Front Burner - The aftermath of the Christchurch mosque shootings and the rise of far-right extremism

Episode Date: March 18, 2019

Mass shootings at two mosques on Friday evening in Christchurch, New Zealand, were felt around the globe. We hear from Adrienne Arsenault, who is in Christchurch. And from Stephanie Carvin, a former analyst for CSIS, on the steady rise of far-right extremism in Canada.

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It's a traditional Maori ritual, and it's being performed as a tribute to the 50 people killed in New Zealand after two mosques were attacked by a white supremacist terrorist. Our Adrienne Arsenault is in Christchurch right now as people prepare for the funerals. I'm going to be speaking to her in a moment. And then we'll look at how this kind of violent racism festers online through coded language and memes. This is Frompruner. Hi, Adrienne.

Hey. I know that it's late Monday morning your time, Sunday evening our time. Where have we reached you now? Boy, I have no sense of the time at the moment. I'm in Christchurch. I'm in a spot. I'm just inside now, but just at a spot basically between the mosque and the hospital, which, interestingly, you know, the hospital is maybe such a small place.

Christchurch for the hospital is maybe such a small place. Christchurch for the hospital is maybe a kilometer from the Al Noor Mosque. So everything is very, very close. It's really, it is Monday, but it's really quiet. Why is it so quiet? Are people staying indoors? You know, I think, I think people are exhausted. I think a lot of people haven't been to bed at all. And I don't just mean the people who are personally affected by this because they've been at the hospital or that they've been waiting for answers about their loved ones. I mean the people of Christchurch. You know, I was listening to a radio program the other day, and this woman called into a talk show and said to the host of the show, could you do something at night? Do you think you could keep

talking at night? Because all we hear are helicopters and no one in our family can sleep. And we just want to hear people talking. And I just thought it was such an interesting, wrenching thing, because it's true, the helicopters are overhead nonstop here. And the immediate danger is, of course, gone course gone they believe but police still have work to do there are dignitaries coming in the prime minister came in and you know this is a city half the size of winnipeg and they've been through a lot in the past certainly the earthquake was is still fresh on many people's minds a 6.3 magnitude quake centered southeast of christchurch on the south island it triggered widespread damage with buildings collapsed in the centre of the city,

at least one on fire. You'll see ruins of buildings here, but now you have this internal ruin of people's trust, of so many families. I mean, you just cannot count the families. And if you stand outside the hospital, it is group after group after group of people going in and coming out. And they're devastated and they're looking for answers. And, you know, not all of them even know what's happened to their loved ones yet. The police have given an unofficial list of the dead to family members.

This is not a formal list and was done to give some certainty to victims' families. But there's still identification that has to happen. You know, a lot of people didn't have their phones with them and they didn't have their shoes with them and they didn't have their belongings and they were running for their lives. And so official identification is hard. But police have been working through the night to release the bodies because they are so conscious of how important it is for people to have swift, respectful burials, and they're really trying. That part of the investigation is continuing as quickly but as professionally as possible, and we will keep you updated.

I imagine that in the coming days there will be funerals for the victims. Have you been able to speak with any of the families or have you met anybody in Christchurch you can tell us about? I spoke with a woman yesterday who has been working with the families directly and she is completely broken, taking on listening to them. And she said, you know, a lot of the issues for a lot of the women is that they come from families that have now lost their breadwinners. The government here has done something which I think, you know, from the perspective of someone who lives in North America,

it's pretty remarkable that they've said, yes, we will, of course, we will pay for the funerals, but we will also financially support you to make sure you're okay because we are aware that you've lost your breadwinners. I spent part of the day with a man named Adrian Wright, who survived the shooting. He was in the mosque. He was sitting right next, I guess he said maybe just a few meters from the imam. He was right in the front row at Al Noor Mosque where 42 people ultimately ended up dying. And I sat down, you know, felt good.

Everybody looked happy. A friend of mine came up to me who had just had a baby recently. His child is, I think, four months old. And he told me that his wife and his child were here for the first time. And he says that the imam was just starting his sermon about inclusivity, about togetherness within the community and Muslims with each other and with the wider community.

