roachboy

in general i agree with powerclown (no. 29)

i find arguments like ustwo's entirely ahistorical, for all their tossing about of "historical" data--it operates at such a level of generality as to be arbitrary. it is the logic of a religious crusade--and at this point i doubt anyone could seriously argue that ustwo has not been advocating religious war the whole time on this thread. the only caveat there is so far is that, according to the post above, there has always been such a war. so he need not call for something that is already ongoing.

the viewpoint is perfectly consistent with what you would find talking to jean-marie le pen or bruno megret or any of a wide range of neofascist organizations in western europe. point for point.

i still maintain that the onus is on the folk from the right to make specific their notion of "extremist"--without some social specificity, it simply becomes a pretext for attacking whomever you do not like.

worse still, it slots directly into the self-confirming logic of the far right in europe (and in the states). here is an idea of how the pattern goes:


you draw a discursive line around a population--say muslims--now they are outside the community of "americans" or "dutch" folk----which in turn gets defined along ridiculous lines--now "they" are muslim and "we" are christian--a set of wholly inoperative terms in the modern world, which is built around the notion of a secular state---are made operational again because of the actions of the right.

from start to finish, this drawing of a line is about something othere than what motivates it--say shrinking job possibilities, a sense of insecurity, wahtever--it is a diversion from the beginning.

next step is usually this: a sequence of actions might follow that make the community you have quarantined feel under direct attack--how do you expect them to react?--usually this action gets reciprocated, or is presented as if there had been reciprocity--now the conflict appears justified on the lines set out by the far right to being with.

and sometimes you land here: someone does something stupid--maybe something like the murder at the top of the thread--and in order to jsutify a murder, makes a letter linking himself to the discourse of "extremism" in general: now all brakes are off, the right logic of "exclude the aliens" finds a foothold.


every step of this is the typical pattern followed by radical right movements in the last century. every step was grounded "empirically" in exactly this way.
this discourse is racist.
it is dangerous.
the only thing that is of any solace seeing how easily folk here fall into it is that none of you have any power politically.


fact is that the category of "extremist" assumes that you cannot define it.
if you invest in the discourse, you have no real interest in defining it.
they are, everywhere and always, where you say they are.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite