美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Bring The War Home' Shows 'Lone Wolf' Terrorists Are Really Part Of A Pack

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Last year when neo-Nazis and members of the so-called alt-right demonstrated in Charlottesville, Va., many Americans evinced shock that such a thing could happen in 2017. But Charlottesville is only the latest in a history of white-power activism that goes back decades. And as Kathleen Belew argues in her new book, "Bring The War Home," we ignore that history at our peril¹. In it, she explains what many disparate events have in common, from Ruby² Ridge³ to the Oklahoma City bombing. Many of those threads go back to the Vietnam War.

KATHLEEN BELEW: It's called "Bring The War Home" because that provided the clearest way of thinking about a problem I ran into in the archive, which was that Klansmen and neo-Nazis committing violence in the United States, ranging from veterans to those who didn't serve in the war, commonly understood the Vietnam War and invoked⁴ the war to describe why they chose the activism they did and to frame their tactics and their uses of violence in many different contexts.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Kathleen Belew says the terrorism that arose in the 1980s within the white-power movement came in the form of small cells of just a half a dozen men, creating what she calls a leaderless resistance.

BELEW: Leaderless resistance first of all made it less important to recruit large numbers of people because now the movement was focused on smaller, totally committed activists⁵ rather than turning out a bunch of weekend activists for a rally. It made it really important for the activists to have enough in common culturally to understand their shared goals. And that's another place where the narrative⁶ of the Vietnam War became very important to them. And it also made it very difficult to prosecute⁷ white-power violence or to understand it as a social movement because its actions could be more readily understood and dismissed in both courts and in media portrayals⁸ as the acts of one or a few individuals.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah, I'd like to touch on that last thing that you just spoke⁹ about. You write about this particular period where there was a huge increase in domestic terrorism. And the media, law enforcement, government agencies kept on portraying¹⁰ these acts as isolated¹¹ as - as the work of a fringe element or a lone¹², disturbed wolf. To this day, the myth that Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber¹³ - persists that he acted alone. What did that get wrong? What was problematic with people seeing it as isolated events as opposed to part of a big movement?

BELEW: Portraying the Oklahoma City bombing, particularly, as that - as the work of one or a few actors worked to totally erase¹⁴ what the country had understood about white-power violence before that event. One of the misconceptions is that Timothy McVeigh acted alone or with the help of a few conspirators¹⁵. But McVeigh - a simple social geography of Timothy McVeigh shows that he was involved in this movement for years before the bombing. So this points to a motivated and ideologically¹⁶ framed attack.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You say that the fact that we see the Oklahoma City bombing through this lens as an individual actor, and we don't see it as part of the white power movement and its capacity for violence - you say that that's remarkable¹⁷. What is the problem with that?

BELEW: I think the main thing is that what seems new and alarming in our current moment is not new. These events were covered in the front pages of national newspapers, on morning news magazine shows. And yet somehow we lost the understanding of this movement such that the altercation¹⁸ in Charlottesville can seem astonishing to people without this history. But this history shows us that what seems new is not new.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: As you point out, we are in a period where two long wars are taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan that have sent hundreds of thousands of Americans to battle. And those men and women have been coming home. And you link this with the 2016 election as well, with the rhetoric¹⁹ of the so-called alt-right that has become mainstream²⁰. You see this as part of the continuum.

BELEW: Yes. The history shows us that this movement never received a definitive²¹ stop in court or in public opinion. In every surge of Ku Klux Klan activism in American history, there is a strong correlation²² with the aftermath of warfare²³. The aftermath of warfare has correlated with widespread violence across all groups of American civilians²⁴ - not just veterans but throughout American society. And in those searches of violence, groups like this have found resurgent memberships.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: One of the things that really concerns people nowadays after the 2016 election and the rise of the alt-right and some of the demonstrations²⁵ we've seen by white-power groups in different parts of the country is that their sort of insidious²⁶ messaging of white power has entered the mainstream, in some ways, in political discourse²⁷ and in just personal discourse in the way that people talk about certain issues. Is that a victory of sorts?

BELEW: If you look at the '80s, which is sort of the peak moment of membership, you can think of in concentric circles. There's sort of an inner circle of around 25,000 hardcore activists. Those are people that really live the movement and who have their whole social lives organized by the movement, who would sooner die than abandon their beliefs. And then outside of that, there is a broader circle of like 150,000 to 175,000 people who are not as dedicated²⁸ but who show up to rallies, buy literature. Then outside of them, there's a bigger circle of 450,000 people who don't themselves buy the literature but who read the literature. And you might imagine that this goes on and on, right? Outside of the people who read the literature are people who would never read a Klan newspaper but might agree with an idea that appears in one if it's brought up to them by a friend in some particular context.

So the way that these ideas travel from that hardcore fringe to the mainstream is something that deserves a lot of thought and attention because this movement of very extreme activists had a lot of social issues in common with the mainstream right in the 1980s. So by the time David Duke was running on presidential campaigns, the platform issues that he advocated would make their way from the David Duke platform to the Pat Buchanan platform to the George H.W. Bush platform. In the period of my study, I think what's interesting is that this ideology²⁹ is very flexible and very opportunistic such that people can take or leave various parts of it in order to allow for broader recruitment.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Kathleen Belew is the author of "Bring The War Home: The White Power Movement And Paramilitary America." Thank you so much.

BELEW: Thank you.