And he got only a few sentences into it when there was a sound like someone dropping a light bulb. He said people stopped because his kids around think oh one of the kids is playing and dropped something I think the initial reaction was that a lot of people disregarded it mostly because I think people feel or felt safe so a lot of people didn't think it was a gunshot and then the Imam kept talking and then it happened again. And people turned and looked and he looked and he says he turned and he looked to his right and by his right ear he just saw. Just a flurry of gunshots started coming through. I was seeing it

and I was seeing it hit, hit the ceiling, hit the walls, hit people. Then he instinctively turned his head to the left, and there was more of them, but he saw a broken window, and he ran through the broken window and out back behind the mosque and jumped a wall and basically saved his own life. Incredibly. He then started...

I'm sorry for rambling about this, but this man's story just keeps rattling me. He ran back towards the mosque when the shooting stopped. And he said that's when he started to see all these beautiful faces of people he'd been smiling with minutes earlier. And they're dead. You know, there's a three-year-old boy who's dead. He was killing children. You understand?

They weren't caught in the fire. He was killing children. You understand? I know. They weren't caught in the fire. He was killing them. Naeem Rashid, this amazing man who had apparently tried to rush the terrorist. I saw that video and the first thing I wanted to see was the look in his eyes. I did not see an iota of fear in his eyes. What a brave man he was. His son Talha also dead. Adrian, can I ask you, the imam that you mentioned, who was talking about inclusivity before the shots started, did he survive? He did. He did. His name is Jamal Felda. He, forgive me if I've pronounce that incorrectly. He did survive.

He has said, you know, he can't believe he's alive. We couldn't even breathe from the smoke and the bullets flying everywhere. And I didn't have a sleep for like two days and one night. This point you made about families left without breadwinners, it reminds me of the Quebec moss shooting, which left five single mothers. It's something I know I'll be thinking about in the coming days and weeks. You and certainly everybody here. You know, there's an interesting phrase here, and when I hear it, I don't entirely...

Something about it doesn't sit right with me just because of the construction of the sentence, but the New Zealand Prime Minister has been saying, they are us. The Prime Minister has been saying, they are us. Many of those who will have been directly affected by this shooting may be migrants to New Zealand. They may even be refugees here. They have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home. They are us.

The person who has perpetuated this violence against us is not. And it's on the front page of the newspaper here. There is this, they are us, we are one. This message of togetherness is so important now, but I was speaking with a woman yesterday, a Sunni Muslim community, who was saying, you know, that is a message to the people who still see a they and us.

And it is a concerted effort to say it is urgent that people are better than us. There is no place in New Zealand for such acts of extreme and unprecedented violence, which it is clear this act was. Adrienne, thank you so much. Not at all. The people who perpetuate these attacks, they grab hold of far-right ideologies. They're steeped in hate on the internet. Stephanie Carvin, she watches this happen.

She's a former analyst for Canada's spy agency, CSIS, and she joins me now in Ottawa. Hi, Stephanie. Hi. Thanks so much for joining us today. Hey, thanks for having me on. Can you take me to that moment when you saw what was unfolding in New Zealand? You've been studying extremism for a long time. What was going through your head?

Well, you know, at first, of course, your heart sinks when you see this. You know, we've seen this play out time and time again. Very disturbing developments in a fast-evolving story. A racist terror attack. And you think, oh gosh, how bad is this going to be? What are the casualties going to be? And then, of course, you can't help but wonder, okay, well, where is it from this time? And, you know, when I first saw the methods, the methods often tell a story very quickly as to what may have happened. The methods often tell a story very quickly as to what may have happened.

