Thread by @graef_j

Today’s the official release of my book “Imagining Far-right #Terrorism” (FRT). It explores why Western European societies struggle to think of far-right and racist violence as terrorism. A (longish) 🧵 1/
routledge.pub/ImaginingFar-r…

The book builds on the work that has been done on far-right violence & #terrorism in Political Science and IR over the past few decades (esp since the 2010s). However, I approach the topic very much as a humanities scholar fascinated by how #narrative theory and analysis 2/

can teach us about the making of our world(s). My main inspiration comes from two scholars in anthropology and sociology whose way of thinking and writing I have long admired: Arjun Appadurai and Ken Plummer. 3/

For me, #terrorism does not refer to a particular type of violent behaviour. It is the product of #narrative dialectics. Put simply: the responses to a violent event are taken as evidence that terrorism has in fact occurred. I follow the textual traces 4/

that this dialectical process leaves behind across media, time, and national borders to find out what elite responses to far-right and racist violence can tell us about Western European societies. 5/

The book looks at such violence in 🇩🇪 (#NSU), 🇸🇪(John Ausonius and Peter Mangs' serial crimes), and 🇳🇴(murder of Benjamin Hermansen & 22/7). The patterns I identify allow me to make one central argument: the very notion of FRT challenges the collective imagination 6/

because the narrative world of liberal democracy is entangled with that of the far-right. The far-right tries to achieve *actual* wholeness by promoting physical distance between a pure community and its enemies, while wholeness is *simulated* in the name of 7/

liberal democracy by exerting (what I term) narrative control over the boundary btw (White) majorities and racialised minorities. This entanglement explains why speaking of far-right and racist violence as FRT *and* refusing to do so both serve to uphold a sense of wholeness: 8/

we may agree that such violence contravenes “our” liberal democratic norms, but these norms are themselves a product of keeping racialised minorities at a distance from the liberal-democratic "us". 9/

I therefore do not take a stance on whether a particular act of violence should or should not be labelled “far-right #terrorism”. The label itself does not imply recognition. Speaking *of* FRT is not enough. 10/

Bottom line: yes, far-right and racist violence pose a threat to liberal democracy, but we won’t be able to properly understand that unless we confront *actually existing* liberal democracies rather than the idea we have of them. 11/

There can be no serious engagement with FRT without digging *very* deep into our histories, politics, and cultures. It’s a truly interdisciplinary project if ever there was one. It connects to many of the exciting and important debates currently emerging around 12/

#memory, #colonialism #racism, and so on. It’s my hope that the book can make a small contribution to get that project on the road. 13/

I need to stress that writing this book would have been impossible without the investigative and research work done by anti-racist and anti-fascist groups alongside many courageous and dedicated individuals across the media, academia, arts and activism. 14/

Finally, writing a book is a collective endeavour in more ways than one. I thank @macklin_gd @Andreasnnerfor1 @RaquelBPSilva @IsiHertner and @alxgraef for their words of encouragement and support in getting this book out! 15/

Oh, and there is a discount in case you would like to read on! Just enter the code “FLA22” at checkout on the Routledge website 16/ routledge.com/9780367697051