Search: “right-wing extremism”

This post appeared in The Hill Times on October 1, 2018. In 1964 US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart came up with a now famous comment that has become a meme (not there were memes back in 1964).   During a threshold case on obscenity he stated “I shall not today attempt further to define the […]

There was a very interesting juxtaposition of stories on violent extremism this week in two Western, democratic nations where two acts of terrorism shocked their populace’s in recent years.  Oddly enough, in an era where we almost instinctively associate terrorism with Islamist extremism, these two were right-wing in nature.  And, the perpetrators of these acts […]

CVE – short for Countering Violent Extremism – gets a bad rap sometimes, and the criticism is not always unwarranted.  The term has come to mean whatever people want it to mean as its remit expands into all kinds of areas of social engineering and capacity building.  Many movements have received funding from governments by […]

OK, it’s done.  Donald Trump has become the US’ 45th President, markets have swung wildly, people are panicking, some fear the Apocalypse.  Take a deep breath and calm down.  As the 44th President, Barack Obama, predicted last night, the sun did indeed rise this morning (even if I cannot see it in cloudy Ottawa). A […]

Today (July 22) marks the fifth anniversary of one of the darkest days in Norway’s history.  Anders Behring Breivik set off bombs outside a government complex in Oslo, killing 8, then traveled to an island called Utoya where a young person’s political function was occurring and massacred 69 people. Today also marks the fifth anniversary […]

The Southern Poverty Law Centre is an oddly named institution that gives little indication of what it does.  No, it is not some legal aid agency for poor people.  It is one of the most influential and comprehensive bodies that looks at hate and extremism in our southern neighbour, the US.  The SPLC looks at […]

When we talk of terrorism we often tiptoe around terminology.  Even the word “terrorism” itself has caused some angst: witness the debate back and forth over what to call the killing of three US Muslims in North Carolina a few months ago by a crazed neighbour and the more recent slaughter of nine African Americans […]

It must appear to most people in Canada that terrorism is a daily scourge.  If you take a global snapshot that is undeniably true.  Over the last few weeks we have seen attacks in France, Tunisia, Kuwait, Yemen and the inevitable – and sadly too frequent – violence in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. And […]

It is not uncommon for inaccurate information to be held as accepted wisdom where no amount of data will convince people otherwise. Examples of this would include the conviction that crime rates are soaring (they have actually been plummeting for years) or that e-cigarettes are ok (there is no data yet suggesting that they are […]

In a recent video appearance before the Canadian national security and defence committee, charged with preparing a report on threats to national security, former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali warned the Canadian government that “you should be looking out for the sprouting of mosques and Islamic centres. You should be looking out for the establishment of Islamic schools […]