00:03:04.300The first thing I have to ask you, because I think about this every time.1.00
00:03:08.640What is up with all the Nordic shit?0.99
00:03:10.400um so i mean that's a good question because like a modern um far-right paganism i guess0.99
00:03:17.680has its roots uh it goes back a long ways to european uh like vocish counterculture
00:03:24.480and this idea that kind of arians were a divine beings fallen from the golden age and and and
00:03:30.320it's been slowly over time linked uh religious identity spirituality has been linked to racial
00:03:36.960identity and so race has become this kind of spiritual inheritance or the kind of biological
00:03:41.360inheritance for these people um and so what that means is christianity is often seen as a kind of
00:03:47.360jewish conspiracy theory that was meant to kind of pacify europeans uh destroy their warrior spirit
00:03:54.240um and and this is where a few interesting ideas come into play i know you covered the
00:03:58.400conference in vancouver uh that was a couple months ago now and and so one of the one of the
00:04:03.360speakers of that uh at that conference talks often about this idea of meta genetics which
00:04:08.400is a fancy way of saying uh spirituality is actually hereditary and so it's that your
00:04:13.520spiritual identity is engraved in your dna and and and it has been buried by you know name your
00:04:20.800out group here can you know jewish conspiracies whatnot has been buried over the over the long
00:04:25.440period over the years and can be reawoken right and and so you can do certain rituals you can do
00:04:31.600you can be in touch with nature you can engage in warrior-like activities i.e active clubs
00:04:36.720to reawaken this buried dna spiritual dna and and bring it to the fore right and so what they try to
00:04:43.520do i mean to go to your question is they try to find a pre-christian aryan religion uh that they
00:04:49.040can attach themselves to because they believe that that part of themselves has been uh taken
00:04:53.600away and actively buried by conspiratorial you know spooky forces amy do you have anything to
00:05:00.000add to that about all of the uh nordic obsession yeah and i i think i'll take it away a little bit
00:05:05.920from the sort of spiritual component of the nordic except uh sort of perception there to think about
00:05:11.200how canada as a nation state has also always been upset obsessed with sort of uh the nordic stock
00:05:18.320right like if we look at how immigration was framed in like 1910 and the late 1800s
00:05:23.520and it was about trying to get folks from you know northwestern europe to emigrate to canada
00:05:28.800because there was this perception that there was a genetic superiority to those folks, right? They
00:05:34.080were from these harsh climates, they were rugged, they were well suited to survive in these sorts
00:05:40.000of places. And so I think that sort of historical context that shapes how oftentimes Safari talks
00:05:46.560about immigration mixes really or meshes really well with that sort of Nordic spirituality. So
00:05:53.520I guess what I'm trying to say here is that it makes sense that that sort of rhetoric
00:05:57.600would be in places like canada because we've kind of been talking about aspects of this
00:06:02.320for a very very long time right oh that's so interesting i didn't know that um and i think
00:06:08.320that's one of the things that's so cool about this uh book that amaru just put together with mark
00:06:14.160andre and it's such an interesting idea to look at uh not just i think that when we talk about
00:06:22.480these groups, we often talk about the sorts of threats they pose, or maybe some of the
00:06:27.280organizing tactics and demonstrations or propaganda, things like that. But to actually
00:06:34.240genuinely look at the culture of these groups is so fascinating. What made you want to put this
00:06:41.840together, Amar? So there was a book a couple years ago, put together by Thomas Heghammer,
00:06:47.760who wrote the forward to this book as well, thankfully, it was called Jihadi Culture,
00:06:51.520right and and that was kind of his argument there is that um we have an overwhelming focus in
00:06:56.400terrorism studies and extremism studies on ideology on politics on tactics on death count
00:07:02.800on all of these kinds of things and we forget that these are people who have uh cultural
00:07:08.640aesthetic dimensions to why they're involved in these uh sorts of movements and so he had chapters
00:07:13.520in that book on poetry on you know devotional songs on dreams on the importance of dreams for
00:07:20.160jihadist movements on weeping the idea of weeping as witness right as as why you're part of this
00:07:25.600group and so on and so we wanted to kind of not that it hasn't been done before in the far right
00:07:30.000but we wanted to kind of look at um how some of that stuff plays out in the far right movements
00:07:34.400you know publishing houses what's what are the aesthetics what are the uh podcasts all these
00:07:40.080kinds of things in terms of how the far right actually goes about its life day to day as
00:07:45.040opposed to just focusing on you know death counts and attacks and tactics and things like that
00:07:50.160Yeah. Yeah, I find it really interesting to you as a means of understanding how people get sort of radicalized into these movements and sort of the pathways and areas of benign interest that kind of have this overlap, right?
00:08:07.100Amy, I actually was just listening this morning to a new propaganda video released by what the Canadian Anti-Hate Network just listed as, you know, Canada's top or largest white nationalist network.
00:08:23.100And one thing that struck me was, you know, in these public facing moments, how they sort of tamped down their rhetoric to try to appeal to these broader audiences.
00:08:33.100audiences. Is that an intentional tactic? And how often do you see that from these groups?
