The Shared Frustrations of Anarchism, Islamism and the Far Right

Lee Rigby's murderers were described as extremists and radicals and it has saddened me to hear some describing Jo Cox's murder this week in the same terms. Describing any of these people as extremists or radicals places the responsibility on the ideology of the group that the murderer is purported to represent. Both Far Right movements and Islamist movements come from the same marginalisation of the overarching ideology of today. Neo-liberalism, capitalism, freedom, or whatever name it is given, there is no denying that many feel shut out and that some are compelled to take matters into their own hands and revert to a tactic that was last prevalent at the turn of the 20th century, the propaganda of the deed. The anarchists of Paris and from across Europe believed that if they committed a deed horrendous enough they would set a chain of events in motion that would result in the destruction of the State and in freedom for all. The absence of an anarchist contribution to today's political landscape suggests that they did not succeed.

On 12th February 1894, a young man named Emile Henry was so frustrated by the suffering and lack of social mobility that he saw around him that he set off a bomb in the Cafe Terminus near Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris. Two days later Martial Bourdan blew himself up whilst attempting to blow up the Greenwich Observatory in London. Both Henry and Bourdan would be familiar with the world today, many people unable to engage in a deeply divided society where the opulence of the rich was unattainable for most. Bourdan's portrayal as Stevie in Joseph Conrad's Novel, The Secret Agent, also shares similarities with how some of today's violent protagonists are described as mentally ill. Again, this denies the responsibility of society for the conditions that lead to these violent acts.

The description of any of these marginalised and unforgivably violent people, anarchist, Islamist or Far Right, as extreme, radical or mentally ill leads to our failure to discuss and address the root causes of their actions. If we were to recognise that they all stem from the same frustrations, we might be able to start to address the problem. We may not even have to as the racists picketing the local mosque might realise that they have more in common with the Muslims that they are shouting at than with the politician they have voted for. By working together, they would also be more likely to see the improvements in their lives that they are demanding.