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Radical pluralism and free speech in
online public spaces
The case of North Belgian extreme right discourses
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Bart Cammaerts
London School of Economics and Political Science, England
ABSTRACT
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Progressive political movements and activists are not the only
ones appropriating Web 2.0 as a way to construct independent public spaces and
voice counter-hegemonic discourses. By studying (post-) fascist movements, it
will be shown that the internet also gives rise to anti-public spaces, voicing
hatred and essentialist discourses. In this article, discourses of hate produced by
North Belgian (post-)fascist movements and activists will be analysed.
Theoretically the analysis is informed by radical pluralism and the limits of
freedom of speech in a strong democracy. The cases presented challenge the
limits of freedom of speech and of radical pluralism, and bring us to question
whether being a racist is a democratic right, whether freedom of speech
includes opinions and views that challenge basic democratic values.
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KEYWORDS
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freedom of speech
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hate speech
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public sphere
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radical democracy
You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from bar-
barism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a
push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn. (Buchan, 1916)
In this article a case study illustrating the way in which the internet serves as
a platform for the incitement of racial hatred and discrimination against
minorities is presented. More specifically, hate speech in North Belgian blogs
and an online forum will be analysed. This will be related to recent debates
regarding the internet and public spaces, rationality versus passions, the dis-
tinction between antagonism and agonism (Mouffe, 1999), and freedom of
ARTICLE
INTERNATIONAL
journal of
CULTURAL studies
©The Author(s), 2009.
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Volume 12(6): 555–575
DOI: 10.1177/1367877909342479
5 5 5
556 INTERNATIONAL journal of CULTURAL studies 12(6)
speech. In this article the focus will be on ‘communities of closure’ (Couldry,
2002) or anti-publics, ‘placing themselves at the political extremes … chal-
leng[ing] or question[ing] basic democratic values’ (Cammaerts, 2007: 73).
As critical scholars we often tend to focus on progressive emancipatory
resistance movements first and foremost, and in doing so we underscore the
extensive use of the internet (as well as other media) by non-progressive reac-
tionary movements, be it the radical and dogmatic Catholic movement, the
fundamentalist Muslim movement or the extreme right – post-fascist – move-
ment. As Kahn and Kellner (2004: 94) quite rightly point out: ‘the internet is
a contested terrain, used by Left, Right, and Centre of both dominant cultures
and subcultures in order to promote their own agendas and interests’. A
notable exception to this predominant focus on progressive politics is Atton
(2004, 2006), who addresses the use of alternative (new) media by the
extreme right movements in the UK and the US. Downing et al. (2001: 89)
also distinguish between democratic and repressive radical media, the latter
having: ‘neither critical reflection nor any genuine increase in personal or col-
lective freedom … on the radar screen’.
Inevitably the hate speech debate also brings into question ideological
differences in relation to how absolute freedom of speech is, the nature of
democracy and how or to what extent a balance needs to be struck between
different rights, including respect for and recognition of difference and the
right not to be discriminated against.
An online public sphere or public spaces online
The rise of the internet as an interactive space, potentially global in reach, has
led to an increasing number of scholars asserting the relevance, or indeed
irrelevance, of the internet for the promotion of a democratic public sphere
and for the facilitation of deliberation (Cammaerts, 2005; Dahlberg, 2001;
Dahlgren, 2005; Dean, 2003; Downey and Fenton, 2003; Gimmler, 2001;
Poster, 2001; Wilhelm, 2000; Young, 2001). This has clearly reinvigorated
debates regarding the public sphere and, linked to that, the potentials of the
internet to foster a public sphere or public spaces beyond state and market
that facilitate deliberation.
From a postmodern perspective, Villa (1992: 712) describes the public
sphere as: ‘a discursive arena that is home to citizen debate, deliberation,
agreement and action’. Deliberation is, however, very much entrenched in the
Enlightenment tradition rather than postmodernism. It points to a process of
communication and dialogue, involving different ‘equal’ actors aimed at reach-
ing a rational consensus. It is thus seen as a democratic process informed by
rational argumentative debate, respect for difference and the ability to change
views based on sound rational counter-arguments (Benhabib, 1996: 96).
The internet is by some perceived as an ideal (new) platform to realize
genuine deliberation. Coleman and Gøtze (2001: 17) for instance assert that
the internet ‘makes manageable large-scale, many-to-many discussion and
Cammaerts
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Radical pluralism and free speech in online public spaces 557
deliberation’. Contrary to this, much of empirical research on the relationship
between the internet and deliberation (or public debate for that matter) tends
to counter the rather optimistic claims that the internet stimulates and facili-
tates the emergence of an online public sphere. First and foremost, almost
becoming a disclaimer, the digital divide remains problematic in relation to
free access for all (Cammaerts et al., 2003). True, penetration rates in the
West – particularly of broadband – have soared in recent years, but this does
not mean that everyone has easy and equal access to the internet or a com-
puter, nor to capabilities in the way Sen conceives them (see Garnham, 2000).