And in this particular case, we saw someone who had a car bomb, had used a machine gun to attack innocent people, and immediately it came out that there was a manifesto that had been put out. And I thought, Anders Breivik. A grisly chronology is emerging from Norway after what appears to have been an elaborate and meticulously planned mass killing. First, a deadly bomb exploded in the heart of the capital, Oslo. Then on the island of Otoya, 35 kilometers away, a gunman opened fire on hundreds of

teenage campers. There was a lot of similarities with the attack in Norway a couple of years ago. And Anders Breivik killed 77 people in Norway in 2011. Yes, after setting off a car bomb. And so all of the hallmarks of that attack were there. And that was so that was really the first thing I thought of. And then sure enough, we start seeing photos on social media of the weapons that the individual had allegedly used, which had names on it, including Breivik. But also, shockingly, Alexandre Bissonnette, who killed six individuals at a mosque in Quebec. What did you think about the fact that he had scrawled Alexandre Bissonnette's name on his weapons?

He had also scrawled the names of sort of centuries old military figures that fought wars that were largely against, you know, non-white populations. And Anders Breivik as well, he had a lot of names on his weapons. Right, exactly. And, you know, like ideas about like kind of civilizational battles between a kind of a Christian West and a Muslim invaders. And that's this kind of narrative. You see this and you realize this person's trying to set them up as a part of this invented tradition of anti-jihadism and a kind of Christian identity in the West. And this is what he's trying to associate with them. And as you say, going as far back as kind of medieval times through to what had happened

just two years ago. evil times through to what had happened just two years ago. It's titled The Great Replacement, 87 pages, more than 16,000 words. A spellcheck reference dissertation on a hate-filled view of immigrants, immigration, and Muslims. There is no doubt the 28-year-old under arrest is a white supremacist who believe his own white European race is being wiped out by immigration, labeling it white genocide. I don't know if you saw the live stream video the killer made as he carried out the attack. And one element was really performative it didn't just seem to be about documenting but also amplifying which is a weird word to use it begins in his car a minute later music plays in the background the song is serbia strong originally a piece of propaganda the song is essentially an anti-muslim meme

the gunman's decision to play it was most likely an intentional nod to a specific Internet audience. Have we ever seen anything like this before? We have in the sense that, you know, Anders Breivik put out a manifesto and his legacy is that manifesto, right? Of course, he killed these 77 people. It's tragic. It's sad. And I would never want to discount that. But, you know, for him, a victory is the fact that his manifesto lives on and has clearly inspired others to kind of mimic his beliefs

and, in this particular case, his actions. The man said he wanted to start a revolution to take his country back from Muslims and other immigrants. And I think this killer has realized that, that by putting out a manifesto, he too could have a legacy that would live on. So we've seen this before, but there's clearly an evolution here

that this person was able to live broadcast what he was doing. And he knew the impact that it would have because this seems to be someone who has absolutely steeped himself in Internet culture. So, yeah, I mean, we probably should have seen this coming. I mean, you wonder if Anders Breivik would have done the same had he been able to, you know, have the technology that was there. I mean, this was nearly 10 years ago. So it wasn't it was probably wasn't the same possibility to do that. But this person who has

learned from Breivik and then in a very sick way improved on his methods. So yeah, I mean, this probably should have been something that we could have seen coming for a while now, but haven't. And I just want to pick up on something you just said, that this attacker was steeped in internet culture. I was particularly struck by his use of Internet memes, both in the video that was live streamed, but also in his manifesto that you mentioned. So, for example, in the video, he makes reference to subscribe to PewDiePie. He's this incredibly popular YouTuber who has flirted with the alt-right. Disney has cut ties with the popular YouTube personality PewDiePie for reportedly incorporating anti-Semitic content into his videos.

Apparently, neo-Nazi group have been referencing me, have been praising me for making these kind of jokes. So I made a statement as soon as I find out about this, saying I do not support these hateful groups in any way. That phrase, though, subscribe to PewDiePie, it's taken on its own internet life. And also at the beginning of the video, he's playing a song from a 1995 Serbian national video that has also turned into a meme. So what is he trying to accomplish here? What's the effect

of all of these references? I think it's really twofold. I think in the first instance that he's clearly speaking to the people who are a part of this kind of, you know, for lack of better words, ironic Nazis. People who, you know, it's still a kind of Nazism these days, but like, you know, they're like, oh, well, you know, don't take it so seriously. I'm just, you know, kidding around. It's the Internet. What's wrong with you? is the internet, what's wrong with you? But clearly there was a forum of people who understood all of the references that he was making and he clearly is trying to show them, look, I've moved from just posting on the internet

