Black And Dead : Vigilantism Lives

"[The three men had] no badge, no uniform, no authority [and were] just some strange guys in a white pickup truck."

"You can't make a citizen's arrest because someone's running down the street and you have no idea what they did wrong."

"Standard stuff: malign the victim, it's the victim's fault. You can't claim self-defense if you are the unjustified aggressor. Who started this? It wasn't Ahmaud Arbery."

“I was hopeful based on the evidence that we presented in the case that we put forth that the jury would see the truth of what actually took place and bring justice for the Arbery family. After we picked the jury, we looked at them and realized that we had very, very smart, very intelligent, honest jurors who were going to do their job which is to seek the truth."

"And so, we felt that putting up our case, it doesn't matter whether they were black or white, that putting up our case that this jury would hear the truth, they would see the evidence and that they would do the right thing and come back with the correct verdict which we felt they did today."

Cobb County Lead prosecutor Linda Dunikoski 

Arbery's case put a spotlight on racial injustice against African Americans

"Ahmaud Arbery’s murderers will be held accountable, but a historic civil rights mobilization was necessary for the killers to face prosecution at all. There was nearly impunity for this murder, and further investigation is necessary to determine how and why officials initially refused to pursue the case."

"The circumstances of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder and the struggle required to secure a prosecution demonstrate profoundly the urgency of reforms to make equal justice real in America.”

Sen. Jon Ossoff, of Georgia

He was 25 years old, a young Black man who enjoyed jogging. For whatever reason on February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery happened to be in a white neighbourhood, jogging in the suburban community of Satilla Shores, in Brunswick, Georgia. As it happened on that night, 65-year-old Gregory McMichael watched the black man running down their street. His son Travis, 35, joined his father as he made a 911 emergency call to inform an operator "there's a Black male running down the street". 

 

An untoward episode of black-and-white that propelled the two men and their neighbour, William Bryan, 52, into action.

 

Father and son reached for shotguns. This was no jogger, they convinced one another, this was someone who had invaded their neighbourhood, committed a crime and was now running away. They got into their pickup truck and sped after the jogger. The chase went on for an estimated five minutes through looping streets. The victim, Ahmaud Arbery, was not available this week to testify how terrified he was at being followed by three white men trying to corner him in the darkening streets of an unfamiliar neighbourhood.

But the jury at the three men's trial, viewing a graphic cellphone video that Bryan McMichaels happened to shoot as his son pumped three bullets into the captured black man's chest left nothing to the imagination. That Sunday afternoon jog didn't turn out as Ahmaud Arbery assumed it would; a refreshing run to cap off a good day. That Sunday was not a good day for anyone. But justice took its time. None of the three was immediately taken into custody. Until the video surfaced and the public howled.

At a trial that took two weeks in coastal Brunswick city, the case revolved around whether the three defendants were right to confront the unarmed jogger, based on the supposition he was running away after having committed a crime. The neighbourhood, the defence stressed, had suffered a number of break-ins. They argued on behalf of their clients that there was justification for the shooting after Mr. Arbery ran past the McMichaels' driveway. The defence of property trumping a human life.

The jury was comprised of eleven white men and women, and one Black man. They listened to the prosecution and the defence, asked to hear the 911 call again and to view that damning video and two days later delivered their verdict. All three convicted of murder for chasing and shooting Ahmaud Arbery; rejecting the self-defence claim. The three were charged with murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal intent to commit a felony.

To teach an uppity Black man who imagined himself a proud American citizen, free to exercise his limbs on a public street, a lesson he might never forget to ensure his error would never be repeated. In the process making certain the man would never run again, never have the opportunity to irritate and inflame the minds of whites who view Blacks as looters and criminals, they proved themselves to be  killers and will pay the price.

 

Life in prison, perhaps with the possibility of parole.

It took two months before action was taken to apprehend the three after the cellphone video came to public notice. There is another trial scheduled for the three men who see a looter every time they see a Black face. A federal trial next year, on hate-crime charges.

 

.