Regarding the potentials of the internet with regard to fostering democ-
racy and facilitating public debate or dialogue, Norris (2001: 12) speaks of
a democratic divide between ‘those who do and do not use the multiple
political resources available on the internet for civic engagement’. This cre-
ates imbalances, whereby those who participate offline, also do so online.
This leads Dahlberg (2001: 10) to conclude that participation in online
public debates ‘is, in fact, both quantitatively and qualitatively dominated
by those already powerful offline (politically active, educated, white,
males)’. More recently, King (2006: 26) confirmed that ‘those people par-
ticipating in political issues on the Internet were highly educated and
already highly politically engaged persons’.
In addition to pointing to issues of access and addressing the crucial
question as to who participates in online public debates, many scholars
challenge or at least question the potential of the internet to facilitate and
enable (rational) deliberation within an ideal speech situation. A recurrent
observation is that much debate on the internet tends to take place between
like-minded (male) participants situated in homogenic ideological frame-
works and engaging in, what Davies (1999: 162) calls ‘opinion reinforce-
ment’ and Wilhelm (2000: 89) ‘homophily’. On the contrary, ideologically
heterogeneous unmoderated spaces for debate, while being more open, are
often confronted with flame-wars between (often anonymous) participants
(Cammaerts, 2005: 70; Eum, 2005).
Finally, some authors also address the dangers of individualization, alien-
ation, isolation and fragmentation, which – according to them – are increased
by ICTs (Gitlin, 1998; Postman, 1992). New media facilitate catering to
specific niche-markets, characterized by a pull-strategy, which promotes the
segmentation of publics: ‘disadvantag[ing] deliberation and the pursuit of
common ground and undermin[ing] the politics of democratic participation’
(Barber, 2003: 45).
While many proponents of digital culture and technological advancement
seem to argue that the internet has all the attributes necessary to constitute a
Habermassian public sphere, others – such as many authors cited above,
argue the contrary or are more cautious in their assessment. This leads us to
argue that the real question here is maybe not whether the internet constitutes
a public sphere, but rather the inaptness of the normative Habermassian
public sphere notion at a theoretical level in accounting for current political
and social processes in highly mediatized and popular culture driven societies.
558 INTERNATIONAL journal of CULTURAL studies 12(6)
Contra the Habermassian public sphere and rational deliberation,
Connolly (1991) and Mouffe (1999) advocate for a radical pluralist and ago-
nistic democratic model. They argue for an agonistic conception of the polit-
ical which recognizes ideological differences, societal tensions and conflicts
of interest – always present in every society, and in which ‘others’ are con-
structed as legitimate adversaries rather then enemies. Agonism refers to a
struggle of conflicting ideas – ‘a vibrant clash of democratic political posi-
tions’ (Mouffe, 2000: 16) – but at the same time also to a common frame of
democratic principles, respecting ‘the other’ in their otherness with ‘a shared
adhesion to the ethico-political principles of democracy’ (Mouffe, 1999: 755).
The aim of democracy, according to Mouffe (1999: 755), should then be ‘to
transform an “antagonism” into an “agonism”’.
According to the conflictual approach in political theory, deliberative
democracy eliminates or eradicates power and conflict from the political in a
bid to achieve a rational consensus shared by all participants to the delibera-
tive process.
I am particularly interested in the role of what I call ‘passions’ in politics.
For Habermas, this is exactly what the public sphere should not be; it is not
the place where passions should be expressed.… Public spaces should be
places for the expression of dissensus, for bringing to the floor what forces
attempt to keep concealed. (Mouffe, quoted in Carpentier and Cammaerts,
2006: 973–4)
Clearly the internet can be seen as providing opportunities for constructing
public spaces online, but just as the ‘offline’ public sphere is deemed prob-
lematic on many accounts, so is an online public sphere. By speaking of an
‘online public sphere’ a normative distinction is introduced between what
is considered good and real democratic discourses – rational, focused on
the common good, consensual, etc. and what is deemed non-political, tittle-
tattle in the margins or passionate individual expressions without much
value, thereby ‘homogeniz[ing] political engagement, neutraliz[ing] social
space, and sanitiz[ing] popular cultures’ (Dean, 2001: 346–7). In doing so,
much of what is happing online which might not seem rational or to have
an impact on politics, is being disregarded. It could be argued that this ‘mul-
tiplicity of voices that a pluralist society encompasses’ (Mouffe, 1999: 757)
is beneficial for a vibrant (online) civic culture (Dahlgren, 2009) and a strong
democracy (Barber, 1984).
The diversity of content out there needs to be recognized for its political
potentials and valued accordingly, without restricting or limiting what is con-
sidered political in advance. One of the questions raised here, however, is to
what extent this form of ‘radical pluralism’ is tenable when taken to its
extremes. Ethics and normativity inevitably undergo a resurgence when con-
fronted with anti-publics: those using their right of freedom of speech to incite
hatred and acting in essence with an antagonistic agenda towards democracy
and its core values.
