LECTURE

The rise of right-wing extremism

MON 14 OCT, 20:00

Nikki Sterkenburg
former investigative journalist and researcher on the extreme right

Whereas previously, you had to search for extreme right-wing ideas in a dark corner of the internet, nowadays the rhetoric seems to be everywhere. Whether it concerns replacement theories in the Dutch Lower House, remarks in Facebook comments under news items, or projections on the Erasmus Bridge, the extreme right-wing message seeps into our lives every day. According to former research journalist and extremism researcher Nikki Sterkenburg, this development has not appeared out of thin air. From 2015, she spent many years with extreme right-wing activists and saw how the Dutch extreme right-wing movement succeeded in normalising its xenophobia and intolerant message and in creating indifference. In this lecture, she will discuss issues like how it is possible that such a fertile breeding ground could exist, at what point opinions become problematic and which challenges are involved in combatting non-violent extremism. She is currently working as the deputy head of National Security Analysis with the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV), but she is giving this lecture in a personal capacity.