What is the first association you have when you hear the word terrorism? It largely depends on where you come from. If you are from Europe or the US, you may first think of Islamic terrorism. (Hell, if you are from the Middle East, that may as well be your first thought.) However, you may be American today, but your ancestors were most certainly not. You may also be German, Norwegian or Serbian, for that matter, but your ancestors were not. They were migrants once, a long ago. Long enough to forget their ancient roots.
Long enough to forget that nothing makes them special. Or at least more special than ‘the others’. The collective delusion of the Aryan race reached the peak of its fame with Hitler; nevertheless, he far from invented it. It was just a useful means of manipulating Volk’s identity.
This delusion evolved over the years and became what is now called right-wing extremism. The consequences of this massive delusional state range from hate speech on Facebook, over ‘National patrols’ that threaten migrants, creating fake news, to political movements and terrorist attacks. Only this time terrorists are white supremacists. The same saying that the others are the threat.
Identity transformation that happens after people get engaged in white supremacist movements is compared to opiate addiction, with all its cognitive, emotional and behavioural changes. Only instead of heroin, they consume hate. The outgroups need not be only of another race or religion, they can be pro-abortion, homosexual, of another ethnic background, even of another political stand.
White supremacy is not just holding on to ideas and expressing them freely. It is a way of life. It is how people live, eat, work, parent, train at a gym, hang out, think, act. When one (miraculously) decides to step out of the movement, he goes through a serious abstinence syndrome, because his identity is trying to overcome hate addiction.
Freedom is doing whatever you want, until it endangers the freedom of the other. And that’s where the story ends. It seems to me that the world stays shocked by White supremacists’ terrorist attacks more than it does when a truck driver from Tunisia or an Englishman of Pakistani descent make their moves. But what seriously makes them different from an Australian killing 51 people in mosques or an American killing two black men? It is natural for humans to be dividing into groups, but being so entrenched in these divisions that it takes you so far away from any allowable construction of reality is rightfully not acceptable.
You may (think to) be supreme, but your feet are certainly made of clay.