00:08:40.740Yeah, I think we really saw that begin with the alt-right, right? Like that was a very tech savvy
00:08:45.440movement. That was a movement that was really concerned with, as you say, optics. They want to
00:08:49.240be taken seriously. I mean, this is an aesthetic shift from perhaps when we think about what the
00:08:54.300far right looks like, you know, sort of like the biker aesthetic, the big beards, the tattoos,
00:08:59.560those sorts of things. I think there was a real sense that these folks had baggage associated
00:09:05.560with their aesthetic and if they wanted to be taken seriously by the mainstream, because I do
00:09:09.160think on some level this is a political project that is trying to make inroads into the mainstream,
00:09:15.000regular folks need to take them seriously. We see that a lot in other ways. My work is in Alberta,
00:09:22.040so right now we're seeing sort of a move away from visible protests and rallies and more towards
00:09:27.320infiltrating municipal governments and school boards and it's because this is seen as a more
00:09:31.960pr friendly way of approaching far-right uh goals and and um policies and and just general
00:09:41.080movement yeah goals so yeah i would say it's it's it's increasingly common yeah interesting
00:09:47.800you know one thing i also found um kind of interesting was you know as as i was reading
00:09:54.040uh this book amar um one theme that constantly stuck out to me was co-option um these guys are
00:10:02.840co-opting constantly uh you know we got uh pepe the frog um the okay symbol which you know half
00:10:11.480of these are kind of start as trolls but then you know sort of morph into something a little more
00:10:16.680ambiguous um you know taking vaporwave music and art um and turning it into this sort of fash wave
00:10:26.440aesthetic and and making music accordingly um even the far-right comics that uh one guy wrote
00:10:35.240actually had sort of it was basically like a a far-right avengers you know it wasn't there
00:10:42.520there wasn't a lot of original ideas there so um why is there so much co-option as opposed to sort
00:10:50.440of original art and culture in these communities yeah i mean i think there's two reasons one um
00:10:57.960it's a very deliberate strategy to kind of sneak far-right ideology into mainstream spaces and so
00:11:03.400this was all i think um uh kind of a reaction to social media companies uh deciding to take
00:11:09.720to stick stuff down back in 2015 i'm i'm that old um and and so um this was a you know explicit far
00:11:16.200right content would get taken down so they quite actively and we watched it happen in real time
00:11:20.360figured out ways around it it's right one of the ways was to hijack mainstream symbols right so
00:11:25.160they couldn't at the very least they could claim irony at the very least they could just say this
00:11:29.800made sense for this makes sense for our in group and so we could put pepe the frog out there the
00:11:34.280vast majority of the people wouldn't know what you're talking about but it it became a kind of
00:11:38.040inside joke for them right and so that's one of the reasons and i think the other um co-optation
00:11:44.680part of it is is social performance right it transforms um symbols um it transforms fascism
00:11:52.280from kind of an ideology to a look right to like a lifestyle brand almost and so it becomes
00:11:57.160um something you can use to kind of push double meanings um and and push and kind of troll the
00:12:04.280media as a result of that right and so that becomes uh part of what they're doing also it's
00:12:09.160a it's a quite quite a deliberate strategy i think yeah amy did you want to jump in there
00:12:15.560yeah i just want to say like it's an effective strategy it's one that makes countering very
00:12:20.200difficult um because you know if um you're reporting a pepe the frog meme like if the
00:12:27.000folks on the other side of that report don't understand what this is actually indexing what
00:12:32.600it's pointing to then our ability to you know have things taken down or to push back against them
00:12:38.040is often met with resistance from folks in the mainstream like why why am i so concerned about
00:12:42.200these things that just look kind of silly and and don't feel like a big deal right so it poses a
00:12:48.200real challenge for those of us who work in preventing encountering violent extremism
00:12:52.360yeah you know on that amy um i you guys kind of uh already touched on the next thing i was hoping
00:12:58.760to dig into on this sort of um co-option and all of these things with double meanings but
00:13:03.480i i do wonder sometimes about the role of the media in this and you know where we kind of as
00:13:10.440journalists can screw up um you know it the deniability that is ascribed to the dual meanings
00:13:18.360of these co-opted things you know when something has two different possibilities it's very easy to0.99
00:13:25.080gaslight someone or to you know make fun of them or make them look stupid um and so you know you0.97
00:13:31.480get headlines like um that there was this okay symbol that is now a neo-nazi or far-right or uh0.99
