The Soundtrack of the Extreme: Nasheeds and Right-Wing Extremist Music as a “Gateway Drug” into the Radical Scene?

Abstract

Music plays an important role in both the right-wing extremist and the Salafi jihadist scenes as a unifying and radicalizing factor. It is used to share propaganda and highlight specific ideologies. Music is disseminated by various means, e.g. via social media, and used strategically to attract potential new members. The aims of right-wing extremist music and the Salafi jihadist nasheeds are, among other things, to inspire the youth, reach out to a worldwide audience of potential sympathizers, and disseminate their absolutist worldview. To achieve these goals, seemingly objective depictions of negative everyday experiences, of oppression, and the need for resistance are utilized. The songs are usually associated with violent content, and in conjunction with videos, they illustrate the perceived need to defend oneself. In this article, we will take a closer look at the content of four selected extremist songs. Our analysis of the content is based on a triangulation of sequential text analysis methods and identifies the differences and comparable elements of the ideologies in a final step. In addition to the content, the research aims to examine the possible effects of extremist groups’ music.

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“…Song texts offer dichotomized, simple solutions for a (too) complex world (see also "Intolerance of ambiguity"). Music thus serves as a "means of transporting extremist worldviews" (see Mischler & Möller, 2020;Möller & Mischler, 2021). The repeat consumption of strongly ideologized music can lead to an internalization of lyrics (Büchner, 2018) and the narratives transported within them, especially if musicians are revered as role models and/or heroes: "These are role models, […] many of them expressed exactly what I felt" (ID026).…”