypical Muslim in a Western depiction is, indeed, not only portrayed as inferior, but also as being alien. Inhered in the theory is an apocalyptic view of Muslims dominating and destroying the liberal and democratic Europe. This fear of subversion is, though, only the first part of the full theory. Its completion usually also takes the form of accusing a domestic elite of betraying the good ordinary people into the hands of the external evil. This chapter analyzes the Eurabia theory and maps how mainly populist leaders in Europe have promoted this theory.
Terrorism, medier och propaganda
  • Jesper Falkheimer
Falkheimer, Jesper. 2013. "Terrorism, medier och propaganda." In: Vetenskapssocieten i Lund -Årsbok 2013. Vetenskapssocieten: Lund.
International Terrorism: a New Kind of Warfare
  • B M Jenkins
Jenkins, B.M. 1974. "International Terrorism: a New Kind of Warfare". The Rand Paper Series (Vol. P-5261). Santa Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation.
The Semiotic Construction of Identities in Hypermedia Environments: The Analysis of Online Communication of the Estonian Extreme Right
  • Mari-Liis Madisson
Madisson, Mari-Liis. 2016. The Semiotic Construction of Identities in Hypermedia Environments: The Analysis of Online Communication of the Estonian Extreme Right. Tartu: Tartu University. 2021-01-25 18:09 'The Great Replacement' -Decoding the Christchurch Terrorist Manifesto -Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right Sida 20 av 21