Extremist Rhetoric Research Articles

Values of Coexistence in Islamic Civilization: The Relationship with Others and the Challenge of Extremism

This study employs a descriptive-analytical method to emphasize the genuineness and importance of peaceful coexistence values among religions and cultures in Islamic civilization. It specifically focuses on the interaction with others, living together, acknowledging, respecting, and collaborating with them in different aspects of shared humanity. This research examines the language of extremism by studying and analyzing it, seeing it as the primary obstacle to the principles of civic coexistence and tolerance. The research findings indicate that the key factor that sets apart the principles of peaceful coexistence among individuals, irrespective of their religious and racial backgrounds, and that necessitates the acceptance of others in Islamic ideology, is the perception of such acceptance as legitimate obligations. An individual is recognized as a Muslim only when they openly acknowledge their adherence to the Islamic faith. Through the analysis of holy writings and the Prophet's biography, the researcher concludes that any radical and divisive rhetoric that promotes the rejection of peaceful coexistence cannot be regarded as Islamic speech, and does not accurately reflect Islam and Muslims. Instead, it is an extreme rhetoric that only represents its advocates, a rhetoric that Islam disavows, just as it disavows other forms of hate speech. The research urges the official religious authorities in Arab and Islamic countries to take on the legitimate, ethical, and scientific duty of freeing religious matters from ideological manipulation and restoring the correct approach to interpreting religious texts, while avoiding extremist ideological exploitation. This proposal advocates for the promotion of harmony, resolution of misunderstandings, fostering love and unity, prevention of excommunication, defamation, and conflict. It suggests the establishment of educational programs focused on promoting peace and coexistence values, as well as encouraging research in the field of tolerance education and acceptance of others. The objective is to cultivate an intellectual atmosphere in our universities that prioritizes wisdom, reason, logic, and evidence over emotional slogans. This will result in universities producing graduates who possess values of tolerance and coexistence, equipped to challenge and dismantle hateful and extremist ideologies by exposing their flaws and removing the religious facade from their harmful ideas.

Community as Gesamtkunstwerk: Dick Ket’s Self-Portraiture and the Debt of Epic Film

Abstract This essay posits that Weimar-era film sets—in their evocation of Richard Wagner’s concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk—served as a previously unseen visual source for painters that in some cases pushed back against interwar aesthetics of power. Focusing on the Dutch figurative painter Dick Ket, it investigates the ways in which this artist’s self-portraits from 1930–1940 acted as a memory index of his experience of the mises-en-scènes in Fritz Lang’s 1924 epic two-part film Die Nibelungs through Langian devices such as heavy geometric patterning, leitmotifs and subjugation of the human figure to the set. Ket’s work evinces the artist’s own sensation of confinement in his parents’ home as a result of a terminal heart condition while also reckoning with Adolf Hitler’s extremist rhetoric and expansionist policies in the years that preceded the German Occupation of the Netherlands.

R/The_Donald Had a Forum: How Socialization in Far-Right Social Media Communities Shapes Identity and Spreads Extreme Rhetoric

Can engagement with far-right social media communities socialize users into a new political identity? This study addresses concerns about the spread of far-right groups on mainstream social media platforms by examining how newcomers are affected by their engagement with these groups. I theorize that changes in social identity expression indicative of socialization will be measurable in the language users use to express themselves on social media, and that the magnitude of this linguistic change will intensify with more frequent far-right engagement. I develop a custom dictionary of far-right-relevant terms sourced from communities like The Daily Stormer and Stormfront. Using an original dataset of Reddit user posting histories from 2015–2017, I test for increases in the frequency of this far-right vocabulary. I find that users who engage often with a far-right community like r/The_Donald begin to sound more like white nationalists within three months. Socialized users also use far-right vocabulary more frequently in other spaces on their platform, contributing to the spread and normalization of far-right rhetoric.

Overcoming Episodic Political Uncertainties and Tensions: Borderland Conservation Communities of Practice and the Bridging and Linking of Social Capital

Episodes of political tension and extreme rhetoric make the economic and socio-political conditions of borderland regions uncertain and oftentimes contentious. Yet, there is a paucity of research on how much tension and rhetoric affect the formation and function of borderland conservation communities of practice (BCCsP). Accordingly, the current study provides a deeper understanding of the effects of political uncertainties and tensions on the conditions and dynamics that influence transborder wildlife conservation activities and initiatives. Using qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews with 15 wildlife professionals working in the Arizona, United States-Sonora, Mexico borderland region, a social capital bridging and linking model is developed with the aim of increasing the collective efficacy and resiliency of transborder conservation collaborations and initiatives. Theoretical constructs spanning communities of practice, human agency, political ecology, and social capital framed the study. Recommendations for research and practices are provided.

