The central tenet of ethnic nationalists is that "nations are defined by a shared heritage, which usually includes a common language, a common faith, and a common ethnic ancestry". Those of other ethnicities may be classified as second-class citizens.
Diaspora-studies scholars broaden the concept of "nation" to diasporic
communities. The terms "ethnonation" and "ethnonationalism" are
sometimes used to describe a conceptual collective of dispersed ethnics. Defining an ethnos widely can lead to ethnic nationalism becoming a form of pan-nationalism or macronationalism, as in cases such as pan-Germanism or pan-Slavism.
In scholarly literature, ethnic nationalism is usually contrasted with civic nationalism, although this distinction has also been criticized.
During the Cold War,
the independence movement initiated in former European colonies in Asia
and Africa reinvigorated research into ethnic, tribal and national
identities and the "political difficulties" stemming from their
interactions with territorial statehood, while the collapse of the Soviet Union
in the 1980s and 1990s and the "resurgence of ethnic and national
claims and conflicts in its aftermath" only further spurred
ethnonationalism scholarship in the late 20th century.
Increased international migration as a function of contemporary
globalization has also given rise to "ethno-national" movements,
including reactionary "nativist" groups focused on exclusionary identity politics.
In the developed world, such trends have often taken on an explicitly
xenophobic and racist character, as seen in the example of "white nationalism" in the United States.
Characteristics
The central political tenet of ethnic nationalism is that ethnic groups are entitled to self-determination.
The outcome of this right to self-determination may vary, from calls
for self-regulated administrative bodies within an already established
society, to an autonomous entity separate from that society, to the institution of ethnic federalism within a multi-ethnic society, to establishing an independent sovereign state removed from that society. In international relations, it also leads to policies and movements for irredentism to claim a common nation based upon ethnicity, or for the establishment of an ethnocratic (mono-ethnocratic or poly-ethnocratic) political structure in which the state
apparatus is controlled by a politically and militarily dominant ethnic
nationalist group or a group of several ethnic nationalist groups from
select ethnicities to further its interests, power and resources.
In scholarly literature, ethnic nationalism is usually contrasted with civic nationalism.
Ethnic nationalism bases membership of the nation on descent or
heredity, often articulated in terms of common blood or kinship, rather
than on political membership. Hence, nation states with strong traditions of ethnic nationalism tend to define nationality or citizenship by jus sanguinis
(the law of blood, descent from a person of that nationality), and
countries with strong traditions of civic nationalism tend to define
nationality or citizenship by jus soli (the law of soil, birth within the nation state). Ethnic nationalism is, therefore, seen as exclusive, while civic nationalism tends to be inclusive.
Rather than allegiance to common civic ideals and cultural traditions,
then, ethnic nationalism tends to emphasise narratives of common
descent.
Some types of ethnic nationalism are firmly rooted in the idea of ethnicity as an inherited characteristic, for example black nationalism or white nationalism, often ethnic nationalism also manifests in the assimilation of minority ethnic groups into the dominant group, for example as with Italianisation. This assimilation may or may not be predicated on a belief in some common ancestry with assimilated groups (for example with Germanisation in the Second World war). An extreme version is racial nationalism.
Recent theories and empirical data suggest that people maintain
dual lay beliefs about nationality, such that it can be both inherited
biologically at birth and acquired culturally in life.
Role in discrimination
In 2018, Tendayi Achiume, a UN Special Rapporteur on racism,
released a UN Human Rights Council report which states that "more than
75% of the world's known stateless populations belong to minority
groups" and highlights the role of ethnonationalism in the international
deprivation of citizenship rights.
In the report, Achiume re-stated that international human rights law
prohibits citizens from discriminating against non-citizens on the basis
of their race, descent, national or ethnic origin and she also stated
that citizenship, nationality, and immigration laws which discriminate
against non-citizens are violations of international law.
She also noted the role of laws restricting marriage rights with
respect to certain national, religious, ethnic or racial groups, which
she said were "often deployed by states to preserve notions of national,
ethnic and racial "purity"."
Achiume called ethnonationalist politics the "most obvious driver of
racial discrimination in citizenship and immigration laws" and driven by
populist leaders defining nations "in terms of assumed blood ties and
ethnicity".
In the 19th and 20th centuries, European colonial powers used
ethnonationalism to justify barring colonial subjects from citizenship,
and in Europe, Jews and Roma were excluded from citizenship on the same grounds.
Today, migrants are a frequent target of ethnonationalist rhetoric
related to "ethnic purity and religious, cultural or linguistic
preservation".
Even countries with proud histories of immigration have fallen prey to
the vilification of "certain racial, religious and national groups" on
prejudicial grounds. Achiume called the case of the Rohingya Muslims
a "chilling example", with the Burma Citizenship Act of 1982
discriminating based on ethnicity and rendering many Rohingya stateless. The violation of the rights of Afro-CaribbeanBritish citizens from the "Windrush generation"
is a pertinent example of similar prejudice in the developed world but
states all over the world use misinformation to portray "certain racial,
national and religious groups as inherent threats to national security"
and justify stripping or denying rights.
