This is Not Us – and Yet it is Us: Why Gendered Analysis of Terrorism is Sorely Needed

Today, the ease of access to the internet and the rise of social media has enabled the spread of these ideologies to new recruits on the web, in chatrooms, on Facebook and Twitter. Globalization has lowered the cost of international travel as well as allowed new online and offline alliances to be forged among right-wing, white nationalist groups in far corners of the world – including Norway and NZ. If we dig deep and across the poles of our planet as medieval Cumbrians did in Vincent Ward’s 1988 acclaimed film, The Navigator, we will see that we are connected in more ways than one. We face a frightening world of proliferating nuclear weapons and rising sea levels threatening island nations and where a few alienated, angry people, usually young men, threaten us all. In the New Zealand case the arrested gunman has clearly been influenced by his Norwegian kindred spirit who rendered the 2011 tragedy. New Zealand’s Prime Minister (PM), Jacinda Ardern has refused to say the name of the gunman to stem his notoriety and prevent future copycat attacks – and to focus on the victims, their loss to their grieving families and to the nation.