By Felix Nicol
As a sort of follow up to last week, this week’s readings especially resonated with me in regards to the attempt to grow far-right movements through a somewhat expansion of the target group. In this regard, Bland’s article somewhat reiterated last week’s perspective portrayed through the Nouvelle Droite, which attempted to turn the far right towards a more European concept. The National Front’s support for regimes like that in Libya somewhat underlined a different perspective of the same coin: supporting segregation from both sides. To me, the reading on women getting involved in far right politics seems to share a similarity in grouping oneself with those who would share similar ideology, as long as the premise is somewhat broadened. This reading made it clear that men are not alone in their perception of racial threat, and that by focusing on these issues, far-right groups are able to garner an increasing female support. In this regard, I feel that these readings especially explored how, perhaps somewhat as a reflection of the ND’s attempts, far-right movements are shifting their rhetoric to become applicable for a larger audience in order to garner more support.
On another note, I found the reading by Glynn on female perpetrators especially thought provoking, through its reflection of gender-norms through terrorism. The reading quite thoroughly underlines the aspect that women were unable to talk openly about their violent past, as violence was closely associated with men. To some extent, it harkens back to the gender norms we’ve talked about in previous weeks, where one was allowed to stray somewhat from their gender roles, as long as they returned eventually. It was not the fact that these women participated in violence, but rather their return to innocence or victimization that pressured them.
Hate 2.0 