Cammaerts
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Radical pluralism and free speech in online public spaces 559
Freedom of speech: an essentially contested right
It could be argued that while freedom of speech is considered one of the cor-
nerstones of a democracy, it is at the same time also one of the most contested
rights. The recent controversy over the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet
Muhammad, deemed to be blasphemous by Sunni Muslims, is a case in point
(Post, 2007; Sturges, 2006). From a liberal and rather procedural perspective
on democracy, freedom of speech and the press needs to be almost absolute,
preventing state interference in determining what speech is acceptable and
what is not (Dworkin, 1994). However, in democratic societies embedded
in the social responsibility tradition, freedom of speech is more carefully
weighed against other rights and protections, and considered relative rather
then absolute (Lichtenberg, 1990).
The US First Amendment of the Constitution epitomizes the absolutist
perspective. It states that: ‘Congress shall make no law … abridging the free-
dom of speech, or of the press.’ Embedded in a tradition of individualism
and libertarianism, and a firm belief in the need for citizens to be protected
from the state, the freedom to be able to say what one wants, when and how,
is sacred. However, by protecting the content of all speech in such an
absolute way, ‘the action that the speech performs’ (Butler, 1997: 72) is not
taken into consideration. As such, a fairly rigid dichotomy is being con-
structed between the marketplace of ideas and social action. Furthermore,
the First Amendment discourse has become truly hegemonic – a dogmatic
ideology in itself, which leads Schauer (1995: 13) to argue that there is ‘little
free thought about free thought, little free inquiry about free inquiry and
little free speech about free speech’.
Although freedom of speech is undeniably a highly valued right of any
democracy, it does not take priority over all other rights and liberties at all
times, not even in the US. Anti-defamation legislation, laws against obscen-
ity, consumer and even copyright protection illustrate this clearly. Further -
more, in the 1950s and beyond, freedom of speech for US socialists and
communists was seriously curtailed (Rosenfeld, 2001: 12). Concerning the
relationship between freedom of speech and hate speech the issues are, how-
ever, much more complicated. While incitement to violence is outlawed, hate
speech is protected by the First Amendment doctrine. In this regard,
Matsuda (1993: 31–2) points out that ‘people are free to think and say what
they want, even the unthinkable. They can advocate the end of democracy’,
and, furthermore, ‘expressions of the ideas of racial inferiority or racial
hatred are protected’.
The claim by Schauer that there is very little free speech about the freedom
of speech and Matsuda’s argument that even the end of democracy can be
called for, are not entirely convincing, even within the liberal paradigm and
the procedural view of democracy. Popper’s ‘paradox of tolerance’ is a good
example of this. According to Popper (1965: 265) an open and tolerant
society cannot survive if tolerance is unlimited:
560 INTERNATIONAL journal of CULTURAL studies 12(6)
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we
extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not
prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intoler-
ant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.
The harm-principle, initially introduced by Mill, himself a strong advocate
of free speech and liberalism, also attests to the existence of debate within
the liberal free speech tradition. The harm-principle stipulates the condi-
tions under which, among others, free speech could be curtailed: ‘the only
purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a
civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others’ (Mill,
1978: 9). However, given his liberal background, ‘doing harm to others’ has
to be seen here in an individualistic sense and does not extend to collective
harm. Much hate speech would be allowed, as it is argued that it does not
provoke direct harm to another individual.
Opposed to an individualized and formalized conception of democracy and
free speech – detached from action and conceiving ‘the commons’ as a mar-
ketplace of ideas – is the notion of democracy as a process, as ‘a promise …
the endless process of improvement and perfectibility …’ (Derrida, 1997: 5).
Democracy is thus not merely a method for decision-making and electing rul-
ing elites (Schumpeter, 1973 [1942]), but embedded in everyday life and prac-
tices, and concerned with values such as equality, protection against the
market, freedom of speech and social responsibility, leading to a social con-
tract between the citizen and the state (Rousseau, 1977). This more positive
emancipatory perception of the state has led to a more balanced and relativis-
tic approach to freedom of speech. As such, in many countries a collective –
rather than an individualistic – harm-principle prevails over the freedom of
speech principle allowing for direct (legal) intervention when it concerns
racism and discrimination. In addition to this, Feinberg’s (1985) offence-
principle is also often invoked by advocates of limits to free speech. Even
within the tradition of radical democracy, where a radical pluralism of ideas
and voices is deemed beneficial for democracy, a hegemony of basic democra-
tic values is considered crucial. Echoing Popper, but clearly from another polit-
ical paradigm, Mouffe (2005: 120) argues that: ‘[a] democracy cannot treat
those who put its basic institutions into question as legitimate adversaries’.
