Last week’s terrorist attacks by a self-avowed white nationalist against two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand killed at least 50 innocent Muslim worshipers and sent shockwaves throughout the world.
They also announced that now and forever after, white nationalism will be a force to be reckoned with.
Let’s be clear. White nationalism is nothing new, neither in America nor anywhere else in the industrialized West. White nationalist Dylann Roof attacked and killed nine black parishioners at a church in South Carolina in 2015. And another white nationalist, Robert Bowers, killed 11 Jewish Americans in an attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue in October.
But what makes the New Zealand attack qualitatively different, and what portends danger for the future, is that the suspect in the New Zealand attacks, Brenton Tarrant, explicitly stated that he carried out the attacks in support of what he considers Donald Trump’s white supremacy ideology. He also said he did it to inspire whites in the West to carry out similar attacks.
There is no question that the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States has emboldened white nationalists around the world. Trump routinely spews hateful rhetoric against minorities, immigrants, gays, the disabled, and just about anyone else that’s not a white Protestant Christian.
Trump’s language, and his policies of exclusion, such as building a wall on the US southern border with Mexico, as well as gutting government agencies that are supposed to protect the rights of minorities and America’s most vulnerable citizens, has set a tone of hatred and nastiness that is unprecedented in American politics.
Even extremely right-wing recent American presidents, such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, were careful to moderate their rhetoric and language when speaking about ethnic or religious minorities. Bush famously announced through a bullhorn from the rubble of 9/11 that America was *not* at war with Muslims or Islam, but simply with the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and those who aided them.
Not so Trump. The current American president avails himself of every opportunity to denigrate Muslims, African-Americans, Mexicans, and just about every minority group. We all remember that Trump kicked off his presidential campaign in 2015 by saying that Mexicans were rapists and murderers.
So clearly, with all the hateful bile spewing forth from the White House, it’s no wonder that white nationalists feel emboldened by Trump to commit acts of violence against minorities.
But there is another factor at play as well, and this one is demographic. Over the past fifty years, and in particular over the past twenty, the racial and ethnic composition of America and Europe has changed drastically.
In 2000, America was 77% white. In 2019 it’s down to 62% white. The African-American population has held steady at roughly 13%, but the Hispanic population has exploded to 18%, and the Asian population has risen drastically as well. The Muslim population is just over 1%, but Islam is also the fastest growing religion in America.
So clearly there have been major demographic changes in America. And demographic changes often lead to chaos, upheaval, and in worst-case scenarios, violence. This occurs as older, more established ethnic groups feel threatened by newcomers, particularly if the new arrivals look different than previous residents, have different customs, or worship a different God.
One need only look at the mass European migration to America that occurred in the mid-to-late 19th century. First German immigrants arrived, and they were looked down upon and discriminated against by the English Americans. Then the Irish arrived, and they were similarly discriminated against and in some cases attacked by the Germans. Then came the Jews and the Italians, who suffered discrimination at the hands of the Irish.
Each new group presented a threat to the existing order, and to the hard-won gains the previous round of immigrants had fought for and in some cases died for. So they were willing to fight the newcomers to the death to hold onto their small sliver of power.
This seems to be exactly the case with the rise of the recent white nationalism in America and Europe, only instead of Irish and Italians the threat now comes from Muslims and Arabs. Many of them dress differently, they are darker skinned, and most importantly they are not Christian or white, so they present a direct threat to the twisted minds of insecure and violent white nationalists.
The situation is much the same in Europe. In the UK, the Muslim population has grown from negligible numbers half a century ago to a full 5% of the country. Islam is now the second-largest religion in the UK.
In France, the Muslim population has grown to a full 12%, or ⅛, of the country, and many of these Muslims represent an underclass that is not fully integrated into French society, creating tensions and ocassionally violence between them and white French citizens.
Finally, in Germany, where Muslims first began immigrating in the 1960’s, a full 6% of the German population is now Muslim. Even more starkly, Chancellor Angela Merkel took the decision in 2015 to admit over one million Syrian refugees fleeing civil war, which represented over 1% of the total German population of 80 million. So overnight Germany’s ethnic makeup was transformed. This has led to major tensions between the Syrians and the native German population, and even violence.
So what does all of this mean for the future of racial and religious relations in the West, and in particular the future of white nationalism?
Unfortunately, it means that things will likely get worse before they get better. With Donald Trump spewing hatred from the White House for at least two more years, and with immigration from Latin America and the Middle East to America and Europe continuing to increase, I fear we are headed for dark days.
The native white populations of the US and Europe must finally accept and truly understand that there is enough wealth in our countries to share with newcomers, and that these newcomers who look or seem different need not be a threat.
Until this happens, white nationalism will continue to be a factor in Western politics, albeit a hateful and reviled one.
We must all work to make our societies more tolerant and inclusive, while at the same time clamping down on white nationalism and eradicating it once and for all.
The alternative is a world of instability, grievance, hatred and violence, and Lord knows we don’t need any more of that.
We already have Donald Trump in the White House.
