Jonathan Vick, International Network Against Cyber Hate, North American Representative
Hate spreads. It has been famously and accurately described
as a virus. Like polio, smallpox, or covid, responding to hate cannot be a
local challenge if we expect to succeed. Without a borderless approach to
stopping hate, as with any contagious disease, we cannot hope to stop its
reemergence and resurgence.
Prior to World War 2 there was a thriving American Nazi
Party. It was based on National Socialism, the ideology of Hitler’s Nazi Party and Third Reich. National Socialism
and Nazism was presumed to have been extinguished with the defeat of Germany in
1945. National Socialism had been
resoundingly declared anti-democratic, racist and authoritarian long before the
downfall of the Nazi regime. But, in early 1959, a disgruntled and dishonorably
discharged Navy Commander re-established the American Nazi Party.
Nazism had remained dormant for less than 15 years after its
worldwide refutation.
Today the ideological descendants of National Socialism, the
KKK, and an array of White Supremacist and Nationalist ideologies continue an
ongoing cycle spread, retreat, hide, and re-emerge to reinfect the society.
Hate is terribly unlimited. It is an International enterprise.
The Klu Klux Klan, which was strictly American organization, now has chapters
in a several other countries. Combat 18, a British neo-Nazi group, is now a
worldwide organization. These hate
groups follow the template that is well established by terrorist organizations
for a system of building borderless networks and operations. They exchange
information, propaganda, tactics, reading lists within their own group
internationally, and with other hate groups. They cross borders, continents,
and ideologies. None of this is new
information.
There are woefully
few international anti-hate organizations sufficiently equipped and
ideologically broad enough to currently approach this
challenge. Many organizations are limited by geography, audience, community or
founding philosophy. Until the anti-hate world can act as borderlessly as the
world of haters, this battle may never be won.
Our first assessment of any threat is the immediacy,
personal impact, and its proximity to us. This is, of course, rooted in our
survival instinct. It is why, for most people, local news is often more popular
than world or international events. Our minds even amplify our response to
direct or local threats beyond that of more seemingly less significant threats.
Even if those seemingly less significant threats ultimately have more dangerous
implications.
