Mohammed Saleem was murdered by a terrorist, and yet you’ve probably never even heard of him. It was April 2013, and the 82-year-old was walking home from evening prayers at a mosque in Small Heath, Birmingham. A Ukrainian neo-Nazi terrorist – who had bombed three mosques – stabbed him three times from behind. “He was a very beautiful, educated man who empowered all of his five daughters – and his sons as well – to pursue education, and loved and appreciated everything Britain gave him,” says Maz Saleem, his daughter. “I’ve spent six years tirelessly campaigning for him to be recognised in a mainstream platform.”

Timeline A history of recent attacks linked to white nationalism Show Utøya island and in Oslo, Norway 77 killed in a bomb attack, followed by a shooting targeting the island summer youth camp of Norway’s Labor party. The shooter wanted to prevent an 'invasion of Muslims' and deliberately targeted politically active young people who he saw as 'cultural Marxists'. More than half of the dead were teenagers.

Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, US Six worshippers including the temple president are killed. The shooter, a ''frustrated neo-Nazi' who had played in white power bands, was a regular on racist websites. He had previously talked to one colleague in the US military about a 'racial holy war that was coming'. Piraeus, Greece Rapper and anti-fascist activist Pavlos Fyssas was stabbed to death. A senior member of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party was imprisoned after confessing to the killing. Overland Park, Kansas, US A former Ku Klux Klan leader shot and killed three people at a Jewish centre and retirement home, one of them just 14 years old. He said he believed Jews were destroying the white race, and that diversity was a kind of genocide. Charleston, South Carolina, US Nine people killed during Bible study at a historic black church. The victims included elderly longtime church members at the Mother Emanuel AME church, and Clementa Pinckney, a state senator. The shooter, a self-avowed white supremacist, said he wanted to start a race war.

Trollhättan, Sweden An attacker stabbed students and teachers at a high school, targeting those with darker skin, police said. Three died, including 15-year-old Ahmed Hassan, who was born in Somalia and had recently moved to Sweden. Birstall, West Yorkshire, UK Labour MP Jo Cox shot and stabbed to death a week before the EU referendum vote in 2016. The man convicted of killing her, a white supremacist obsessed with the Nazis and apartheid-era South Africa, shouted: 'This is for Britain,' 'Keep Britain independent' and 'Britain first' as he killed her. Quebec City, Canada Six people killed and nineteen injured during evening prayers at a mosque in a shooting which the gunman said was prompted by Justin Trudeau’s tweet that refugees were welcome in Canada, and that 'diversity is strength'. New York, US Timothy Caughman stalked and killed by a white supremacist with a sword. His killer, an American military veteran, said he targeted a random black man on the street in New York City as a 'practice run' for a bigger attack, and as part of a campaign to persuade white women not to enter into interracial relationships. Portland, Oregon Two men were killed and one injured after they tried to intervene to protect young women on a public train who were being targeted with an anti-Muslim tirade. Their alleged killer shouted 'Free speech or die' in the courtroom, and 'Death to Antifa!' Finsbury Park, London, UK One killed and 12 people injured after a van ploughed into worshippers outside a mosque. The killer shouted 'I want to kill all Muslims – I did my bit' after the van attack. A judge concluded he had avidly consumed anti-Muslim propaganda from prominent rightwing figures. Charlottesville, Virginia, US Heather Heyer killed and dozens injured after a car ploughed into anti-Nazi protesters. The killer had been obsessed with Hitler as a teenager, according to a former teacher. Kentucky, US Man attempted to enter black church before allegedly killing two black people in a supermarket. A witness said that during the attack, the alleged shooter said: 'Whites don’t kill whites.' Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US 11 killed in a mass shooting targeting the Tree of Life synagogue. The alleged shooter had an active profile on an extremist social media site, where he accused Jewish people of trying to bring 'evil' Muslims into the US, and wrote that a refugee aid organisation 'likes to bring invaders in that kill our people'. Christchurch, New Zealand 51 people were killed and 49 injured in two consecutive attacks on mosques during Friday prayers. The gunman live-streamed the first attack on Facebook Live. They opened the live stream by urging viewers to 'subscribe to PewDiePie', a meme used by the online alt-right and white supremacists. Poway, California One person killed in mass shooting targeting a synagogue in Poway, California, US. The alleged shooter, 19, from California, opened fire in a synagogue during Passover services, killing a 60-year-old woman and injuring three others. An“open letter” posted on the 8chan extremist message board before the attack included white nationalist conspiracy rhetoric and said the shooter was inspired by the New Zealand mosque attacks. Walmart shooting, El Paso, Texas 21 people killed after a shooter opened fire at a busy Walmart store packed with families shopping. Two dozen more were injured. The 21-year-old white male suspect had driven nine hours to reach his target. and had posted a "manifesto" on 8chan. Lois Beckett and Martin Belam

Three weeks later, the murder of Lee Rigby by Islamist fundamentalists sparked national outrage and an emergency Cobra meeting: not so for Saleem. “It was brushed under the mat,” Maz tells me. Or what of Mushin Ahmed, an 81-year-old grandfather who was killed by two British racists in August 2015 as he walked to pray at a Rotherham mosque? As one of his assailants screamed that he was a “groomer”, he was kicked with such force that his dentures shattered and the imprint of a trainer was left in his face. Or what of a 32-year-old black man in east London who, in June 2018, had to crawl on his knees to the A12 to escape a racist attack: he’d been stabbed five times.