In Malaysia, the Bumiputera principle recognises the "special position" of the Malays provided in the Constitution of Malaysia, in particular Article 153. However, the constitution does not use the term bumiputra; it defines only "Malay" and "indigenous peoples" (Article 160(2)), "natives" of Sarawak (161A(6)(a)), and "natives" of Sabah (Article 161A(6) (b)). Some pro-Bumiputra policies exist as affirmative action for bumiputras since the Malaysian New Economic Policy
is based on race, not deprivation. For instance, all Bumiputra,
regardless of their financial standing, are entitled to a 7 percent
discount on houses or property, including luxurious units, but
low-income non-Bumiputra receives no such financial assistance. Other
preferential policies include quotas for admission to government
educational institutions, qualifications for public scholarships,
marking of universities exam papers, special classes prior to
university's end of term exams, positions in government and ownership of
businesses. Most of the policies were established in the 1970s. Many
policies focus on trying to achieve a Bumiputra share of corporate
equity of at least 30% of the total. Ismail Abdul Rahman proposed that target after the government was unable to agree on a suitable policy goal.
United States
Since the 2016 US presidential election, ethnonationalism has been pushed to the fore of the American political consciousness by the identity politics of Donald Trump
surrounding what it means to be a "true" American, which has resulted
in ethnocentric ideals becoming "a robust predictor of vote choice for
Trump" among white Americans.
Data from the 2016 American National Election Studies
(ANES) has revealed a positive association between ethnonationalism and
anti-immigrant attitudes among white Americans, whose opposition to
immigration is "often grounded in fears of the threat that immigration
poses to the robustness of America's national identity" that is shaped
by the belief set concerning the traits of "true" Americans.
Philosopher André Gorz characterized eco-fascism as hypothetical forms of totalitarianism based on an ecological orientation of politics.
Similar definitions have been used by others in older academic
literature in accusations of ecofascism of "environmental fascism".
However, since the 2010s, a number of individuals and groups have
emerged that either self-identify as "ecofascist" or have been labelled
as "ecofascist" by academic or journalistic sources. These individuals and groups synthesise radical far-right politics with environmentalism,
and will typically argue that overpopulation is the primary threat to
the environment and that the only solution is a complete halt to
immigration or, at their most extreme, genocide against non-White groups
and ethnicities. Many far-right political parties have added green politics to their platforms. Through the 2010s ecofascism has seen increasing support.
Definition
In 2005, environmental historian Michael E. Zimmerman
defined "ecofascism" as "a totalitarian government that requires
individuals to sacrifice their interests to the well-being of the
'land', understood as the splendid web of life, or the organic whole of
nature, including peoples and their states". This was supported by philosopher Patrick Hassan’s work analysing historical accusations of ecofascism in academic literature. Zimmerman argued that while no ecofascist government has existed so far, "important aspects of it can be found in German National Socialism, one of whose central slogans was "Blood and Soil".
Other political agendas, instead of environmental protection and
prevention of climate change, are nationalist approaches to climate such
as national economic environmentalism, securitization of climate
change, and ecobordering.
Ecofascists often believe there is a symbiotic relationship between a nation-group and its homeland. They often blame the global south for ecological problems, with their proposed solutions often entailing extreme population control measures based on racial categorisations, and advocating for the accelerated collapse of current society to be replaced by fascist societies. This latter belief is often accompanied with vocal support for terrorist actions.
Vice
has defined ecofascism as an ideology "which blames the demise of the
environment on overpopulation, immigration, and over-industrialization,
problems that followers think could be partly remedied through the mass
murder of refugees in Western countries." Environmentalist author Naomi Klein
has suggested that ecofascists' primary objectives are to close borders
to immigrants and, on the more extreme end, to embrace the idea of
climate change as a divinely-ordained signal to begin a mass purge of
sections of the human race. Ecofascism is "environmentalism through
genocide", opined Klein.
Political researcher Alex Amend defined ecofascist belief as "The
devaluing of human life—particularly of populations seen as inferior—in
order to protect the environment viewed as essential to White identity."
Terrorism researcher Kristy Campion defined ecofascism as "a
reactionary and revolutionary ideology that champions the regeneration
of an imagined community through a return to a romanticised,
ethnopluralist vision of the natural order."
The European Commission describes ecofascism as the "weaponization of climate change by far right populist political parties and white supremacist groups".
Tactics of this weaponization include the use of language and equating
actors in population and migration discourses to components of the
climate crisis. As said in a policy brief for The International Center for Counter-Terrorism, this "linguistic violence"
entails that "the invasion of non-native species that threaten the
environment becomes synonymous with the invasion of immigrants, the
protection of the environment with the protection of borders, trash with
people, and environmental cleansing with ethnic cleaning."