As a result of this, and contrary to the US, many European countries, as
well as countries such as Canada, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand, have
adopted quite stringent legislation to counter hate speech and the incitement
of racial and ethnic hatred. Some countries have also voted for legislation out-
lawing Holocaust denial or revisionist discourses. In Germany parties with a
fascist ideology can be forbidden.
Finally, the internet plays an increasingly intricate role in current debates
regarding freedom of speech. The internet exposes the differences in concep-
tions of freedom of speech across the world as netizens in one location can
access as well as upload content in another location. It has to be stressed,
Cammaerts
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Radical pluralism and free speech in online public spaces 561
though, that the impact of the global internet and blogs on these national or
regional cultural differences regarding what constitutes freedom of speech is
both problematic and empowering at the same time. The internet potentially
enables dissident and radical voices and discourses to bypass state control in
countries with an authoritarian model of governance, dictatorships or one-
party systems such as China, Iran and Burma. The increase in internet-filter-
ing by these regimes attests to the potency of the internet in this regard.1
Similarly, the internet also enables anti-publics to disseminate hate speech.
The focus here is on this other – darker – side of the coin.
Case-study: the use of blogs and forums by the North
Belgian post-fascist movement
Brief context
The North Belgian post-fascist movement is characterized by a carefully con-
structed balance between a strong focus on law and order, a populist anti-
immigrant – mainly Islamophobic – agenda and a call for the break-up of
Belgium (Jagers and Walgrave, 2007). Its main proponent is the party Vlaams
Belang, formerly known as Vlaams Blok. In 2004 Vlaams Blok revamped
itself as Vlaams Belang after a conviction by the Belgian Supreme Court on
the basis of racism and discrimination (Hof van Beroep, 2004).
With about 15 to 20 percent of the popular vote on a regional level, and
between 25 to 30 percent in the biggest North Belgian city, Antwerp,
Vlaams Belang is currently the second biggest party in North Belgium. The
historical roots of Vlaams Belang go back to the collaboration of large
parts of the Flemish nationalist movement with the German Nazi regime
during the Second World War (Witte et al., 1997). While less apparent
now, this history is nevertheless still relevant as this dark past and its cur-
rent articulations regularly cause embarrassment to the party, which, inci-
dentally, has never unequivocally broken with that dubious past and those
who glorify it in the present.
Three events in 2006 are of particular interest here. In April 2006, a local
youngster was murdered in broad daylight in the hall of Brussels Central
Station after he had refused to hand over his MP3 player. A month later
Antwerp was left in shock after a brutal racist murder in the streets of
Antwerp. A young man with an extreme right background killed a Caucasian
baby and her black minder and wounded a Turkish woman. Again about a
month later, a man died of a cerebral haemorrhage after a skirmish with some
youngsters of Moroccan descent on a local bus in Antwerp.
These three events, while very distinct in one way, came to be seen in rela-
tion to one another, not merely because they happened in a short period of
time, but also because of the public debate and outcry, as well as racist
discourses they produced.
562 INTERNATIONAL journal of CULTURAL studies 12(6)
Since 1981 discrimination on the grounds of race, skin colour, or national
or ethnic descent has been illegal in Belgium, as is the incitement of racial
hatred and propagation of hate speech. In addition, in 1995 the Belgian
parliament outlawed Holocaust denial or negationism. All this is policed
by a vigilant watchdog – the Belgian Centre for Equal Opportunities and
Opposition to Racism (CGKR). In its capacity of watchdog, the CGKR
also started a complaints website for racism on the internet called
‘Cyberhate.be’. It receives on average some 30 complaints per month, most
of which fall into three main categories: (1) racism on discussion forums
and chat sites (on sites that do not have a racist background), (2) racist
websites (such as Stormfront, but also Blood & Honour for example) and
(3) racist chain letters or PowerPoint presentations (Sofie D’Huster, email
interview, 21 May 2007). Racism on the internet is on the increase in
Belgium, prompting some politicians both in the south and the north of the
country to call for intervention by media organizations, the government
and/or by Europe (De Standaard, 2008; Schelfhout and Van Den
Driessche, 2008).
In what follows, examples of online extreme right discourses will be pre-
sented relating to the three events outlined above. These discourses were pro-
duced by individual bloggers or by contributors to an online forum of a US
organization called Stormfront – the Dutch-speaking part of this ‘white
nationalist community’ forum is very active and militant.
Racist discourses in online public spaces
The discourses of hate relating to these three events are quite shocking. The
examples below are of course self-selected and thus serve as an illustration of
discursive transgressions and nothing more. The argument is easily made that
these are marginalized voices and ideas that are present in each society and
now find an outlet on the internet. Given the fragmentary nature of the
‘world-wide’ web, you will not encounter such harsh and wounding language
unless you specifically look for it or are directed to it. Nevertheless, given the
specific North Belgian context, where such ideas are at least implicitly sup-
ported and promoted by the second biggest political party, this poses a direct
threat to democracy itself. As will be shown, free speech and the spirit of
democracy are also being used against democracy itself and its basic values.
