Lars Erik Berntzen

Liberal Roots of Far Right Activism: The Anti-Islamic Movement in the 21st Century (2020)

Reviews: Patterns of Prejudice (Karavasilis, 2021), e-Extreme (Downes, 2021), Revue internationale de politique compare (Robert, 2021) and ECPS Book Reviews (Girdap, 2022).

Blog summary: Understanding the liberal roots of far-right activism

Introduction

Europe is currently undergoing large-scale demographic and cultural change. An otherwise ageing and secularizing corner of the world has received an influx of younger, non-Western and often religious migrants. This influx has been increasingly and consistently contested by a resurgent far right from the 1980s onwards (Klandermans & Mayer, 2006, p. 3). For decades, as the conflict revolved around race, ethnicity and nationality – Africans and Arabs, Turks, Moroccans, and Pakistanis – some on the far-right upheld Islam as a positive, conservative force.

That has changed. In tandem with a long list of spectacular acts of political violence committed in the name of Islam and controversies such as the Muhammed cartoon crisis, Muslims and Islam have now become the predominant enemy for the far right in Europe and beyond.

This book is about that anti-Islamic turn and expansion of the far right. It is about a growing movement and subculture that is transnational in scope ranging from the United States, Western Europe, and, increasingly, Central and Eastern Europe. It has old ideological roots, but the movement began to coalesce online in the wake of the terror attacks on the United States by Al-Qaeda on 11 September 2001 (9/11). Since then, the anti-Islamic struggle has given rise to several distinct waves of activism under the names of Stop Islamization, Defense League, Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West (Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes, PEGIDA) and others. Anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim groups flourish online. In party politics, new initiatives such as the Dutch Pim Fortuyn List (Lijst Pim Fortuyn, LPF) and later Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) made opposition to Islam their main issue.

The parties that mobilize on anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic ideas and arguments are now the most studied of all the party families (Mudde, 2016). In contrast, we know less about the broader movement and subculture. An important reason for precisely why far-right parties are the subject of so much research, and why the anti-Islamic movement(s) and subculture merit closer scrutiny, is the idea that these initiatives either want to destroy democratic society itself or will in some way lead to its corrosion.

Franz Timmermans, the first Vice President of the European Commission, stated in an official speech that “The rise of islamophobia is one of the biggest challenges in Europe. It is a challenge to our vital values, to the core of who we are” (2015). Given this notion of a threat to “our” values, it is striking that the anti-Islamic far right in Western Europe and North America argue that they are defending democracy and freedom of speech (Betz & Meret, 2009, p. 313), while often proclaiming their support for Jews, gender equality, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual (LGBT) rights (e.g. Dauber, 2017, p. 52). If we turn the clock back two decades, we find a surge in neo-Nazi violence (Koopmans, 1996) and outspoken hostility towards Jews, homosexuals, and modern gender norms was commonplace.

Hearing far-right politicians and activists talk in such different terms today may appear paradoxical, given the legacy of opposition towards both progressive and liberal ideals, movements, and parties. Is the far right, which has been so closely tied to antagonism towards these very groups, now one of their defenders?

Viewed through the lens of history, it is their apparent self-portrayal as defenders of progressive and liberal ideals – and not their opposition to Islam and Muslims – that is most distinctive. In academic circles, this is often portrayed as being only skin deep, a thin veneer masking their true positions – and that the far right hides a radical “back stage” behind its moderate “front stage” (Fleck & Müller, 1998, p. 438) which is racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, against women’s rights, and hostile to democracy.

It is defined as a transparently strategic vocabulary (Scrinzi, 2017) used to circumvent and defend against allegations of racism. This is deemed a necessity on their part, since openly racist remarks have been stigmatized and pathologized (Lentin & Titley, 2011, p. 20) ever since the total defeat of the Axis powers in World War II (Jackson & Feldman, 2014, p. 7). The claims by Marine Le Pen of the French Front National (FN) to defend women’s rights are, for instance, understood as “instrumental” and “pseudo-feminist” (Larzillière & Sal, 2011). In much the same way, Mayer, Ajanovic, and Sauer (2014) state that the far right exploits gender and LGBT arguments strategically in order to denigrate Muslim men. Others have conceptualized this as homonationalism (Puar, 2013; Zanghellini, 2012), and femonationalism (Farris, 2012, 2017).