Oppositional Mirror on the Wall: Discursive Practices of Humorous Pashkevilim in Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Community

Pashkevilim, printed wall notices posted around Jewish ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, serve as one of the religious community’s popular communication channels. The Pashkevilim mostly deal with controversial intra-community issues and feature a unique style, extremist rhetoric, and vocabulary derived from the religious literature. Humorous imitations of the genre arose over the years, which circulated in the community and outside of it, posing a challenge to the rabbinic hegemony. Although humorous Pashkevilim have likely been present for as long as Pashkevilim themselves, there is currently a lack of research investigating them. By adopting a critical discourse analysis approach, the current study aims to address this gap by identifying the predominant types of humorous Pashkevilim and analyzing the discursive practices they employ. The findings indicate three main discursive practices that characterize humorous Pashkevilim: parody, satire, and irony. While parody exaggerates the formal characteristics of the genre and mocks them, satire and irony criticize the content and topics discussed in traditional Pashkevilim, especially on the subject of Jewish law and religious stringency. These practices express an oppositional reading of the genre, which challenges its function as well as its socio-cultural, political, and religious significance.

Beyond Slavery's Shadow: Free People of Color in the South by Warren Eugene Milteer Jr.

Reviewed by: Beyond Slavery's Shadow: Free People of Color in the South by Warren Eugene Milteer Jr. Scarlet Jernigan Beyond Slavery's Shadow: Free People of Color in the South. By Warren Eugene Milteer Jr. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. Pp. [xii], 363. Paper, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-4696-6439-2; cloth, $95.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-6438-5.) In Beyond Slavery's Shadow: Free People of Color in the South, Warren Eugene Milteer Jr. expands on his book North Carolina's Free People of [End Page 772] Color, 1715–1885 (Baton Rouge, 2020) to provide a needed overview of the "collective lives of free people of color" in the South (p. 11). He rejects older scholarship by Ira Berlin and others who asserted that free persons of color were "'slaves without masters'" who existed between "'abject slavery'" and "'full freedom'" (p. 11). Instead, Milteer contends that free people of color "experienced a freedom that was contested yet worth defending" (p. 12). "Intersecting social hierarchies" of "wealth, gender, occupation, reputation, and religion" resulted in diverse behaviors among free persons of color and a "complex assortment of relations" with white southerners (pp. 2, 4). Seven chapters and a conclusion span from the colonial era to Reconstruction. In chapters 1 and 2, the author compares the lives of free people of color in the colonial South with their counterparts in other empires, noting discrimination along with diversity, complexity, and flexibility. During the American Revolution, "unsettled social landscapes" led to either opportunity or oppression (p. 52). In chapters 3 and 4, Milteer examines the next forty-some years, as white people "struggled to determine the proper place for free people of color" (p. 69). Despite "unprecedented attacks," free persons of color and their allies tempered the success of those who sought to make race the sole criterion to determine status (p. 71). Cross-racial bonds of kinship, community, worship, and business held, and free people of color "found ways to convey their societal importance" (p. 116). They founded separate organizations when "working with whites as equals was not possible or desirable" (p. 122). Chapters 5 and 6 begin with the Nat Turner rebellion, which allowed progressively more radical proslavery whites to push free people of color into an "increasingly inferior legal status" (p. 184). Yet the rebellion did not result in a "revolutionary change in the ways average white southerners thought about" free persons of color (p. 138). In the decades leading up to the Civil War, free people of color could still "find justice in a system not designed for their benefit" as they actively defended their rights (p. 180). In chapter 7's examination of the Civil War, Milteer shows that free persons of color pursued divergent paths based on their complex and layered identities. Utilizing county court minutes, apprenticeship bonds, state legislative records, wills, newspapers, and pension files, Milteer focuses on the realities of day-to-day life instead of the contents of legal codes or extremist rhetoric. He cites Melvin Patrick Ely's Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War (New York, 2005) as an important precursor to his work. Milteer characterizes white southern behavior toward free people of color as "fluid," contradictory, and far from monolithic (p. 5). Free persons of color were vital to society and the economy, and radicals sought—unsuccessfully—to push them to the margins. Milteer concludes that many "find understanding the South before 1865 much easier if we can simplify the social hierarchy," but he argues that doing so offers a skewed picture of reality (p. 254). The author skillfully reveals the sometimes-intersecting values of whites and free people of color, as well as "inconsistencies between the law and everyday behavior," and then provides a framework for understanding them (p. 255). [End Page 773] Scarlet Jernigan Piedmont University Copyright © 2022 The Southern Historical Association

