Terminating hate: Arnold Schwarzenegger talks extremism at panel
As of Wednesday morning, the “Terminator” has a new enemy: extremism.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former California governor, actor and bodybuilder, paid a visit to USC to discuss combating hate in a more divided world, alongside religious leaders and University professors. The event, held at the Wallis Annenberg Hall Auditorium and titled “Terminating Hate: Breaking the Cycle of Extremism,” was a joint effort by the Sol Price School of Public Policy and the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy.
CNN journalist Dana Bash began by interviewing Schwarzenegger about what inspired him to hold the event.
“I always feel that when you’re a celebrity, you have the responsibility to use your platform, your power of influence in the world … and use it for some good,” Schwarzenegger said. “I’m very much into [giving] back.”
Much of Schwarzenegger’s work has been focused on reaching out to people holding extreme beliefs, and shedding light on the consequences of a life of hate. In March, the “Terminator” actor made headlines for a viral video in which he decried Nazis — including his father, a Nazi soldier who fought in World War II — as “broken” and “losers,” discouraging others from similarly stumbling “into the wrong path.”
Schwarzenegger advised students to keep an open mind at all times, sharing a story about his father-in-law’s trip to the former Soviet Union, during which he found himself fishing with USSR officials.
“Two countries that hated each other. But he found a way through communication to get in there and to make everyone understand the other side,” said Schwarzenegger of his father-in-law.
Bash and Schawarzenegger then delved into partisan gridlock at the state and federal level: Gun control, for example, is a policy point that is widely popular, yet politicians have a “tough time getting it done,” Schwarzenegger said.
“[The] government is not going to fix these problems. We have to,” Schwarzenegger said. “People have to go and get together [to] fix these problems.”
Schwarzenegger pointed out the film industry as an example of the impact people’s voices have, joking that the government could not get everyone into a discotheque like in the 1977 film “Saturday Night Fever.” He then took a more serious tone and encouraged a “multidimensional” approach to tackling hate.
The first of two panels following Schwarzenegger’s talk, “Reaching, not Preaching: Breaking the Extremist Mindset,” was moderated by Associate Senior Vice President Erroll Southers — also a professor of the practice in national and homeland security — and comprised of Myrieme Churchill, the executive director at Parents for Peace, and Chuck Leek, a former neo-Nazi that now helps people find a path out of extremist groups as the head of Life After Hate, an organization that helps de-radicalize violent extremists.
Churchill discussed her culturally diverse household and how she was the target of antisemitism, despite not being Jewish. The seventies, she said, was not welcoming to people of biracial descent.
“At an early age, I found out that racism has no color, and hatred is equal opportunity,” Churchill said. “Being a survivor of violence, I became obsessed with the question: Why do people hurt themselves and others?”
Leek detailed his involvement with a San Diego-based neo-Nazi group and his “steps to disengagement and deradicalization.” At the same time Leek left, in 2000, other former extremists met together and created the organization Life After Hate. Leek ended up working for the organization as an “exit specialist,” rehabilitating those who had previously been in extremist organizations through his own experiences leaving.
“[We’re here to] let them know that, ‘Hey — I’ve been where you are, you can get out of it, you can change your life, and society will accept you again,’” Leek said.
Churchill and Leek discussed the best ways of addressing extremists that were “stuck in denial.” Churchill suggested that people stop politicizing complicated issues, and keep an open mind for everyone, no matter their walk of life.
“We’ve got to stop insulting each other and [start] working together — putting the politics aside and coming together,” Churchill said.
Leek first suggested having adequate funding to address extremist groups, and then suggested finding the humanity in every person. Dehumanizing your enemy, he said, makes it easier to blame individuals for personal problems.
“When I was involved with these things … the person I really hated was me,” Leek said. “I couldn’t cope with that. It took a lot of work to change that.”
The second panel, which dealt with ending antisemitism through storytelling, was moderated by Bash and comprised of Rabbi Sharon Brous, the founding rabbi of IKAR, a Jewish community that launched in 2004 and Jon Turteltaub, a film director.
Brous discussed how harmful antisemitism can be and how the lies propagated by members of Congress and other influential figures can feel comforting for people who feel powerless because it’s a “simple answer to the world’s problems.”
“That’s where things start to get very dangerous — this is the classic European antisemitism that ultimately led to the genocide of [Jewish people] in living memory,” Brous said.
Turteltaub was concerned with how people with antisemitic agendas will have the power to spread their message through at-home streaming and video-sharing services.
“It’s terrible! I don’t know how Hollywood is gonna deal with that,” Turtletop said.
Instead, Turteltaub and Brous suggested the solution to the issue lies in being able to find the humanity in every person through telling new stories that lead people away from shame.
“Shame, fear and isolation, along with financial disadvantage, is what leads people to extremism,” Brous said. “How do we tell a narrative that allows people to move away from shame, which never leads to anything good?”
Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that Schwarzenegger’s father fished with Soviet officials. This was his father-in-law, not his father. The Daily Trojan regrets this error.