AUGUST 20 — Nihilistic Violent Extremism (NVE) is an emerging crime-prevention challenge that requires attention, but also conceptual and legal precision. Nihilism, broadly understood, is the rejection of established moral, social, religious or ideological values and the belief that life, institutions or conventional systems of meaning have little or no inherent purpose or value. In the context of NVE, this can manifest as hostility towards society, fascination with destruction and violence, or a desire to cause harm without a coherent political, religious or ideological objective.
NVE may therefore involve individuals drawn towards violence through personal grievance, misanthropy, misogyny, incel subcultures, fascination with mass killers, the True Crime Community (TCC), gaming-related online spaces and combinations of seemingly contradictory beliefs.
Malaysia should take this phenomenon seriously. But NVE should not be conflated with terrorism. The fact that violence is extreme, shocking or capable of creating widespread fear does not automatically transform it into terrorism. The critical question is not how we can fit NVE into terrorism law, but what crime has been committed, with what intention, and which law properly applies?
Criminal law requires proof of “actus reus”, the prohibited act, and “mens rea”, the required guilty mind. The same discipline must apply to NVE. If an individual influenced by nihilistic or violent online communities kills another person, the starting point is homicide. If the conduct involves attempted killing, assault, threats or weapons offences, those offences should be investigated accordingly.
An offender's fascination with mass killers, misogynistic or incel beliefs, consumption of violent material or participation in disturbing online communities may help us understand motivation and risk. But these factors do not, by themselves, establish the actus reus and mens rea of a terrorist act.
Malaysian law does not provide one overarching definition of terrorism as an ideology or phenomenon. It does, however, prescribe what constitutes a “terrorist act” and criminalises terrorism-related conduct. That legal threshold matters. NVE is not a substitute for proving those statutory elements.
Conflating NVE with terrorism risks over-criminalisation and conceptual inflation. If school violence becomes terrorism simply because it creates fear; misogynistic or incel violence becomes terrorism because it involves extremist beliefs about women; and mass violence becomes terrorism because of its scale, the boundaries of terrorism become almost limitless. Terrorism then risks becoming a residual category for any violent crime that is particularly disturbing, unusual or difficult to explain.
Malaysia does not need such a residual category. Our criminal law already addresses murder, attempted murder, grievous hurt, criminal intimidation and numerous other forms of serious violence. The evidence must determine the offence. The label must never determine the evidence.
The experience of the United States is valuable. Its particular threat environment including mass shootings, school violence, lone actors and perpetrators whose motivations fall outside conventional ideological categories, provides important lessons about NVE.
But Malaysia has a different demographic and socio-cultural structure. We are multiracial and multireligious, with distinctive sensitivities surrounding Race, Religion and Royalty - the 3Rs. Religion and systems of belief remain important components of Malaysian society. Indeed, “Kepercayaan kepada Tuhan” - Belief in God - is the first principle of the Rukun Negara.
This does not mean that nihilistic violence cannot occur here. It means that its manifestations must be understood within our own demographic, cultural, religious and legal environment rather than automatically adopting classifications developed for another threat landscape. The same caution applies to the emerging “ideological salad” or “salad bar” phenomenon. An individual may simultaneously consume fragments of extremist propaganda, misogynistic and incel narratives, TCC material, mass-shooter content and other violent online influences.
Such ideological fluidity is important for crime prevention, but ideological confusion is not terrorist mens rea. In Malaysia and Southeast Asia, we must also examine whether those who progress towards ideologically justified violence continue to gravitate towards more traditional extremist narratives. That may distinguish our regional experience from manifestations of NVE elsewhere.
NVE should therefore be approached primarily through crime and violence prevention, not automatically through counter-terrorism. Early indicators such as violent fixation, threats, mass-killer fascination, escalating misogyny, incel narratives and disturbing online behaviour, should fall within the appropriate police crime-prevention functions, supported where necessary by schools, families, social services and mental-health professionals. This is particularly important for children and young people. Risk is not actus reus. Disturbing beliefs are not automatically criminal mens rea. And neither, without more, establishes terrorism.
Where NVE progresses into actual criminal conduct, responsibility should ordinarily fall within the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Murder should be investigated as murder; attempted murder as attempted murder; assault, threats and other violence according to the offences disclosed by the evidence. Only where an investigation establishes the statutory elements of a terrorist act should the counter-terrorism framework be engaged.
The Malaysian approach can therefore be expressed simply: Prevent the risk. Investigate the crime. Prosecute the conduct. Reserve terrorism laws for terrorism.
NVE is useful because it helps us understand changing pathways towards violence, including misogyny, incel subcultures, TCC, gaming-related environments, mass-shooter fascination and hybrid ideological influences. But a new pathway to violence does not require a new category of terrorism. This distinction is not merely semantic. It preserves proportionality, prevents over-criminalisation and protects the integrity of terrorism law.
Malaysia should take NVE seriously but take it seriously as the phenomenon that it is, rather than forcing it to become something that it is not. Because once every extreme act of violence can be called terrorism, the exceptional legal boundary separating crime from terrorism disappears.
* The author is a Criminologist and Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Universiti Malaya and can be reached at [email protected]
** This is the personal opinion of the writers or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
