"As I grow older I see clearly and distinctly what is right and wrong in our way of life and how ridiculous is everything not achieved with one's own blood and one's own soul and everything not infused with love." -- Marc Chagall
Above : "Members of the 'New Right' pose as a ‘black bloc’ and stand in the same spot for an hour or two so that they can relate the story of this adventure at parties they will never be invited to." Source : CrowdedWorld
============
The beating heart of the nation, Canberra, came alive recently, with spirited Chinese and Tibetan protest. Alongside of the Tibetans were their comrades, a group of perhaps a dozen or so members of the 'New Right', once again bravely facing down the Communist hordes. In Italy, the far right has also been protesting:
The demonstrators who’ve been disrupting the progress of the Olympic torch around the world have found an unwelcome ally in the Italian far right. Last month, Forza Nuova cashed in on the popularity of the ‘flame of shame’ protests to organise a rally of their own outside the Chinese embassy in Rome. Their leader, Roberto Fiore, expressing outrage at the treatment of the Tibetans, called for the immediate severing of diplomatic relations between China and Italy and a boycott of the games by Italian athletes. The ulterior motive for his unlikely concern for Tibet isn’t hard to make out: one of his campaign slogans calls for ‘un’Italia senza extracomunitari’ (an Italy without non-Europeans, which would mean getting rid of the 200,000 or so Chinese immigrants who live here).
~ Thomas Jones, Short Cuts, London Review of Books, April 24, 2008
In terms of the recent Italian election, the 'extreme' right (the Italian Social Action Party), with Alessandra Mussolini, the Fascist dictator's granddaughter and Sophia Loren's niece, as its mascot, did even worse than the 'far' left, collecting two per cent of the votes and winning no seats. (SeeThe collapse of Rifondazione Comunista in Italy: The price of opportunism, Peter Schwarz, wsws.org, April 25, 2008.) Of course, that doesn't stop fascism from expressing itself more directly: for example, following the Corrupt Knight's return, fascists staged an attack on the Mario Mieli Centre in Rome.
---- Solidarity with the "Circolo Mario Mieli" ----
Fascism is not only an authoritarian superstructure, used from time to time by capitalism: it is also the spearhead of an ideology that is sneaking its way through our society. An ideology that can be seen in the rising arrogance of men, in the rising arrogance of the bosses, in the rising authoritarianism of the State and in the slimy paternalism of the Church.
Several days ago, the Circolo di cultura omosessuale Mario Mieli ["Mario Mieli" homosexual culture club] in the San Paolo neighbourhood of Rome was attacked by a fascist squad shouting "fucking poofs!" and praising Mussolini, who damaged the club's entrance while some activists were meeting in an upstairs room.
We would like to express our solidarity with the club and we denounce this latest attack in a long series which has seen the fascist squads engaging in an escalation of violence, including the death some time ago [August 26, 2006] of Renato Biagetti in Focene, near Rome.
[Renato was actively involved in the social center movement in Rome and visited the “Acrobax" often, where his brother was also active. His hobby was music. On August 26, 2006, he went to a reggae party in Fiumicino, near Rome. After the party, while heading home, he was stopped by two young men and attacked. They stabbed him several times in the heart and lungs. He died at age 26.]
These attacks by squadristi, a practice consolidated over the years, never abandoned by the fascists, are usually directed against social centres, occupied houses, associations, against "leftists" and other individuals who do not conform to their hateful ideology.
So in this climate of intolerance and rising racism, the 25th April, when Italy remembers the Liberation from Fascism, takes on a new and special importance.
The struggle against fascism, whose greatest moment was the war of liberation fought by the partigiani, was not then, and is not now simply a struggle against the purest form of capitalist authoritarianism. It is also the struggle of aspiration towards a society of social justice and equality. Today, more so than ever, class-struggle anti-fascism must remember that.
Today more than ever because now it is clear that both the centre-left and the centre-right are attempting to rid the 25th April of its class significance and its militant anti-fascism, turning it into a mere ceremony of "democracy".