Critical positions and scepticism are not without merit. For instance, studies of the British National Party (BNP) that go beyond the “front stage” by examining speeches and memos not intended for the public reveal that they toned down their anti-Semitism and anti-democratic positions as a ploy to win over new recruits and circumvent opposition from mainstream society (Jackson & Feldman, 2014, p. 10). These findings are in line with the broad consensus in the literature. Yet, we risk misconstruing the anti-Islamic turn and expansion if we limit ourselves to a theoretically based rejection or if we rely exclusively on single-case evidence from organizations with a clear fascist legacy. As a starting point for mapping the anti-Islamic movement and to investigate this apparent paradox and its ramifications on a broader scale, I pose the two following research questions:

RQ1. What characterizes the anti-Islamic movements’ structure and composition?

RQ2. How, and to what extent, does the anti-Islamic movement incorporate progressive and liberal values?

In order to investigate the movements’ configuration and degree of entanglement with progressive and liberal ideals, this book provides a study of four specific dimensions: 1) the background of leaders; 2) their official ideology; 3) organizational networks; and 4) the mobilization of sympathizers. The extent to which liberal and progressive positions and arguments permeate the anti-Islamic movement has far-reaching consequences for our basic understanding of what the anti-Islamic movement is. In addition to saying something about their entanglement with progressive and liberal ideals, these dimensions give us insight about the anti-Islamic turn on the far right.

First, tracing the waves of activism and the biographies of the leaders, representatives, and ideologues provides us with insight into their motivation for joining the anti-Islamic cause and whether they have their roots in the old far right or not. Second, studying their official ideology (front stage) gives an indication of whether their positions are consistent or fragmented across countries and organizations. Third, network analysis tells us whether these initiatives form a cohesive whole or consist of disjointed communities. Taken together, the historical and biographical overview, alongside the analyses of ideology and networks, go to the core of the matter. Is this really a movement, or is it just a question of different groups driven by national, regional, and local legacies and peculiarities? And do they represent a continuation of the old far right or not? By studying their mobilization, we uncover whether they have managed to recruit moderates or extremists, and to what extent they are aligned with the official ideological platform espoused by the leaders. It also provides insight into the drivers of their continued online mobilization and ability to spread their message, and why certain messages get more traction than others.

The four steps

The broader anti-Islamic turn consists of two parallel developments: first, an anti-Islamic reorientation of pre-existing radical right parties; second, an anti-Islamic expansion of the far right with new political initiatives. While the expansion includes some electorally successful parties, such as Pim Fortuyn’s LPF and Geert Wilders’ PVV, both in the Netherlands, it largely consists of alternative news sites and blogs, think-tanks, street protest groups such as the English Defence League (EDL) and PEGIDA, and minor political parties. Empirically speaking, the universe of cases dealt with in this book is limited to the anti-Islamic expansion. The findings and theoretical claims, however, have some bearing on the broader anti-Islamic turn.

The book starts by tracing the growth of anti-Islamic activism between 2001 and 2017, focussing on initiatives and central figures from six “stronghold” countries: Britain, the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, and Denmark. This is followed by a frame analysis of official statements by 11 key initiatives known for their anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic rhetoric in Germany, Norway, and Britain. All three countries are epicentres of anti-Islamic activism. Norway was the first country to have an explicitly anti-Islamic activist organization in Stop Islamization of Norway (SIAN) in 2000. Britain was the location where the online communities first gathered for a street march in 2005, and which witnessed the rise of the EDL in 2009. Finally, Germany gave birth to the latest version of anti-Islamic activism with PEGIDA in 2014, which has since spread across Europe (Berntzen & Weisskircher, 2016). I then trace the online anti-Islamic network starting with these 11 anti-Islamic initiatives’ from Norway, Britain and Germany and 16 of their offshoots across the world in March 2015 and March 2016; that is, before and after the “refugee crisis”. When examining members of these networks, the case selection consists of the anti-Islamic groups found in the network analysis that were active during the summer of 2016 – totalling 300 groups across Europe, North America, and Australia (Figure 1.1).