The Rebirth of White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis Globally

"White supremacy extremism is a transnational challenge -- its tentacles reach from Canada to Australia, and the United States to Ukraine -- but it has evolved at a different pace in different parts of the world."
"To make serious progress, the United States should consider building upon Canada and the United Kingdom's leadership by sanctioning transnational WSE groups as foreign terrorist organizations."
"In Ukraine, the Azov Battalion has recruited foreign fighters motivated by white supremacy and neo-Nazi beliefs, including many from the West, to join its ranks and receive training, indoctrination, and instruction in irregular warfare."
Soufan Center, New York, report on White Supremacy Extremism: The Transnational Rise of The Violent White Supremacist Movement

A news broadcast by German ZDF station on September 8 showed soldiers of the Ukraine Azov Battalion in Mariupol with Nazi symbols on their helmets

“Canada has not, does not, and will not be providing support to Azov and affiliated entities."
"Canada is strongly opposed to the glorification of Nazism and all forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, intolerance and extremism."
Dan Le Bouthillier, spokesman, Department of National Defence

The Soufan Center has warned of a growing trend for white supremacist groups to seek out opportunities for military training and experience in foreign conflicts, and it seems that the standing conflict in eastern Ukraine is particularly interesting for white supremacists. People have streamed into Ukraine to join the battalion of the regular Ukrainian Armed Forces from Brazil, Ireland, Italy, United Kingdom, France, America, Greece, Scandinavia,Spain, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic Croatia, Russia -- and Canada.

Azov Battalion Insignia

The international neo-Nazi network called Blood & Honor is mentioned in the report with respect to Canadian efforts to sideline its recruitment in Canada, adding it, identified as a right-wing extremist group, to the official list of terrorist organizations. Blood & Honour, founded in the United Kingdom in the late 1980s has its Canadian supporters. It and its armed branch Combat 18, which has been known to be responsible for bombings and murders around the world now both share space on Canada's list of terrorist organizations.

The Soufan Center's report represents a nudge to the U.S. government to designate white supremacist groups as international terrorists, hindering their members' ability to travel and fostering the capacity of the U.S. government to prosecute individuals who provide material support to such designated groups. White supremacist extremists in the United States have been connected to 40 murders there.

Former FBI agent Ali Soufan, involved in counterterrorism cases, the creator of the Soufan Center, warned that white nationalists have been travelling to Ukraine purposing to learn combat skills there, enlisting with the neo-Nazi-connected Azov Battalion, comprised of fighters mostly from eastern Ukraine, where the group distinguished themselves in fierce combat with the ethnic Russian-Ukrainian rebels backed by Russia in the Donbass region.

The recruits from the West have joined both sides of the conflict between Ukraine and the pro-Russian separatists, adding up to an estimated 17,000 foreigners hailing from 50 countries who have chosen to fight in that conflict. While the Azov Battalion was lauded by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and elevated to official status within the Ukrainian military, the battalion is known to have cultivated friendly relations with members of the Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi terrorist network based in the United States.

A U.S. army soldier in Kansas was arrested in late September for sharing bomb-making instructions online and discussing attacks on the news media, on left-leaning activists and on former U.S. Congressman Beto O'Rourke. According to the FBI, that soldier, Jarrett William Smith, had expressed interest in joining the Azov Battalion in Ukraine.

Canadian government and military officials in Ukraine met with members of the Azov Battalion last summer. The U.S. Congress, for its part had recognized the threat posed by the group in its neo-Nazi adherence by banning it from receiving American arms, reflecting its links to white supremacy. The Azon Battalion posted images on their social-media site of the Canadians posing with battalion members.