00:13:41.480whatever symbol and it's kind of hard for that to be taken seriously and it turns into this big
00:13:49.800mockery of the media simultaneously discrediting media and kind of giving some clout to these far
00:13:55.400right guys is that i mean you kind of already said that's part of the point but how can the
00:14:00.600media be aware of what the line is there i mean i think the stuff written on the bullets uh of the
00:14:08.120charlie kirk shooter is a good example here right is that we're dealing with a a bunch of guys who
00:14:12.840are just very deep in the online space and they function according to the laws uh laws is probably
00:14:19.160the wrong word but according to the norms of this online space and and and they try to abide by it
00:14:23.400right and it makes little sense to the rest of us outside of um that space and and as much as you
00:14:28.600try to keep on top of it and and we do this me and amy do this full time and i'm still behind all the
00:14:33.880time right and and and so it moves very quickly it moves very fast and it's hard to keep up uh
00:14:39.400with with all the changing um kinds of things and and it's it gives them a kind of subcultural
00:14:44.200identity in that way right it's kind of like being at a comedy club almost right you're you're kind
00:14:48.280of a temporary community you you're all in on the joke for that particular time um and and so this
00:14:54.920whole whole like in it for the lulls thing works in the same way right it's it's a bit worse in
00:14:59.640in some ways because they feel they feel embattled they feel under threat um and it gives that
00:15:05.160subcultural identity a lot more power um to your question about promotion um i don't know i've
00:15:11.160changed my mind quite a bit on this over the last couple years i used to be on the bandwagon of
00:15:16.840don't give it too much oxygen don't you know don't don't report it this way and that way but
00:15:22.040but i think um i'm i've changed my mind a bit on it especially since some of these guys are in the
00:15:28.040white house now yeah and so and so like i think keeping it quiet and keeping it protected and
00:15:34.120keeping it away from the public uh is kind of over you know they won they're in the white house now i
00:15:39.000think our obligation um as academics as journalists etc is to kind of explain it properly and
00:15:45.000contextualize these things right i don't think i think this idea of um not reporting on it that
00:15:50.200is is kind of passed uh just because of how mainstream everything's become um now i think
00:15:55.480we do a disservice by not talking about it more openly yeah and i would say that one of the things
00:16:01.160that the media is doing right is is exactly what we're doing right now having folks who do know
00:16:05.640about these who can do that accessible explainer um one of the biggest challenges for us is
00:16:11.240translating academic knowledge into outlets and forms and modes that folks actually understand
00:16:17.480and want to engage with, right? So I think as academics, we also have some work to do with
00:16:22.760journalists, with the media to make sure that the message that we're providing is academically
00:16:27.320rigorous, but also accessible. Yeah, I have to tell you, as someone who, you know, I studied
00:16:34.280human rights in my undergrad, and I TA'd, so I've been a little bit, I've dipped my toe
00:16:38.840into that side of those of these things not anywhere close to the degree that you guys have
00:16:43.880and you know also work as a journalist sometimes when i read these books and these articles i think
00:16:48.680oh this information is so important but the average person is not going to understand this
00:16:54.600like even like i have to google a bunch of terms sometimes while i'm reading because you're kind
00:16:58.680of coming into uh someone's writing uh that they're putting together in the middle of a
00:17:03.320long academic career where you know they're they're presupposing that others who are reading
00:17:08.120this likely have a foundational knowledge that the average person doesn't have so i i do agree
00:17:14.280that it's so important to translate that work down but it's also i mean it's important for
00:17:17.960you guys to be able to talk to each other too so it's a tough line um so i i one thing i keep
00:17:26.040thinking about too as we're talking about this co-option and double meanings described to things
00:17:31.720Like so much of this, I don't know how to say this without sounding incredibly insulting to these folks, but like how much of the fact that they borrow so much from other cultures and other, you know, creative outlets, other artists, other, you know, communities is a sign of their own sort of lack of culture.
00:17:57.960Because that was something that really struck me as I was reading through this book is so much of what we see here is really only a culture of opposition to or co-option of.
00:18:08.740Is that a fair assessment or do these guys really have any sort of unique culture that isn't, you know, firmly rooted in something else that they're co-opted?
00:18:22.340I mean, I would maybe come at that in two ways.
