No, I don‘t have scientific studies to back up my thesis. There most research towards right-wing or left-wing extremism focuses on the reasons or „reasons“ people have for radicalizing and how to prevent it from happening. Also extremists tend to be skeptical towards any person, that tries to understand their networks.
Thats why most knowledge we have about extremist structures and mentalities comes from people, that aren‘t extremists anymore. In Germany we have around 33 people per year, that call the exit program for left wing extremism, 8 of whom people that actually want help. There aren‘t statistics for people, that aren‘t far-right extremists anymore, but the private Organization Exit counted alone in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen 145 cases of people, that want to leave the far-right in 2015. Therefore we have a very limited pool of people, that want to give scientists information about internal structures and the interrelationship of violence.
Its just what I have experienced so far. Obviously there are some neonazis, that continue their „activism“, but most of them stop at some point or at least become less active, because they know that their car could go up in flames, if they attack a refugee.
There however are some people, that left the far right, that say that they were scared of attacks from political opponents and that this fear influenced their behavior and made them paranoid, because they didn‘t know, if there were people observing them, who those people were and how many antifascists potentially observed them.
If you are a far right extremist and hear stories about a group called „Antifa“, that sets shit on fire and attacks far right extremists its going to scare you. And if someone then publishes the job, the address and name of you or one of your fellow local neonazis and puts an Antifa-Symbol on the flyer, you are going to afraid. They can act as tough, as they want: The thought, that 20 masked people you know nothing about could hunt you down and beat you up in an dark alley, when you come back from home is fucking terrifying. It doesn‘t matter, if this danger is real. It only matters, weather they thinks its real.
Everything that happened is: there was one violent attack on a neonazi, there is a lot of news coverage, some guy collects informations about his local neonazis and prints some flyers. Thats enough to intimidate them for months and prevents attacks. You attack one far right extremist to prevent hundreds of attacks against innocent people.
They won‘t feel safe at their home, when their address is doxxed by some mysterious group they know nothing about and will probably have to move. They are going to have neither the money, nor he time to do more nazi shit after an „outing“ (thats what german antifascists call the doxxing of a neonazi).
They will probably lose their job after an outing. Their neighbors will mostly distance themself from them. They will have to move, if they want to feel safe. They will be kicked out of any association, party or organization (that isn‘t a neonazi group, obviously). Friends will distance themself from them. An outing is an incredible powerful and potentially destructive tool. This way we isolate neonazis from the rest of society and force them into their own echo chambers. This way we ensure, that actions hit neonazis instead of democratic right wingers, that by coincidence in the same association as the neonazis.
Then we apply pressure on individuals of said group until they can‘t stand it any longer and either move to a different town or lay down their political activities. This way we can regularly force their leaders and important figures of neonazi-subculture into an „apolitical“ life and therefore destabilize the far right.
Obviously its also important, that neonazis get an opportunity to reintegrate into society, if they lay down their ideology, but thats not my job. My job is to make them hate their life so much, that they develop the will to take the helping hand exit programs offer them.
It definitely is a kind of mob justice, but mob justice is the only thing you can do, if the state isn‘t doing its job of protecting people.
Tldr: neonazis are just going to stop harassing people, if there are consequences. If the state doesn‘t enforce these consequences citizens are either going to enforce consequences or get terrorized by the neonazis. Attacks are a great way of intimidating neonazis into leaving people life their lifes. If they are busy fighting you they don’t have time to attack more vulnerable groups.
Edit: shortest left leaning comment
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