Russian neo-Nazis also are linked with white supremacists in nations of the West, while Russian groups such as the Russian Imperial Movement and its paramilitary unit have attracted and trained foreign fighters motivated by white supremacy and neo-Nazi beliefs, according to the report. Not to be outdone, within the geographic origins of the Nazi movement, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer warned of an estimated 24,000 far-right extremists in Germany, adding half to be considered potentially violent with "a very high affinity for firearms".

llustrative: A neo-Nazi demonstration in Leipzig, Germany. (CC BY-SA Herder3, Wikimedia Commons)

Ideologies of Hatred and Terrorism

"I think that Breivik was a turning point, because he was sort of a proof of concept as to how much an individual actor could accomplish."
"He killed so many people at one time operating by himself, it really set a new bar for what one person can do."
"This is a particularly strong 'wave', and I think it's being fueled by a lot of political developments and also by the sort of connective tissue that you get from the Internet that wasn't there before that's really making it easier for groups to be influenced and to coordinate, or not necessarily oordinate but synchronize over large geographical distances."
J.M. Berger, research fellow, VOX-Pol

"There's a common framing of far-right terrorism or domestic terrorism as being 'terrorism lite' and not as serious."
"It's an interesting question given that far-right attacks can be quite devastating."
Erin Miller, Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland

"We conceive of this problem as being a domestic one. But that's not the case."
"They [ideological violent actors] don't see themselves as Americans or Canadians, very much like the Christchurch killer didn't see himself as an Australian; he saw himself as part of a white collective."
"It has never been the case that these people didn't think a global way. They may have acted in ways that looked domestic but the thinking was always about building an international white movement."
Heidi Veirich, director, Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center, United States

A woman mourns at a memorial outside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

People who subscribe to violent ideologies are readily inspired by others who share their view of supremacy and superiority linked to race or religion. When an atrocity occurs and attracts world attention because of its death toll, while most people are horrified, those sharing the same ideology as the murderer whose rampage caused the death of people, feel fascinated and enjoy the thought that they too can embark on such a slaughter to gain attention to their 'cause' and be admired by others like themselves.

White extremist terrorist attacks in Norway, the United States, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom spurred the attacker who killed 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March. He made references to those successful assaults on humanity whom his like considered inferior and unfit to live, chosen for their unwanted presence as 'outsiders' and a purported link to religious terrorism. The New Zealand terrorist's killing spree linked him to a global network of extremists steadily gaining traction.

Thanks to the Internet and mass communication technologies there is no geographic distance now between people with like agendas of hatred, racism and terrorism. Social media readily facilitates the spread of bigotry and extremism which leads inevitably to violence. Psychopaths seek an outlet for their inner rage and misanthropy, and to feel oneself as endowed with 'white privilege' as a crowning glory with the urge to impress one's beliefs on the world at large, find the perfect solution in deadly violence.

The far-right ideologue Anders Behring Breivik who killed 77 people in Norway in 2001 may live in civilized infamy, but he is famous among those who share his distorted sense of privilege for being a heroic leader in their shared battle against those they deem of lesser privilege, enemies of their ideological stance, and whom they target for removal from the gene pool.

Breivik's manifesto raging against immigration and his deadly solution strikes a resonating bell in the minds of other psychopaths looking for an avenue to express their grievances. Breivik -- wrote an American white supremacist on a white supremacist forum -- had "inspired young Aryan men to action". That same man who posted that sentiment, Frazier Glenn Miller, killed three people a few years later when he opened fire on a Jewish retirement home and community centre in Kansas.

The Christchurch killer paid tribute not only to Breivik but to the Canadian man who had fired at worshipers inside a Quebec City mosque in2017, going so far as to write his name on the stock of his weapon. The Quebec City killer had also admired Dylann Roof, the American who attacked a black church in South Carolina in 2015, killing nine congregants at prayer.



This kind of xenophobic, supremacist ideology targets immigrants, minority groups and religious communities. The Global Terrorism Database produced data identifying close to 350 white extremist terrorism attacks that occurred in Europe, North America and Australia from the years 2011 through to 2017. The definition of terrorism is the use of violence by a non-state actor to attain a political or social goal.

White extremism is taken to embrace under its canopy, white nationalist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim ideologies, accounting for eight percent of all attacks in these areas; roughly a third of those committed in the United States. Deadly attacks are occurring more frequently, paralleling a rise in hate crimes and bias episodes in the west. Five white extremist attacks took place from 2011 to 2017 in Australia, most on mosques and Islamic centers.