00:18:24.660i think they do have a culture in the sense they believe that something was lost right so they
00:18:29.460have an imagined culture that that they think they had at some point and they think that they
00:18:33.700have that has been actively taken away and removed from them um i use the word imaginary because how
00:18:39.380they imagine this golden age that they're trying to reclaim uh never existed um and and and so
00:18:45.220they they have an imagined culture of what what they're trying to get back and what they're trying
00:18:48.740to install and so that that's um something to keep in mind i think but i do think they especially
00:18:54.500in the meme space they do cannibalize a lot of existing memes that are out there for for the
00:18:59.540reasons we've talked about before uh halloween in some ways is a good example of this right because
00:19:05.380just because we spend the day dressing up as ghosts and k-pop stars doesn't mean that we're not
00:19:10.740we're not aware that we're borrowing these things right and so the the but but we're all aware that
00:19:15.860everyone else is borrowing also and that we're involved in this kind of ritualistic um metaculture
00:19:20.900almost right we spend the day um creating this shared symbolic universe where everyone knows
00:19:26.660that the other person is also borrowing and we're just kind of all we're all just okay with that for
00:19:30.500the day right and um whereas if i walked outside in a banana costume literally tomorrow people would
00:19:35.620be like what's up with this guy right and so that that that requires a shared space in order for
00:19:41.780that to happen and that's kind of what they occupy in this subcultural online space is they know what
00:19:46.340they're doing uh but that doesn't sometimes that i think confuses us to think that there is no
00:19:51.780substance there and for them there is substance there's a there's an actual white nationalist
00:19:55.300movement that has an ideology has a very articulate ideology actually but but it's just that
00:20:00.980it's not real right it's not based on anything factual but that doesn't that hasn't historically
00:20:07.220been the case with most of these kinds of movements right they're they're based on uh
00:20:11.380an imagined grievance and imagined history that they're trying to reclaim it doesn't necessarily
00:20:15.700matter that academically it's not factually based if that makes sense yeah yeah amy do
00:20:21.220you agree with that assessment is that sort of your take on it as well yeah i'm gonna let that
00:20:25.700take stand i'm a cultural anthropologist so asking an anthropologist a question about culture is
00:20:29.460always opening up a can of worms but yeah i broadly speaking i think ammar nailed that um i i just
00:20:36.420because as you know folks outside we don't necessarily understand the inner workings of
00:20:41.780their culture doesn't mean that like as mar said that there isn't substance to it and then it
00:20:45.140doesn't have profound meaning for the people who are in that space um and so i think thinking about
00:20:50.100like what does this actually do for folks is a really useful way of of looking at their cultural
00:20:55.780practices yeah i i want to circle back to something that um you know you guys we brought up a little
00:21:02.260bit earlier in the conversation which is you know it's important to translate the stuff because
00:21:06.740they're in the white house um you know and i i have noticed that not just in terms of the white
00:21:14.580house but um you know so many elements that are incredibly popular among the um in the in the
00:21:25.060conversation and down the line of dual uses and having these sort of symbols that mean one thing
00:21:31.060to one audience but in a different context take on an entirely different meaning um i've encountered
00:21:38.260so many elements of the far right online um used in mainstream contexts and it's hard to ascribe
00:21:47.300in those moments particularly when it's maybe like a right-leaning politician who may be dog
00:21:52.340whistles every now and then uh anti-immigrant sentiment um like for example we have michelle
00:21:59.300rempel garner who's been leading the sort of anti-immigrant uh rhetoric from the conservative
00:22:04.740party. She's the one who raised the question of getting rid of birthright citizenship for
00:22:10.340non-citizens in, sorry, for getting rid of birthright citizenship in Canada.0.96
00:22:18.140She used the sort of based Chad yes meme to attack a liberal MP. We've also got the which
00:22:27.400way Western man being used by Homeland Security's Twitter account alongside all the other weird
00:22:33.640stuff they've been posting but then you also see these memes that very much did were born on the
00:22:39.620far right like the which way western man is born of the far right being used by gamestop and you
00:22:45.820know they're using the 4chan sort of imagery um so do these sort of more mainstream uses
00:22:54.620ever defang these memes as far right tools or does it make them more dangerous because they
00:23:01.780serve as gateways? Big question. I think the way Richard Dawkins, if we want to go back to
00:23:12.020the 70s, how he defined meme, he called it a unit of cultural transmission. He's saying that
00:23:18.180just like genes that have natural selection act on them and get passed on, memes function the
00:23:24.680same way. He says, whatever meme is out there that's better at getting noticed, better at
00:23:29.620getting remembered, better at getting like touching some sort of resonance is likely to last a lot
00:23:36.840longer than other memes, right? And we see this happening in real time. You know, my kids walk
00:23:41.160around going six, seven. I'm like, that's not going to last probably another two weeks, right?
00:23:45.600And so things move very quickly in this space. And so to your question, I think some of these
00:23:51.500politicians do have malicious intent in how they're pushing some of these memes. Others, I think
00:23:59.040they're just trying to tap into a broader cultural conversation that they think they understand
00:24:03.840and want to ride that wave for the time being. Like my nine-year-old is like walks around saying
00:24:11.200Chad now and the first time I heard it I was kind of like what the hell are you talking about right
00:24:15.760because it very clearly came from the incel landscape but it's now made its way into the
00:24:21.860gaming spaces and Roblox and other where he's picked it up or YouTube live streamers use it
00:24:26.460for entirely separate purposes and different uses and the he's picked it up that way right and so
00:24:30.460um i do think these memes evolve and kind of take on a life of their own sometimes
00:24:35.080in harmful directions other times just defanged as you say um so i think it's a case by case and
00:24:41.060i think for for people who use it um it really depends on their intent when when when like cash
00:24:47.220patel's fbi or uh ice accounts on twitter use it i i'm much more likely to ascribe malicious intent
00:24:54.260than when random politicians or random other accounts use it
00:24:58.560who just might not understand where it came from
00:25:00.500or are using it in different contexts.
00:25:15.280did you know that this is actually anti-Semitic?
00:25:17.060They do a lot of backpedaling to try and frame it in a way
00:25:20.160that it's like, well, no, I'm using this thing,
00:25:21.780but I'm not doing it in an anti-Semitic way.
00:25:24.260So on some level, the memes have moved in such ways that their lineages is often forgotten by the people who are using them.
00:25:32.220And I'm not sure if that defangs them or if that spreads things, but it certainly is a ramification of the new media era that we're in.