Against this, we say:
Fascism is not only an authoritarian superstructure, used from time to time by capitalism: it is also the spearhead of an ideology that is sneaking its way through our society. An ideology that can be seen the the rising arrogance of men, in the rising arrogance of the bosses, in the rising authoritarianism of the State and in the slimy paternalism of the Church.
Fascism is the strong arm of the State that kills you when you get home late or kills you in prison because you were growing a couple of marijuana plants.
Fascism is the arrogance of landlords, the arrogance of entrepreneurs who gamble with your life, and the homophobic obsession of the Church.
If we want to honour the struggle of the many comrades who fought in the Resistenza, who paid with their lives for their desire to see a world free from fascism, a world of justice and equality, then we must make sure that the 25th April is a day when we actively remember the struggle against all forms of authoritarianism...
Racist bomb-plotter paroled Nicolas Perpitch The Australian April 24, 2008
A RIGHT-wing nationalist who conspired to firebomb Chinese restaurants has been released on parole after 14 months in jail.
John Anthony Van Blitterswyk, 56, was convicted in May last year of plotting with neo-Nazi Australian Nationalist Movement head Jack Van Tongeren and two other conspirators to blow up the restaurants in Perth.
In the plan, hatched in 2004, Van Blitterswyk recruited others to help him identify which restaurants to attack and how they were to be carried out.
But the plot was deferred while a street poster campaign was launched to advertise Van Tongeren's new book.
Police uncovered the conspiracy while interviewing people involved in the poster campaign, including some co-conspirators who rolled over and gave evidence in court against the masterminds.
In sentencing Van Blitterswyk to two years and four months' jail, Judge Michael O'Sullivan said the racist crime was "un-Australian" and that no one should be at risk of attack because of their ethnic background.
Van Blitterswyk has maintained his innocence.
The WA Prisoners Review Board released Van Blitterswyk on parole yesterday for a 14 month-period on condition he does not associate with any ANM members.
Van Tongeren, 58, pleaded guilty to his role in the plot and was given a two-year suspended sentence. He was ordered to leave WA and is now believed to be living in Victoria.
Van Tongeren and Van Blitterswyk had been convicted of hate crimes before.
In 1990, they were found guilty of conspiring to drive Asians from the state and trying to incite a race hate war.
Van Tongeren served his full 12-year jail sentence, while Van Blitterswyk received an early release from his 14-year sentence.
Meanwhile, back in the USSA, former National Vanguard (a split from National Alliance; NV disbanded in March 2007) fuehrer Kevin Alfred Strom is going to jail:
Kevin Strom hoped his guilty plea would have him out of prison with his nearly 16 months time served.
The white separatist who pleaded guilty to one count of child pornography possession January 17 was sentenced to 23 months in prison April 21 in U.S. District Court. Although Kevin Alfred Strom, 51, has been jailed since early January 2007, Judge Norman Moon rejected his request that he be sentenced to time served– and his claim that he "unwillingly" possessed the kiddie porn found on his computer...
Recently, a minor debate concerning the political perspectives of the New Right has taken place within the local fascist milieu, especially in relation to the hot-button topics of the nation, the state, the nation-state of Australia, and the preservation of the White race (of which, globally, there are only something like 1 billion members; within Australia, approximately 85% of the population is of European/White [predominantly 'Anglo-Celtic' or 'Anglo-Saxon'] descent). The preservation of the racial (White) and ethnic (Western and Northern European) composition of the Australian population is the key concern of the 'White (Australian) nationalist' milieu, although how to maintain this dominance is the subject of heated discussion. As such, the debate helps to clarify some of the issues surrounding the relationship between the New Right in Australia (and er, New Zealand) and 'national anarchism'; or at least, the manner in which that relationship is understood by members of the New Right and other members of the local fascist milieu, as well as the different approaches the New Right, 'national anarchists', and other fascist groups take towards questions of social change and political strategy.
Defend Australian Nationalism!
