Tackling Hate & Violent Extremism – Insights from Eric Ward’s Trip to the Island of Ireland

Ireland has something America has lost - time to prepare. A leading US civil rights expert, Eric Ward, spent two weeks in Northern Ireland and the Republic and saw communities building resistance to authoritarianism and rising hate. Here are his key insights and observations. 

Background

In December 2025, Eric K. Ward, one of America's leading authorities on authoritarianism and civil rights, visited community centres and grassroots organisations across the island and witnessed something he wishes he'd seen in the United States a decade ago: communities recognising the threat of far-right extremism early and taking it seriously.

In just 10 days, travelling from Belfast to Dublin and Derry, Eric met with:  

• black activists and ethnic minority leaders navigating both historical sectarian tensions and contemporary racism;
• women from the Falls Women's Centre building solidarity across different backgrounds;
• young people  in Belfast asking thoughtful questions about US politics and resistance;
• artists demonstrating the power of creativity in supporting communities;
• environmental activists exploring connections between climate justice and anti-racism;
• grassroots leaders from working-class neighbourhoods in Dublin, Belfast and Derry discussing strategies for building resilience;
• ex-combatants committed to transformation;
• policymakers and officials trying to drive change from within and funders thinking through how best to support work that tackles hate; and
• political leaders including Northern Ireland’s first black mayor of Derry/Strabane, embodying the leadership potential of immigrant communities.

His visit was a follow-up to SCI's October 2025 event 'Tackling Hate & Violent Extremism – What Works?' - that looked into emerging practice in Ireland and the UK that tackles hate.  One of Eric's most important insights was a profound reframing: the current moment is not failure but backlash against prior success. We are not in this moment simply because movements failed. We're here because racial justice campaigns, immigrant rights work, and feminist and LGBTQ struggles have delivered reforms that changed local government, opened up institutions and shifted expectations of who counted. Authoritarianism is a reaction to these progressive victories and must be countered to protect decades of gains.

Eric K. Ward speaking at the Tackling Hate & Violent Extremism event 

This matters because it changes strategy: if rising hate and extremism are responses to progress, then abandoning the work that provoked backlash would be exactly the wrong move. Instead, communities need to protect and resource the very gains under attack.

The work that generated backlash often represents exactly what should be doubled down on, with more care, more competence and more protection.

What Eric found on his travels offers both warning and hope. 

The Opportunity: Ireland Has Time to Prepare

Ireland has something the United States lost: time to prepare.

Eric offered a stark observation about the difference between the island of Ireland and the United States.  In America, while informed civil society might have seen the threat of populist authoritarianism, it was either underplayed or dismissed as unlikely to ever materialise. In Northern Ireland and Ireland, communities are currently recognising the threat and taking it seriously.

This is a huge difference.

In practical terms, communities across the island are already building the infrastructure of resistance through networks of trust, practices of solidarity and models of governance. There is a focus on demonstrating that inclusive and responsive democracy can work. Communities are already asking the right questions in the face of growing Far Right impact:

What do we do about it? How do we protect what we've built? How do we move forward together?

Eric saw this preparedness as an opportunity to take control of the narrative and get ahead of threats that have already devastated democracy and progressive civil society elsewhere. The challenge now is to sustain and resource this to mobilise public attitudes in support of rights, democracy and social justice.

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What Resistance Looks Like: Small Acts and Owning Your Story

Resistance doesn't require mass mobilization. It requires practice.

Across every conversation, Eric emphasised a counterintuitive message: in times of crisis, small acts of resistance are more powerful than we think. Rather than waiting for mass mobilisation, resistance is about ordinary, everyday acts – about 'building a muscle'.

How It Works in Portland

In Portland, Oregon, where Eric lives, this takes practical form:

• Residents blow whistles to warn neighbours when immigration enforcement agents operate in the community
• Businesses display small frog keychains as symbols of resistance and offer discounts to those who show them
• The local police chief announced that immigration agents who violate local law will be arrested

The strategy is about multi-layered responses, helping people practice defiance and build the habit of showing up for one another.

What Eric Saw on his visit

Similar creativity is already happening here: immigrant and refugee women forming solidarity networks with local communities, young cultural workers building bridges through music, trade unionists refusing to let sectarian and racist language creep into workplace disputes. These community influencers carry respect and can deliver tangible changes that hold communities together – re-asserting the importance of neighbours being there for one another.

Own Your Own Narrative

If you don't tell your story, someone else will – and they'll tell it in ways that serve their agenda, not yours.

The far right excels at creating simple, emotionally resonant narratives that explain people's struggles and offer clear villains. When communities and movements fail to articulate their own story – why they exist, what they've achieved, what they stand for – they cede that space to distortion and fear.

Eric saw examples of communities proactively owning their narrative: difficult conversations happening in Dublin about the flag being co-opted by the far right, representing a willingness to wrestle with how symbols and identity get weaponised – conversations that "still haven't happened around the American flag" in the United States.

But narrative work isn't just defensive. It's about proactively defining what inclusive democracy looks like, celebrating the visible evidence of multiracial governance, and making sure people understand the connection between improvements in their lives and the movements that fought for them.

Eric meeting with black activists and ethnic minority leaders - from left to right: Rehab Mohamed, Eric Ward, Sipho Sibanda, Ivy Goddard, Esperenca Mendonca and Suleiman Abdulhi.

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Delivery Defeats Strongmen: Why Competence Matters

Competence kills the strongman, but only if people know the story of how the competence came to be.

As authoritarian movements promise to fix what democratic governments have failed to deliver, the antidote isn't simply better messaging about the virtues of democracy. It's whether the buses run on time, the provision of better public services, tangible improvements.