00:25:40.400Right. Yeah, I always worry that, you know, when people see these things or start to laugh at these, like, you know, based Chad memes or that language, like, is that going to send them down a rabbit hole?
00:25:51.920Well, where they'll learn about like a mid-tier Becky and looks maxing and like, oh, next thing you know, it's like they're they think they're just kind of interested in betterment, but that you get so easy to fall down a looks maxing and sell pipeline or or these various pipelines.
00:26:06.500So I always, I'm of two minds when I see these being so broadly used. Is it taking away the original meaning or is it just risking introducing more people to it? And as you said, I think case by case is probably the best way to view that.
00:26:20.660Another theme that came up in the book, and I also saw when I was fishing around for some screenshots yesterday, is I think we mentioned this already, but so much of the, you know, the culture here is this, it's an ideology driven by nostalgia for an imagined time.
00:26:45.380We've got the embrace of even recent pasts, like through Vaporwave messaging, like Fashwave, the messaging that Fashwave infused in it, the kinds of expressions of masculinity that they embrace, you know, reimagining histories wherein Europeans crossed an ice bridge and therefore were the first ones in North America.
00:27:11.840You know, those sorts of theories, debunked or very scarcely supported theories.
00:27:20.320What does that tell you about these movements that they are so often yearning and looking back as opposed to looking forward?
00:27:29.400I mean, I think for them, for a lot of them, it's a reaction to the present.
00:27:32.980right and so they see these kind of rapid changes happening in society um sometimes attacking them
00:27:38.660directly um you know in a kind of perceived grievance that they don't that they don't like
00:27:42.980and they look back to this this kind of mythic past or mythic golden age where everything was
00:27:46.820different and everything was perfect and that's that's true for every single extremist movement
00:27:51.220i would say like for white white supremacists it's like this pre-imagined uh sorry pre-multicultural
00:27:56.420europe for islamists it's this you know the the ideal caliphate from from the 7th century for
00:28:01.700for hindu nationalists it's this kind of vedic civilization that also didn't really exist and so
00:28:07.460it functions as a kind of uh propaganda also in the sense of um it's it's forward looking as much
00:28:14.740as it is uh looking to the past so this is how we used to be and this is how this is who's to blame
00:28:20.020for all the changes and uneasiness that that you feel and we all feel the same way and and and
00:28:25.060this is how to kind of change the future right so sometimes kind of mundane images of uh these kind
00:28:31.140of trad wife content of you know white women in white clothes throwing their white babies into1.00
00:28:35.380their air um or ai generated memes of um this this i've seen a lot more recently of white women on1.00
00:28:41.540subways and and train trains you know surrounded by somali immigrants and all kind of ai um0.98
00:28:48.100generated is is meant to be meant to be emotionally effective right or affective and and and meant to0.96
00:28:54.580mobilize um so it's very powerful uh very powerful tool and it's also that much more powerful sometimes
00:29:01.060in its vagueness right because um you can feed into it your particular grievance as you feel
00:29:07.940it personally and and so make america great again is a good example right which is uh the the the
00:29:13.220pinnacle of nostalgic um um statements where well what is great and great for who right and so you
00:29:19.940could um it's vague enough that anyone can read their own grievances into it whether it's uh the
00:29:25.540the lost, you know, lost farming or lost racial identity or whatever. And so it's powerful in
00:29:32.280its vagueness that it kind of speaks to individuals to kind of fill in the gaps as they
00:29:36.240please. So. Yeah. And I would also say that this act of looking back to an imagined history is a
00:29:44.820lot easier than trying to imagine a different kind of future, right? So in many ways, this is
00:29:52.100this is strategic. It is the easy path. It's the path that, you know, far right groups have done
00:29:57.920for centuries. Like this was what the Nazis did as well. They look back to a romanticized version
00:30:03.600of Germany. And it's just, it's a lot more difficult than I think sort of the leftist
00:30:08.620project, which is trying to imagine a different sort of future that is just simply much more
00:30:13.980difficult to do. Yeah. Yeah. It makes me think of how, when you go on vacation, even you think,
00:30:19.840oh this place wherever you're visiting i'm at least in my experience i'm always like oh i want
00:30:24.360to move here this is the best but you it's because you aren't uh engaging in the daily trappings of
00:30:32.040the difficulties of living a life where you have to work where you have to pay bills where you have
00:30:36.300all of the interpersonal struggles that you deal with on a day-to-day basis you're suspending those
00:30:40.880and i think that that's something that in uh nostalgic sort of reminiscing you also get to
00:30:47.080enjoy you get to pick and choose what you're going to keep what you're going to leave especially if
00:30:51.200you reflect on a time that you weren't even around for so you don't even have those memories to
00:30:55.280uh you know permeate whatever imagined idyllic past uh you've somehow lost um even even hawaiians
00:31:03.780have to go light bulb shopping i know exactly exactly it's not it's not just daiquiris on the
00:31:09.720beach for everybody. Yeah, exactly. So you mentioned, you know, trad wives in what we were
00:31:18.340just discussing there. And it made me think about this. I think that so much of these conversations