To begin with, the debate was sparked by the leader of the Australia First Party (NSW), Dr James Saleam, a veteran fascist and ideologue. In essence, Saleam questioned the political implications of the New Right's apparent embrace of Troy Southgate's peculiar notion of 'anarchism' for the future of White Australia. Saleam's concern is justified, as the implications of Southgate's vision of villages full of Whites living -- perhaps slightly uncomfortably -- among other villages composed of Blacks, Browns, Yellows and (presumably) all the other colours of the Homo Rainbow -- whatever they might be now or in the future -- does indeed spell the potential end of a White Australia.
Saleam's essay is titled, with his usual sense of pomp and circumstance, 'An Error In New Right Australia / New Zealand: Is There An Effective Acceptance Of Multiculturalism And Multiracialism In Australia?'. He writes:
A senior person in New Right Australia / New Zealand [Welf Herfurth] addressed a meeting in Sydney on February 15. Around the same time, he also did an interview for a certain magazine ['Doing the New Right thing by people: An interview with a key organiser for the New Right and National Anarchist movements in Australia', Destiny, No.3, February 2008]. A few important statements of position were made (and some strongly implied in the dialogue) that may not only imperil the acceptance of general New Right ideology within the broad Australian nationalist movement, but which could compromise the position of that group itself inside any front for Australian renewal. This situation arises because New Right ideology in Australia has been combined by the speaker and the group with the political philosophy of 'national anarchism'. And there are some ideological-political concepts in current national anarchism which place it in juxtaposition to long-standing Australian nationalist principle.
Destiny is a local, Melbourne publication, launched late last year, and closely allied with the 'Australian Protectionist Party' (APP). The APP emerged as a result of a split in Saleam's AF; this split, in turn, the apparent result of qualms over Saleam's history as a neo-Nazi and convicted criminal (a stick with which the media continues to beat Saleam about the head with, much to his chagrin), continued, close association with other neo-Nazis such as Ross 'The Skull' May, and his autocratic leadership style. In addition to Destiny, the interview with Herfurth was also published on mathaba.net, a UK-based site which has sought to close down my writings, and for which Herfurth, along with other members of the far right, is a regular contributor. (Among its previous contributors is Bill White of the US-based 'American National Socialist Workers’ Party', aka the 'American Nazi Party'. Bill is currently facing "fines and possible jail time for interfering in a local racial discrimination suit involving black tenants of a Virginia Beach apartment complex" (Roanoke white supremacist faces fines, possible jail time, Tim McGlone, The Virginian-Pilot, April 3, 2008).
In his Destiny/mathaba.net interview, Herfurth notes his interest in politics, opposition to liberal democracy and globalisation -- especially in terms of their role in the creation of a global 'mono-culture' -- and claims that 'national anarchism' is 'the radical answer to globalisation and the tyranny of liberal democracy'. The New Right and 'national anarchism' are not political parties, he notes, but social movement organisations which serve to facilitate the growth of a broader movement based on their ideas and practices. The failure of One Nation to facilitate this development is instructive, he argues, of the pitfalls of an approach to social change based upon a reliance on parliamentary politics.
(Herfurth was once an official in ONP before being expelled[?]. He was also a member of the Australian Friends of Europe (AFE), formerly Australian Friends of the BNP (British National Party). It sought to foster cooperation between "nationalist" groups against "globalist" socialism. The main AFE activists were Mark Wilson, former BNP organizer in Epping, UK, and Herfurth. The group made contact with, and was invited to address, Saleam's former political party National Action, the Australian League of Rights and branches of the ONP.)
In terms of the distinction between the New Right groupuscule and 'national anarchism', Herfurth believes that the former can act to cohere 'nationalist' ideology, while 'national anarchism' adopts an activist approach: "In my view, the National-Anarchists are the activists of the New Right". An example of this activism is the presence of a group of 'national anarchists' at the APEC summit last year; to date, the first and only public manifestation of 'national anarchism' in Australia of this sort. This kind of activity is intended to "confuse the so-called traditional Left, including the mainstream anarchists... so that they will start to think beyond their dogmas. Ultimately, National-Anarchism aims at an Australia of autonomous communities which are self-sufficient." Herfurth then notes his experiences as a political activist in Germany (Herfurth was a member of the neo-Nazi NPD), and the German far right's willingness to engage in broad, 'cultural' forms of political activism; an approach which he fulsomely endorses.
