Lone Wolf Race Warriors and White Genocide

This Element discusses the question: what makes a man randomly kill unarmed people, and why do some consider him a hero?

Mattias Gardell (Author)

9781108711135, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 July 2021

75 pages
17.8 x 12.5 x 0.6 cm, 0.12 kg

When Brenton Tarrant live-streamed his massacre of fifty-one Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March 2019, he was but one in a series of lone-acting white men committing violent crime to further the radical white nationalist aim to save the white race from extinction and establish a white ethnostate. From where did white nationalists get the notion of an ongoing white genocide? Why should 'resistance' against a perceived invasion of 'white' territory be launched by individual 'lone wolves' massacring noncombatants they have no prior relation to? How could slaughtering children be construed as a heroic act that a perpetrator wants to broadcast to the world? Based on a unique collection of interviews with lone wolves, their victims, and their supporters, and a close reading of lone wolf, fascist, and radical nationalist material and communication, this Element provides solid answers to these and adjacent questions of importance.

1. The Wolves are Coming to Fight
2. What are Lone Wolf Tactics?
3. The History of the Lone Wolf
4. Wolves of the North
5. White Genocide and the Great Replacement
6. Digital Fascism and the Gamification of the Lone Wolf
7. Hero Quest
References.

Subject Areas: Terrorism, armed struggle [JPWL], Violence in society [JFFE], Religion & politics [HRAM2], Religion: general [HRA], Religion & beliefs [HR]