This TED Talk features policy manager Aaron Marie Saltman recorded live at TEDx Ghent 2016.

So in 2011, I altered my name so that I could participate in far-right youth camp in Hungary.

I was doing a PhD looking at youth political socialization, why young people were developing

political ideologies in a post-communist setting, and I saw that a lot of young people I was

talking to were joining the far right, and this was astounding to me. So I wanted to enroll in this

youth camp to get a better understanding of why people were joining.

So a colleague enrolled me, and my last name sounds a little bit too Jewish.

So Aaron got turned into Ayrina, and Saltman got turned into Shosh, which means salty in Hungarian.

And in Hungarian, your last name goes first. So my James Bond name turned

into salty irena, which is not something I would have naturally chosen for myself. But going to this

camp, I was further shocked to realize that it was actually really fun. They talked very little about politics. It was mostly

learning how to ride horses, shooting a bow and arrow, live music at night, free food and alcohol,

also some air gun target practice using mainstream politicians' faces as targets. And this seemed like a very actually friendly, inclusive group

until you started talking or mentioning anything to do with the Roma population,

Jewish people, or immigrants.

And then the discourse would become very hate-based very quickly.

So it led me into my work now where we pose the question,

why do people join violent extremist movements and how do we effectively counter these processes?

In the aftermath of horrible atrocities and attacks in places like Belgium, France, but all over the world, sometimes

it's easier for us to think, well, these must be sociopaths, these must be naturally

violent individuals, they must have something wrong with their upbringing. And what's really

tragic is that oftentimes there's no one profile. Many people come from educated backgrounds,

...