00:31:26.660around far right culture are a question of degrees and, you know, desensitization to ideas
00:31:37.080that aren't necessarily always in their own right bad but then lead you down a path that can turn
00:31:44.180quite toxic quite quickly and uh that also came up in the book where there were things like uh
00:31:50.500looking at trad wives um which you know getting really into baking or maybe wanting to dress a
00:31:57.420certain way or have an aesthetic isn't inherently going to turn you into someone who preaches
00:32:03.120subservience to men and you know uh sort of advocates for uh other women to live this
00:32:10.640lifestyle that reduces their choices in life um and similarly mma is something that is a uh0.56
00:32:19.280sort of gateway in many ways but it's not inherently bad you can do mma and be a totally
00:32:25.360progressive healthy person who's just trying to get fit and maybe likes grappling a little
00:32:30.000but a lot of martial arts scenes have been used as sort of recruiting tools um recruiting grounds
00:32:38.320and uh even just using the language of martial arts training or um you know various kinds of
00:32:45.680fighting training um i've noticed have been used as recruiting tools for active clubs they say oh
00:32:51.840we're just gonna help you get fit teach you how to fight things like that um so how do average
00:32:59.600people who might be have an interest in these sorts of communities whether it be mma or baking
00:33:06.000or maybe uh getting into farming watch for signs in their community that there might be individuals
00:33:14.880looking to co-opt that moment that interest for nefarious means um i mean i'll go back to the
00:33:26.160typical statement that any radicalization expert will tell you is no one thing by itself is an
00:33:31.380indicator of anything, right? And so I'm old enough to remember when long beards and Muslims1.00
00:33:37.400and thobes were seen as indicators by law enforcement agencies and even if something
00:33:43.360basic as conversion to Islam was considered as a risk factor, right? And so I don't think we
00:33:48.560should replicate the far-right versions of that and just say, you know, these things are
00:33:55.260are gateway drugs or something like that but i i do think so it's always a confluence of things
00:34:01.100in addition to all of these interests that are are potential threats and so you know you might
00:34:06.220be into really into mma or really into martial arts but if it becomes about racial purity or
00:34:12.060the warrior spirit or preparing for the collapse of civilization that's why you're training well
00:34:18.060then that's something to ask a secondary question about, right?
00:34:23.880There might be a few follow-ups to that one.
00:34:26.520If your coach is like, hey, by the way,
00:34:28.920we're just getting a little bit ready for the race war.
00:34:47.920And so I do think it could be an indicator of something, but I really don't want to get to this world where all of these things are potential gateways to this kind of harmful behavior.
00:35:02.020Because I think at the very base, it's a waste of time and resources and waste of time and money on the part of the government.
00:35:08.140I don't want CESAs sitting on TradWife platforms.
00:35:11.540Like, it's a waste of your time, right?
00:35:12.780And so we need to be a bit more streamlined in how we think about all this, I think.
00:35:17.920Yeah. I mean, if you look at my social media algorithm, I'm a trad boy, right? And I come from rural Southern Alberta. So I bake, I cook, I know how to make a root cellar. Like I have all these skills. But so if you were to just look at my social media presence, you probably would make assumptions about me. And so in Tamar's point, that's not a particularly effective way of thinking about radicalization and how do we have healthy and progressive communities. Yeah, I think it's about the political rhetoric that's circulating in those places. Like how do folks respond to things like feminists?
00:35:47.900and, you know, the gender and racial hierarchies
00:36:17.900uh is is a good approach yeah and i think that that's something uh we just saw almost it almost
00:36:25.420feels like a variance of a satanic panic right now where uh there are you know people with these
00:36:34.060fascist tendencies in the white house right now um and i think almost to regain a feeling of
00:36:40.380control people have turned into nazi hunters online where they're you know seeing lightning0.81
00:36:46.300bolt necklaces from taylor swift and and convinced that that means she's a secret neo-nazi or uh you
00:36:52.780know they're just seeing dog whistles everywhere um and and not really considering the context and
00:36:58.940and i think that that sort of um uh when you approach the pursuit or analysis of uh these
00:37:08.380signifiers that can mean radicalization but don't inherently in that sort of uh irresponsible way
00:37:16.220It can really, I think, dilute conversations and serious conversations that need to happen.
00:37:21.840I mean, what did you guys think when you saw all that panic about Taylor Swift having a necklace with lightning bolts on it
00:37:28.200and people saying that that's her secretly signifying that she's, you know, the SS symbol for neo-Nazism?
00:37:35.580I mean, what did that make you think about where our society is at right now?
00:37:40.260Well, it's like somebody was posting about Justin Bieber had his hand in the air walking down the stage and they said he's doing a Nazi salute a couple of months ago.
00:37:49.920I think this is the danger of these kind of list of indicators. Right.
00:37:53.620And so back when back when long beards was a sign of ISIS, like people got stopped at airports.
00:37:59.760They got secondary. Like it has real world consequences when you don't understand the broader context in which these, you know, quote unquote indicators are circulating.