According to experts, similar motives are involved, irrespective of whether the target is a mosque in Perth, an asylum seekers' shelter in Dresden, Germany, or a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Attackers feel justified in hitting back against the perceived strains from immigrants and religious and racial authorities, threatening their white privileged positions.

Terrorism Writ Large: Islam/Jihad

"I think that [Norwegian Anders] Breivik was a turning point, because he was sort of a proof of concept as to how much an individual actor could accomplish."
"He killed so many people at one time operating by himself, it really set a new bar for what one person can do."
"This is a particularly strong wave [of white supremacism] and I think it's being fueled by a lot of political developments and also by the sort of connective tissue that you get from the Internet that wasn't there before that's really making it easier for groups to be influenced and to coordinate, or not necessarily coordinate but synchronize over large geographical distances."
J.M. Berger, research fellow, Vox-Pol, European academic study of online extremism

"There's a common framing of far-right terrorism or domestic terrorism as being 'terrorism lite' and not as serious."
"It's an interesting question given that far-right attacks can be quite devastating."
Erin Miller, database manager, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland

"We conceive of this problem as being a domestic one. But that's not the case."
"They [supremacists sharing a common ideology] don't see themselves as Americans or Canadians, very much like the Christchurch killer didn't see himself as an Australian; he saw himself as part of a white collective."
"It has never been the case that these people didn't think in a global way. They may have acted in ways that looked domestic but the thinking was always about building an international white movement."
Heidi Beirich, Intelligence Project director, Southern Poverty Law Center, U.S.

The Christchurch killer acted alone but followed a terrifying trend

The identified and studied interconnectedness of the Internet, the ease with which people with particular agendas and fixed ideas of ideological dimensions can find one another, inspire and stir one another, share tips and declarations of hatred of noted groups, and set out to emulate one another's successful hit rates of hated groups is on the rise, it would seem. It would seem thus from the very increase in frequency of white supremacist attacks around the world. And that all too frequently those taken into custody after the commission of particularly gory blood-letting targeting the vulnerable, confess to their inspired contacts with others of their ilk.

White extremist terrorist attacks that took place in Norway, the United States, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom, as an example, appear to have inspired the man who stands accused of killing 50 people in a rampage in March at two Christchurch mosques in New Zealand, according to his online-posted manifesto preceding his hugely successful attack. His killing exploit serves as a particularly notable example of that informal global network of fellow extremists.

Continents are spanned as the incidents and their connectedness highlight the manner in which social media and the Internet have served to facilitate the spread of the ideology of violence through the white extremist message. A school gunman in New Mexico was seen to have corresponded with a gunman who had attacked a mall in Munich; between them eleven people were killed at their disparate geographical locations.

None, however, killed as many people as did Anders Bering Breivik with his bombing and mass shooting in 2011 in Norway, with a death toll of 77. His manifesto with its grievances listing immigration and Islam as dire provocations threatening the stability and future of his homeland has gone on to inspire others in his wake. His massive attacks were seen as a model to be emulated by aspiring hate-mongers.  A white supremacist, Frazier Glenn Miller wrote on a supremacist forum that Breivik had "inspired young Aryan men to action".

He appears to have done that and more for Miller, a prominent white supremacist in the United States who went on to attack a Jewish retirement home and community center, weapons ablaze, in Kansas, where he murdered three people. The Canadian who stormed a Quebec City mosque in 2017 and killed six worshipers had helped to inspire the Christchurch attacker who added his name to other killers whose names he wrote on his weapon. In turn Alexandre Bissonnette, the mosque shooter, had focused on American Dylann Roof who shot to death nine worshipers at a South Carolina black church in 2015.

Close to 350 white extremist terrorism attacks took place in Europe, North America and Australia from the years 2011 through to 2017, according to data from the Global Terrorism Database. The database defines terrorism as the use of violence by a non-state actor to attain a particular social goal. White extremism is a term used to describe white nationalist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic ideologies. And which accounted for roughly 8 percent of all attacks around the world, many in the United States.