When democratic institutions deliver competent governance and communities tell the story of how that happened – who organised, who showed up, whose leadership made the difference – it becomes much harder for authoritarians to claim only they can fix things. The "only I can fix it" pitch falls flat, and grievance politics lose oxygen if there is daily evidence that multiracial, inclusive governance can work.

Housing: A Critical Pressure Point

Access to housing was highlighted by Eric as a key driver of tension in the island of Ireland and in so many other places. The inability to produce tangible, viable housing solutions creates considerable antagonism.

He offered a nuanced analysis of this tension, recognising that it stems from multiple sources:

• Legitimate frustration with genuine housing scarcity
• Perceptions that may not align with reality
• What he described as "permission" – the way some people use the housing crisis as a socially acceptable outlet to express bigotry they previously might have kept hidden

The solution, he argued, isn't simply about challenging the bigotry but about delivering on the availability of affordable housing. When people experience responsive, inclusive democracy that works, authoritarian promises lose their power.

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What's Working on the Ground

Throughout his visit, Eric encountered powerful examples of work that builds resilience and counters hate.

Falls Women's Centre: Power at the Table
Working-class women from all backgrounds come together in a shared leadership space, with immigrant women describing themselves as leaders "not just of their communities, but for everyone" – standing up "for all women in society." A refugee woman engineer now leads community redesign committees.

Eric, who describes himself as "a punk rocker cynical about most power," said he felt "in awe of the power sitting at the table."

CAJ: Accountability in Action
The Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) creates spaces for accountability that Eric has never witnessed in the United States, bringing the Chief Constable of the police to public accountability sessions where he speaks directly in ways that simply don't happen in America. These aren't just single-issue organisations – they create spaces where unexpected connections happen and where people with influence can access conversations they normally wouldn't.

Hope and Courage Collective: Sharing Solutions
The Hope and Courage Collective in the Republic of Ireland is developing highly effective organising models that are being shared with community workers in Northern Ireland, demonstrating that communities "have answers" for what people across the island are facing.

Difficult Conversations That Haven't Happened Elsewhere
Eric was struck by discussions in Dublin about the co-option of the Irish flag by the far right - uncomfortable conversations about symbols and identity which “still haven’t happened around the American flag".

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New Possibilities and Visible Leadership

When people see new kinds of leaders, they can imagine new kinds of futures.

The Power of Visible Leadership

Eric was particularly struck by his meeting with Lilian Seenoi Barr, a Black refugee woman who is Director of the North-West Migrants' Forum and who recently served as mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council. Her leadership has been a model not just for immigrant communities but for everyone struggling to imagine a future beyond traditional divisions.

According to Eric, Lilian's presence in political leadership has challenged people to reimagine what belonging could mean. This observation is supported by research in the US, which showed that Black mayors in US cities increase racial tolerance across the broader population.

Moreover, he felt this went beyond symbolic significance. Given that the mayor has access to a multiplicity of people, places and conversations, opportunities open up for new connections and dialogue across often disconnected communities.

Eric's visit to the North West Migrant Forum - from left to right: Paul Kiernan, Lilian Seenoi Barr, Jessica Acee and Eric Ward.

New Political Possibilities Beyond Old Conflicts

Eric emphasised the importance of leaders and movements creating alternatives to traditional divisions:

• Public officials from immigrant backgrounds inspiring people across diverse community lines
• Women from different backgrounds leading together on shared issues
• Communities finding common cause beyond sectarian or ethno-national identities

These possibilities offer people a future that isn't defined by division – an anathema to the far right and a threat to extremist narratives that seek to prioritise white supremacy and peddle divisive misinformation..

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Understanding the Threats

What took decades to build can be destroyed in months.

Civil Society Trust: The Most Valuable Asset

Eric felt that the trust built across decades within civil society in addressing community tensions and hate was an especially vulnerable asset.

He shared how funding uncertainties and determined ideologues can quickly destroy what was built over decades. Undermined trust is difficult to rebuild. .

He argued that philanthropy, civil society and government in Ireland (North and South) should work collaboratively to sustain the relationships and networks that hold communities together.

Isolation as a Key Vulnerability

Eric observed that immigrant and refugee communities already feel isolated and unsafe, and that far-right tactics deliberately focus on deepening this isolation by:

• Targeting individual leaders
• Pressuring institutions to distance themselves from those leaders
• Spreading fear through stories from elsewhere

Without broad intervention, isolated communities may concentrate on defensive organising that could then be used against them.  The Far Right has long exploited a zero-sum game approach – a 'win' for this group is an automatic 'loss' for another – fuelling the 'left behind' syndrome.

Instead, we need a strategy based on solidarity and inter-community empathy, whether displayed in hyper-local communities or on a national basis.

The Path Forward

Communities here have tools, relationships and models that work.

Looking Forward

As Eric returned to the United States, he left communities across Northern Ireland and Ireland with both a warning and hope.

The Warning

American resources and strategy may soon target Europe, including Northern Ireland and Ireland. Eric warned that the current US administration has openly discussed using foreign policy tools to support political projects in Europe aligned with Trumpism, including far-right parties and think tanks with resources that could rival the budgets of many countries.

The Hope

Communities here have tools, relationships and models that work. They offer tangible case studies and practices that American civil society could benefit from. Eric reminded communities that they already have individuals and institutions doing effective work. They need to know that the rest of civil society has their backs and that this work will be sustained rather than abandoned when it becomes difficult..

Social Change Initiative is grateful to Eric Ward and to all the community leaders, activists, young people, and changemakers who participated in these conversations. We will continue to share resources and learnings from his trip in the coming months.

Special thanks to:

• Community Foundation Ireland
• Community Foundation for Northern Ireland

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