Radical Hate Speech: The Fascination with Hitler and Fascism on the Slovenian Webosphere

• Published in: Šolsko polje Vol. 29; no. 5/6; pp. 133 - 170
• Main Author: Vezjak, Boris
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ljubljana Slovensko Drustvo Raziskovalcev Solskega Polja 01.09.2018
• Subjects: Anti Intellectualism; Ashkenazi Jews; Authoritarianism; Beliefs; Discourse; Discrimination; Fascism; Genocide; Hate speech; Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945); Holocaust; Jewish people; Jews; Killing; Leaders; Mass Media; Minority Groups; Nationalism; Nazism; Negative Attitudes; Portraiture; Prejudice; Racism; Radicalism; Refugees; Satire; Scrutiny; Slavic Languages; Social development; Social Differences; Social networks; Social Problems; Speech; Starvation; Stereotypes; Torture; Xenophobia; Slovenia
• ISSN: 1581-6036; 1581-6044

This paper examines cases of radical hate speech posted on Slovenian social networks during the development of the refugee crisis in Europe and Slovenia beginning in 2015, The onset of this radical behaviour is subject to particular scrutiny - the manner and the causes underpinning the transition of a discourse of hatred, racism, xenophobia and intolerance to one of open approval of Hitler, fascism, Nazism, the Third Reich; and the fascination with the horrendous events of the holocaust, genocide, extermination, systematic starvation, torture, mass killing or gasification as methods that should be used against the refugees, in a manner not unlike that against the European Jews, arguing that Hitler reawaken might solve the problem of the refugees coming to Europe and Slovenia in the first place. Strangely, this discourse is not championed by extreme, far right groups, such as neo-Nazis, skinheads, or nationalists. On the contrary, it is the ordinary social networks users that have, in their fascination with the Nazi leader and the final solution method (die Endlösung), replaced the stereotype of the Jew with the Refugee. The rise of hate speech in a part of the population is evidence of the fact that fear, the feeling of threat and the encouragement of hatred have, at least in social networks, occasionally morphed to the norm; in Facebook users this is termed casual epistemic fascism, representing a system of beliefs that undoubtedly indirectly sympathises with the holocaust, genocide and the mass killings - in the present case based on anti-Muslim prejudice against the refugees.