In the Oceania region, five white extremist attacks took place from 2011 to 2017 in Australia, all attacks on mosques and Islamic centers. The New Zealand attack was carried out by an Australian who claims to have been radicalized while travelling through Europe. The targets take place in Perth, Dresden, Germany, or Pittsburgh on mosques and synagogues, or asylum centers. Those who study white extremists lament the attention focused on Islamic extremism, pointing out it is not the only driver of international terrorism.


However, it's a safe bet that Islamic jihadist attacks, their frequency, ferocity, deadliness and ongoing threats against the West have inspired white nationalists to play back the Islamist game plan. And while any attacks on innocent people -- destroying lives and causing chaos in society -- are grim and soul-destroying, there is little comparison in total effect between those mounted by white extremists as opposed to the dreadful toll taken by the fearsome attacks launched by various Islamist jihadi groups for whom death deliverance is a sacred duty to Islam and to which no one is immune.

Mea Culpa: White and Colour-Guilty. Minimizing Islamist Terrorism

"Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, incels, nativists, and radical anti-globalists who resort to violent acts are a threat to the stability of my country and countries around the world. [Those attacks] need to be at the top of our agenda when we talk about confronting terrorism."
"[White supremacism is] one of the most serious terrorist threats of the current age. [The online spread of hate is] an international problem, and we need to act collectively to address it."
"[Hatred is] increasingly spread through the internet, [in online forums and on social media]. We must be aware of this, and work to stop it. Our work cannot be undertaken in isolation. Each of our countries will of course address this issue in different ways, but we need to recognise that this is ultimately an international problem, and we need to act collectively to address it."
"In the wake of acts of terrorism carried out by Muslim extremists, Western countries often call upon Muslim countries and Muslim leaders to condemn those attacks in the name of their people and their faith. It should follow that, as the foreign minister of a majority white and majority Christian country, I feel a specific and personal responsibility to denounce white supremacist attacks in the same way."
"Each of our countries will, of course, address this issue in different ways, but we need to recognize that this is ultimately an international problem, and we need to act collectively to address it."
"The Internet and social media know no borders and so we must work together to find ways to address online radicalization."
Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Canada

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland addresses the United Nations Security Council debate on terrorism on March 28, 2019 in New York City. (Global Affairs Canada/Facebook)

"What our research [shows] is that there is a diversity of threats out there related to violent extremism, and there are many different ideologies that can create this problem."
"There are a number of ideologies where Alberta is disproportionately represented, in terms of the numbers that we're producing."
"The individuals that we're seeing are really on the margins of extremist movements."
John McCoy, executive director, Organization for the Prevention of Violence (OPV)

"[Alberta is home to] both intimate and established networks [tied to al-Qaeda and affiliated groups, and] highly isolated cases that are connected with AQAS networks wholly online."
"Today, the trend is very much towards the latter. As seen in the OPV’s research on hate, there was near unanimity in the belief that things are getting worse, not better, due in part to this global political climate where expression of discrimination, hate and broader ‘us versus them’ narratives are taking hold."

"Respondents were dismayed to see this occurring in Canada, a nation whose identity is in large part constructed on the basis of immigration and multiculturalism."

Extremism and Hate Motivated Violence in Alberta Report, Organization for the Prevention of Violence

The report, titled Extremism and Hate Motivated Violence in Alberta -- one hundred pages listing extremist groups in the province, estimates of membership, and views of violent or potentially violent ideological movements and whether the groups are growing or shrinking in membership and prominence provides a fairly wide view of threat activities with the potential to destabilize the province and perpetrate violence on a wide scale. OPV points out that al-Qaeda, its affiliates and splinter groups — referred to as AQAS in the report — continue to present as a direct threat in Canada despite international counterterrorism efforts.

The report was built painstakingly around interviews with over 170 law enforcement members representing the RCMP, as well as each municipal police service in the province of Alberta. What was established in the report is that Alberta represents the province with a disproportionate share of extremist movements; far-right groups and those travelling abroad to join armed groups such as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. An intervention program hoping to guide people away from extremist movements was developed as well by the organization.

