An endless game of whack-a-mole? #Accelerationism
According to recent media reports, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has received a recommendation from Australia’s domestic security agency ASIO to formally proscribe UK-based extreme-right group Sonnenkrieg Division (SKD) as a “terrorist organisation”. This recommendation comes hot on the heels of the British government’s proscription of the group and of their offshoot, the System Resistance Network (SRN), on 28 February.Both of these groups formed from the ashes of extreme right group National Action (NA), which the British government banned in 2016. Yet proscription did not prevent their subsequent formation, nor did it prevent the extremist activity that led to SKD members being convicted in 2019 for planning a terrorist attack against members of the royal family.The dissemination of extreme-right ideologies through digital platforms prevails in spite of legislative action. Groups continue to hook members in through the spread of digital propaganda, often across national boundaries. So this calls into question the efficacy of proscription as a “whack-a-mole” remedy against the growing threat of extreme-right groups.Extremist groups globally have demonstrated the ability to disband and reform in reaction to government proscription and attempts by tech companies to prevent proliferation of their ideologies by removing them from their platforms. In the UK, proscribed National Action reformed as Sonnenkrieg Division, while in the US an affiliated group, AtomWaffen Division(AWD), disbanded after the arrests of prominent members and rebranded as the National Socialist Order (NSO) in mid 2020.
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