Bad Religion and the Burlesque: Framing Extremist Rhetoric in “The Kids are Alt-Right”

ABSTRACT The music video for Bad Religion’s 2018 satirical song, “The Kids are Alt-Right” is an appropriate text to be analyzed through Burke’s burlesque poetic category and Appel’s “five tokens of burlesque drama.” In calling attention to this growing ideological threat, Bad Religion frames the alt-right as a movement that identifies progressivism, technology, and minorities as enemies to their populist message. “Alt-Right” portrays the movement’s participants as having been indoctrinated into an ideological system that has been adapted for the 21st century, resulting in a cautionary tale of a violent effort without redemption, one destined for destruction.

Construction of Urban Landscape in Films by Ning Hao

As a new young director, Ning Hao has created a series of miracles with low-cost and high box office, and each work produced unexpected results with new visions among the audience, which is the concentrated embodiment of of the director's unique artistic temperament, known as "director with unique ability" in the industry. From connotation to extension, his works are permeated with the strong tension of surprise. The personality based discourse based on his unique characteristics, such as focuses on sensitive topics as the film clips in shooting, cult expression of audio-visual language, extreme rhetoric of film space, discussion on human nature in post-modern context, is constantly rewriting the solidified cognition of film ontology. Therefore, this paper takes films by Ning Hao as an example to extract the urban landscape in his film space for in-depth analysis with comprehensive explanation on the urban landscape in his works from multiple perspectives, such as construction mode, existence state and expression form.

Trust, Brutality, and Human Dignity: How "Partial Birth Abortion" Helps Shape American Biopolitics.

In this Article, I explore how nearly continuous public rhetorical challenges to abortion in the political realm first led the public and the courts to turn away from a particular abortion procedure (intact dilation and extraction, also known as partial-birth abortion) which political agitators labeled as "barbaric" and then to view physicians who performed abortions not as legitimate professionals, but simply as "abortionists," and sometimes as evil "Frankensteins." "Abortionists" use no "medical judgment" and are unworthy of deference by state legislatures, Congress, or the courts when deciding how or when to perform an abortion. The concentration on the welfare of fetuses and the actions of physicians permitted the abortion debate to bypass discussion of both the rights and welfare of pregnant patients, including their right to health, and to virtually never mention that abortion restrictions primarily affect people in poverty who cannot afford to seek reproductive health care, including an abortion, by traveling to a nonrestrictive state. Understanding the power of extreme rhetoric, including the use of social media in political campaigns and the use and misuse of concrete terms such as murder, infanticide, brutality, and dismemberment, and abstract concepts such as "human dignity," can help us plot a post-Dobbs way forward. Perhaps the demise of Roe can lead to a birth of a new rhetoric on abortion, one that concentrates on the right to health of everyone, including the right to make reproductive decisions, and requires moving abortion back into the realm of contemporary medicine, complete with a meaningful doctor-patient relationship protected by privacy and financed in a way that is accessible to all pregnant patients.

Writing Sexuality in the Autobiographical Form A Reflection of Mona Prince’s Novel So You May See

This article explores the representation of the female body and sexuality in modern Arab women’s writing in Egypt, focusing on the 1990s generation and the emergence of a new literary trend of explicit writing, or so-called kitābath al-jasad, which exposes bodily subjects using explicit sexual language, prohibited sensual themes, and erotic fantasies as tools of revolt against social and political taboos and as a means of challenging extremist Islamic religious rhetoric and the patriarchal authority. My representative example of this generation and this writing is Egyptian novelist Mona Prince. In her novel, So You May See (2011), experience connects to nakedness protest movements by using the body as a key vehicle to protest fundamentalist religious powers that oppose women’s liberation. In both contexts of body protest (clothed or unclothed), female sexuality is the tool par excellence to combat religious extremist rhetoric that amplifies hostility towards women.

Religion as a Security Threat

Abstract Religious extremism presents an ideological perspective found in most major religions and is currently associated with various forms of religiously motivated acts of violence. A conceptual framework is adopted to study the warning features of religious extremism and apply it to case studies of Nigeria, Uganda, and the Central African Republic (CAR). The application of a religious jihadism model to Christianity provides a comparative basis for assessing Islamic radical jihadism, helping to understand religion as a security threat, with particular reference to Christian contexts and examples. Using extremist rhetoric and the mobilization of Christian rituals, members of religious groups attempt to renegotiate their position in the public space within a society from which they are excluded due to political, social, and economic dynamics based on their exclusion. This study finds no significant difference between Islamic jihad and Christian jihad, as each seeks to politically exploit religion for political ends.

