Trends of Radicalisation

Finland/3.2 Research Report July 2021

Abstract

The aim of this report is to detect and review general trends of violent radicalisation through an inductive analysis of hotspots that epitomise them. The analysis identifies, contextualises and then quantifies distinct occurrences of physical or emotional violence that are characteristic of and central to the trends. The report does not aim to deliver a theoretical overview of all socio-economic or geopolitical shifts that shape the contemporary manifestations of violent radicalisation, nor does it attempt to produce an exhaustive catalogue of these manifestations. The main objective is instead to scrutinise specific, pivotal moments – hotspots of radicalisation – that represent a culmination of general radicalisation trends and provide meaningful insights into their rise and expansion. We have chosen three hotspots of radicalisation to present and analyse in this report.

The first hotspot is a school shooting in 2007 in Jokela that is one of the most researched cases of violent extremism in Finland. The perpetrator, who was a student at the school where he staged the attacked, killed nine people including himself and injured 12 others. The shooting was interpreted as an individual tragedy caused by the shooter’s personal problems and exclusion, even though the shooter himself stressed he was committing a terrorist attack and wished to start a revolution. The attack inspired similar attacks and threats at other schools. The offender acted alone but was connected to national and global online communities of people deeply interested in school shootings.

The second hotspot is an assault in 2016 committed by a neo-Nazi; a member of the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM). The NRM was holding a demonstration in the centre of Helsinki when one of its activists kicked a passer-by in the chest, after the passer-by had reportedly said something negative about the NRM and spat towards them. The victim later died in the hospital. The case received extensive media attention and led to a legal process which resulted in the NRM being banned in 2020.

The third hotspot is a stabbing in 2017 in Turku. The perpetrator was a young Moroccan man who had applied for asylum in Finland and received a negative decision. Two people were killed and nine were injured, including the perpetrator. He claimed to be fighting for ISIL, which ISIL never confirmed. So far this is the only case for which someone has been convicted of terrorism in Finland in the 21st century.

In preparing this report, we conducted desk research using methods and data based on existing research, policy documents produced by investigation commissions and material from media sources. Furthermore, we found useful our interview with an anonymous expert in the field of (de-)radicalisation as background information conducted for Work Package 4 in the same project. We coded the motives behind the hotspots and analysed them with a quantitative I-GAP tool which contains questions about four components: injustice, grievance, alienation and polarisation. The motives were identified from the point of view of the perpetrator in each hotspot, based on information such as their manifestos, interviews and secondary sources, thus complementing existing research based on a more contextual analysis.

The three hotspots analysed in this report represent wider violent phenomena in Finnish society. Jokela has been idolised by both Finnish and international school shooters since the attack; the NRM assault is connected to a wider culture of violence in the organisation and the extra-parliamentary far right; and the Turku stabbing is the only crime with a conviction for terrorism. Although the Turku stabber and the Jokela school shooter can be interpreted as lone actors in the sense that they did not have a clear background organisation, even they did not act completely on their own. The perpetrators analysed here were young men, and violent masculinity and misogyny played a central part in their ideology or motivation.

Analysing these hotspots shows how the interpretation of the violence is a political and value laden choice, although not necessarily always a conscious one. What is labelled political violence or terrorism varies. Despite the Jokela perpetrator claiming that his actions were political terrorism, the shooting was largely discussed in the frame of bullying and mental health problems. In comparison, the later Turku and NRM cases were more readily interpreted as political violence and to many people were a wakeup call to the existence of political violence in Finland.