OP-ED: Christchurch mosque massacre: The extremist voice on social media provokes action beyond policy and location By Jasmine Opperman Jasminechic00
On 14 March 2019, South Africa woke up to the horror of multiple shootings at mosques during Friday Prayers in Hagley Park and Linwood , killing 49 people.
Like other supremacist attacks, one of the attackers, Brenton Tarrant, espoused many conspiracy theories that reinforced his racist beliefs. Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian, live-streamed his attack on Facebook after publishing his white supremacist manifesto on 8chan. In the video, Tarrant can be heard saying, “subscribe to PewDiePie” before carrying out the attack.
Tarrant also credits the popular conservative commentator Candace Owens as a great influence of his own beliefs:Though Owens is African-American, she often pushes a white nationalist agenda on mainstream media including an anti-Islamic agenda. Tarrant also claims that Anders Behring Breivik was an inspiration. Breivik is a Norwegian citizen who has admitted to perpetrating Norway’s biggest massacre since World War II.
Social media chat rooms transcend distance, and the words of Aaron Y. Zelin speak directly to South Africa:We are in an era of extremisms. They all feed off one another and are hyper-charged by algorithms and globalisation. Jihadists were first to exploit [this] in large way, [the] far right has learned from them, expect other extremist trends to learn from both as reactions.”
The main message board is simple in design and uncomplicated in terms of technical development, perhaps an indication that Mathias has created the website alone and doesn’t have the computer coding knowledge nor the graphic design skills to make the website more splashy. The topics range from introductions from new members to how to live the best fascist lifestyle, to ideologies. The blog is divided into seven sections , Recommended Sites, Social Media and Donations).
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