Helen Cawood and Xany Jansen Van Vuuren have criticised previous
attempts to define ecofascism as focusing too heavily on environmental
and ecological conservationism in historical fascist movements, and the
subsequent definitions being too broad and encompassing many
ontologically different ideologies.
In their criticism they summarise the current definition of ecofascism
as used in the academic literature as "a movement that uses
environmental and ecological conservationist talking points to push an
ideology of ethnic or racial separatism".
This is supported by Blair Taylor statement that ecofascism refers to
"groups and ideologies that offer authoritarian, hierarchical, and
racist analyses and solutions to environmental problems". Similarly, extremism researchers Brian Hughes, Dave Jones, and Amarnath Amarasingam state how ecofascism is less a coherent ideology and more a cultural expression of mystical, anti-humanist romanticism. This is further supported by Maria Darwish in her research into the Nordic Resistance Movement
where while there is concern for environmental issues they are "a
concern for Neo-Nazis only in so far as it supports and popularizes the
backstage mission of the NRM", that is the implementation of a fascist
regime,
and Jacob Blumenfeld stating "ecofascism names a specific far-right
ideology that rationalizes white supremacist violence by invoking
imminent ecological collapse and scarce natural resources".
In addition to his conservationist work, Grant was a trenchant racist. In 1906, Grant supported the placement of Ota Benga, a member of the Mbuti people who was kidnapped, removed from his home in the Congo, and put on display in the Bronx Zoo as an exhibit in the Monkey House. In 1916, Grant wrote The Passing of the Great Race, a work of pseudoscientific literature which claimed to give an account of the anthropological history of Europe.
The book divides Europeans into three races; Alpines, Mediterraneans
and Nordics, and it also claims that the first two races are inferior to
the superior Nordic race, which is the only race which is fit to rule
the earth. Adolf Hitler would later describe Grant's book as "his bible" and Grant's "Nordic theory" became the bedrock of Nazi racial theories. Additionally, Grant was a eugenicist: He cofounded and was the director of the American Eugenics Society and he also advocated the culling of the unfit from the human population.
Grant concocted a 100-year plan to perfect the human race, a plan in
which one ethnic group after another would be killed off until racial purity would be obtained. Grant campaigned for the passage of the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and he also campaigned for the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, which drastically reduced the number of immigrants from eastern Europe and Asia who were allowed to enter the United States.
The authors Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier suggest that the synthesis of fascism and environmentalism began with Nazism,
stating that 19th and 20th century Germany was an early center of
ecofascist thought, finding its antecedents in many prominent natural
scientists and environmentalists, including Ernst Moritz Arndt, Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, and Ernst Haeckel. With the works and ideas of such individuals being later established as policies in the Nazi regime. This is supported by other researchers who identify the Völkisch movement as an ideological originator of later ecofascism. In Biehl and Staudenmaier's book Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience,
they note the Nazi Party's interest in ecology, and suggest their
interest was "linked with traditional agrarian romanticism and hostility
to urban civilization". With Zimmerman pointing to the works of conservationist and Nazi Walther Schoenichen as having pertinence to later ecofascism and similarities to developments in deep ecological understanding. During the Nazi rise to power, there was strong support for the Nazis among German environmentalists and conservationists. Richard Walther Darré, a leading Nazi ideologist and Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture who invented the term "Blood and Soil",
developed a concept of the nation having a mystic connection with their
homeland, and as such, the nation was dutybound to take care of the
land. This was supported by other Nazi theorists such as Alfred Rosenberg
who wrote of how society's move from agricultural systems to
industrialised systems broke their connection to nature and contributed
to the death of the Volk. Similar sentiments are found in speeches from Fascist Italy’s Minister of Agriculture Giuseppe Tassinari. Because of this, modern ecofascists cite the Nazi Party as an origin point of ecofascism.Beyond Darré, Rudolf Hess and Fritz Todt are viewed as representatives of environmentalism within the Nazi party. Roger Griffin has also pointed to the glorification of wildlife in Nazi art and ruralism in the novels of the fascist sympathizers Knut Hamsun and Henry Williamson as examples.
Savitri
Devi's avowed Nazism, combined with her advocacy of animal rights and
vegetarianism, has made her a figure of interest to ecofascists.
The French-born Greek fascist Savitri Devi (born Maximiani Julia Portas) was a prominent proponent of Esoteric Nazism and deep ecology. A fanatical supporter of Hitler and the Nazi Party from the 1930s onwards, she also supported animal rights activism and was a vegetarian from a young age. In her works, she espoused ecologist views, such as the Impeachment of Man (1959), in which she espoused her views on animal rights and nature.
In accordance with her ecologist views, human beings do not stand above
the animals; instead, humans are a part of the ecosystem and as a
result, they should respect all forms of life, including animals and the
whole of nature. Because of her dual devotion to Nazism and deep
ecology, she is considered an influential figure in ecofascist circles.