Restoring trust in truth-seekers: Effects of op/eds defending journalism and justice.

A healthy democracy requires trust that people can be impartial in important truth-seeking institutions including journalism, justice, and science. Recently some U.S. elites have adopted alarmingly extreme rhetoric against truth-seekers, denouncing mainstream journalism as fake news, criminal investigations as partisan witch-hunts, climate science as a hoax, and career civil servants as a deep state conspiracy. In response, some news organizations have taken the unusual step of publishing op/eds defending these institutions. Two experiments tested effects of such op/eds. In study 1, participants spent twelve days using a purpose-built news portal containing real, timely news with random assignment to the availability of real, timely op/eds defending impartiality of truth-seekers. These op/eds increased trust in truth-seeking institutions and increased the belief that people can serve as impartial professionals. Study 2 replicated this with a laboratory experiment assigning video op/ed exposure instead of text op/ed availability while adding several outcomes.

Conspiracist cognition: chaos, convenience, and cause for concern

ABSTRACT There has been much concern with the abundance of misinformation in public discourse. Although misinformation has always played a role in political debate, its character has shifted from support for a specific position to a ‘shock and chaos’ stream of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Exposure to conspiracy theories can have considerable adverse impact on society. I argue that scholars therefore have a responsibility to combat conspiracy theories and misinformation generally. Exercising this responsibility requires an understanding of the varied rhetorical roles of conspiracy theories. Here I focus on instances in which people reject unequivocal scientific evidence and invoke conspiracy theories, or radical anti-institutional positions, based on ideological imperatives. I argue that those positions do not always reflect true attitudes. Instead, people may deploy extreme rhetoric as a pragmatic tool of political expression. I investigate this possibility by focusing on the role of conspiracy theories in the rejection of science. Conspiracist cognition and rhetoric violate the epistemic standards that underpin science. Ironically, this violation of epistemic standards renders conspiracy theories useful as a rationally deployed tool that serves political purposes. I present a study that confirms that conspiracy theories can be deployed to support worldview-motivated denial of science. I provide suggestions how scholars can debunk or defang conspiratorial rhetoric.

Development of Freedom (Uhuru) Ideology and the Inspirations of the Nationalist Ideological Movements in Kenya and South Korea

This article traces the origin of nationalistic movements in Kenyan and South Korean history and examined factors which inspired nationalism movements in both countries. For example, it established that in Kenya, the desire and thirst for freedom/independence and the development of freedom (Uhuru) ideology were some of the factors that inspired nationalism movements. In South Korea, various theories (defend orthodoxy, eastern learning movement, and ban heterodoxy) which emancipated from 19th century by some individuals played major roles in inspiring and motivating Koreans people not only to join nationalistic movements, but, to strengthen such movements. In both countries, the political terrains were coated with several ideological colors which manifested themselves in different phases even as the two countries were going through different transitional experiences. As opposed to Park Chung-hee's radical revolutionist ideologist reflected on his foreign policy which also were highly tied towards the US and were subject to Washington's demand, Kenya's ideological movements were cautious, a fact that was reflected on how the country formulated its foreign policy. For instance, Kenya opted for the moderate view and shun out extreme rhetoric which many other newly independent African countries chose. This article traces the root of the freedom ideologies (uhuru) and their inspirations in both countries.

Philippines RH Act: Rx for Controversy Diatribe by Philippines’ President Turns Back the Clock

In June, 2019, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte blamed the Catholic Church for obstructing government plans to reduce the country's birth rate and population. They think that spewing out human beings by the millions is a gift from God, he claimed, adding that health care workers should resign if they are unwilling to follow government policy on population control for reasons of conscience. Duterte's authoritarian diatribe clashes with a ruling of the Supreme Court of the Philippines and turns the clock back to times of harsh and extreme rhetoric when the current law (commonly called the RH Act) was being developed. The RH Act was the product of over fourteen years of public controversy and political wrangling. It was of concern when it was enacted because it threatened some conscientious objectors with imprisonment and fines. In January, 2013, the Project reviewed the Act in detail. Project criticisms about the law's suppression of freedom of conscience were validated in April, 2014, when the Supreme Court of the Philippines struck down sections of the law as unconstitutional. Given the long history of attempts at legislative coercion in the Philippines and President Duterte's obvious hostility to freedom of conscience and religion in health care, the Project's 2013 review of the RH Act is here updated and republished. Assuming that the Philippines government's concern about population growth in the country is justified, it does not follow that it is best addressed by the kind of state bullying exemplified by President Duterte's ill-tempered and ill-considered eruption. Aside from the government's enormous practical advantage in its control of health care facilities, it has at its disposal all of the legitimate means available to democratic states to accomplish its policy goals. Not the least of these is persuasive rational argument, an approach fully consistent with the best traditions of liberal democracy, and far less dangerous than state suppression of fundamental freedoms of conscience and religion.