I was on the receiving end of an attack in the early hours of last Saturday: my friends were punched defending me and I suffered very minor injuries. But as a white man with a media platform, what happened to me garnered far more interest than the racist murders or serious hate crimes that have far worse consequences than bumped heads and bruises. The far right is emboldened, legitimised and ever more violent, and hate crimes are surging. When we discuss Islamist fundamentalist terrorists, we ask: who are the hate preachers radicalising them in mosques or the internet? We have yet to engage seriously in a similar debate about far-right terrorism for a simple reason: the hate preachers are mainstream politicians, commentators and media outlets.

‘The Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered by a white far-right terrorist who gave his name in court as “death to traitors, freedom for Britain”.’ Photograph: ddp USA/REX/Shutterstock

Consider the scale of the threat. The far right has always had two principal enemies – minorities and the political left – and nothing has changed. Eight years ago, the Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Breivik slaughtered dozens of predominantly young socialists on the island of Utøya. His reason? The left’s anti-racism meant they were the driving force behind what he described as the “Islamisation” and therefore destruction of Christian Europe. This was a particularly violent expression of a persistent far-right conspiracy theory and, while leftwing teenagers died on that Norwegian island, this narrative did not. Members of the left are, according to this mindset, traitors to their nation, seeking to destroy it through mass immigration of culturally hostile aliens, and are allies of a despised enemy – Islam as a demonised religion, Muslims as a people.

Far-right terrorists feed off the hatred that is often fanned by elites when it suits them. The recent El Paso terrorist attack, in which Latin American people were slaughtered, cannot be divorced from the systematic demonisation of Mexican immigrants by rightwing media outlets and Republican politicians, and now in an undiluted form by a US president who labels them rapists and criminals. Jews – who have been targeted for 2,000 years – were butchered and maimed in Pittsburgh less than year ago. The alleged terrorist reportedly accused Jews of trying to bring “evil” Muslims to the United States – here was an ancient hatred married to a more modern manifestation: Jews as disloyal and rootless, seeking to destroy western civilisation by importing dangerous Muslims. Chillingly, in overtly antisemitic remarks, Donald Trump this week accused Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats of “great disloyalty”. The 2015 far-right terrorist attack on a black church in Charleston cannot be understood in isolation from the fact that slavery, which has bequeathed an extensive racist legacy, was abolished just two lifetimes ago. In New Zealand’s Christchurch massacre, more than 50 Muslims – people with a faith that has been targeted not just by the far right but several mainstream media outlets and politicians – were murdered.

In Britain, the Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered by a white far-right terrorist who gave his name in court as “death to traitors, freedom for Britain”. What lesson was learned? How was Nigel Farage able to brag that Brexit had been won “without a single bullet being fired”, and later declare he’d “don khaki, pick up a rifle and head for the front lines” if Brexit wasn’t delivered, without his political or media career suffering? How did the far-right terrorist plot to murder Labour MP Rosie Cooper with a machete not lead to national shock and horror – and a determination to crush the political ideology behind it? What of the far-right attack on Muslim worshippers in Finsbury Park, whose perpetrator expressed a desire to murder Jeremy Corbyn and Sadiq Khan as terrorist supporters?

The hate preachers radicalising far-right extremists are not ranting on soap boxes on street corners: they get splashed on front pages. They use rhetoric such as “Enemies of the people” and “Crush the saboteurs”; they deploy distortions, myths, half-truths and lies to whip up hatred against Muslims, migrants and refugees, and to scapegoat them for crimes committed by the powerful.

‘In the clash between fascists and antifascists in Charlottesville, Trump infamously declared there “were very fine people on both sides”.’ Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

In the clash between fascists and antifascists in Charlottesville, Trump infamously declared there “were very fine people on both sides”, and in doing so founded “both-sideism”: the idea that advocating white supremacy is morally equivalent to opposing racism and wanting rich people to pay higher taxes. Yet this moral equivalence – which includes claiming that the left is equally violent – is beyond dangerous. The far right might be committing murderous terrorist atrocities against minorities, but some guy poured a banana and salted caramel milkshake on Nigel Farage’s favourite suit! Sure, there are members of minorities being murdered on the streets by racists with little media coverage, but the US neo-Nazi Richard Spencer was punched once, so who is to say who is worse?

There is a systematic campaign to delegitimise the very few leftwing voices in the mainstream media and politics, orchestrated not just by the right, but by some self-described “moderates” and “centrists” too. The attempt to construct a false equivalence between a far right that is on a murderous rampage against minorities and their allies, and a left committed to resisting its hatred and violence, is perverse. Mainstream politicians and several media outlets are legitimising ideas that fuel ideologically driven far-right terrorism and violent racist and bigoted attacks. Many more will be injured, and will die, as a consequence, and because they are not white, and because they lack a national platform, you will probably never hear their names.

•Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist