“Many people from my crew went on to be Chicago police officers, they went on to be prison guards,and they certainly took their ideology with them. A lot of people that I know ended up enlisting in the military to recruit [racists] and to get weapons and combat training.” Picciolini says he “frequently” gets requests for help from people in the military - or parents or friends - concerned by rhetoric within the ranks. “They are denying the Holocaust, their views are in line with white supremacists and white nationalists, and they are coming back from serving in the military angry,” he says. Picciolini (centre) with his band, Final Solution. They were performing in Weimar, Germany, in the 1990s. Picciolini’s experience is echoed by a 2015 FBI Counterterrorism Policy Guide that highlights its investigations into domestic terrorism.

The FBI identified active links to officers who were employed by some of the 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the United States. A 2006 FBI intelligence report also flagged infiltration of law enforcement agencies by white supremacist groups. According to Picciolini, it was last August’s far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that awoke many people to the mainstreaming of white nationalism in the US. Among the chaos, a woman was killed when she was run down by a vehicle driven by a man linked to white supremacist groups. President Trump said the rally - marked by clashes between rival protesters - included “very fine people on both sides”. A participant gives a Nazi salute during a march through the grounds of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017. Credit:New York Times “Most people thought extremists were what I used to be - Nazi skinheads and KKK and very visible,” Picciolini says. “In Charlottesville, they were clean cut white men wearing khakis and polo shirts marching through the street carrying Nazi banners. They [looked like] our sons and daughters and their friends.

"That was shocking to people but was a concerted strategy by the white supremacist movement to try and blend in to lose the packaging that was too offensive and too edgy.” Born in Chicago to Italian immigrant parents, Picciolini was recruited to a local neo-Nazi skinhead group at the age of 14. He rose to be a leader of the national white supremacist movement and performed internationally in hardcore bands that promoted white supremacist and racist ideology. As detailed in his memoir, White American Youth, Picciolini eventually cut ties with the supremacist movement and co-founded Life After Hate, a non-profit group that works to counter extremism and racism. Former neo-Nazi turned author and deradicalisation expert: Christian Picciolini. Credit:Dennis Sevilla In 2016, Picciolini won an Emmy Award for his directing and producing role in a public service campaign called "There is Life After Hate” aimed at helping deradicalisation.

“The reasons why people might join a neo-Nazi movement or fly from middle America to Syria to join ISIS are similar,” Picciolini says. “It’s a broken individual’s search for identity, community, and purpose. For people who might have potholes they can’t navigate around, sometimes the detours take you down a pretty dark path.” Life After Hate’s work was acknowledged by the Obama administration in 2016 and awarded a $US400,000 ($515,000) grant from the Department of Homeland Security - only to find it rescinded by the Trump administration last year. “There was no explanation,” says Picciolini. Picciolini quit Life After Hate last year - the group continues without him and raised $US700,000 from crowdfunding to fill in the government funding cut - to take his message around the world. The fight to combat extremism is not just an American issue, and Picciolini sees similar patterns in the US, Europe, and even Asia.

“I see far-right and ultra-nationalist politicians elected to office because of the fear rhetoric that has come out of the refugee crisis,” he says. “They are using the rhetoric of the ‘other’ invading and destroying culture to scare people into becoming more nationalistic or more separatist. It is happening all over the world - even India and South America and Japan - where normally the far -right and neo-Naziism wouldn’t make a lot of sense.” Picciolini has helped launch “exit programs” around the world for people who want to leave far-right groups - including the Perth-based Exit Australia. He is also a member of the Strong Cities Network, a global organisation of local leaders and policy makers that collaborate on initiatives to prevent violent extremism in local communities. The state of Victoria is a member. “Hatred is born of ignorance,” Picciolini says. “Fear is its father and isolation is its mother. We are afraid of what we don’t understand. We live in bubbles and need to break out of these bubbles. "I am an optimist but until we see institutional and systemic racism change, and until we stop electing politicians who build divisiveness with fear rhetoric, we are fighting an uphill battle.”