As for the crux of Herfurth's vision for the land Down Under:
7. What is your vision for the Australian Nation?
What is the Australian Nation and what is the Australian way of life? By law everybody is an Australian if they have an Australian passport [sic]. I disagree with that ‘civic nationalist’ view, of course.
Ideally, what I would like to see is an Australia which is a country with many autonomous communities that control their own local affairs. That means no state government, but one needs a federal body that controls foreign affairs. I want a country of free people who can determine their own destiny and future.
Realistically – that is, for the time being – I want to see a society that rejects liberal democracy. We should form our own groups of friends and associates, and interact with them, and exchange labour and goods within those groups. By doing that, we will form a parallel society. That is, we have a National-Anarchist system within a system.
In response to this proposal -- and Herfurth's reported remarks at the February 15 meeting -- Saleam concludes that Herfurth advocates a possible Australia of the future consisting of "a patchwork of quasi independent communities, living in loose association"; "What does this all mean ideologically and politically?" asks Herr Doktor.
The Australian nationalist position has always been that the country is one country, neither for division nor for colonisation into spheres of influence, nor to be the subject of Euro-genocide by resettlement. It has been argued that a single Australian European identity animates the "whole white people of this continent" (William Lane). The Australian nationalists have demanded a new White Australia Policy, organised humanely and logically to secure this continent for a 'race' and for a 'nationality'...
National anarchism runs the risk of creating goals which would disintegrate the nationalist vision into a compromise with the undesirable. There is little sense saying that we aim to salvage something from the disasters of non European immigration and multiculturalism and will take refuge in "our communities". The sad fact is that "their communities" will become the springboard of imperialism and recolonisation...
Saleam then proceeds to trace the evolution of 'national anarchism' within the English far right, and argues that it has lead, perhaps inevitably, to a form of political compromise, and a loss of a properly national perspective; that is, a concession to the existence of "an apartheid patchwork of communities (sic) on the soil of the British Isles". Any such concessions should be viewed, in his opinion, as a strictly temporary measure, one which does not imply "that we should surrender our right to our homeland to any group whatsoever, or compromise our 'integrity' as a people". Rather, relationships with non-White communities form "part of any counter-power strategy... a strategic operation that permits us to husband resources for the long struggle for state power... any other policy that operates to undermine our purpose would ultimately be anathema to the maintenance of the Australian identity, a denial of the vision splendid of Australian independence and the potential of Australian freedom."
Nevertheless, Saleam recognises the value of the New Right as a whole, if not its apparent embrace of 'national anarchism', a doctrine which might be interpreted by their 'White nationalist' comrades as implying "that it stands for a multicultural / multiracial Australia". As such, the New Right should "commit formally without hesitation or equivocation - to the White Australia Policy and to the Australian Identity over all". Finally, Saleam reiterates his own belief that, contrary to the wishes of the "traitor class" that currently rules Australia, "there must be a vanguard organization of nationalism to create a new protective Australian state": for race, and for nation.
In response to Saleam's criticisms, the 'New Right Australia New Zealand Committee' issued a statement on national anarchism and Australian nationalism (March 25, 2008). The author -- one suspects Herfurth of being responsible -- points out that: the New Right "is comprised of many people of many different views"; it does not have or claim to possess a political line shared by all of its members; "Australian identity is gradually being eroded" (because of immigration, and because of American and globalist pop culture); and finally that the New Right is a relatively new grouping, still groping its way forward.
Which does little to answer Saleam's questions.
Examining the doctrines of the New Right in Europe, however, and the ideas of Troy Southgate in particular, provides more substance to their views. In defining the New Right, Herfurth endorses the definition provided by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior in its 2005 Annual Report on the Protection of the Constitution, viz:
The New Right first emerged as a movement among French intellectuals in the 1970s which sought to raise the intellectual standards within the right-wing extremist camp. Among other things it invokes anti-democratic thought propagated by representatives of the “conservative revolution”, a political current in the Weimar Republic. The activists of the New Right want to abolish or at least impair the democratic constitutional state. To this effect, they try to gain influence within the area of cultural politics in order to finally delegitimise the democratic constitutional state and radically change the political system...