Malthusianism
Malthusian ideas of overpopulation have been adopted by ecofascists, using Malthusian rationale in anti-immigration arguments
and seeking to resolve the perceived global issue by enforcing
population control measures on the global south and racial minorities in
white majority countries. Such Malthusian ideas are often paired with Social Darwinist and eugenicist views.
Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber
Ted Kaczynski AKA "The Unabomber" in a mug shot taken shortly after his arrest in April 1996.
Ted Kaczynski,
better known as "The Unabomber", is cited as a figure who was highly
influential in the development of ecofascist thought, and features
prominently in contemporary ecofascist propaganda.
Between 1978 and 1995 Kaczynski instigated a terrorist bombing campaign
aimed at inciting a revolution against modern industrial society,
in the name of returning humanity to a primitive state he suggested
offered humanity more freedom while protecting the environment. In 1995
Kaczynski offered to end his bombing campaign if The Washington Post or The New York Times would publish his 35,000-word Unabomber manifesto.
Both newspapers agreed to those terms. The manifesto railed not only
against modern industrial society but also against "modern leftists",
whom Kaczynski defined as "mainly socialists, collectivists, 'politically correct' types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like".
Because of Kaczynski's intelligence and because of his ability to write in a high-level academic tone, his manifesto was given serious consideration upon its release
and it became highly influential, even amongst those who severely
disagreed with his use of violence. Kaczynski's staunchly radical
pro-green, anti-left work was quickly absorbed into ecofascist thought.
Kaczynski also criticized right-wing activists who complained
about the erosion of traditional social mores because they supported
technological and economic progress, a view which he opposed. He stated
that technology erodes traditional social mores that conservatives and
right wingers want to protect, and he referred to conservatives as
fools.
Although Kaczynski and his manifesto have been embraced by ecofascists, he rejected "fascism", including specifically "the 'ecofascists'", describing 'ecofascism' itself as 'an aberrant branch of leftism':
The true anti-tech movement rejects every form of racism or ethnocentrism. This has nothing to do with "tolerance," "diversity," "pluralism," "multiculturalism," "equality," or "social justice." The rejection of racism and ethnocentrism is - purely and simply - a cardinal point of strategy.
In his manifesto, Kaczynski wrote that he considered fascism a "kook ideology" and he also wrote that he considered Nazism "evil". Kaczynski never tried to align himself with the far-right at any point before or after his arrest.
In 2017, Netflix released a dramatisation of Kaczynski's life, titled Manhunt: Unabomber.
Once again, the popularity of the show thrust Kaczynski and his
manifesto into the public's mind and it also raised the profile of
ecofascism.
Garrett Hardin, Pentti Linkola, and "Lifeboat Ethics"
Pentti Linkola's advocacy of "Lifeboat Ethics" is cited by commentators as an example of ecofascism.
Two figures influential in ecofascism are Garrett Hardin and Pentti Linkola,both of whom were proponents of what they refer to as "Lifeboat Ethics". Hardin was a professor of Human Ecology at the University of California often described as a white nationalist.
His work was focused on the ethics of overpopulation and population
control and suggested different methods like "birth control, abortion,
and sterilization". Not only did he have medical suggestions but also
stood against immigration and the end of foreign aid.
Linkola was a Finnish ecologist and radical Malthusian accused of being an active ecofascist who actively advocated ending democracy and replacing it with dictatorships that would use totalitarian and even genocidal tactics to end climate change. Both men used versions of the following analogy to illustrate their viewpoint:
What to do, when a ship carrying a
hundred passengers suddenly capsizes and there is only one lifeboat?
When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life will try to load it with
more people and sink the lot. Those who love and respect life will take
the ship's axe and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides.
Renaud Camus
Renaud Camus' conspiracy theory, the Great Replacement, has been influential on ecofascism, being referenced explicitly in multiple manifestos and had its ideas relayed in others. In the conspiracy theory, the "native" white populations of western countries are being replaced by non-white populations as a directed political effort.
Association with violence
Ecofascist violence has occurred since the 21st century,
with academics and researchers warning that as ecological crises worsen
and remain unaddressed, support for ecofascism and violence in the name
of ecofascism will increase.
In December 2020, the Swedish Defence Research Agency released a report on ecofascism. The paper argued that ecofascism is intimately tied to the ideology of accelerationism, and ecofascists nearly exclusively choose terror tactics over the political approach. Further, the SDRA argues not all ecofascist mass shooters have been recognized as such: Pekka-Eric Auvinen
who shot eight people in Finland in 2007 before killing himself adhered
to the ideology according to his manifesto titled "The Natural
Selector's Manifesto".
He advocated "total war against humanity" due to the threat humanity
posed to other species. He wrote that death and killing is not a
tragedy, as it constantly happens in nature between all species. Auvinen
also wrote that the modern society hinders "natural justice" and that
all inferior "subhumans" should be killed and only the elite of humanity
be spared. In one of his YouTube videos Auvinen paid tribute to the
prominent deep ecologist Pentti Linkola.