Findings and the argument(s)

As the old, highly authoritarian and ethnocentric far right lost its vitality, a new phenomenon arose to take its place: anti-Islam. It is a new addition to the far-right family, but no child of the old far right. The anti-Islamic cause was borne by a curious mix of people with leftist and conservative backgrounds, all of whom professed their attachment to many liberal ideals. Their leaders and intellectuals – many of them journalists and historians – came to see their own political camps as ignorant of the dangers posed by Islam. In their eyes, Islam was not a regular religion but a totalitarian ideology equivalent to communism and fascism. Propelled by their belief in a civilizational struggle between the West and Islam, these activists managed to establish a transnational anti-Islamic movement consisting of activist groups, think-tanks, and alternative media outlets, as well as some political parties. The movement itself has undergone four waves of expansion in response to acts of terror and other moral shocks, starting with 9/11. Most of their claims and positions about what they represent resonate with broad majorities in Western Europe: free speech, preservation of the Christian heritage, democracy, gender equality, LGBT rights and the protection of Jews. Their outspoken hostility to Islam and Muslims further resonates with substantial minorities.

Their civilizational worldview, which combines previously divergent political projects, is broadly consistent across organizations and countries. They continuously include both traditional and modern perspectives on a broad range of issues. On the one hand, hostility towards the Muslim minority and defence of traditions sits well with the older far right. On the other hand, their inclusion of modern gender norms and key liberal positions are clearly at odds with the traditional far right with its rigid views on gender roles and hostility toward democracy. For instance, when it comes to the supposed threat posed by Islam and Muslims to women’s rights, they vacillate between “protector frames” with a male point of view (our women), and “equality frames” with a female point of view. I define this ideological duality as strategic frame ambiguity.

The anti-Islamic network mirrors this ideological duality. Anti-Islamic groups reach out to animal rights, LGBT, and women’s rights groups, as well as Christian conservatives and Jewish and pro-Israeli initiatives. Some, but not all, of these reciprocate. Furthermore, both main components of the ideology – 1) Islam as an existential threat enabled by “the elites” either through a willed conspiracy or due to their sheer ignorance; 2) which undermines Western traditions and Christianity, democracy, gender equality, and minority rights – resonate with the online activists and followers. In terms of the two overarching research questions, the findings in this book can be summarized in one structural and one ideology-centric argument:

First, the initiatives that make up the anti-Islamic expansion of the far right comprise a transnational movement and subculture with a consistent worldview and prominent ideologues.

Second, the anti-Islamic movement and subculture is characterized by a semiliberal equilibrium.

It is to the second argument I now turn. The transnational anti-Islamic movement exists in a state of balance between modern and liberal values on the one hand, and traditional and authoritarian values on the other. Both components are part of their civilizational, anti-Islamic identity. I have chosen to describe this state of balance as semi-liberal. Therefore, it is also semi-authoritarian. Using the label of liberal instead of authoritarian is justified by the fact that their leftist-to-conservative- liberal stances largely predate clearly authoritarian ones. When looking at the far right in its totality, the anti-Islamic movement represents a profound unmooring from ethnically based nationalism and pervasive authoritarianism, as well as homophobia and anti-Semitism. This sets them apart from the older far right, which is firmly rooted in precisely these values.

Although the old far right with its all-pervasive authoritarianism and ethnocentrism certainly exists in a diminished state today, most pre-existing radical right parties in Western Europe have undergone an ideological transformation that makes them ideologically similar to the anti-Islamic movement that arose after 9/11. Herbert Kitschelt (2012) described this transformation as a partial decoupling between authoritarianism and the radical right through an adoption of liberal positions on many issues. The starting point was an authoritarian one.

