Right-wing terrorism worse than jihadism

Americans Are More Likely to Be Killed by Right-Wing Terrorists Than Muslims—But the Media's Afraid to Say It

We must confront the threat of far right extremism.

By CJ WerlemanWhen Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) labeled cattle rancher and right-wing extremist Cliven Bundy a “domestic terrorist,” the far Right went into an apoplectic state. But the Senate majority leader may have unwittingly stumbled upon an interesting and sobering fact: that when it comes to domestic terrorism, you are far more likely to be murdered by a far Right-wing American than a Muslim American, but the term “terrorist” remains reserved exclusively for acts of political violence carried out by Muslims.

If terrorism is defined as violence against innocent civilians designed to advance a political cause, then all racist murders that occur in the U.S. are also acts of terrorism, because the perpetrators commit the violent act to send a political message to minority communities (i.e. intimidate them into a subordinate status.)

Arun Kundani, adjunct professor at New York University and author of The Muslims are Coming: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the War on Terror, writes: “The definition of terrorism is never applied consistently, because to do so would mean the condemnatory power of the term would have to be applied to our violence as much as theirs, thereby defeating the word’s usefulness.”

Violence carried out by far Right groups or individuals, which have racism as a central component of their ideology, is of similar magnitude to that of Jihadist violence. In the years 1990 to 2010, there were 145 acts of political violence committed by the American far Right, resulting in 348 deaths. By comparison, 20 Americans were killed over the same period in acts of political violence carried out by Muslim-American civilians.

“Both categories of violence represent threats to democratic values from fellow citizens. Whereas the former uses violence to foment a change in the ethnic makeup of Western countries or to defend racial supremacy, the latter uses violence to try to intimidate Western governments into changing foreign policies. Ultimately, to be more concerned about one domestic threat of violence rather than the other implies governments and mainstream journalists consider foreign policies more sacrosanct than the security of minority citizens,” writes Kundani.Comment:  When white male conservatives don't get their way, they take their guns and man the barricades. (See Cliven Bundy and his supporters as one example.) It's only a step or two from there to shooting at federal agents and blowing up federal buildings. The same pro-white, anti-government sentiments motivate mainstream conservatives and their more extremist brethren.

For more on Cliven Bundy the domestic terrorist, see What Bundy and Sterling Tell Us and Bundy the Conservative Racist.

For more on right-wing terrorism, see Report Documents Right-Wing Terrorism and The Logical Conclusion of Extremism.