Domestic Terrorism Strikes Again

Memorial to Heather Heyer in 4th Street, Charlottesville / Photo: Marguerite Gallorini

It was a rocky start on Saturday in Charlottesville, following violent clashes between White Supremacists and counter -protestors in the morning. After the alt-right protestors were asked to leave the city center to go to McIntire Park, only a small peaceful crowd of Leftist counter-protestors were left marching downtown in the early afternoon.

At around 2 p.m., a car flew into the pedestrian downtown area – through a street where cars usually drive at 5 miles per hour – and plowed into the crowd, killing 32-year old Heather Heyer and wounding 19 others. Had it not hit the two other cars that were at the bottom of the street, it would have continued on its hit-and-run trajectory and certainly killed even more people. Later that day, two State Police officers also lost their lives in a helicopter crash, while they were patrolling the rally.

The State of Virginia has declared a state of emergency following these events. And as a Frenchwoman, the resemblance in the method is strong with the attacks in Nice on Bastille Day last year. So is the resemblance with setting up a state of emergency, as had happened in Paris following the Bataclan attacks on November 13, 2015. I was living in Paris at the time, and now human stupidity has followed me to Charlottesville, VA, of all places.

How does it always require such a level of violence before realizing that something is going wrong? Whether it is Isis or White Supremacist groups, the ideology and process are basically the same: take advantage of a social vacuum, indoctrinate young minds that have not yet fully developed, instill a feeling of fear of losing one’s culture and traditions, and focus it all on a common enemy. There you have it: the perfect recipe for drama. And both in France and here, it is not really as if there weren’t any signs of things possibly going wrong prior to them happening.

Another striking similarity came to my mind: Greece’s Golden Dawn extremist party. Golden Dawn was growing more and more in legitimacy and power several years ago. It won seats in Parliament, their rhetoric was spreading more and more – taking advantage of the deep economic crisis, coupled with the burden of the refugee crisis of which Greece was the first and main filter. And so their Schutzstaffel-style militias grew stronger, very similar to the crowd observed in Charlottesville this weekend: dressed all in black or in military attire, holding rifles, baseball bats, and pepper spray, brandishing Nazi flags, and yelling slurs or giving the finger to “enemies.”

It took the murder of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas in September 2013 by an alleged supporter of the party for the Greek government to wake up and take action. Only then were party leader Michaloliakos and several other Golden Dawn members arrested on suspicion of forming a criminal organization. The trial, which began in April 2015, is still ongoing as of now.

For this weekend, the city of Charlottesville had granted a permit for the alt-right to demonstrate in Emancipation Park – they could not refuse the right to free speech. And so they came, gathering on Friday night – beyond their permit – on the UVa campus with torches, KKK-style, chanting racist slogans. Like dogs peeing all over the neighbor’s lawn to mark their territory.

Now, someone has paid with their life because of a lunatic terrorist who was engrossed beyond reason in his own parallel reality fueled by a hateful ideology. It is time for the government to crack down on the most dangerous individuals in our society, and stop pretending this is only “fringe.” It might once have been, but it is not anymore.

This article was written for this blog only.