For the anti-Islamic movement that emerged after 9/11, the precise opposite holds. As the anti-Islamic movements’ roots and original set of ideas come from outside the far right, it represents a partial coupling between liberalism and authoritarianism from a liberal starting point.6 In other words, the anti-Islamic expansion is in fact liberalism that has drifted to the far right. What is the cause of this drift? My material clearly points to the pivotal role of their conception of Islam and Muslims as the ultimate embodiment of authoritarianism, narrowmindedness, patriarchy and misogyny as the root cause. Ostensibly starting from a position of tolerance, they have concluded, “in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance” (Popper, 1945, p. 226).7 That is, Islam as the ultimate manifestation of intolerance must be met with intolerance itself to preserve a tolerant Western civilization. This demonstrates that it matters who the enemy is.

If the anti-Islamic movements’ roots and many of their central ideas are not far right, why call them far right? Labelling them as part of the far-right family hinges on two aspects of their ideology. The first and main aspect is nativism. Just as nativism is the bedrock of older far right ideologies, so it is with anti-Islam. Nevertheless, their qualitative conception of nativism is fundamentally different. The nativism espoused by the anti-Islamic movement is primarily founded on citizenship and adherence to “Western values”, not ethnicity or race. It is therefore a more inclusive form of nativism. It is not an awakening of white ethnic identity as white, but a coming together around a civic identity that builds on progressive and conservative varieties of liberalism. Emphasizing broad categories such as nativism therefore masks fundamental differences between the anti-Islamic project and the old far right. There is no strong continuity between the old far right and the anti-Islamic movement in this regard, but rather an abstract similarity. It is, organizationally speaking, a “new” phenomenon with new actors who hold many substantially different beliefs compared to the old far right.

The second criterion is precisely their turn toward intolerance and authoritarian solutions to combat Islam in order to defend and maintain an otherwise tolerant Western civilization. Therefore, while their civic nativism clearly sets the antiIslamic movement apart from the old far right, their intermittent call for authoritarian solutions makes the difference less clear cut.

The ideological evolution of Hege Storhaug, a prominent female anti-Islamic activist and spokesperson for the Norwegian organization Human Rights Service (HRS) serves to illustrate the gradual coupling of progressive stances with conservative, and eventually some authoritarian stances under an anti-Islamic banner. Storhaug came from a left-wing background, seeing herself as a feminist champion of women’s causes. Her main antagonists were Christian conservatives and others opposed to gender equality, abortion rights, and so forth. During the 1990s, she began focussing on the plight of Muslim women living in Norway who had been victims of female gender mutilation and forced marriage. In the years following 9/11, and especially after the Muhammed cartoon crisis, Storhaug became increasingly dogmatic in her focus and hostility toward Islam, seeing it as a threat to Western civilization and in particular, women’s rights. In my interview with her, she said she came to the gradual realization that Christianity had largely been a force for good and was something altogether different from Islam. In the aftermath of the refugee crisis, she became outspoken in her praise of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Polish Law and Justice Party’s authoritarian policies and rejection of Islam and Muslim immigrants. Neither Orbán nor the Polish Law and Justice Party are great defenders of gender equality, LGBT rights, or free speech. By 2017, Storhaug had taken to arguing that mosques should be banned and the Quran rewritten. Geert Wilders and other key players in the anti-Islamic movement came to such conclusions far earlier, whereas some still adhere to a softer approach.

As the case of Storhaug’s ideological journey hints at, the current semi-liberal equilibrium characterizing the anti-Islamic far right is fragile. The first source of fragility lies in their view of Islam as an immediate and existential threat to Western civilization. This creates a space for more authoritarian, extreme, and explicitly anti-democratic solutions to gain ground. The second source of fragility stems from their activist base. Anti-Islamic activist groups contain a vocal minority of extreme activists who espouse long-standing hostilities and notions about race, homosexuals, Jews, and democracy. These extremists stand poised to exploit the movements’ ideological discrepancies if the opportunity arises. The continued inability to stem the growth of either Muslim minorities or incidents of terror attacks committed by Islamist extremists represents just such an opportunity. Finally, the recent eastward expansion now means that their transnational network includes radical and extreme right groups of the old ideological order. Since the Eastern European groups are closely aligned with the extremist minority within the anti-Islamic movement in Western Europe and North America, this expansion has made the anti-Islamic far right more susceptible to profound internal identity struggles. For these reasons, the pendulum may swing in a decisively authoritarian direction and the semi-liberal equilibrium overturned.