David Rapoport Professor Emeritus of Political Science at University of California Los Angeles, one of the founding figures of terrorism studies sees four waves of modern terrorism:
- the anarchist phase, from the 1880s to the 1914, which grew out of rebellious Europeans who at times brought their struggles to North America;
- the anti-colonial phase, most acutely felt during Algerian rebel attacks on French colonialists in the 1950s, as well as Puerto Rican nationalist actions in the U.S.;
- the New Left, seen in the rise of the Weather Underground in the U.S. and the Red Army Faction in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s;
- the religious phase of terrorism, seen most graphically in the 9/11 attacks.
With all respect, Professor Rapoport, are you blind on the right eye? Is terrorism a thing of the Left, of anti-colonialists and Muslims? By far not! What about attacks on Native Americans? What about Ku Klux Klan? Even during the heyday of the Weather Underground the KKK was considerably more violent and active. In Germany the terror attack of the Munich Oktoberfest 1980 caused 12 dead and 213 injured. The assassin himself died in his act and all too soon, the police was ready to see everything as the action of a single person, even though there were references to far-right groups.
Always the same pattern, terrorism from the left, disturbed individual offenders from the right, that was to often the official interpretation. So it was possible that from from 1998 to 2011 the Neo-Nazi terror group NSU murdered for more than a decade in Germany without the police getting the idea that there was a terrorist group. And about 2/3 of deaths from terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11 are victims of right wing terrorists.
Of course, any form of terrorism is despicable and must be combated. But it is high time to recognize the danger of right-wing terror. Christchurch must be an alarm call. There is a real danger from the right wing, don`t underestimate it.