The question thus becomes even more complex; can/should a democracy
defend itself against such anti-democratic forces and discourses and, if so,
how, in what circumstances, to what extent?
Table 1 The three events discussed in this article
12 April 2006 Murder of Joe Van Holsbeek (Brussels)
12 May 2006 Murder of Oulematou Niangadou and Luna Drowart Antwerp)
24 June 2006 Death of Guido Demoor (Antwerp)
Cammaerts
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Radical pluralism and free speech in online public spaces 563
Murder of Joe Van Holsbeek (12 April 2006)
Joe Van Holsbeek (17) was murdered by Polish kids in broad daylight in the
hall of the very busy Brussels Central Station. He was stabbed several times
after he refused to hand over his MP3 player. Witness reports, the police, as
well as the mainstream media, implied that the perpetrators were youngsters of
North African descent and public opinion quickly followed suit, condemning
the murder, but by extension also the large Moroccan community in Belgium.
In the extreme right forums and weblogs there was also no doubt whatsoever
that those responsible for the death of Joe were of North African descent.
I hope finally someone will take the problem serious, and realize that those
North African thugs are not worth our care and concern. (BelgianWanderer,
post on Stormfront, 20 April 2006)2
That the perpetrators are of (North) African descent isn’t surprising, only
the contrary would be. (Wehrwolf_VL, post on Stormfront, 17 April 2006)3
One quite influential right-wing commentator and ideologue, Paul Belien,
called upon whites to arm themselves. On a collective blog (www.
brusselsjournal.com) Belien (2006, emphasis added), an ex-journalist
with strong links to Vlaams Belang, demanded ‘give us weapons’, because,
he claims:
The predators have knives.… From a very young age they have learned to
kill warm-blooded animals during the yearly Sacrifice Feast. We become
sick when seeing blood, but not them. They are trained, they are armed.…
The bastards who got everything in our society – free education, childcare
benefits, social security – are today killing our children for an MP3 player.
This posting shows how, at a discursive level, a clear distinction is being
drawn between the identity of the self and ‘the other’, whereby ‘we/our’ is
being construed as good and morally just while ‘they/them’ are being pro-
jected as evil, dangerous and even subhuman. The latter is illustrated by the
use of ‘predator’, i.e. animals that kill and eat other animals. It concurs with
the common perception that ‘positive self-representation and negative
other-presentation are fundamental argumentative strategies for legitimisa-
tion and persuasion by the political right’ (Charteris-Black, 2006: 566).
After a complaint was filed against him through the CGKR for inciting
racial hatred and being interviewed by the police, Belien removed the blog
post quoted above. It now reads: ‘This text was removed on demand of the
CGKR.… Although I deny the charges, I will comply with this request’
(Belien, 2006).
Another concern raised by many, including the Belgian archbishop and the
prime minister, was the indifference of people witnessing the murder, the fact
that nobody intervened during the fight that preceded the fatal stabs and that
those responsible were able to flee without anyone stopping them. On the
Stormfront forum this sentiment was shared, leading to accusations of
cowardly behaviour by ‘our own race’.
564 INTERNATIONAL journal of CULTURAL studies 12(6)
Besides the cowardly politicians, we should also point to all those white
cowards who are present in their ten thousands in Brussels-Central station
every day, of whom nobody ‘saw anything’ or had the guts to intervene.
(Wehrwolf_VL, post on Stormfront, 17 April 2006)4
In the forum, vile language towards the parents of Joe, who refused to get
carried away by the essentialist mood in the media or online blogs and
forums, could also be observed. One poster to the Stormfront forum accused
them of treason to their own race and of abusing their son’s death for polit-
ical ends: ‘These traitors consciously offer their son to the “multicultus”’
(Duchess, post on Stormfront 22 April 2006).5Following the initiative of a
politician of Moroccan descent and the parents of Joe, a so-called ‘white’
(non-political) march was held: 80,000 people took to the streets in com-
memoration of Joe and against violence in society (De Morgen, 2006a).
Two weeks after the murder the police revealed that the perpetrators were
not North African, but rather of Polish descent. The federal police even issued
a formal apology to the North African community in Belgium:
We regret that the North African community was immediately accused
shortly after the murder, certainly as it now appears that the perpetrators
are not from that community. (Audenaert, 2006)
For some days after this announcement, a discussion was waged on the
Stormfront forum doubting the authenticity of these claims. When it appeared
that the Polish youngsters were gypsies, the rant on the forum continued.
