SEEN ONE "TRUE BELIEVER," SEEN THEM ALL:

"We will chase them away, and we will take back our land and our nation." You might be forgiven for thinking this is a line from a speech by ISIS leader Abu-Mohammad Al-Adnani. Rather, it was said by Alexander Gauland, the leader of the German far-Right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), in his famous 2017 speech after winning sufficient votes to enter the German Parliament for the first time.

Polarizing populist discourses often focus on a narrative about a historic land where people with certain characteristics lived, a land that has changed with the arrival of people who 'do not have the right to it'.

This nostalgia for bygone days is present in both AfD and ISIS discourses. For both, everything is either black or white, everyone either an enemy or a friend, a partner or a foreigner. Such longing for the past resembles the way an adult longs for childhood; it presents a simplified picture of a world far away from complexities - a childhood free from knowing more than one wishes to.

Throughout history, political discourses built around nostalgia have had many proponents, and have often found popular appeal with remarkable speed. This is because they provide simple answers to complex questions.

For example, when talking about high crime rates and the lack of assimilation in immigrant neighborhoods in a European city, it would be easier to blame the immigrants' culture and their insularity than talking about the challenges they face, the racism they suffer, and the discrimination in the labor or housing markets. To refrain from such stereotyping means that one needs to accept the other and communicate with them to find solutions to problems.

Likewise, when the Islamists discuss the reality of Arab countries, their most important arguments revolve around a conspiracy targeting Muslims since the end of the First World War and the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

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