00:38:08.140right and and there was a guy a couple of years ago where a mexican guy driving a truck had his
00:38:13.580hand out the window with the okay sign just like resting his hand and someone called his boss and
00:38:19.100he got fired for being a white supremacist right and you're like well he's mexican well he's mexican
00:38:24.620number one and like you're so it's it does have consequences when we remove these symbols from0.53
00:38:31.100their from the broader context and start to see them as threats free-floating threats right and
00:38:35.660and so we need to be we need to be very careful about that because it does have actual consequences
00:38:40.380for people's lives yeah and i think this is also a function of social media um you know we've been
00:38:45.660talking a lot about the far right being an in group i mean we all want to be a part of groups
00:38:51.020and i think there is something to be said about conversations on social media where you just want
00:38:55.340to be a part of as you say maybe nazi hunters or whatever that is but i think there is um there's
00:39:01.420a feeling of belonging when you're a part of these sorts of conversations and and sometimes
00:39:05.420we talk about things that we don't actually have expertise in online and so i think i think there's
00:39:10.060a lot of factors that are contributing towards maybe not the most useful conversations about
00:39:14.700radicalization and social media is a big part of it yeah i'm actually really glad that you
00:39:19.500mentioned social media and the internet because that was something i wanted to ask you guys about
00:39:24.380so much of uh it so much of everything that i'm saying here actually is funny because i find
00:39:30.380myself thinking about it i'm like well the internet changed everything for everyone because
00:39:34.460i think far-right cultures it's just another culture and so all of us have had our cultures
00:39:39.420go through shifts and changes um over time but i i am really curious about the ways in which
00:39:46.060uh the internet seems to have facilitated in some ways the spread of propaganda
00:39:51.420um you know there maybe would have been one neo-nazi in the village but now he can go on
00:39:55.980fortune and you know find everywhere i guess probably maybe not even fortune anymore there's
00:40:00.420some some more uh radical versions that you can go on but and they can find each other and they
00:40:05.260can organize and uh you know literature that you have to go through a printing house or you'd have
00:40:10.260to find a way to order online can now just be circulated um on the internet so and you know
00:40:15.460translations are much easier to come by for old neo-nazi literature things or old nazi literature
00:40:21.320not neo-nazi um so elements like that i mean how much has the internet contributed to this sort of
00:40:29.240rise of um fascistic ideologies that we're seeing or do you think that it's less a byproduct of the
00:40:37.800internet as it is a byproduct of the societies that we're living in with exacerbated inequality
00:40:43.720and the internet just happened to arise at a time that where people were already primed for this
00:40:48.760kind of radicalization um so yes to both i think i i i mean extremists use the internet just like
00:41:00.200me and you use the internet right and and so what did what did what did the internet do for me well
00:41:04.920i can keep in touch with people better i can watch stuff online i can order stuff online i could you
00:41:10.440know book taxis online that's the same that's what they're using it for too right and so um i think
00:41:16.760whatever we use it for they'll use it for also so that that's one thing um and the other thing
00:41:21.880it did um and from you know from talking to extremists for a decade now they found that
00:41:28.520like your to your earlier point of this transnational community that part is
00:41:32.040real right that was harder to do pre-internet um now uh they can be they can feel like they're
00:41:39.720part of this transnational brotherhood or sisterhood um globally where all of these different
00:41:44.920countries are engaged in the same attack on their in-group um they're all letting immigrants in0.86
00:41:50.840they're all letting muslims in they're all becoming too woke they're all you know adopting0.74
00:41:56.200liberal ideas etc and we can come together transnationally to push back against this1.00
00:42:01.000they share tactics they share grievances they share ideologies um they perfect the ideology
00:42:06.040in the online space um and so that that part is new the the kind of scope and scale of it
00:42:11.640But we have to remind ourselves, Canada has had the KKK back in the early 20th century, right?
00:42:37.760You can walk by next week and there's 100 people listening to him.
00:42:40.680the question we should be asking isn't how did the message change because the message is the same
00:42:45.240the question is why is it resonating this week as opposed to a couple weeks ago right and so
00:42:49.960we have to ask that question of what's changed in our culture what's changed in our societies
00:42:53.960to make these ridiculous arguments sound plausible sound um interesting right so what what's changed
00:43:00.360in the water that that this i'm mixing analogies now but what's what's what's changed in us that
00:43:06.840these messages are now seem seem relevant right and and that that that goes back to your societal
00:43:12.760question yeah so amy what has changed in us well i like i really do think that post-covid like the
00:43:19.480way our communities and our social bonds have been reshaped has been profoundly shaped by technology
00:43:26.200more and more of us have community online than we do offline that's a product of social media
00:43:30.840that's a product of covet that's a product of capitalism that's a product of globalization
00:43:35.240um so it's perhaps not surprising that the far right is doing this because to Amar's point we're
00:43:39.320all doing this we're all looking for community online um and so a lot of times when I talk to
00:43:43.560folks they're like I didn't actually really come here for like the anti-vax ideology I came here
00:43:47.960because I was looking for people to hang out with and because you know of the things that I went
00:43:51.880through during COVID I don't have my offline community anymore so this is about finding a
00:43:56.680space that they feel like that they belong in um and I just want to reiterate that like the far
00:44:01.640right has always been very good at using technology um whether it's film or radio or television or the
00:44:07.960early days of the internet they've always been very effective at it um and so we i think really
00:44:13.000have to keep an eye on where technology is going like the use of ai by the far right is also
00:44:17.880something that we need to really be uh keeping our finger on the pulse there um because like
00:44:23.160like they're they're spectacular at spreading their ideologies at mobilizing at radicalizing
00:44:28.840and recruiting um and and they've used the tools at their disposal and sometimes they're the first
00:44:34.280ones to do it right they're sometimes they're the first groups to actually make use of a new
00:44:38.360technology and so it's interesting i think in canada the use of these kind of mail-in um the
00:44:44.360kind of email chains and stuff like that were initially taken up by far right groups in canada
00:44:49.560so they're they're very good at knowing how to spread their message very quickly yeah yeah i
00:44:54.920I have also sort of noticed, I think they can often be very good at tapping into the grievances and the systemic sort of issues that are driving a lot of what is wrong with, you know, the things that actually really are making us struggle in this world, like the inequality.