Figure 1 Screen-shot of the blog ‘The Brussels Journal’
Cammaerts
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Radical pluralism and free speech in online public spaces 565
Murder of Oulematou Niangadou and Luna Drowart
(12 May 2006)
One month after the murder of Joe Van Holsbeke, a 19-year-old Belgian with
an extreme right family background shot down three people in the streets of
Antwerp. Hans Van Temsche wounded a Turkish woman and subsequently
killed a woman of African descent and the white baby she was minding, after
which he was shot and arrested by the police. This act sent shockwaves
through the Belgian society, which is not used to street shootings at all.
Guy Verhofstadt, the then prime minister, was quick to link these murders
to the extreme right ideology that drives and is being promoted by Vlaams
Belang. In a press release he stated: ‘These dreadful, cowardly murders are a
form of extreme racism. It has to be clear for everybody now to what the
extreme right leads’ (Verhofstadt quoted in De Morgen, 2006b). Not surpris-
ingly these murders also caused, maybe for the very first time, real panic in
the extreme right movement.
Figure 2 Screen-shot of the online forum ‘Stormfront’ – Dutch version
Source: http://www.stormfront.org (retrieved 10 Nov. 2007
566 INTERNATIONAL journal of CULTURAL studies 12(6)
The first postings after this event on the Stormfront forum shared this
preoccupation of being associated with these racist murders. Specifically, the
mainstream media was being targeted for strategically linking these cruel
murders to the extreme right ideology and having a left-wing bias.
If this is true, it is very bad. Undoubtedly the leftish press is ready to call
Vlaams Belang co-responsible because of ‘stigmatization’. (Stoerman, Posting
on Stormfront, 11 May 2006)6
The discourses being produced on the Stormfront forum, as in other extreme
right forums, were very controversial, wounding, insulting and disturbing
even. Some of the postings I am reluctant to reproduce in this article, as they
are deeply hurtful and offensive. However, in order to make the case of
transgressing discourses, I deem it necessary to include some of them here:
Pfff, it doesn’t keep me from sleeping, the only thing I don’t understand is why
he also shot a white child. (Watch Out, Posting on Stormfront, 11 May 2006)
He could have at least taken out a few Jews as well. Antwerp is full of/stinks
of Jews. (Hidrich, Posting on Stormfront, 13 May 2006)
At moments such as these I hope that that prime minister of ours is shot by
someone with an extreme right ideology. (NSDA-Pe, Posting on Stormfront,
12 May 2006)
These discourses of hate and even of violence are not only provocative, but
also transgress several boundaries, going way beyond what is acceptable in a
democracy, at least within a European and Belgian context. Because of this,
some of these were reproduced in the mainstream media, both in newspapers
and on TV. However, despite the public outcry this provoked, there is/was
little or nothing the authorities could do about it. In the newspaper Gazet Van
Antwerpen (2006), Boonen, from Cyberhate, was quoted as saying:
The internet reality is very complex. Stormfront is a good example of
that.… that site, also the Dutch version, is fully operated from the US. The
Dutch chapter of Stormfront is in other words protected by the freedom of
speech as described in the first amendment.
This exposure in the mainstream media, the subsequent public outcry and
the formal complaints to Cyberhate impacted on the debate in the forum.
Some became scared and sought reassurance from others in the forum that
their identity wouldn’t be revealed. Others bashed the media for its left-wing
bias and lack of ‘objectivity’. One forum participant directly addressed the
lurkers that came to visit the forum after the media reports. And finally,
some also resisted and disassociated themselves from such comments.
Seeking reassurances:
Do you think [blocking Stormfront] is possible? I hope not. SF is as a second
home to me. Would they arrest members of this forum? (Farkasfarsang,
Posting on Stormfront, 16 May 2006)
Cammaerts
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Radical pluralism and free speech in online public spaces 567
Media bashing:
This despicable newspaper [Gazet Van Antwerpen], publishing anything
except OBJECTIVE news, has to be forbidden immediately, they publish
incomplete postings and thus half-truths. The author of this piece [contain-
ing quotes from Stormfront], the leftish sewage rat, must be hung with his
head in the toilet and flushed away. (14Berserkr88, Posting on Stormfront,
16 May 2006)
Addressing lurkers:
Welcome dear occasional visitor, as you all can see the cowardly act of that
one psychopath is being denounced unanimously. Sites like these thus have
nothing to do with this whole affair. Of course the press would like you to
believe otherwise and the left wants to exploit this event to realize their own
agenda. By their bad policies and moral decay they have created mentally
deranged individuals such as this idiot. (Vlaamsche Leeuw, Posting on
Stormfront, 16 May 2006)
Resistance:
I’m sorry, but if the negative comments of some put us in a bad perspective,
they are responsible for this themselves. If someone on this forum writes ‘I
had to admit that I slept well thinking about that dead niggerwoman and
that crying Turkish woman’ then he doesn’t have to complain that it
appears in the newspaper. How do you want us to be taken seriously if you
write something like that? (NoSugar, Posting on Stormfront, 16 May 2006)
It is very apparent that many of the forum participants, as well as bloggers,
claim it to be their given right in a democracy to say what they say. On sev-
eral occasions the essentialist and wounding discourses they produce are
considered to be ‘real’ freedom of speech. This is juxtaposed to a fake semi-
freedom of speech, one participant even referred to the Orwellian thought-
police (thinkpol).