2010s
James Jay Lee, the eco-terrorist who took several hostages at the Discovery Communications headquarters on 1 September 2010, was described as an ecofascist by Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Anders Breivik committed the 2011 Norway attacks on 22 July 2011, in which he killed eight people by detonating a van bomb at Regjeringskvartalet in Oslo, and then killed 69 participants of a Workers' Youth League (AUF) summer camp, in a mass shooting on the island of Utøya. While dismissive of climate change, Breivik's manifesto was concerned with the carrying capacity of the planet, taking inspiration from Kaczynski and Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race.
Breivik’s solution to this perceived problem was to cap the global
population at 2.5 billion people, with the reduction in the global
population being forced upon the global south. Through his actions he sought to inspire other terrorist attacks, and was an inspiration for later ecofascist terrorists.
William H. Stoetzer, a member of the Atomwaffen Division, an organisation responsible for at least eight murders, was active in the Earth Liberation Front as late as 2008 and joined Atomwaffen in 2016.
Brenton Tarrant, the Australian-born perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand described himself as an ecofascist, ethno-nationalist, and racist in his manifesto The Great Replacement, named after a far-right originating in France. In the manifesto Tarrant specifically mentions Breivik as an ideological and operational influence.
Researchers point to Tarrant's terrorist attack as the moment when
discussion of ecofascism moved from academic and specialist circles into
the mainstream. Jordan Weissmann, writing for Slate, describes the perpetrator's version of ecofascism as "an established, if somewhat obscure, brand of neo-Nazi" and quotes Sarah Manavis of New Statesman
as saying, "[Eco-fascists] believe that living in the original regions a
race is meant to have originated in and shunning multiculturalism is
the only way to save the planet they prioritise above all else". Similarly, Luke Darby clarifies it as: "eco-fascism is not the fringe
hippie movement usually associated with ecoterrorism. It's a belief that
the only way to deal with climate change is through eugenics and the
brutal suppression of migrants."
Patrick Crusius, the perpetrator of the 2019 El Paso shooting wrote a similar manifesto, professing support for Tarrant. Posted to the online message board 8chan, it blames immigration to the United States for environmental destruction, saying that American lifestyles were "destroying the environment", invoking an ecological burden to be borne by future generations, and concluding that the solution was to "decrease the number of people in America using resources". Crusius outlined how he took inspiration from Tarrant and Breivik in his manifesto. Crusius and Tarrant also inspired Philip Manshaus who attacked a mosque in Norway in 2019.
Eco-fascists have been noted as using the Algiz rune and pine tree emojis to identity each other online on social media platforms
2020s
The Swedish self-identified ecofascist Green Brigade is an eco-terrorist group linked to The Base that is responsible for multiple mass murder plots. The Green Brigade has been responsible for arson attacks against targets deemed to be enemies of nature, like an attack on a mink farm that caused multi-million-dollar damages. Two members were arrested by Swedish police, allegedly planning assassinating judges and bombings.
In June 2021, the Telegram-based Terrorgram collective published an online guide with incitements for attacks on infrastructure and violence against minorities,
police, public figures, journalists, and other perceived enemies. In
December 2021, they published a second document containing ideological
sections on accelerationism, white supremacy, and ecofascism.
During 2021, several neo-Nazi groups and individuals who espoused
ecofascist rhetoric were arrested and charged by French authorities for
planning terrorist attacks. These include the group Recolonisons la France, and two "accelerationists" in Occitania.
Payton S. Gendron, the instigator of the 2022 Buffalo shooting,
also wrote a manifesto self-describing as "an ethno-nationalist
eco-fascist national socialist" within it and also professing support
for far-right shooters from Tarrant and Dylann Roof to Breivik and Robert Bowers.
Later in 2022, the Terrorgram collective released another publication,
with analysts believing it would likely inspire further "Buffalo
shootings".
In Finland on 15 March 2024, the anniversary of Christchurch mosque shooting, a Finnish army Non-commissioned officer was arrested for allegedly planning a mass shooting in a university in Vaasa
that day. As her motivation she said the world needed "a mass culling"
to put an end to "selfish individualism", "human degeneration", global
warming and conspicuous consumption.
The Finnish police described her as ecofascist and that she had read
books by Nietzsche, Linkola and Kaczynski. Additionally she had praised
Pekka-Eric Auvinen in internet conversations and had visited Jokela
school where he perpetrated the mass shooting.
On 12 August 2024 at least five people were wounded in a mass stabbing attack in Eskisehir, Turkey. The perpetrator had called for "Total Human Death" and voiced support for Ted Kaczynski and Accelerationism on the Internet.
Criticism
The deep ecologic activist and "left biocentrism" advocate David Orton stated in 2000 that the term is pejorative in nature and it has "social ecology roots, against the deep ecology
movement and its supporters plus, more generally, the environmental
movement. Thus, 'ecofascist' and 'ecofascism', are used not to enlighten
but to smear." Orton argued that "it is a strange term/concept to
really have any conceptual validity" as there has not "yet been a
country that has had an "eco-fascist" government or, to my knowledge, a
political organization which has declared itself publicly as organized
on an ecofascist basis."
