INAF2768: The Weaponization of Hate

Course Description

Over the past several years, the Western world has suffered a dangerous rise in far-right extremism, providing an imminent terrorism and hate crime threat to Jewish communities, as well as Muslims, African Americans, and, in some cases, women and the LGBTQ+ community. This class will assess the ideological underpinnings of the anti-Semitic far-right, trace the movement’s rise in the Obama and Trump years, analyze the current movement’s tactical and communications preferences, and evaluate ongoing and future counterterrorism and countering violent extremism measures. The aim is to provide an extensive and objective assessment of the current threat to Jewish communities and beyond, and to offer students an introduction to the counterterrorism world and to underscore the importance of understanding and fighting hate in all its forms. 

Reflection

This course was a gateway into a subsection of international politics that I had always hoped to explore - the development of terrorism and far-right extremism and their impacts on the state. Taught by Georgetown University’s Security Studies subject expert Professor Jacob Ware, author of multiple foundational works on far-right violence in the United States, I had an exclusive opportunity to understand the past, present, and future of terrorism and extrajudicial violence. Over the course of the semester, we dissected various definitions of extremism, terrorism and hate to better understand the factors and motivations behind them, which in turn helped me ground my study of extremist Hindu nationalism as currently observed in India. 

Since the course was regionally focused on the United States, the course opened with a brief history of far-right extremism in the US, with milestone events stretching from the formation of the Ku Klux Klan in 1865 to 9/11 in 2001. Most of the violent attacks in this period were, however, motivated by sentiments of racial and religious superiority by the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) community that dominated the American socio-political sphere of the time, and continue to influence much of the United States’ policy-making. With my Certificate oriented around the evolution of Hindu nationalism in India and how its extremism has affected religious minorities in India, analyzing the ways in which far-right violent sentiment could develop and manifest in society was a crucial part of the course experience. 

Reading about and probing these violent events meant that we had the opportunity to explore the themes uniting the various manifestations of hate, including antisemitism, anti-immigrant sentiment and Islamophobia, anti-government extremism, racism, and male supremacism and misogyny. The common themes across these hate-inspired attacks included, but were not limited to:

• perceived government overreach and encroachment of political liberties, 

• sharpened white supremacy, 

• victimhood complex honed by fears of replacement, 

• the appeal of Christian martyrdom and religious victory, 

• a deep-seated need to accelerate socio-political transformation via apocalyptic events, and

• the impact of social media in propagating extremist thought and aiding radicalization

Having listed these themes and correlated them to the various terrorist attacks across modern US history, I began to modify them to match the situation in India. Anti-minority violence is no new occurrence in the Indian socio-political sphere, and its instances have only sharply increased since the entrance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into the national administration. The paramilitary fundamentalist wing of the BJP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is entirely composed of Hindu nationalist and supremacist volunteers radicalized against India’s minorities, particularly Muslims. In this case, the undercurrent of religious martyrdom - a devout Hindu laying down his life for the cause of a Hindu nation - is undeniable, as is the victim mentality instigated by fears of Muslim domination of Hindu society. Outside of the RSS, Hindu nationalist social media pages increasingly share visual and written content that only serve to fan the flames of religious sectarianism while actively reducing spaces for discussion and cooperation. This course was therefore invaluable in drawing thematic connections between far-right extremism in the US and India, and also in understanding how to combat their spread and influence across society.