Why White Supremacy Is Going Green?
"When a white nationalist killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., this past spring, he released a manifesto justifying his horrendous acts by relying on the “great replacement,” a conspiracy theory charging that whites are deliberately being replaced with non-white immigrants. While such a belief would seem to be straight-up racism, the manifesto went on to cite an unexpected ideology as the root of his actions: environmentalism. “The protection and preservation of these lands,” he wrote, “is of the same importance as the protection and preservation of our own ideals and beliefs.” (Colgate Magazine Michael Blanding Spring 2023)
Those words were from the shooter of two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019 and cited by other violent attackers such as the man who killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso that same year. This idea is representative of a a new direction in the politics of the far right extremists: eco-fascism.
Now that fossil fuels are being phased out fascism needs something else to fuel the wars that oppress the planet.
Eco-fascism combines environmentalism with fascism. Eco fascists use environmentalist ideas weaponized to pursue a fascist political agenda. Ecofascists believe that they are part of the land their ancestors originated from or colonized. They see their race, nation, and ancestral homeland as inseparable and view all other cultures as not only a threat to their existence but the cause of all their woes including, in the case of White supremacists their population losses, infertility issues and falling global birthrates.
In fact they don't hesitate to blame the global south for ecological problems, but their proposed solutions often entail extreme population control based on race. The root of the belief is often conjoined with vocal support for genocide and terrorism they blame climate change and global warming on false claims of overpopulation, immigration, and over-industrialization. Eco-fascists believe all borders of predominantly White nations should have closed borders to non white immigrants and, on the more extreme end support the mass purge of non- white people globally. Eco-fascism in short is "environmentalism by genocide!
Political researcher Alex Amend defines eco-fascism as "The devaluing of human life—particularly of (NON- WHITE) populations seen as inferior—in order to protect the environment viewed as essential to White identity." According to a recent blog on Earthworks; "Eco-fascism dovetails neatly with the Great Replacement Theory, a Nazi-inspired conspiracy theory claiming that “white people are being stripped of their power through the demographic rise of communities of color, driven by immigration.” For example, the man who murdered 11 Jewish people in Pittsburgh targeted the Tree of Life Synagogue because of their work with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS).
The Great Replacement Theory has its roots in a related white supremacist conspiracy theory of “white genocide” which capitalizes on white people’s fears of becoming a minority population in a country founded on the rape, torture, and genocide of Indigenous peoples and the brutal enslavement of African peoples." The essence of Eco-fascism is xenophobia and racism. The Irony is that those who spent years in denial of the truth of climate change now want to murder 80% of the globe for fear of becoming the minority they have always been! It is essentially globalization that has revealed this truth that exposes the myths of superiority and numerical advantage.
Environmental protection measures can be weaponized with intricate mythologies used by Western Nations, Individuals and extremist organizations against Indigenous peoples. Making conservation a tool to displace the indigenous from their native lands. This anti-Indigenous violence — in the past— fueled the genocide of Indigenous people that allowed for the creation of the modern United States and the carving up of Africa that is still threatened by neo Colonialists citing the need to go green globally as a reason to commit genocide in the DEMOCRATIC Republic of the Congo as well as other nations. "We also see this dynamic repeated today in pipeline resistance movements, such as among the Wet’suwet’en tribe in British Columbia and the Sioux tribe in Standing Rock, North Dakota." (Adrienne Corceone Teen Vogue)