Translator: Robert Tucker Reviewer: David DeRuwe
On the morning of the 5th of April this year,
I woke up, and I saw close to 100 hate messages
from both far-right and Islamistic extremist sympathizers on my Twitter feed.
So, instead of starting the day with a nice good-morning message,
I had received accusations, insults, and even threats.
It was the day after I had published
my first opinion article in "The Independent"
on the very controversial topic of Charlie Hebdo.
But quite foolishly, my first reaction must have been something like:
"Oh, great! People are actually reading my article."
And it was only after the leaders
of both Pegida UK and a major Islamistic extremist network
started attacking me simultaneously
that I began to feel a tiny bit uncomfortable.
But still, I thought, "At least, if all the extremists are upset,
I must have gotten it right," right?
And then something weird happened,
something that really confused me.
A bizarre dynamic developed
between the far-right and Islamistic extremists,
as they started interacting with each other
and using each other's arguments against me.
First I couldn't believe it.
Were the far-right and Islamistic extremists
actually teaming up against me?
That seemed so absurd.
But then, when taking a closer look at what they were actually tweeting,
I started to realize that it made perfect sense
because they were essentially telling the same story,
just from a different perspective,
while I was the one telling a different story.
And, I mean, I don't tend to pay compliments to extremists,
but if there is one thing that they're just damn good at,
it's telling stories.
The art of storytelling and creating common narratives
is more powerful than anything else.
A power struggle
is nothing else than a competition for who tells the better story
because the one who determines the dominant narration pattern
can mobilize and control the masses.
This is not necessarily a bad thing.
The creation of common stories, myths, and narratives
has been an important driver in the evolution of humankind.
It has enabled us to cooperate in large numbers,
and to live together in bigger communities.
But it has also been abused and exploited.
Unfortunately, this has become a lot easier
with the invention of the Internet and social media.
While centuries ago, stories were developed and passed on over generations,
and the development of new narratives was reserved
to the most privileged in society,
today, literally anyone can spread the story
at a global level at light speed.
Hypothetically, an Argentinian food critic can provoke a demonstration
against matcha-flavored KitKats in Japan,
unmediated from his bedroom, within a matter of hours.
Now, to all detriment,
the ones that have capitalized most on these new opportunities
are not Argentinian food critics,
but are far-right and Islamistic extremists.
And just one look at the rise of the far right across Europe
is enough to see how successful they have been
in telling and selling their stories worldwide.
Now, why is that?
Their first advantage is actually based on simplicity.
In an increasingly complex world,
black and white narratives that eliminate all confusing gray zones
can be comforting.
We all love binary worldviews.
Just think about the most successful movies in history: "Star Wars."
You have the light and the dark side of the force.
It's simple.
I understood that narrative at the age of six,
and thought it was great.
I see someone in the first row also thinks it's great.
(Laughter)
Their second advantage is actually based on generating empathy.
Apparently, showing a handsome man who holds a kitten
against the background of a romantic sunset
is not a strategy that is exclusive to dating applications such as Tinder.
I took this picture straight from the latest issue
of ISIS official propaganda magazine "Dabiq."
So, as we can see, even Islamistic extremists
have now started to pick up on this trend,
This is what I call the "Tinder Effect."
And well, I guess Trump is trying his best to keep up.
I think he still has to work a bit on the being-handsome side of things.
(Laughter)
But the goal of this is obvious.
In the case of Tinder, Dabiq, and the Trump campaigns,
it's to generate empathy from the target audience.
And it works.
Now, the third, and probably most important, ingredient
of extremist success recipes
is consistency,
while the narratives of the establishment are far from being consistent.
Just think about France's principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
No one believes in them anymore since the recent burqini bans, right?
At least, Le Pen and ISIS appear to stick to their principles,
and, in fact, their stories don't just make sense in themselves,
they are also consistent with the other extremist worldviews.
Islamistic extremists tell us the West is at war with Islam,
while the far right tells us that Islam is at war with the West.
Well, you're perfectly complementary.
If we go back to our Star Wars example,
whether you are on the light or on the dark side of the force
doesn't really change the story.
The only thing that does is the perspective.
The same is true for far-right and Islamistic extremists.
They are in the same movie, reinforcing the same story,
and thus helping each other as storytellers.
Now, let me show you what this looks like in practice,
because this is what we call reciprocal radicalization,
or the connectivity between extremisms.
