Search: “far right”

Remember the ‘refugee crisis’ of  a few summers ago?  We all were riveted by the pictures of hundreds of thousands of desperate Syrians, Iraqis and many others, risking their lives in overland journeys or even more perilous sea voyages, fleeing danger and violence in their homelands to start a new life in Europe.  Some countries […]

And so the debate continues on which terrorist movement(s) poses a bigger threat in the West.  Is it really Islamic State and IS-inspired extremists or is this belief a symptom of Islamophobia?  Or is it the collection of hate-filled racists and white supremacists as everyone seems to be saying?  And what about the rise of […]

Now that Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the horror in Barcelona many people are asking ‘Why Spain?’  France, the UK and Belgium they understand since there has been a spate of attacks in recent years.  Perhaps even Sweden and Germany are on some peoples’ list even if these nations have suffered comparatively less. In […]

A lot of people are very worried about the rise of the far right these days in light of what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia on the weekend, at least based on the number of articles and op-ed pieces that I have come across in my news scanning as well as the number of media interviews […]

I am a big Isaac Asimov fan (and a big science fiction fan in general, although I don’t get to read as much as I’d like what with all this terrorism to look at).  In his classic Foundation series we are introduced to a character right at the outset named Hari Seldon, a mathematics professor […]

The Fisher King is a 1991 film starring the late Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges  in which the latter plays a shock jock radio host who spurs a caller into massacring people at random at a restaurant in which the former’s wife dies.  The character played by Williams loses his sanity and becomes a street […]

Every time you attend an Ottawa Senators home game there is a moment, usually during the second period, where a member of the Canadian military is honoured in a commemoration called ‘Heroes’ Ridge’.  Fans stand and give the soldier a standing ovation – even the players on the ice tap their sticks – and I […]

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 […]

Muslims in the West have a legitimate beef when it comes to how their societies see terrorism.  Whenever a violent attack takes place and the perpetrator is, or merely appears, Muslim everyone yells “terrorism!” whereas if the attacker is not Muslim everyone yells “mentally ill” or “lone wolf nutjob!”  Consistency this is not. Combined with that […]

Look, I get it.  When something along the lines of the shooting in Quebec City on Sunday evening occurs, people want to know what is happening.  And they want to know NOW.  So, the army of experts – a few actual and most fake – rise up and fill the airwaves with “analysis”. The fact […]