Last Born in the Wilderness: Shane Burley (The Cretinous ‘Great Replacement’ Theory) [PODCAST]
I spoke with author, journalist, and political researcher Shane Burley last night, and while it may take longer than one week to release this interview publicly, I wanted to share here as soon as I could, considering the nature of our discussion.
Shane and Alexander Reid Ross very recently co-wrote an Op-Ed for The Independent, titled How to defeat the cretinous ‘great replacement’ theory at the heart of the Christchurch mosque attack — their response to the recent mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, by self-proclaimed white supremacist Brenton Tarrant. Aside from embodying the most vile and insurgent aspects of white supremacist ideological violence, Tarrant live-streamed the mass killing of 50 Muslim worshippers at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques on social media platforms and YouTube. Along his eagerness to share his violent acts with the world, Tarrant left a “manifesto” of sorts, which explains quite clearly what his motivations were for the targeted killing of worshippers at these two mosques, including the highly dubious claims that the “white race” is being systematically replaced and displaced from their position of dominance in European and European-in-origin societies (United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the like) by “Non-European” races through mass migration and a “colonization” of sorts (to use the words of Tarrant).
We place this mass shooting in Christchurch within Shane’s robust analysis of the patterns of far right insurgent violence, as demonstrated by the growing list of “lone wolf” attacks on minority groups in predominantly European and European-in-origin societies over the past several decades, and especially in the past five years or less. What is fueling these attacks, and how do we combat these horrible ideologies that embolden individuals to “take matters into their own hands”? I discuss this and more with Shane in this interview.
Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon, who regularly reports on far-right movements in the US, as well as anti-fascist resistance, workers’ rights, and class struggle. He is the author of ‘Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It’ from AK Press, and his work has appeared in places such as Jacobin, AlterNet, In These Times, Political Research Associates, Waging Nonviolence, Salon, ThinkProgress, ROAR Magazine and Upping the Anti.