The second, crucial element necessary to understand the ideological perspective of the New Right Australia (and er, New Zealand), according to Herfurth ('the Committee') is French thinker Alain De Benoist. In essence, de Benoist argues -- like previous fascist thinkers -- in favour of an 'organic' conception of the nation.
Nationalists are proponents of holism. Nationalists see the individual as a kinsman, sustained by the people and community, which nurtures and protects him, and with which he is proud to identify. The individual's actions represent an act of participation in the life of his people, and freedom of action is very real because, sharing in the values of his associates, the individual will seldom seek to threaten the basic values of the community with which he identifies. Societies which lack this basic sense of national unity are inherently prone to suffer from repeated situations wherein the opposing values of its egotistical members conflict with each other.
Furthermore, proponents of nationhood contend that a society or a people can survive only when: a) they remain aware of their cultural and historical origins; b) when they can assemble around a mediator, be it individual, or symbolic, who is capable of reassembling their energies and catalyzing their will to have a destiny; c) when they can retain the courage to designate their enemy. None of these conditions have been realized in societies that put economic gain above all other values, and which consequently: a) dissolve historical memories; b) extinguish the sublime and eliminate subliminal ideals; c) assume that it is possible not to have enemies.
~ 'Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft: A sociological view of the decay of modern society', based on an original essay by Alain de Benoist, translated and interpreted by Tomislav Sunic, Mankind Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Spring 1994)
(Note that Mankind Quarterly is published by Washington-based 'The Council for Social and Economic Studies'; it was first published in 1961 by Edinburgh-based 'International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics'. See: Race Science and the Pioneer Fund, originally published as "The Funding of the Science" in Searchlight, No.277 (July 1998).)
"Where does the New Right Australia/NZ stand in relation to de Benoist? In broad agreement" says Welf.
New Right and 'national anarchism'
According to Herr Herfurth, "National-Anarchism, as conceived by Troy Southgate, believes in what Marx called ‘The withering away of the State’"; he then proceeds to mangle Marx's phantasy concerning this withering (one following upon a successful proletarian revolution, the abolition of capitalism, and the institution of a 'dictatorship of the proletariat') as the outcome of economic or ecological crises (Southgate). According to Troy, "Western nation-states will break up into separate, ethnically homogenous communities, concentrated in the rural and semi-rural areas"; a rural idyll the virtues of which are extolled by fellow Englishman, the eco-fascist Richard Hunt. (Hunt was once editor of Green Anarchist, but was told to piss off in 1991, shortly after publishing an editorial in Green Anarchist in support of the Gulf War. Hunt then launched Alternative Green, which became the mouthpiece for the views of 'national anarchists' gathered around Southgate. Green Anarchist subsequently underwent a split, with "the original unapologetic anarcho-primitivist publication" last publishing an issue online in 2003; the other, under the editorial control of Steve Booth, doesn't appear to be available online. SeePrimitivism.com and Green Anarchy for more on, ah, primitvism. And er, green anarchy.)
In practice, according to Herfurth, this means, among other things, rejecting parliamentary politics. "The best thing a nationalist ['anarchist'] can do is isolate himself and his family from multiculturalism and multiracialism", by also rejecting mass culture and instead embracing homeschooling. Southgate -- and by implication 'national anarchists' -- disavow a 'white revolution' as a lost cause; "The only solution is to create a ‘parallel society’, here and now, that is, work to build an ethnically-homogenous community – or rather, improve relations between the disparate and separate individuals who make up that community, and encourage them to think of themselves as a community, and not individuals – which will exist in total isolation from the State, and from political parties".
"Where does the New Right Australia/New Zealand stand in relation to National-Anarchism?" asks Herfurth.