The fascist identity and ideology of the forum is, among others, exposed
by this double standard: on the one hand freedom of speech is invoked to pro-
mote hate speech, but on the other hand those voices in the public space that
disagree or counter their discourses, such as journalists in the mainstream
media and politicians, need to be censored and/or eliminated.
Death of Guido Demoor (24 June 2006)
Again a month later, an employee of the national railway company died after
a skirmish with some youngsters of North African descent on a local bus in
Antwerp. The youngsters were noisy and arguing amongst themselves when
Guido Demoor intervened, not only verbally but also physically, grabbing one
of the youngsters, upon which some in the group turned on him. Post-mortem
examinations showed that Guido Demoor died of a cerebral haemorrhage
568 INTERNATIONAL journal of CULTURAL studies 12(6)
brought on by the skirmish. Humo, a weekly (progressive) magazine revealed,
however, that Guido Demoor was an extreme right activist and that his house
was decorated with Nazi paraphernalia (De Coninck, 2006). Witnesses also
claimed the youngsters were provoked by Demoor’s aggressive behaviour.
This incident again fired up conflictual debates regarding multicultural
society in North Belgium. One blog was particularly blunt in its immediate
and passionate response to what had happened. Vrij van Zegel [Free of
Stamp Duty] is a blog by Luc van Balberghe. He claims to provide ‘a per-
sonal perspective on the news and asking questions the media don’t (can’t)
ask any more’,7thereby positioning himself within the anti-media frame of
the extreme right.
When the news broke of Guido Demoor’s unfortunate death, Van
Balberghe posted a very emotional and long message on his blog. Below a
short excerpt:
In Antwerp, every decent educated white person is about to burst with (for
now) repressed anger. Anger, about vermin who think the city is theirs.
Anger, about so much powerlessness because every well thinking human in
this country has to keep quiet and bow passively for the foreign leeches.
(Van Balberghe, 2006a – emphasis added)
In the same post he also uses an allegory – equating foreigners with ants
that need to be annihilated, not by using DDT (a chemical poison), but by
burning them, effectively exterminating them. This disturbing reference to
Figure 3 Screen-shot of the blog ‘Vrij Van Zegel’
Source: http://www.vrijvanzegel.net (retrieved 10 Nov. 2007)
Cammaerts
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Radical pluralism and free speech in online public spaces 569
Nazi Germany, as well as the words used in the quote above, again depict
and essentialize a particular group in society as subhuman, legitimating its
annihilation. It reinforces the construction of a ‘we’ – the white population,
defenceless, victimized but righteous, civilized – and of ‘the other’ as para-
sites, animals, that can legitimately be eradicated. In a study of US anti-
immigrant discourses, Santa Ana (1999: 192) identified ‘IMMIGRANTS
ARE ANIMALS’ as one of the most powerful and dominant metaphors
being adopted. It is thus not uncommon to find such ‘moral ordering’ in
racist discourses (Lakoff, 1996: 81).
A reader of the blog and prominent member of the youth section of
Vlaams Belang, reacted to Van Balberghe’s posting by stating: ‘Marvellous
these uncensored weblogs that slowly but surely destroy the authority and
powerbase of the regime-press!’ (Evert Hardeman, reaction to post by Van
Balberghe, 2006a), reinforcing the anti-media frame. However, after news pa-
per articles (De Morgen, 2006c) and a complaint being filed through the
CGKR,8Van Balberghe edited his blog. He replaced the words ‘vermin’ and
‘leeches’ by ‘youngsters’ and removed the ants allegory all together. Some
months later, he posted another contribution called ‘Next year, a dictator-
ship?’ in which he denied being a racist, attacked the government and
depicted the CGKR as resembling the Gestapo.
In fact, Van Balberghe, like many others in the extreme right movement
do, turns the tables on their ideological enemies by constructing them discur-
sively as fascists, as a genuine threat to ‘real’ democracy, claiming their demo-
cratic right to be a racist. ‘[They] are a danger for democracy, for a healthy
society. They belong to a group that, in the US, would not have the freedom
to curtail free speech’ (Van Balberghe, 2006b).
This raises the question again as to what constitutes freedom of speech and
how this should be balanced with other democratic rights. This is not merely
an ethical discussion but also a practical one. Where do we as a democracy
draw the line between what is deemed acceptable and not, define how differ-
ent rights are positioned vis-a-vis each other, and then decide what can be done
if these conventions are transgressed. Should something be done about it?
Conclusion
As has been shown by recent research into progressive movements, the inter-
net allows dispersed activists to link up and interact, superseding boundaries
such as space and time, creating subaltern spaces of communication
(Cammaerts, 2005; della Porta and Tarrow, 2004; Kahn and Kellner, 2004).