Accusations of ecofascism have often been made but are usually strenuously denied. Left wing critiques view ecofascism as an assault on human rights, as in social ecologistMurray Bookchin's use of the term.
Deep ecology is an environmental philosophy that promotes the
inherent worth of all living beings regardless of their instrumental
utility to human needs. It has long been linked to fascist ideologies,
both by critics and fascist proponents. In certain texts, the Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss,
a leading voice of the "deep ecology" movement, opposes
environmentalism and humanism, even proclaiming, in imitation of a
famous phrase of the Marquis de Sade, "Écologistes, encore un effort pour devenir anti-humanistes" ("Ecologists, another effort to become anti-humanists!"). Luc Ferry, in his anti-environmentalist book Le Nouvel Ordre écologique published in 1992, particularly incriminated deep ecology as being an anti-humanist ideology bordering on Nazism. Modern ecofascism has been described as a deep ecological philosophy combined with antihumanism and an accelerationist stance.
There are barely disguised racists, survivalists, macho Daniel Boones,
and outright social reactionaries who use the word ecology to express
their views, just as there are deeply concerned naturalists,
communitarians, social radicals, and feminists who use the word ecology
to express theirs... It was out of this former kind of crude
eco-brutalism that Hitler, in the name of "population control," with a
racial orientation, fashioned theories of blood and soil...
The same eco-brutalism now reappears a half-century later among self-professed deep ecologists who believe that Third World
peoples should be permitted to starve to death and that desperate
Indian immigrants from Latin America should be excluded by the border
cops from the United States lest they burden "our" ecological resources.
Sakai on "natural purity"
Such observations among the left are not exclusive to Bookchin. In his review of Anna Bramwell's biography of Richard Walther Darré, political writer J. Sakai and author of Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat, observes the fascist ideological undertones of natural purity. Prior to the Russian Revolution, the tsaristintelligentsia was divided on the one hand between liberal "utilitarian
naturalists", who were "taken with the idea of creating a paradise on
earth through scientific mastery of nature" and influenced by nihilism as well as Russian zoologists such as Anatoli Petrovich Bogdanov; and, on the other, "cultural-aesthetic" conservationists such as Ivan Parfenevich Borodin, who were influenced in turn by German Romantic and idealist concepts such as Landschaftspflege and Naturdenkmal.
Narrowness of the label
Political
scientist Balša Lubarda has criticised the use of the term "ecofascism"
as not sufficiently covering and describing the wider network of
ideologies and systems that feed into ecofascist action, suggesting the
term "far-right ecologism" (FRE) instead.
Lubarda is supported by researcher Bernhard Forchtner who emphasises
ecofascism's existence as a fringe ideology that has had little impact
on the wider far-right's interaction with environmentalism.
Disavowment
As
ecofascism has become more prevalent various environmental groups and
organisations have publicly disavowed the ideology and those who
subscribe to it.
Far-right green movements
In
recent years there has been a greater proliferation in ecofascist
groups globally in line with the proliferation of ecofascist rhetoric.
Australia
Australia has seen an increasing prominence of ecofascism among its far-right groups in recent years.
Austria
The Greens of Austria (DGÖ) had been founded in 1982 by the former NDP
official Alfred Bayer to use the popularity of the green movement at
the time for the purposes of the NDP. The party managed to win a number
of municipal seats in the mid-1980s but in 1988 the Constitutional Court banned the party on grounds of Neo-Nazism alongside a parallel ban on the NDP.
Finland
The neo-fascist Blue-and-Black Movement
includes ecofascist policy goals, stating that they aim to protect the
nature and biodiversity of Finland, and to live in harmony with nature,
ending ritual slaughter, fur-farming and animal testing.
France
Nouvelle Droite movement
The European Nouvelle Droite movement, developed by Alain de Benoist and other individuals involved with the GRECE think tank, have also combined various left-wing ideas, including green politics, with right-wing ideas such as European ethnonationalism.Various other far-right figures have taken the lead from de Benoist, providing an appeal to nature in their politics, including: Guillaume Faye, Renaud Camus, and Hervé Juvin.
Génération identitaire
In 2020, following articles from self-described ecofascist Piero San Giorgio, a spokesperson for Génération identitaire, Clément Martin, advocated for zones identitaires à défendre, ethnically homogenous zones to be violently defended in order to protect the environment.
Marine Le Pen, president of the far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National, or RN) in the French National Assembly,
has shown an ecofascist approach towards climate change issue and has
incorporated environmental issues into her platform, although her
policies regarding the climate often reflect a nationalist and
protectionist stance to address it. Le Pen has stated that concern for the climate is inherently nationalist, and that immigrants "do not care about the environment". Jordan Bardella, president of National Rally, embraces similar beliefs and has stated "Borders are the environment’s greatest ally; it is through them we will save the planet."
