Is Home Grown Fanaticism On the Rise?

Has Islamaphobia been responsible for a degree of blindness about home grown movements with a tendency to violence.

German publication The Local reports that the self-styled the National Socialist Underground (NSU) is claiming to have killed nine foreign shopkeepers, murdered a policewoman and injured many more over a period of some years.It is not sure how true this or how they have managed to hide this involvement from the authorities for so long.

The Local wants to ask if in looking outward the authorities have neglected the enemy within. The Cork Monkey has heard this a time or two before. It is an increasing preoccupation of  the UK, France, Spain and others (although not always about neo-nazi’s).

At the heart of The Local's  investigation is a question of  German society and authorities being so obsessed with Islamist terrorism, that neo-nazis have been ignored, dismissed as out of date lunatics with a bee in their bonnet and who, with no attention paid to them, have flourished to the point they are a increasingly problem. Was the country looking too much in the wrong direction?  Similar questions have been asked of the UK. Is the resurgence in Irish based terrorism been a cost of the overemphasis on Islam? Spain and France have resolved their Basque problem both (to a degree) but have had problems related to foreigners providing cheap labour to the disadvantage of local tradesmen. 

Cork Monkey would suggest this is a more complex situation than just taking eyes of the ball. Why does attention need to be paid to this. What motivates people to commit such acts.

It would seem logical that when you create - as you need to in conflicts - either a seige mentality or a coming together to fight the demons, a consequence is the development of a feeling of togetherness. Lets call this  national pride. 

This is necessary for generating this kind of support for a war or some other external threat but can be manipulated by those who working to dastardly ends. It can be turned from a sense of pride into the kind of arrogance that sees the 'not we' as inferior that does not stem  from a sense of pride and identity but from a sense that ones own are so much more worthy than others and that 'your own' who do not share these beliefs are misinformed at best and traitors at worst.

Good Luck to the Local - this is a topic worth pursuing - but Cork Monkey does not think you will find the authorities misplaced attention is the sole cause of this problem.

CM