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VOX-Pol Blog post.

During the fourth biennial review of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy held in September 2014, Member States expressed concern at the growing phenomenon of Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) in Syria. As a result, the Secretary-General announced that the United Nations Centre for Counter-Terrorism (UNCCT) would, in cooperation with those Member States that wished to participate, gather information on the motivation of FTFs through direct interviews of returnees. By analysis of the results, the Secretary-General aimed to provide Member States with a stronger knowledge base from which to understand the phenomenon of FTFs, assess the risks they posed, and develop effective responses.

Accordingly, in November 2014, the Executive Chairman of UNCCT and Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs invited all Member States to facilitate United Nations access to FTFs within their jurisdictions. Despite limited cooperation,1 UNCCT interviewed 43 individuals between August 2015 and November 2016, representing 12 nationalities. Thirty three (77 per cent) of the interviewees reached Syria but subsequently decided to leave, while the remaining ten (23 per cent) began the journey but were stopped en route, either on their own or in a transit country. Two interviewees are of Syrian origin, though they were not living in Syria when they were interviewed, while the rest fulfil the definition of foreign terrorist fighters included in Security Council resolution 2178 (2014).

The responses of the interviewees provide important insights into the motivations of individuals to leave their countries of residence or nationality to join armed groups in Syria. It is important to note that more often than not, individuals do not necessarily select the group they finally join. Rather, once they reach Syrian territory, some seem to join the group that operates closest to their point of arrival. Fighters also seem to be switching groups. The aim of this report is to expand understanding of the FTF phenomenon in Syria by examining why the interviewees chose to act in the way they did. The report records the reasons individual FTFs have given to explain their decision to leave their countries of residence or nationality to join armed groups. It also records their reasons for leaving these groups and returning to their countries of residence or nationality before achieving the goals and objectives they had set themselves. Finally, the report seeks to draw conclusions as to the threat that returning FTFs may pose in the future.

This dissertation is, at its core, an interrogation of white masculinity in Canada’s right-wing spaces. While my interlocutors spent a great deal of time discussing others, namely immigrants, globalist elites, and feminists, through their discourse, they revealed a lot more about themselves and their perceived victimhood (Berbrier, 2000). This victimhood is derived from what Hage (2000) refers to as the white nation fantasy, wherein white people believe they have the right to rule, control, and dominate in their countries. They are entitled to this by virtue of their whiteness and its perceived superiority, and thus feel justified in their harmful behaviour (Essed & Muhr, 2018). Yet, as I show throughout each chapter, that right is challenged time and time again by immigration, feminism, and racial justice, which triggers a sense of aggrieved entitlement (Manne, 2019) and backlash (Boyd, 2004; Braithwaite, 2004). Moreover, I demonstrate that this is not only a white fantasy, but rather a white male fantasy. While the white nation fantasy relies on white supremacy, the white male nation fantasy interweaves notions of male supremacism wherein not only are people of colour inferior, so too are women – including white ones who do not fall in line. I draw on bell hook’s conception of “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” to show how their discourse, while explicitly racist and nativist (Schrag, 2010), upholds and is in turn upheld by both capitalism and patriarchy. Thus, while chapters on hockey, promiscuous women, and a “Sad Keanu” meme may seem disparate and disjointed, they all connect back to these notions of supremacism, entitlement, and ultimately victimhood.

For this study, the online milieu of radical right-wing and extreme right-wing actors was investigated with regard to linking to alternative platforms. The aim of the analysis was to make the cosmos of online platforms used by right-wing extremist and radical right-wing actors accessible to readers and researchers. As established social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube increasingly remove illegal and extremist content due to (self-)regulation and legal pressures, many extreme right-wing and radical right-wing actors find themselves forced to switch to alternative platforms. In order to show their subscribers on the established platforms where their content can be found, many of these actors link to alternative platforms. This dynamic is problematic because the discourses of anti-democratic activists takes place outside of public debates and transparent structures, allowing them to plan actions, expand their networks and spread incitement undisturbed and unchallenged.

This chapter scrutinises how it is that anonymous chan culture engage with the alt-histories of esoteric fascism. To this end, the chapter begins with a brief description of the ideas of the mid-century Italian esotericist ‘Baron’ Julius Evola (arguably the single most significant intellectual influence esoteric fascism), before moving on to discuss anon’s vernacular interpretation of these ideas. In order to assess the ‘real world’ danger posed by these alt-histories, the essay concludes with a brief analysis of the particularly disturbing case of the Christchurch mass shooter whose manifesto was replete with anonymous chan culture and whom appears to have imagined himself as a holy warrior engaged fighting against ‘the great replacement’ of Western culture by alien outsiders—a notion which connects extreme-right terrorists with the discourse of new-right populist politicians and intellectuals.

There is a growing body of evidence that terrorists/terrorist groups have increased their use of the Internet to include a move into online social network environments in their efforts to radicalise and potentially recruit and mobilise new members. Both the US and UK governments acknowledge that not enough is known about this phenomenon and there is an urgent need for more substantive research in the area of terrorists’ use of computer-mediated communication. However, research in this area carries with it some serious ethical and legal concerns that cannot and should not be ignored. UK law makes it difficult for terrorism studies researchers and other academics to conduct this online research without potentially violating the law. With careful consideration of the ethical concerns surrounding the methods of data collection, and knowledge of and adherence to Data Protection laws, along with notification of proposed research to the proper law enforcement office to insure compliance with the UK Terrorism Act, it is however possible to move forward with academic integrity and a reasonable assurance that one will not be charged and prosecuted for violations of the Terrorism Acts.