The series of coordinated suicide bombings that took place on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka marked the country’s deadliest violence in a decade, leaving over 350 people dead. The attack, which targeted several churches, alongside hotels and a banquet hall, have appeared to some as an illustration of Christianity under attack.
Only days after the world watched the spire of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris engulfed in flames—a tragic accident that sparked a series of conspiracy theories, including conspiracies about a possible terror attack carried out by Islamists—the targeting of Christian places of worship by ISIS has put the question of anti-Christianity at the forefront of the news agenda.
“My thoughts are once again with the persecuted Christians around the world,” Marine Le Pen, president of France’s far-right National Rally party, tweeted after the attack.
Elsewhere in Europe, members of institutional right-wing populist parties have condemned the attacks as an act of persecution against Christians.
Where fact becomes narrative
In addition to the attack on Christianity, another connected idea has made headways among the far-right: that the attack in Sri Lanka is an act of retribution for the Christchurch shooting, in which the white nationalist Breton Tarrant killed 50 people in two mosques.The ISIS attackers in Sri Lanka did not explicitly refer to Christchurch but the idea of retribution is appealing to sections of both Islamist and far-right extremists who subscribe to the theory of a “clash of civilisations.”
The aftermath of both Sri Lanka and Christchurch have revealed a trend that the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) has alerted about for many years: cumulative extremism, a process whereby Islamist and far-right extremists magnify and reinforce each other’s narrative—which hinges on a war between Islam and the West—making retaliation for attacks a logical consequence of this ideological warfare.
In recent years, jihadist attacks have become a rallying point for far-right mobilisation, in much the same way as anti-Muslim extremism has fuelled Islamist radicalisation. With the acceleration of terrorism, live media coverage and the multiplication of online chats, forums and encrypted channels, calls for copycats and revenge attacks are sometimes emerging within minutes of an attack and can disseminate ever faster.
A retribution fantasy
In the days following Christchurch, several far-right-inspired attacks were foiled in the UK. “Finally there is retribution and vengeance for the raped white girls in England, or the dead in France, the crushed in Sweden and Germany,” one far-right extremist commented. ISIS sympathisers reacted by posting maps of churches in New Zealand in encrypted channels, announcing revenge attacks.Al-Qaeda Telegram groups also circulated pictures of guns featuring the names of prominent Islamist terrorists to mirror the images that the far-right attacker had tweeted two days prior to the shooting.
Like the Christchurch perpetrator, who wanted ‘to create an atmosphere of fear and change in which drastic, powerful and revolutionary action can occur’, the jihadist terrorists behind the attacks in Sri Lanka aimed at exacerbating existing rifts within our society by carrying out a deadly attack during the “blasphemous” Easter holiday.
“Congrats retards your attacks has completely overshadowed the Christchurch one and now normalfags hate Muslims again,” an 8chan user wrote in a thread dedicated to Sri Lanka.
The primary drivers of radicalisation remain diverse, ranging from socio-economic and political grievances to psychological issues and identity crises, and go beyond a simple tit-for-tat response. But while Sri Lanka might not be an act of retaliation for Christchurch, it has further fuelled the idea, disseminated and amplified by extremists on both sides of the spectrum, of a clash of civilisations.
Every new attack—whether inspired by white supremacy or jihadism—accelerates societal polarisation and heightens the risk of radicalisation. The political dividing lines become sharper, the victimisation of the in-group more credible and the threat from the perceived out-group more tangible.
This is particularly worrying in a context where both Islamist and far-right ideologies are seeping into the mainstream.
Going mainstream
With heightened anti-establishment resentment reflected in protest movements such as the Yellow Vests and the growing support bases of populist parties, the pool of potential recruits for extremist networks is growing. Both far-right extremists and jihadists reach out to different alienated sub-cultures to tap into visceral grievances and feelings of injustice.Far-right populist politicians have capitalised on the same kind of anger. By replicating black-and-white narratives and using dehumanising language, they have legitimised some of the ideas and answers provided by extremists.
Shortly after Christchurch, President Trump echoed the attacker’s rhetoric by using the word ‘invaders’ to describe migrants. Over the Easter weekend, Austria’s far-right Vice Mayor of Hitler’s birth town Braunau published a poem comparing migrants to rats.
The political rhetoric of the populist right has created an atmosphere in which extremist sentiments are fostered and violence justified.