Solutions for climate change proposed for Le Pen also align with right-wing conservative economics. She has disregarded liberal free trade economics, under her belief that it "kills the planet" and creates "suffering for animals". Rather than supporting mass production of international commerce, she designed a localist project for "economic patriotism" to boost French products.
Climate change was not in the RN's party platform until around
2019, when the issue began to be capitalized electorally by both leftist
and center parties alike. In response to this rising awareness
regarding environmental issues, Le Pen designed an energy plan focused
on fossil fuels, opposing wind and solar energy, and emphasizing expanding nuclear power
wherein she delineated a party policy where 70% of France's electricity
was to come from nuclear energy by 2050. Additionally, Le Pen supports
maintaining oil heating systems and reducing taxes on fossil fuels,
which contradicts climate experts' recommendations, and could increase
France's dependence on fossil fuels.
Germany
Staudenmaier
points to how from the post-war period in Germany an ecofascist section
has always been present in the German far-right, though as a minor
peripheral section, with others pointing out a long history of right-wing individuals and
groups being present in the environmental and green movement in Germany.
Die Heimat
Frank Franz, the current leader of the NPD, in 2017.
Die Heimat
(The Homeland), previously known as the National Democratic Party of
Germany (NPD), a German Nationalist far-right party, has long sought to
utilise the green movement. This is one of many strategies the party has used to try to gain supporters.
The German far-right has published the magazine Umwelt & Aktiv [de], that masquerades as a garden and nature publication but intertwines garden tips with extremist political ideology.
This is known as a "camouflage publication" in which the NPD has spread
its mission and ideologies through a discrete source and made its way
into homes they otherwise wouldn’t.
Right-wing environmentalists are settling in the northern regions of
rural Germany and are forming nationalistic and authoritarian
communities which produce honey, fresh produce, baked goods, and other
such farm goods for profit. Their ideology is centered around "blood and
soil" ruralism
in which they humanely raise produce and animals for profit and
sustenance. Through their support of this operation, and the backing of
many others, it’s reported that the NPD is trying to wrestle the green movement, which has been dominated by the left since the 1980s, back from the left through these avenues.
It's difficult to know if when one is buying local produce or
farm fresh eggs from a farmer at their stand, they're supporting a
right-wing agenda. Various efforts are being made to halt or slow the
infiltration of right-wing ecologists into the community of organic
farmers such as brochures about their communities and common practices.
However, as the organic cultivation organisation, Biopark, demonstrates
with their vetting process, it's difficult to keep people out of
communities because of their ideologies. Biopark specifies that they vet
based on cultivation habits, not opinions or doctrines, especially when
they're not explicitly stated.
AfD
Prominent Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) politician, Björn Höcke, has stated his desire to "reclaim" natural conservation from the left.
Höcke believes that nature conservation is not correctly executed under
climate justice politics, and is quoted stating that the AfD has "to
take the issue of nature conservation back from the Greens"
However, Höcke recognizes that a socially conservative position that
strongly values environmental protection is not the majority position of
the AfD. Regardless, Höcke sees the work of far-right ecological
magazine, Die Kehre, as laying a theoretical standpoint for the AfD to later draw from.
The term is also used to a limited extent within the Neue Rechte.
The neo-Artamans have been identified as ecofascists in their attempts to revive the agrarian and völkisch traditions of the Artaman League in communes that they have built up since the 1990s.
Following the fall of Communism in Hungary at the end of the 1980s,
one of the new political parties that emerged in the country was the Green Party of Hungary.
Initially having a moderate centre-right green outlook, after 1993 the
party adopted a radical anti-liberal, anti-communist, anti-Semitic and
pro-fascist stance, paired with the creation of a paramilitary wing. This ideological swing resulted in many members breaking off from the party to form new green parties, first with Green Alternative in 1993 and secondly with Hungarian Social Green Party in 1995. Each green party remained on the political fringe of Hungarian politics and petered out over time. It was not until the formation of LMP – Hungary's Green Party in the 2010s that green politics in Hungary consolidated around a single green party.
The far-right Hungarian political party Our Homeland Movement has adopted some elements of environmentalism, and commonly refers to itself as the only true green party; for example, the party has called on Hungarians to show patriotism by supporting the removal of pollution from the Tisza River while simultaneously placing the blame on the pollution on Romania and Ukraine. Similarly, elements of the far-right Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement proscribe themselves to the "Eco-Nationalist" label, with one member stating "no real nationalist is a climate denialist".
India
Narendra Modi addressing at the inauguration of the India Pavilion, at COP21
Narendra Modi's leadership of India with the Bharatiya Janata Party seeks to install a complete system of Hindutva, with repression of racial and religious minorities and caste discrimination.
Since 2018 Modi has been increasingly viewed as an environmental
champion and used rhetoric about protecting the environment to greenwash his image and the image of his party.
International
Greenline
Front is an international network of ecofascists which originated in
Eastern Europe, with chapters in a variety of countries such as
Argentina, Belarus, Chile, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Spain
and Switzerland.