Focalizing new-Fascism: Right politics and integralisms in contemporary Italy

In this article, we examine the role of fringe new-Fascist movements within broader right-integralist politics in today’s Europe. Our focus lies with CasaPound, one of the most active movements in the Italian far-right galaxy, and highly visible in both the Italian as well as international mass media. We argue that while the strength of the movement itself should not be exaggerated, CasaPound has played a crucial role in the wider realm of integralist politics in Italy. Examining the movement’s discursive as well as material interventions in both urban and rural spaces, we suggest that CasaPound’s extreme rhetoric and highly spectacularized performances deserve attention for they serve to focalize in distinct ways migration and precarization, and in so doing help sustain calls by more “respectable” political forces to reclaim the national community from the assault of globalizing and neo-liberalizing forces and increasingly racialized migrant others.

Violent Transnational Social Movements and their Impact on Contemporary Social Conflict

This paper takes the perspective that violent transnational social movements (VTSMs) have profoundly impacted contemporary conflict scenarios. Social movements, underpinned by ideology, create partisan, transnational echo chambers, and communities, which are in the process of ‘changing the weather’ in contemporary social interactions. Transnational advocacy networks work in tandem to ‘create the message’ and perpetuate narratives. Where extremist dialogue crosses over into violence, we argue that a new form of conflict emerges. Such conflict does not have the preservation of the state as a territorially important factor or reference point, but rather, the preservation and promotion of a cultural identity. Where ‘other’ identities also co-exist, as in multicultural societies, these extremist views, and the crossover to violence from extremist rhetoric, arguably create a new type of warfare which we label fifth generation.

Yellow Vests, Right-Wing Extremism and the Threat to Canadian Democracy


 
 
 This briefing note explores the potential threat posed by the Yellow Vest Canada movement (YVC) being arguably infiltrated and co-opted by right-wing extremist (RWE) groups, and the possible escalation this may cause. The YVC has the potential to evolve from a peaceful movement into a national security threat. Yellow Vesters have become increasingly characterized by their death threats against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, clashes with counter-protesters, and the movement’s growing support from local RWE groups, seeking to utilize the YVC as a means for expanding their supporter base and normalizing extremist rhetoric. In the event of the adoption of YVC by RWE groups, there is the potential for extremist narratives to be pushed into the normative political sphere and turn the YVC movement into a Violent Transnational Social Movement (VTSM).
 
 

Distinguishing Features of the Activity of Extreme Right Groups under Conditions of State Counteraction to Online Extremism in Russia

The conservative shift taken by Russian authorities forced members of the Russian extreme right to seek shelter online. Nevertheless, they fell under censorship restrictions. The objective of this study is to reveal the distinguishing features of extreme right online groups and their participants' activity under conditions of censorship. The groups studied were identified by means of linguistic markers of extreme right sentiments and attitudes. The metrics of social network analysis were used to analyze interconnections between the groups and the internal migrations of closed communities. The study revealed that (1) extreme right online communities use the tactic of creating mirror Internet sites in case the main group is blocked; (2) blocking of the most extreme oppositional extreme right online groups induces the remaining ones to imitate obedience to law, using "softer forms" of extremist rhetoric; (3) the audience of the blocked groups continues spreading extremist ideas through channels related to other subjects. The study's authors conclude that prohibiting extreme right discourse promotes the proliferation of extreme right ideas and sentiments.

Media as a tool of labour mobilisation of the urban population (based on the newspaper "Truth of East-Siberia", 1946-1950)

The article is devoted to the study of the content and specificity of propaganda rhetoric of the Soviet media discourse aimed at labour mobilisation of the population. Based on the analysis of the texts of the newspaper "Truth of East-Siberia" of 1946-1950, devoted to the work of citizens, lexical forms the use of which in the texts of the publication, pursued the goal of implicit labour mobilisation – the creation of a positive image of the normative "correct" model of labour activity, were identified. The article used both quantitative (content analysis) and qualitative (discourse analysis) methods of text processing. The analysis of the materials of the publication allowed coming to the conclusion that the greatest intensity of mobilisation rhetoric was recorded in the first post-war years, reflecting the intensity of the processes of post-war economic recovery in the country. In process of overcoming of post-war difficulties on pages of the edition there is a decrease in intensity of the address to extreme rhetoric of labour mobilisation of the population, the number of the plots devoted to labour remuneration of citizens increases.