Researchers interviewed roughly 120 people from communities where hate and extremism directly affected them. Some fifty service providers specializing in violence and at-risk youth, and 212 "formers"; people previously associated with extremist movements, or their family members, were also extensively interviewed. Mr. McCoy -- the OPV executive director, is also a professor at University of Alberta whose specialty is terrorism studies -- spoke of a major conclusion, that individuals on the edges of extremist groups, those who have been most frequently radicalized through social media, represent the biggest threat to society. 

A video was recently released of Toronto's Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed, after he was captured by Kurdish forces battling ISIS in Syria. (CBC)

According to the report, from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, fundraising, money laundering and promotion and propaganda took place in the province in support of foreign fighters in the Middle East, North Africa and Bosnia. The report estimated that between 30 and 40 people from Alberta travelled abroad to fight for armed groups in the Middle East, North Africa and Bosnia, disproportionate in number to Alberta's population as compared to the rest of Canada and the numbers of jihadis who chose to leave to ally themselves with Islamist terrorist groups overseas.

 From Calgary alone, roughly twenty jihadis travelled to Syria and Iraq; ten of that number sharing an identified connection with a now-shuttered mosque located in downtown Calgary. Shuttered not only due to its reputation as a breeding ground inspiring resentment against the West, but to its purposeful incitement to bring the faithful as recruits to the Islamic sacred duty of jihad, inspiring to the young and the restless, searching to fulfill meaning in their lives as required by their faith.

Given the situation in the Middle East, with the Islamic State Caliphate no longer a physical reality and the understanding that the searing ideology of hatred and martyrdom cannot be extirpated from the minds of dedicated believers as readily as geography can be wrenched from warring usurpers, the concern has turned inward in the realization and acknowledgement that ISIL has groomed its followers to attack anywhere, at any time, using any methods available to make their statement of jihad's resilience.

A Canadian man allegedly fighting for Islamic State was captured in Syria, according to Syrian Democratic Forces. In a video released Sunday he says his name is Mohammad Abdullah Mohammad.Screen grab

As to other worrisome groups of anti-social extremists which the report listed, the estimate is that approximately 150 to 250 Freemen on the Land in Alberta remain active in their perception that government is illegitimate and therefore no taxes need be extracted from them voluntarily to government coffers. The majority are recognized as non-violent though the report points out that ten to 15 Alberta Freemen have "demonstrated a behavioural propensity for violence". Left-wing extremists identified in the report are not seen to have been involved in major violent incidents, nor are they viewed as a "significant threat to public safety".

Moving on to patriot and militia groups motivated "primarily by xenophobia and anti-government views", many members share anti-Islamic sentiments with some engaging in survivalist activities such as "prepping" and firearms training as well as "street patrols", which "primarily target visible minority, newcomer and refugee communities -- Muslims in particular". Yet there is no evidence that groups such as the Three Percenters, Sons/Soldiers of Odin, the Canadian Infidels/Clann, True North Patriots and Northern Guard are violence prone or "would represent a significant threat to public safety or national security".


Which leaves White Supremacy/Associated Ideologies with the report pointing out that the Ku Klux Klan which once had 50 chapters in Alberta 90 years ago has been reduced to a few small, largely rural groups. And that organized white supremacist groups, largely dormant until the late 1980s with a membership of 100 has bloomed since with a number of skinhead, neo-Nazi and "Aryan" groups active latterly in the province; violent years falling between 2008 and 2012 with ten "noteworthy" incidents of assaults on immigrants and visible minorities.

None of these identified groups in the terrorism range or as threats to society have brought bloodshed in any sphere of society remotely comparable to the virulent threat that Islamism's jihad-aligned terrorism has. Yet the government of Canada chooses to wax eloquent and determined to eradicate the unsavoury (to be sure) presence of white supremacists, equating their hateful ideology with that of the murderous mass-death-delivering psychosis of religious divine edicts to the faithful in Islam to go out and slaughter the infidels.