00:45:14.260Like, you know, I mean, I was listening to the propaganda speech, and as this guy's criticizing, this far-right leader is criticizing the CBC, he points out the fact that they gave themselves massive bonuses, which is something that actually a lot of journalists are annoyed about, because this is happening at a time when tons of journalists are being laid off.
00:45:31.960the top brass that CBC gave themselves bonuses. So there are very effective political communicators
00:45:37.820and I sometimes worry about the ability for progressive politicians to engage in the same
00:45:44.180sorts of tactics with ideas behind them that are a lot less nefarious. Although I guess depending
00:45:50.120on who you ask. But I did want to sort of finish off by asking you guys specifically about the
00:45:57.020Canadian context. I mean, Amar, you just mentioned the fact that the KKK has been around here for
00:46:02.100forever. And I did want to ask you, like, so much of what we're talking about here,
00:46:07.140because of the internet, sort of transcends borders. But are there any of these elements
00:46:11.960or any pathways to radicalization that you've noticed are more present in Canada? Or are a
00:46:18.980specific issue here? Or is it really just global across the board?
00:46:23.460I mean, I think, yeah, these national boundaries almost mean nothing these days.
00:46:31.640I think part of it, I mean, yes and no, they consume a lot of international, transnational
00:46:37.480content and grievances, and they talk to each other, they're friends with each other, but
00:46:41.260sometimes the activism is very local, right?
00:46:43.440And so the way they interact is very local.
00:46:46.380And so we've had far-right movements going back a long time, you know, from skinhead
00:46:51.000groups to blood and honor to hammer skins um uh violent movements and non-violent movements and
00:46:57.000and and and that's just evolving more and more um in the canadian space and uh now it's there's like
00:47:02.760an anti-government populist groups there are western chauvinist groups there are ones that
00:47:07.080call themselves anti-jihadist which just mean like they just mean anti-muslim and so um and and so
00:47:13.720every ask every kind of corner of the variation of these far-right groups exists in canada
00:47:20.280the trend also which is a little bit more difficult is is the lone actor side of things
00:47:26.840most of these guys these days don't aren't part of any group right so alexander bisonette quebec
00:47:32.360mosque attacker wasn't part of a group um nathaniel beltman in london ontario wasn't part of a group
00:47:37.880the christ church shooter wasn't part of a group and so there we have to think of them as part of
00:47:41.880these social movements um locally and internationally but they're acting alone they're not going they're
00:47:49.080not going to be card carrying members of some they're not going to show up show up with a kkk
00:47:53.160business card right they're part of these movements and they act locally and they and
00:47:57.800and that that's kind of how they're um how they roll these days and and so that so this idea of
00:48:03.400what kind of new movements exist also i think that's a governmental fixation sometimes is
00:48:07.880because we want to list an organization and we want to um we want to defund an organization but
00:48:13.160it's just people part of these more ecosystems these days that that that makes it a bit more
00:48:18.120more difficult. Yeah. Yeah. I'm often asked, you know, like how many far right groups are active
00:48:23.960in Alberta, you know, how many individuals? And it's like, that's a really tricky question to
00:48:28.800answer. I think a lot more in terms of grievances, like what, what are the things that people are
00:48:34.140angry about right now? I mean, I do think there are regional differences in that way. Like I do
00:48:39.640think there is some, some differences between what you see happening in Quebec versus Ontario
00:48:43.620versus Alberta. But to think in terms of national borders is, as Amar says, kind of impossible
00:48:51.780in today's society. But I am quite interested in like, why do certain groups seem to mobilize
00:48:57.300in particular parts of the country? And what is the pre-existing cultural context that makes that
00:49:02.660sort of mobilization make sense? Like the Coutts border blockade was always going to happen in
00:49:07.620in Alberta. And so then unpacking why is it that that particular form of violent extremism
00:49:13.440happened in Alberta helps us think through what can we do to prevent radicalization and