Serbia
Leviathan Movement
promotes ecology and protects animals from cruelty by, among other
things, saving them from abusers. Leviathan has been reported as an
ideologically neo-fascist and neo-nazi group. They used to share an office with the Serbian Right,
a far-right political party, and Leviathan ’s leader, Pavle Bihali, is
seen in pictures on his social media accounts posing with neo-Nazis.
Protestors against Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time, 2009
There is also a historic tradition between the far-right and environmentalism in the UK.Throughout its history, the far-right British National Party has flirted on and off with environmentalism. During the 1970s the party's first leader John Bean
expressed support for the emerging environmentalist movement in the
pages of the party's newspaper and suggested the primary cause of
pollution as overpopulation, and therefore immigration into Britain must
be halted. During the 2000s the BNP sought to position itself as the "only 'true'
green party in the United Kingdom, dedicating a significant portion of
their manifestos to green issues. During an appearance on BBC One's Question Time in October 2009, then-leader Nick Griffin proclaimed:
Unlike the fake "Greens" who are
merely a front for the far left of the Labour regime, the BNP is the
only party to recognise that overpopulation – whose primary driver is
immigration, as revealed by the government's own figures – is the cause
of the destruction of our environment. Furthermore, the BNP's manifesto
states that a BNP government will make it a priority to stop building on
green land. New housing should wherever possible be built on derelict
"brown land".
The Guardian
criticised Griffin's claims that himself and the BNP were truly
environmentalists at heart, suggesting it was merely a smokescreen for
anti-immigrant rhetoric and pointed to previous statements by Griffin in
which he suggested that climate change was a hoax. These suspicions seemed to be proven correct when in December 2009 the BNP released a 40-page document denying that global warming is a "man-made" phenomenon. The party reiterated this stance in 2011, as well as making claims that wind farms were causing the deaths of "thousands of Scottish pensioners from hypothermia".
John Bean a far-right activist and politician, the first leader of the BNP and latterly a leader within the National Front, wrote regularly in the National Front’s magazine about the problems of pollution and environmental degradation tying them to ideas of overpopulation and immigration.
In 2024 it was reported by Searchlight that the fascist groups Patriotic Alternative and Homeland party has also started to make claims that the countryside was being destroyed by immigration.
In Scotland, former UKIP candidate and activist Alistair McConnachie, who has questioned the Holocaust, founded the Independent Green Voice in 2003, and multiple ex-BNP members and activists have stood as candidates for the party.
During the 1990s a highly militant environmentalist subculture called Hardline emerged from the straight edgehardcore punk
music scene and established itself in a number of cities across the US.
Adherents to the Hardline lifestyle combined the straight edge belief
in no alcohol, no drugs, no tobacco with militant veganism and advocacy
for animal rights. Hardline touted a biocentric worldview that claimed to value all life, and therefore opposed abortion, contraceptives,
and sex for any purpose other than procreation. On this same line,
Hardline opposed homosexuality as "unnatural" and "deviant”. Hardline groups were highly militant; In 1999 Salt Lake City grouped Hardliners as a criminal gang and suggested they were behind dozens of assaults in the metro area.
That same year CBS News reported that Hardliners were behind the
firebombing of fast food outlets and clothing stores selling leather
items, and attributed 30 attacks to Hardliners. The Hardline subculture dissolved after the 1990s.
White supremacist John Tanton and the network of organisations he created, dubbed the Tanton network, have been described as ecofascist. Tanton and his organisations spent decades linking immigration to environmental concerns.
Political researchers Blair Taylor and Eszter Szenes have identified multiple threads in alt-right discourse and ideology that align with far-right ecologism and ecofascism.
The Green Party of the United States has also long been the target of various far-right figures, such as anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, who have tried to shift the party drastically to the far-right.
In 1994, so-called "Takings" bills were introduced by the U.S. Congress to financially compensate wetlands
owners who were unable to develop their land for profit due to
environmental protection policies. These bills were met with resistance
by "anthropocentric market liberals", who oppose any sort of market
regulation or intervention of the state into private ownership. Hence,
these "takings" bills were deemed ecofascist and proponents of the bills
were "disparaged" and viewed as "'nature-loving' romantics for having
reactionary tendencies that may be consistent with fascism". The journal
Social Theory and Practice
uses this instance to exemplify how growing public frustration with
complex federal environmental regulations leads to rapidly polarizing
opinions on environmental regulations in the United States: one is either a citizen who supports people, private property, and the U.S. Constitution, or a radical environmentalist who supports nature, communal ownership, and ecofascism.
Pejorative
Detractors on the political right tend to use the term "ecofascism" as a hyperbolic general pejorative against all environmental activists, including more mainstream groups such as Greenpeace, prominent activists such as Greta Thunberg, and government agencies tasked with protecting environmental resources. Such detractors include Rush Limbaugh and other conservative and wise use movement commentators. The term as a pejorative has been used in multiple countries.
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