På innsiden av ekstremismen

What leads people to embrace extreme ideas? Former far-right extremist Evan McLaren and author Anne Bitsch join journalist Lara Rashid for a conversation.

The evening’s guests have explored extremist circles from very different perspectives. This autumn, award-winning researcher and author Anne Bitsch publishes her third book about extremism, Dans til dere dør. In the book, she examines Arfan Bhatti and the terrorist attack during Pride in Oslo in 2022. Can we understand how violence and terrorism can come to be seen as necessary and justified?

Evan McLaren has witnessed these processes from the inside. As a leader at the American think tank National Policy Institute, he helped develop and spread messages for the so-called “alt-right movement”. In his recent debut book, ‘Radikalisert’, he speaks openly about his past as a leading figure on the American far right, the movement he was part of, and his way out. What draws people into these circles? How does their understanding of reality change, and what does it take to make the long leap away from former beliefs?

Surprisingly many mechanisms recur across different forms of extremism: strong images of enemies, conspiracy thinking, the feeling of possessing a hidden truth, and the belief that violence can be justified in the name of a greater cause. Bitsch and McLaren explore similarities between different extremist ideologies and circles, from Islamic extremism to the American far right, and discuss how an open, democratic society can respond to such ideas.

The conversation is moderated by journalist Lara Rashid, who has written about the personal consequences of the 22 July terrorist attack on Utøya and explored the subject in a documentary for NRK.