World
Former neo-Nazi reveals how she was indoctrinated to ‘fear’ Jews
Canadian Lauren Manning tells Jewish-Muslim interfaith group about her first encounters with a hateful ideology
October 14, 2020 13:27
Canadian Lauren Manning tells Jewish-Muslim interfaith group about her first encounters with a hateful ideology
October 14, 2020 13:27A former Neo-Nazi who now helps others leave extremism behind has warned the coronavirus pandemic has inflamed hate in society.
Lauren Manning, 30, from Canada, was recruited online at 17 and became involved with a group loosely tied to Blood and Honour and another network called Vinland Hammerskins.
Ms Manning, who now works for the anti-extremist non-profit Life After Hate, joined a video call with more than 100 members of Nisa-Nashim, a women’s interfaith network.
Nisa-Nashim was co-founded by Mitzvah Day chair Laura Marks and aims to foster closer ties between Jewish and Muslim communities in the UK and raise awareness of hate.
When asked whether the Covid-19 crisis would “encourage division and more hatred on the right”, Ms Manning replied that it already had.
“I understand that people have legitimate anxieties because of this pandemic. However it is when they are connecting their anxieties to this ideology that it becomes an issue.
“Let’s face it, with every conspiracy theory there is absolutely no self-responsibility that comes with it. It’s always someone else’s fault,” she told the call.
In the UK, the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences jumped by more than 30 per cent in June, compared with last year, according to official data released on Tuesday.
Organisers praised Ms Manning, with Ms Marks commending “her incredible bravery and work in educating and raising awareness around the dangers of far right extremism."
“Meeting this incredible woman who embraced violence and then found a way out touches us in a totally different way,” she said.
Hifsa Haroon-Iqbal, Nisa-Nashim’s chair of trustees, said: “Muslim and Jewish women are all too familiar with the rising levels of anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish sentiment.
“Lauren spoke very powerfully and honestly about her vulnerabilities but given the right help and support she was able to leave this life behind.”
Ms Manning began binge drinking at 16 following the loss of her father who died after a long battle with cancer. “After that my whole world had basically shattered.”
Her grandfather, she said, sometimes made derogatory comments about her appearance and academic performance and deployed “homophobic and racial slurs”, which she “internalised.”
She was 17 when she received a message from a stranger on a heavy metal chat forum. “My gut feeling initially told me not to respond. However, a teenage curiosity got the best of me.
“It started off as casual conversation, then it would slowly lead into this fear-based rhetoric,” she recalled.
The first conspiracy theory that she encountered, she said, “alleged Jewish control over the media and society.”
Ms Manning, who had then never met members of the Jewish community, said “it became like this fear of the unknown for myself.”
“When you are in these groups, you’re taught to resolve conflicts with violence,” she said, adding that she was “near beaten to death” by fellow group members after she threatened to leave.
She began pulling out of the movement in 2012 after the death of a close friend and fellow member, and the process took a couple of years. She said she had spent five years associated with the far right.
Ms Manning, who had a liver cirrhosis at 22, has been sober for eight years and is well. She now lives outside Toronto.
“I have all these chances now to live however I please, and the best thing for me is that I no longer have this restrictive set of ideas standing in my way.”
Her memoir, ‘Keep the Door Open: One Family’s Journey into White Supremacy’, is set to be released later this year.