And this symbiosis between far-right and Islamistic extremists
becomes most obvious when looking at the online space,
for example,Twitter,
where extremists use the same anti-establishment hashtags,
and even recite each other as you can see here.
One Twitter user, who spreads Islamistic extremist rhetoric,
has set up his account entirely in reference to Tommy Robinson,
the founder of the UK's far-right movement,
the English Defence League,
and now leader of Pegida UK.
They are basically identical.
ISIS and al-Shabaab have both used Trump in their propaganda videos,
while Marine Le Pen was probed by the police last year
for retrieving ISIS materials.
So, in short, their echo chambers interact and amplify each other's narratives.
Now, how about the offline world?
Just statistically speaking, we can see a correlation
between the occurrence of far-right and Islamistic extremist attacks.
They seem to spike at roughly the same time.
Of course, this doesn't tell us anything about the causality
or the exact dynamics behind that correlation.
But when we look deeper into some of the cases,
we can see some pretty bad reciprocal radicalization hotbeds,
even across Europe.
The British cities of Portsmouth, Luton, Dewsbury,
the French Côte d'Azur, the German Wuppertal,
these are all mutual breeding grounds,
and some of the dynamics are really concerning.
In Luton, for example, we have seen the rise
of several far-right and Islamistic extremist groups.
And, in fact, some of their actions
have fed directly into the recruiting successes of the others.
So, yes, maybe, after all, it wouldn't be so absurd
to see Trump and al-Baghdadi celebrate their triumphs together.
Now, what does all this mean for us?
It means that we can only win the war of words against extremists
if we simultaneously challenge both binary worldviews.
It means that the victory of Donald Trump
and far-right leaders across Europe
might also strengthen the global jihadist insurgency
and thus exacerbate the terrorist threat that we face in Western countries.
The first keyword here is, of course, education.
We need critical thinking to be taught in schools,
so that our next generations learn to identify
the deceptive techniques used by extremist storytellers,
to see beyond their black and white narratives
that are based on the victimization of the "us"
and the demonization of the "other,"
and to explore the gray zones of reality.
The second part of the solution is all about communication.
We need to address the big perceptual gap that exists between the media and reality.
While far-right extremist attacks are more frequent,
Islamistic extremist attacks are actually far more often featured in the media.
When British MP, Jo Cox, was murdered
by far-right terrorist Tommy Maher in the wake of the Brexit referendum,
the media were reluctant to label this as terrorism.
Had the perpetrator shouted "Allahu Akbar" instead of "Britain First,"
this would have been entirely different, right?
Now, this feeds into the hands of extremists,
who use outrage provoked by things like these
to recruit alienated Muslims for their violent causes.
All the far right then has to do
is translate the fear created by Islamistic extremist attacks
back into outrage.
It's a perfectly coordinated vicious circle.
And because we are in a circle,
this also means that the before equals the after,
meaning that reaction equals prevention.
And reaction takes place on all levels:
politics, the media, civil society.
We all determine what the after looks like.
We all shape the narrative.
We, as civil society, as teachers, students,
as voters, parents, sons and daughters,
need to become more proactive in telling different, better stories
that can reunite rather than divide our societies,
and that emphasize our commonalities, rather than our differences.
Every story has a protagonist and an antagonist,
but who says that the antagonist has to be human.
Because as long as the antagonist is human,
the logical consequence for collective action
is always a war or a genocide.
But isn't there an out-there idea?
What if we replace that human antagonist with an abstract one,
a global challenge, for example?
We've got more than enough of those:
climate change, poverty, inequality, hunger.
If you prefer, we can also take something simpler,
like the world against traffic jams, overcooked pasta, or mediocre coffee.
(Laughter)
Now, out there, there are already some initiatives led by civil society
that have been quite successful.
The "Families Against Terrorism and Extremism" network
has brought together families of both jihadist and terrorism victims,
who have joined forces in fighting their common enemy, hatred.
What if we take this as an inspiration
for a narrative of humanity against hatred.
Now, if that works out, Twitter would be a boring place,
and I wouldn't be receiving any hate messages anymore.
But that sounds like a good story to me,
and one where there could actually be a happy end.
So why don't you go out there and tell your own stories,,
and preferably ones where humanity does not fight itself,
but where it is united against a common threat.
Thank you.
(Applause) (Cheers)