to actual actions. And he says that in his post that he made on the forum 8chan where a lot of this kind of toxic irony really continues to exist today. 4chan, 8chan are picking up on this and sharing the video. And as I say, in many cases, endorsations of this individual and of the sentiments that he espouses. Right. And the actual quote is time to stop shit posting

and time to make a real life effort. Yeah. So, I mean, and it's, this is just it. So it's someone, I mean, that says a lot that the fact that he, he's, this is the audience that he's talking to. He's like, look, and it's, it's kind of an invitation to follow him, right? Like, look, I'm, I'm better than you. I'm one upping you because a lot of this irony culture is trying to one up the other people in the room, trying to get their goat, trying to trigger them as, as they might say. So I think that that's part of the audience that he's speaking to, but it's broader than that. So I think that that's part of the audience that

he's speaking to. But it's broader than that. And we see this in, you know, the fact that he was able to broadcast it, the fact that he's written names and terms that everyday people aren't going to recognize. You know, most people don't understand the gates of Vienna. A lot of people don't understand a lot of the Serbian music the Serbian battles the various names of you know people who have committed or in his view a crusade against what he sees as Muslim invaders so I think what he's also trying to do is broaden it out he knows that people are going to see this video he knows they're going to be curious and so he's going to put that out there knowing that people will Google it, try to understand these terms.

And through that, he can kind of, again, spread his ideas. And this, I think, in his mind is probably going to be part of his legacy. Is it also fair to say that using these memes, you know, this irony or joking, it also serves to normalize these beliefs and this behavior? It also serves to normalize these beliefs and this behavior that is a tool to take these hateful messages and drive them, you know, mainstream, for lack of a better word. The term that we see being used by scholars and researchers in this area is called irony poisoning. it's really where you kind of create these forums that kind of polarize around this idea of irony and detachment of some really terrible things. And it kind of almost breeds like a kind of nihilism around them, you know, that, you know, you're looking at some horrible pictures of some of the worst mass atrocities, and you're making jokes about it. And such a way that you know you're you become detached that you become desensitized to kind of the horror around these pictures and it's all

you know kind of in this culture that does it you know as they say for the lulls for the laughs and that's that's kind of what I think we're seeing in this particular case. I know that we're covering a lot of ground here today, but I do want to take a minute to talk to you about the rise of this kind of extremism, of right-wing extremism in Canada. Alexandra Bissonnette is the most recent violent expression of it. Bissonnette also researched mass shootings, mostly in the U.S. He appeared to be particularly interested in Dylann Roof, the man who killed nine people at a Charleston church, and Marc Lepine, who targeted women in the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre.

It has really been aimed at immigrants and specifically Muslims. And it didn't happen overnight. Can you tell me what you've been seeing here? Are we seeing more people steeped in this kind of hatred? So you're right, it hasn't started overnight. And Canada actually does have a fairly lengthy history of far-right movements, even if this is something that does seem very foreign to us. There's been movements, far-right movements in Canada since the 1920s with the emergence of the-jihadist groups online, often in direct response to terrorist incidents that have happened either in North America or abroad. So, you know, and there's been a number of factors that I think have contributed to what I think can reasonably be said to be a rise in far-right activity in Canada. The first has been a real diversification of the movement. You know, before in 1980s, 1990s, you're a part of a far-right movement.

You're probably in a skinhead group, a biker gang, or something along those lines. But what we started seeing in the mid-2000s was the rise of these individuals who were very Islamophobic in their views, portrayed themselves as anti-jihad. But these weren't what we had seen before. These were people who dressed well, who presented themselves as middle class or upper middle class. Highly educated. People who traveled. Very educated. Exactly. And what we've seen over time is it's kind of switched from an anti-jihad movement, although

