Use of coded and ambiguous language, hidden messages and multiple layers of meaning are common features of far and extreme right politics, past and present. The reason for this is clear: it allows one message to be conveyed to a particular audience, while a wider audience hears something different.
Presenting controversial ideas in veiled ways to avoid alienating people can be found in many forms of politics. Yet in the far and extreme right space, these types of communication strategies are particularly important. They enable the articulation of taboo, often racist, messages with a degree of plausible deniability while engaging with a wider public forum.
Dog whistles may be terms that seem innocent yet draw attention to a specific idea in a far-right context. They can even be symbols that can have multiple meanings, such as flags. Some take the form of code numbers, such as 88. The 8 stands for the eighth letter of the alphabet, so 88 means HH, or Heil Hitler. Dog whistles often have an emotive dimension as well.
To give a few historical examples, after the Second World War, fascists in Britain attempted to recalibrate their politics by using antisemitic dog whistles. In the 1950s, Oswald Mosley often felt unable to be overtly antisemitic, so he used terms like ‘international financiers’ to express the same idea of the nation being threatened by a supposed global Jewish conspiracy that he talked about before 1945. In this context, ‘international financiers’ could seem unobjectionable, but for his followers this meant something more specific and hateful.
In 1950s and 1960s Britain, openly neo-Nazi figures such as Colin Jordan were able to use bigoted language as part of their political messaging. With the passing of legislation such as the 1965 Race Relations Act, expressing such overtly racist language became more difficult. Subsequent equality legislation and changing cultural attitudes have further pushed overt racism outside of the mainstream. However, problematically, recent online trends have created less regulated spaces where overt and extreme racism is once again being normalised.
Dog whistles are not just used by figures on the fringes to express racist themes in attempts to attain credibility. Historically, they have become part of high-profile politics, too. Notably, in the 1970s and 1980s, Ronald Reagan deployed terms such as ‘strapping young bucks’ to evoke the idea of black men abusing the welfare system while avoiding overtly racist language, part of an implicit racial agenda in his political communication.
More recently in Britain and elsewhere, as overtly racist and bigoted language has become unacceptable, the far and extreme right has typically focused on qualities other than race to demonise people it seeks to exclude. Dog whistle terms such as ‘bogus asylum seekers’ or simply ‘illegals’ allow far and extreme-right activists to talk about groups as ‘other’ and ‘threatening’ without using blatantly racist terms. Such terms often feature in fearful discussions of a white nation under threat from racialised others, highlighting the emotive aspects of such language.
More well-known British politicians have also used a range of dog whistles, taken from the far right’s own emotive language, to discuss issues around migration. Mainstream politicians are also increasingly expressing white nationalist themes directly, as well as via dog whistles.
Finally, dog whistles can take the form of widely used symbols to develop more specific and aggressive messages.
Flags are again both emotive and deeply political. They have layers of meaning and are often used to evoke a sense of pride and community. Therefore, they can also be highly divisive. In the 1970s, for example, the Union Jack flag became a central symbol for far-right street marches by groups such as the National Front. More recently, the St George’s Cross became central to the anti-Muslim street politics developed by networks such as the English Defence League.
While national flags are used for a wide range of purposes and inclusive celebratory events – for example, at many national sporting events – such extreme associations are not forgotten, especially by the communities that such groups target. Like other dog whistles, flags mean different things to different audiences and can play with emotion in powerful ways.
To help decode the use of dog whistle messages, it is therefore important to ask questions not only about the general meaning of a term or symbol but also to interrogate the context of its use to help decipher layers of meaning. It is also crucial to think about the different emotive qualities words or symbols may have for different people, and to consider carefully the perceptions of audiences who feel targeted.
