- From New Zealand to Germany and the United States, atrocities committed by white supremacists are becoming an ever growing threat
Mosques in New Zealand, England and Norway, synagogues in the United States and Germany, a Latinos supermarket in El Paso, Texas, and, last week, shisha bars in Hanau, near Frankfurt in Germany. These are just some recent targets of deadly hate crimes. The phenomenon of killings by far-right sympathisers or white supremacists has gone global.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the latest attack, in which nine people of Turkish or Kurdish Muslim background died before a far-right extremist killed himself and his mother, reveals the "poison" of racism and hate in Germany. She says the state will stand up to it.
Thousands attended vigils for the victims, chanting "Nazis out". But a month after the 75th commemoration of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz, activists say such attacks reflect indifference by the state towards right-wing extremism.
Until recently, Western security forces focused disproportionately on Islamist extremism. Christchurch in New Zealand, where a white supremacist killed more than 50, and other mosque attacks changed that.
Far-right plots are a faster-growing terror threat. One estimate attributes more than 70 per cent of extremist-related fatalities in the US from 2008 to 2017 to far-right sympathisers or white supremacists.
All eyes are now on Germany, and not just because of the Hanau slaughter or recent arrests in an investigation of suspected planned attacks on asylum seekers and Muslims. Merkel's intention to step down before the next federal elections has triggered a succession crisis over how her ruling Christian Democratic Union should deal with far-right nationalists in the German parliament.
Hanau gunman who killed 10 wrote immigrants should be 'destroyed'
One early front-runner is now veteran businessman Friedrich Merz, a fierce critic of Merkel's decision to open borders to Syrian refugees in 2015.
Even as a resurgence of nationalism has fuelled far-right extremism and race hate, Germany has remained a rock of relative stability in Europe following the global financial crisis in 2008. Merkel's departure is bound to lead to political turbulence.
The horror in Hanau should prompt sober reflection on any temptation to accommodate the far right, or any extremist stance. It is a reminder of the threat posed by nativist ideology and of past lessons learned, and forgotten at the peril of succeeding generations.
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