that's still a key element, to now more or less a white identity movement over time, a white Christian identity movement, and the kind of emphasis on protecting white identity in North America, in Europe, in response to a number of global shocks, including the rise of the Islamic State, the migration issue in Europe, various attacks that have happened around the world. And, you know, so I think all of these factors have really come together and created a very dynamic environment online where it's very easy to spread propaganda, stories that create outrage, that scare people. And research has gone to show that when people are scared about migration,

they're scared about immigration, that they're more open to far-right views. And so I think as these crises have really converged, we have seen this uptick and more and more people receptive to it. And the fact that you have groups now that are not dressing like neo-Nazis in the traditional sense, but dressing like, you know, people who work at Best Buy, people who you might see working in the mall with stylish haircuts and, you know, wearing polo shirts. It's been very successful in making itself more appealing to a broader set of people and, of course, more mainstream. And these groups that we're seeing in Canada, are they Canada-specific or do they defy borders?

So that's a really good question. You know, the Canadian environment is kind of split between Quebec and English Canada in a lot of ways. What unites the movement generally, again, are those two themes of fear of migration and Islamophobia. But the Quebec context is actually very unique and kind of centered around Quebec identity. So I think it has to be

a bit separate. At the same time, what unites all of this, not just within Canada, but also transnationally, are those core ideas that, you know, our civilization's under attack, we have to respond, we have the right to a white ethnostate. All of this is basically transnational, ironically, it's a transnational nationalism. It's a transnational kind of argument for extreme sovereignty. And I think that's what kind of makes us unique. And so when we think about the English Canada and what we're seeing there, we're really seeing a lot of influence from Europe. So soldiers of Odin, for example, Pegida, which was a very virulently anti-immigration movement that started in Europe.

We've seen chapters set up here. So we've seen a lot of influence from Europe. And then on the more kind of violent side, maybe more traditionally far right, we've also seen Atomwaffen, which was a U.S. group, the Three Percenters, a paramilitary group. They've also started to set up shop as well. And that is a concern because they're engaging in paramilitary activity. What do we know about what drives people to extremism? What would you be looking for as an analyst? So we know from, you know, nearly two decades of research into violent Islamist extremism that there's a whole host of factors that encourage people to mobilize to violence.

There's stressors, for example, like losing a job, having an illness, having a loved one pass away. But there's also pull factors as well. So your friends, a relative, a cousin, a brother, sister, suddenly starts following a movement and you get influenced by them. So there's different push and pull factors. What we need to do is figure out how this works in the far right space. Can we apply this? How does the issue of grievance and being pushed towards this idea that there's a need to act, that there's an emergency. But we don't yet have the research to know the extent to which the processes are the same in terms of how people come to engage in violence, but how also you get them to disengage.

And so this is why I'm always a little circumspect around the idea of social media. I think it is absolutely important. I think it has made access to these harmful ideas there. But social media itself is not responsible for violent extremism. It may facilitate it in a number of ways, but there's other factors that we need to pay attention to as well. Hopefully some of the research that we've garnered over the past two decades can help us in this fight, but it's not clear we can just map some findings onto this new kind of violent extremism. But we need to figure this out soon because it's clearly a problem. Stephanie, thank you so much.

I know that this is something that we could talk about for days, and so I really appreciate you taking us through this today. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me on. I want to leave you today with a few words from Ezat Ragab, a worshiper at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City. It feels, I feel, I have two feelings actually. It feels so sad when you hear that some brothers got killed somewhere in a democratic country. It's not in a third world. It's a very democratic New Zealand or wherever.

You know, these are a democratic country. And also I feel, I feel bad about it. Sometimes, to be honest with you, sometimes I feel concerned when I come to the mosque. I feel it could have been me, it could have been anyone, so I feel concerned. Even now? For every moment, but this is not gonna stop me from coming to the mosque. I'm always gonna come to the mosque, you know? It's part of who I am.

Did you feel differently coming today? to come to the mosque, you know? Yeah, but it's part of who I am. Did you feel differently coming today? I feel sad. To be honest with you, they have families. These people that they get killed, they have families, they have kids. They are normal people like everybody else. And this is the misunderstanding of our faith. That's all for today.

I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to Frontburner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was,

please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back. Gay Girl Gone. Available now.