the domestic intelligence service from 2012 to 2018, appears particularly problematic. Recently he has positioned himself clearly on the far right; after the crime in Hanau he tweeted:
Socialist logic: perpetrators are always on the right, victims always on the left. You don't have to deal with Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ulbricht... because they were Nazis. The catch is, in this thinking, they are themselves right-wing. Antifa=Nazis.
Even if Maaßen claimed that the tweet was not related to Hanau, the timing of the tweet alone, its polarizing language, and its openly political statement is unsettling.5
The confidence of German first-, second-, or third-generation immigrants in state institutions fighting radical right violence has been lastingly disrupted since the discovery of the NSU in 2011, not least because in recent years radical right networks in the police, the armed forces and intelligence services have repeatedly been exposed.6
What is clearly lacking here is a transparent and in-depth examination of these structures and the disclosure and criminal prosecution of the people behind them. Even though there is a lot of attention on the attack in Hanau, the reactions of many politicians seem quite distant and detached. Real sadness and consternation were more likely to be felt during the solidarity rallies that took place throughout Germany after the attack. Above all, the Kurdish community mourned, because many of the victims were of Kurdish origin or descent.7
In many statements people say they are stunned, angry and afraid, but also there is a feeling of insecurity and loss of confidence in state protection: who will protect us from the right-wing terrorists is a much-expressed question. And this is actually the central and most urgent question to which politics, security authorities, and society do not provide an answer.
Dr Barbara Manthe was a Senior Fellow at CARR and is research associate in history at the University of Bielefeld.
1 “Lebende Zeitbomben,” Der Spiegel, no. 27 (1982): 32-5.
2 “Munich Mourns Victims of Mass Shooting at Olympia Mall,” Deutsche Welle, July 23, 2016, https://www.dw.com/en/munich-mourns-victims-of-mass-shooting-at-olympia-mall/a-19423341.
3 “Germany Bans Combat 18 as Police Raid Neo-Nazi Group,” BBC News, January 23, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51219274.
4 Sigmar Gabriel (@sigmargabriel), Twitter, February 20, 2020, 11:27 a.m., https://twiter.com/sigmargabriel/status/1230438894174375937?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet.
5 “Ärger über Maaßen-Tweet - Maaßen: Keine Reaktion auf Hanau,” Die Welt, February 20, 2020, https://www.welt.de/regionales/hessen/article206008585/Aerger-ueber-Maassen-Tweet-Maassen-Keine-Reaktion-auf-Hanau.html.
6 “Hannibals Schattennetzwerk,” https://taz.de/Schwerpunkt-Hannibals-Schattennetzwerk/!t5549502/.
7 Juri Auel, “Die Opfer des rechten Terrors,” Sueddeutsche Zeitung, February 21, 2020, https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/hanau-opfer-1.4807089.
Far-Right Terrorism is Global, But Coverage is Not: Hindu Nationalist Violence in India
Eviane Leidig
February 2020 brought news of a tragic event in Germany with a right-wing terrorist attack in the city of Hanau. Much media coverage and scholarly commentary has been devoted towards focusing on the motives of the perpetrator and in particular, highlighting that the shooter uploaded a video onto YouTube shortly before the incident took place.
The role of social media in furthering online radicalization has been heavily documented in the wake of a number of horrific right-wing extremist attacks, notably with the livestreamed Christchurch and El Paso terror attacks, as well as the Bærum mosque and Halle synagogue shootings last year. From mainstream websites to fringe forums such as the Chansphere, the Internet has played a significant role in the dissemination and mobilisation of far-right extremism.
Yet, there exists a stark double standard when it comes to media representation of far-right terror attacks.
Hindu nationalist terrorism
In early February 2020, there was a far-right terrorist shooting1 at Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University in New Delhi, India. The perpetrator broadcast the attack live on Facebook, shouting Hindu nationalist slogans whilst opening fire. Significantly, the perpetrator targeted a crowd that had gathered to the mark the seventy-second anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination. Gandhi was murdered by a Hindu nationalist who believed Gandhi to be too “secular” and accommodating to India’s Muslims. Gandhi’s murderer was additionally a member of the paramilitary Hindu nationalist organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which advocates for an ethno-nationalist Hindu state.
Today, the governing party of India is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political arm of the RSS. Prior to the attack at JMI, BJP politicians have incited violence towards Muslims at public election rallies, with phrases such as ‘Shoot the traitors of India’. Some BJP politicians have taken even more extreme stances, for instance Yogi Adityanath, whom Amnesty International has described2 as espousing ‘hateful rhetoric that incites discrimination and hostility against minority groups, particularly Muslims’.
This should all be understood in context of the fact that the shooter had developed an extensive social media network, primarily through Facebook and WhatsApp groups, with Hindu nationalist organisations and individuals. Such actors have openly advocated for violence, including through popular YouTube vlogs, against Muslims and the political left, which they deem as “anti-national”. Indeed, shortly before carrying out the attack, the shooter posted a series of messages on Facebook, including mention of ‘Shaheen Bagh, game over’ (Shaheen Bagh refers to a Muslim-inhabited neighbourhood in Delhi that is home to a sit-in protest against the government’s new citizenship law, i.e. Citizenship Amendment Act). The shooter was clearly inspired by gaming terminology, of which several researchers have noted the connection3 between gamification and the nature of right-wing extremist attacks.
Hindu nationalists, like their far-right contemporaries in the West, have been early adopters of the Internet. As early as the 1990s, Hindu nationalist organisations extensively used websites and chat forums4 to spread their ideology and recruit followers—including those in the diaspora living in Western countries and employed within the tech industry. Today, the BJP and its network of affiliates oversee an army of keyboard warriors, called “Internet Hindus”5 or “Cyber Hindus”, who promote Hindu nationalist ideology whilst distributing Islamophobic content online.
This can