1 peril   

n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物

参考例句：

• The refugees were in peril of death from hunger.难民有饿死的危险。
• The embankment is in great peril.河堤岌岌可危。

2 ruby   

n.红宝石，红宝石色

参考例句：

• She is wearing a small ruby earring.她戴着一枚红宝石小耳环。
• On the handle of his sword sat the biggest ruby in the world.他的剑柄上镶有一颗世上最大的红宝石。

3 ridge   

n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭

参考例句：

• We clambered up the hillside to the ridge above.我们沿着山坡费力地爬上了山脊。
• The infantry were advancing to attack the ridge.步兵部队正在向前挺进攻打山脊。

4 invoked   

v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求

参考例句：

• It is unlikely that libel laws will be invoked. 不大可能诉诸诽谤法。
• She had invoked the law in her own defence. 她援引法律为自己辩护。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

7 prosecute   

vt.告发；进行；vi.告发，起诉，作检察官

参考例句：

• I am trying my best to prosecute my duties.我正在尽力履行我的职责。
• Is there enough evidence to prosecute?有没有起诉的足够证据？

8 portrayals   

n.画像( portrayal的名词复数 )；描述；描写；描摹

参考例句：

• And painters alluded to her eroticism in their bare breasted portrayals of the dying queen. 画家们把她描绘为裸胸垂死的贪欲的女王。 来自互联网

9 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

10 portraying   

v.画像( portray的现在分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• The artist has succeeded in portraying my father to the life. 那位画家把我的父亲画得惟妙惟肖。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Ding Ling was good at portraying figures through careful and refined description of human psychology. 《莎菲女士的日记》是丁玲的成名作，曾引起强烈的社会反响。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

11 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

12 lone   

adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的

参考例句：

• A lone sea gull flew across the sky.一只孤独的海鸥在空中飞过。
• She could see a lone figure on the deserted beach.她在空旷的海滩上能看到一个孤独的身影。

13 bomber   

n.轰炸机，投弹手，投掷炸弹者

参考例句：

• He flew a bomber during the war.他在战时驾驶轰炸机。
• Detectives hunting the London bombers will be keen to interview him.追查伦敦爆炸案凶犯的侦探们急于对他进行讯问。

14 erase   

v.擦掉；消除某事物的痕迹

参考例句：

• He tried to erase the idea from his mind.他试图从头脑中抹掉这个想法。
• Please erase my name from the list.请把我的名字从名单上擦去。

15 conspirators   

n.共谋者，阴谋家( conspirator的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The conspirators took no part in the fighting which ensued. 密谋者没有参加随后发生的战斗。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The French conspirators were forced to escape very hurriedly. 法国同谋者被迫匆促逃亡。 来自辞典例句

16 ideologically   

adv. 意识形态上地，思想上地

参考例句：

• Ideologically, they have many differences. 在思想意识上，他们之间有许多不同之处。
• He has slipped back ideologically. 他思想退步了。

17 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

18 altercation   

n.争吵，争论

参考例句：

• Throughout the entire altercation,not one sensible word was uttered.争了半天，没有一句话是切合实际的。
• The boys had an altercation over the umpire's decision.男孩子们对裁判的判决颇有争议。

19 rhetoric   

n.修辞学，浮夸之言语

参考例句：

• Do you know something about rhetoric?你懂点修辞学吗？
• Behind all the rhetoric,his relations with the army are dangerously poised.在冠冕堂皇的言辞背后，他和军队的关系岌岌可危。

20 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。

21 definitive   

adj.确切的，权威性的；最后的，决定性的

参考例句：

• This book is the definitive guide to world cuisine.这本书是世界美食的权威指南。
• No one has come up with a definitive answer as to why this should be so.至于为什么该这样，还没有人给出明确的答复。

22 correlation   

n.相互关系，相关，关连

参考例句：

• The second group of measurements had a high correlation with the first.第二组测量数据与第一组高度相关。
• A high correlation exists in America between education and economic position.教育和经济地位在美国有极密切的关系。

23 warfare   

n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突

参考例句：

• He addressed the audience on the subject of atomic warfare.他向听众演讲有关原子战争的问题。
• Their struggle consists mainly in peasant guerrilla warfare.他们的斗争主要是农民游击战。

24 civilians   

平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓

参考例句：

• the bloody massacre of innocent civilians 对无辜平民的血腥屠杀
• At least 300 civilians are unaccounted for after the bombing raids. 遭轰炸袭击之后，至少有300名平民下落不明。

25 demonstrations   

证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威

参考例句：

• Lectures will be interspersed with practical demonstrations. 讲课中将不时插入实际示范。
• The new military government has banned strikes and demonstrations. 新的军人政府禁止罢工和示威活动。

26 insidious   

adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧

参考例句：

• That insidious man bad-mouthed me to almost everyone else.那个阴险的家伙几乎见人便说我的坏话。
• Organized crime has an insidious influence on all who come into contact with it.所有和集团犯罪有关的人都会不知不觉地受坏影响。

27 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。

28 dedicated   

adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的

参考例句：

• He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
• His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。

29 ideology   

n.意识形态，(政治或社会的)思想意识

参考例句：

• The ideology has great influence in the world.这种思想体系在世界上有很大的影响。
• The ideal is to strike a medium between ideology and inspiration.我的理想是在意识思想和灵感鼓动之间找到一个折衷。