Intolerance: Online hitlers in ivory towers

Online hitlers in ivory towers

"The true artist does not compromise. Defying sceptics and mockers, he imagines the impossible” - A prophetic Hitler on Jewish destruction (1939)

The Columbine school massacre of 1999 happened on 20th April, Hitler's birthday. The shooters had mixed online cyberspace fantasy with offline hate. They hated almost all, admired Nazis and scorned normalcy. The Pepe the frog loving Groyper subculture is part of what has now become a mega-hate-culture. Patrick Casey, who heads the white supremacist American Identity Movement (now known as Identity Evropa) is a lead Groyper. His slogan sounds simple, 'You will not replace us', but millions of online groypers managed to successfully organise the offline 2017 Charlottesville 'Unite the Right' Rally. In this rally, a Nazi‐sympathizer James Alex Fields Jr. allegedly drove his car into a group of counter-protesters. Internet has helped in the rise of neo-Nazis. How? We don't have a clear picture because it is a situation in progress. The majority of the groypers and alt-rights sitting online in erstwhile colonies gladly imitate the whites in attempt to appear edgy. Imitation, they say, is the best form of flattery (also it is free mostly) but here imitation is creating loops of hate.

A logical question to as at this point is why is Hitler popular online? The simple answer is that some core human ethics are under upheaval post-social media led decentralisation of ideas in an unwitting and unready human population. An even simpler answer is that there are people who simply like Hitler. When millions of profiles, avatars, handles and bots sing online paeans of Hitler, the psychology is bound to percolate offline. The good vs evil debate is muddied on the internet where the left-leaning terrorism includes communists, socialists, animal rights activists, race & religion-based hate groups, LGBT extremists, feminist-casteist supremacists and separatists. Right-leaning terrorism includes anti-communists, fascists, anti-immigration extremists, race & religion-based hate groups, LGBT extremists, feminist-casteist supremacists and separatists. Social media anonymity has emboldened even the likes of paedophiles to prowl fearlessly. Only a few would believe that Internet lacks the potential to become a threat because video sharing sites like YouTube use algorithms guide users toward enraging material just like social media and micro-blogging sites like Reddit, Twitter and Facebook do.

Social media is a blessing, it is also the most powerful radicalizing instrument of the 21st century. It is riddled with fake news and deep fakes. When Balakot strikes happened, public attention was no longer on the IAF's considerable military feat of having overcome Pakistani air defences to reach a target 80km across the LoC, instead, people were questioning whether Indian bombs had completely missed their targets and whether 300 terrorists had been killed. On 25th March, Gurudwara Har Rai Sahib was attacked by the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), in Kabul.

Islamic State’s (IS) Amaq media claimed the Kabul gurudwara attack as a “revenge for the Muslims in Kashmir”. One of the terrorists was an Urdu speaking Malayali. Earlier in February, Islamic State’s new digital magazine, Sawt-ul-Hind (Voice of Hindustan) referred to the communal violence in northeast Delhi to incite Muslims in India, "Democracy is not going to save you…only Sharia implemented in its purity in the shade of Khilafah (the caliphate) can now save you". Al-Qaeda’s wing, Ghazwat-ul-Hind (Conquest of India), boasted about “these glorious times when the crusader's army in Khorasan has signed the final document of their defeat and in such a hopeful season when Indian Muslims have decided not to bear the atrocity and oppression of Hindu polytheist groups”, it also talked about how the jihadists in Kashmir were energised by these events. We all know how this trajectory ends in a bloodbath.

Radicals have industrialised and digitized terrorism just like Hitler utilised industrial efficiency in creating carnage, he laid bare the horrors that modern industries, the very basis of human progress. He made the West ask for the first time in a long time - what matters more, a life lost or a life changed forever? Eventually, Hitler became an idea. In Hitler, combined the idea of horrifying hate and military discipline, the same ideas we are presently exposed to on the internet. He became a madman towards the end while Churchill stayed Victorian-era disciplined, relying on propaganda to conscript children in his army.

Beginning early in 1945, national radio broadcasts urged German civilians to join the Werewolf movement, a volunteer suicide squad. Wolves were a symbol that Hitler used frequently from The Wolf’s Lair to Operation Werewolf in which Benito Mussolini was rescued by the Germans from an Italian jail after Italy's defeat. The volunteer suicide squad was successful in subterfuge. American GIs were warned against fraternizing with enemy civilians. They were handed printed pocket guides for Germany which emphasized on the need for caution when dealing with teenagers. British PM Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich declaring that he had obtained 'peace for our time'. Hitler told his generals, “Our enemies are…not men of action, not masters. They are little worms. I saw them at Munich.”

Soviet propagandists had gone as far as declaring the Polish resistance as the real fascists. Stalin was a voracious reader who could not be accused of ignorance of his neighbourhood. The world simply failed to ascertain the fascist amid similar looking groups because it was hardly a coherent ideology like communism. Soviets failed in forming an anti-fascist group (like NATO) at League of Nations Soviets because nobody could agree on the definition of fascism. A common thread running in fascist-looking countries appeared to be nationalism, authoritarianism, anti-individualistic and commercial enterprise to meet the needs of the state. All these features are now found in Communist states. Nazis (National Socialists) sanctioned Christian worship and genocided Jew in Germany so religion was no clear boundary either. Fascism did not advocate isolationist foreign policy, restriction of immigration or income redistribution for social equality. Japan and Germany were apples and oranges. Ultimately, Fascism became a slur to be used against anyone holding an unpopular opinion, anyone providing a counter-argument, against anybody daring to think differently from those who sat in imaginary ivory towers of self-claimed intellectual superiority.

Churchill won the public sympathy because he condemned the murderous appeasement as the strategy of feeding a crocodile in the hopes it would eat you last. He spoke realistically while Europe was drowned in utopia, busy in appeasing Hitler, so nobody listened. On May 10th 1940, time ran out. German wolves attacked France. The mighty French Beast of Gévaudan turned out to be a hoax. Governments are increasingly being seen as failures. They are in a fix because people can not decide. Fifty years ago, the world demanded open borders, today it demands closed borders. People all over the world are seething under stress from the threat to jobs, lives and limbs. Appeasement has backfired. Inaction emboldens criminals like it emboldened the belligerent Hitler. In public, Hitler was Right-winger because anti-Bolshevism was a large part of his popular appeal. In-person, Hitler was a Left-winger. Such a double standard is far from shocking. Men like Zakir Naik find refuge in Malaysia after getting away with Dhaka terrorist attack despite both countries being Islamic. The Churchillian lion and the American eagle teamed up to fell the German wolf, to win the good vs evil debate or so as we are told.

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