Likewise, for (post-)fascist, fundamentalist and other ‘repressive’ movements
the same applies. Radical, marginalized and atomized groups of people, often
politically isolated, are able to link up through the internet in small commu-
nities of the like-minded, such as could be witnessed in the Stormfront forum.
Especially the comments of Farkasfarsang, calling the forum ‘his second
home’, were pertinent in this regard.
570 INTERNATIONAL journal of CULTURAL studies 12(6)
However, in a context where a powerful extreme right actively propagates
such racist ideologies, both implicitly and explicitly, this becomes another
issue altogether. And it is here that the limits of a radical plurality of voices
within a democracy expose themselves. It is therefore to some extent under-
standable that some Belgian politicians from left to right, from federalists to
nationalists are calling for more pro-active government intervention regard-
ing online hate speech, preferably at a European level of governance. Of
course, given the deeply offensive and repulsive nature of many of the com-
ments being made online and the context in which they were produced, it is
difficult to remain neutral here; rational detachment is not an option. Such
vitriolic discourses should make any democratic person angry, demanding
that something be done about this. The question remains what that some-
thing then is. While laws and regulation, or even technical solutions, might be
able to remove some of these discourses from the public space, this would not
mean that the ideas and ideology behind these discourses would disappear
from the political.
It might be useful in this regard to briefly recount Butler’s (1997) work on
‘excitable speech’, in which she uses Foucault’s History of Sexuality to argue
that forbidding hate speech altogether through (state) censorship above all
aids in the proliferation of these discourses further throughout society. This
can also be related to what Mouffe calls the inherently conflictual nature of
the political. Butler is not per se against limitations to the freedom of speech,
but points to the need to be aware of the difficulties of combating hate speech
through legal measures and the practical consequences of this. She refers to
difficult questions such as: who defines what is hurtful, offensive, wounding
or injurious speech, and what is the context in which such language is being
used? But while there might be an overall consensus that the discourses being
discussed in this article are totally unacceptable and do not belong in a
democracy, not even from the perspective of a radical democracy or plural-
ism, the question remains of where and how we draw the line as a democracy
between what is acceptable within a pluralist perspective and what is not?
And how is this then implemented and enforced?
Internet filtering and monitoring remain technical and policy options
when it comes to combating hate speech on the internet. However, active
censorship in a democracy tends to backfire in several ways. In relation to
this case study, it could be argued that democracy might lose out in two
ways. First, anti-democratic forces are able to construct democratic parties
and institutions as ‘undemocratic’ on a continuous basic, claiming that they
suppress ‘the true thoughts of the people’, using in effect the formal rules of
democracy to destroy democratic culture – arguing for a democratic right to
be a racist. Second, how to guarantee that once a regime of content control
online is in place, it will not be used to silence other voices which at some
future moment in time are considered to be undesirable by a majority? And
do we really want content on the internet controlled, monitored and filtered
on a permanent basis?
Cammaerts
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Radical pluralism and free speech in online public spaces 571
This is, however, by no means a plea for complacency and/or ignorance,
but to carefully think through the implications of intervening to exclude
voices from public spaces of communication and interaction altogether.
Efforts to combat the incitement of hatred through democratic and legal
means should be encouraged, ‘in order to secure a minimum of civility’
(Rosenfeld, 2001: 63). Exposure in the mainstream media of those who pro-
duce such discourses and formal legal complaints by racism watchdogs are
important and fairly effective tools for achieving that (except when anonymity
is invoked). The embracing of censorship of online content by democratic
societies, in addition to this, would not only represent the crossing of a
Rubicon, but also focuses merely on removing some of the symptoms of
racism, not the root causes of it.
Notes
1 See OpenNet Initiative, URL (consulted 1 July 2009): http://opennet.net/
2 See URL (consulted 1 July 2009): http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.
php/joe-van-holsbeeck-287572.html. All translations are by the author.
3 See URL (consulted 1 July 2009): http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.
php/belgische-tiener-vermoord-om-mp3–285800p3.html
4 See URL (consulted 1 July 2009): http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.
php/belgische-tiener-vermoord-om-mp3–285800p3.html
5 See URL (consulted 1 July 2009): http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.
php/belgische-tiener-vermoord-om-mp3–285800p4.html
6 This as well as other quotes in this part can be found on: http://www.
stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=293314
7 See http://www.vrijvanzegel.net/
8 Sofie D’Huster (email interview, 21 May 2007) states that a formal complaint
has been transferred to the federal police on the basis of the Belgian anti-
racism legislation (1981) for incitement to racism. The case is still pending.
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Cammaerts
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Radical pluralism and free speech in online public spaces 575
●
BART CAMMAERTS is a lecturer in the Media and Communication
Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science
(LSE), England. Address: LSE, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK.
[email: B.Cammaerts@lse.ac.uk]
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