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Environmental issues are often seen as being championed exclusively by the political left. By way of example, the March 2019 terrorist attack in Christchurch by a self-avowed ecofascist was labelled as ‘left wing’ by some political pundits. Mobilization by the right-wing elements on environmental issues is seen as an anomaly, if not politically or ideologically contradictory. This has been described as the ‘green washing of white supremacy.’ Increasingly, however, this notion that environmental issues are the monopoly of the political left has been challenged by right-wing terrorists claiming environmental motivations. It is important to understand how the environment can factor into extreme-right ideologies given its relevance to acts of extreme violence.
From protest to resistance
Numerous protests, rallies, and acts of civil disobedience have sought to mobilize government action on the climate crisis. The climate crisis has become an important issue as people around the world begin to feel its impact with catastrophic bushfires, severe drought, flooding, and rising global temperatures. Many environmental activist groups concerned with the climate crisis, such as Extinction Rebellion, consider themselves politically non-partisan, and reject association with either the political left or right. Instead, they champion climate action as a fundamental issue for all people, regardless of political association. Such organizations do not have a monopoly on ecological concerns. Beyond the mainstream, there are potentially violent organizations and individuals preoccupied with the environment. Some of these do emerge from the extreme right.
Within the extreme right, the environment is a contested issue. Some are avowed climate skeptics, while a very small number identify as ecofascists. These organizations and individuals profess interest in the state of the environment, uniting green issues with fascist worldviews. A few of these individuals have turned to violence, claiming ecological motivations. One ecofascist is the convicted right-wing terrorist, Brenton Tarrant, who committed the Christchurch, New Zealand, massacre in 2019. He inspired another apparent ecofascist, Patrick Crusius, who conducted the El Paso, Texas, shooting six months later citing environmental concerns. This topic was raised again by the recent shooting in Buffalo, New York, by Gendron Payton. In his manifesto, Payton refers to the environment as being “industrialized, pulverized and commoditized”.
Clearly, then, a green vein of thought exists within the extreme right wing, and has since the emergence of fascism itself.
A long, green tradition
There was never a complete separation between extreme right-wing beliefs and the environment. By way of example, Nazi Germany established environmentally-friendly policies during the reign of the Third Reich reign, known as the Reichsnaturschutzgesetz or Reich Conservation Act, (while simultaneously destroying wide swathes of land throughout and beyond Europe). Prominent Nazi leaders argued that a sacred bond existed between Germans and nature, giving rise to the Blut und Boden or “blood and soil” concept. Italian Fascists created national parks and engaged in reforestation practices under Benito Mussolini. They too argued that there was a sacred bond between people and place, as the native people had improved nature and been improved by nature in turn. Fascist interest in the environment is therefore not a new phenomenon. Its recent popularity in the extreme right under the guise of ecofascism, however, needs further examination. The way in which the relationship between humanity and nature was conceived is particularly notable.
Fascists typically have a human-centered view of nature, in which nature and its resources are essential to sustain a mystically imagined community. This community is seen to have a natural privilege and entitlement to the resources of a given place, to the exclusion of others. This sense of privilege pervades how fascists see the world. In a belief system where “might is right”, entitlement is the consequence of organic superiority, where natural competition has separated the weak from the strong.
This differs from the political ecologism that most are familiar with today. This form of environmentalism promotes an earth-centered view of the world, in which humanity is simply one part of a complex global ecosystem, no greater or more important than any other species. The Gaia Principle posits the existence of a single, integrated, and self-regulating biosphere.
So fascist concern for nature is secondary to its concern for the people, whilst in ecologism, the people are secondary to the environment.
Detailing ecofascist beliefs
Ecofascism is not a merger of fascism and political ecologism, but rather a sub-category of fascism. As a result, ecofascists are rarely concerned with the ecological wellbeing of nature or the earth generally, but instead focus on their “race” and their place specifically.
Ecofascism is both reactionary and revolutionary. Its reactionary nature leverages ecological concerns to reject the supposed corrupting forces of modernity, which have brought about environmental destruction, industrialization, urbanization, materialism, and overpopulation. Immigrants, moreover, are spurned as invasive and harmful influences on ecosystems. Ecofascists will therefore often demonize sections of the population as being responsible for environmental destruction. Forces of modernity have supposedly disrupted the natural connection the imagined community apparently has to a particular place. This has resulted in a weak and decadent society, over-consuming, over-populating, and damaging or destroying nature.
Ecofascism is revolutionary in its commitment to the rebirth of the imagined community through dramatic and wholesale change. This rebirth is inherently tied to nature, which is imagined as having the ultimate purifying power. Through reconnecting with nature, the people may recover their strength, authenticity, and dominance. This is not simply a seizure of political power, but the rebirth of the collective, and the reclamation of a promised destiny. Ecofascists often discuss this ideal future as one where only ‘native’ people exist in each territory, and all others have been removed or destroyed. By extension, they may perceive violence as a valid method to achieve revolutionary change.
Many shades of green
There is not simply only one ecofascism, but many. Some ecofascists will be darker shades of green than others - in the same way that shades of green exist within contemporary environmental movements.
What they have in common, however, is concern for their specific place, rather than the health of the entire planet. Some ecofascists often argue that only the native people can conserve and manage nature. This allows ecofascists to position themselves as the exclusive guardians of nature and the ecological needs of a defined place, and delegitimize the continued presence of other people.
Others suggest that in taming nature, a sacred bond has been formed between people and place. This allows ecofascists – who may not actually be the native people - to claim they have shaped nature and been shaped by nature in turn. This exclusive bond allows non-native ecofascists to argue that other immigrants are a threat to the environmental balance that they have created. These expressions of ecofascism tend to demonize immigrants, economic systems such as capitalism, or elements of society (such as corporate CEOs) that allow conditions for environmental destruction to flourish. Ecofascists use narratives of existential threat, which justify lethal violence, including terrorism, against ideological enemies.
Securitizing activism
Ecofascism is a sub-category of fascism, radically distinct from environmental activism in its legitimation of lethal and extreme violence, and focus on race. Nevertheless, environmental activists are falsely equated with terrorists in some western jurisdictions. There have been deliberate attempts to securitize environmental activism and deter people from dissent with environmental policies. In some cases, this is as transparent as the implementation of disproportionately harsh penalties aimed at disincentivizing protest. For example in Australia protest activity such as blocking roads or ports now carries a $22,000 AUD fine. Security discourses increasingly feature the civil disobedience of environmental activists, despite such activism not meeting the violence threshold required for terrorism act offences.
While activists may seek to change a system - even a global system - by persuading and inconveniencing governments and citizens, an ecofascist endorses the use of violence. Right-wing extremists, such as ecofascists, do not seek to persuade but to coerce through the threat or use of terrorism. We saw the consequence of this in the cities of Christchurch, El Paso, and in Buffalo. Whether we agree with the term or not, it is important to nonetheless understand the motivations of self-professed ecofascists if we are to meaningfully counter them.
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