Firstly, it is not a National-Anarchist group, but some members are National-Anarchists. As for the relation between National-Anarchist theory and New Right ideology, it was stated (erroneously) in the article, “The New Right Manifesto” (published on the Internet in 2007) that the National-Anarchists represent the application of de Benoist’s ideas, that ‘New Right is the theory, National-Anarchism the practice’. This was debatable [as well as being contradicted by Herfurth himself, in his interview with Destiny/mathaba.net: "In my view, the National-Anarchists are the activists of the New Right"], as the reader can see for himself when comparing the two doctrines (Nouvelle Droit and National-Anarchism) as expounded here. Many of the street activists for the New Right are not National-Anarchists (many of them are not Christians, either, or animal liberationists) [which would explain why Darrin'Damn Muslims!'Hodges -- currently a member of the APP, and formerly a member of both AF and Stormfront.org -- was a conspicuous presence at the 'national anarchist' demonstration at APEC].
Herfurth then refers to the fact that Southgate, like Herfurth, is an organiser with the New Right (in the UK), which to the impressionable "may seem to give the impression that National-Anarchism and the New Right (in Britain, or Australia) are the one and the same thing, or at least closely tied together".
Quite.
"So may the fact that members of the New Right Australia/New Zealand have given lectures on National-Anarchist ideas at nationalist events, or given sympathetic expositions of National-Anarchism to other nationalists in private conversations or in correspondences."
Indeed.
More revealing, perhaps, is to examine exactly what shenanigans the New Right in the UK has been up to in the form of its periodic London meetings. As previously discussed, the featured speakers, with very few exceptions, are all drawn from the far right: the BNP, NF, League of St George, Church of the Creator, Holocaust denialists/revisionists, 'Racial Bolsheviks', racists and fascists of one description or another. Probably the choicest figure to grace the New Right podium in the UK, however, is Lady Susan (Michèle) Mainwairing / Griaznoff / Peacock / Sangster / Renouf, Aussie "bimbo" and champion of free speech (especially for gentlemen such as Robert Faurisson, David Irving, Germar Rudolf, Ernst Zundel and others).
After further equivocation, Herfurth ('the Committee') conclude that "Probably, in organisational terms, it is necessary to split the New Right into two separate departments – a think-tank and a street activist wing"; a formal recognition, I would suggest, of a de facto reality.
In concluding his/their response to Saleam's critique, Herfurth ('the Committee') examine one final question: "the New Right and repatriation".
'Repatriation'
Get outta our country...
Let into this country, to play with drugs and crime Hold the hands of them all, they’re never satisfied People who oppose them, are promptly locked away And those who thought they had a voice, no longer have a say
Get out! We don’t want you around Get out! Want the people to shout Get out! Get outta my sight Get out! Parasites... Parasites... Parasites...
Legends of Eureka, turn over in their graves They can see what has happened to the Southern Cross today Laws made to put us down, laws are made to keep us quiet Jail all the racists who wanna keep this country white
Reject an alien government, don’t recognise their laws It’s time to close the floodgates, it’s time to shut the door Repatriate, ship ’em out, send the bastards back If they don’t fucking like it, it’ll be in body bags
Get out!
~ 'Parasites', a song by fair dinkum Aussie patriots Fortress. These and other patriotic hymns were last heard live on October 13, 2007 at the Melbourne Croatia Social Club; the gig was held, as it is every year, to commemorate the death of English bonehead Ian Stuart Donaldson in 1993, and organised by local neo-Nazi groups Blood & Honour Australia and the Southern Cross Hammerskins. (Donaldson helped form Blood & Honour in 1987; he also sang in the band Skrewdriver, one of whose members, Murray Holmes, may occasionally be found performing with Perth band The Homicides. The Homicides are also releasing a split EP with Sydney-based T.H.U.G., a partial reincarnation of the earlier, neo-Nazi band White Lightning. T.H.U.G. are scheduled to play the East Brunswick Club Hotel in Melbourne on July 19 with Toe to Toe and a Jimmy Pursey-free Sham 69.) Herfurth attended the 2006 gig held at The Birmingham Hotel in Fitzroy, and is otherwise supportive of the efforts of these upstanding young citizens to uphold traditional values.
"So what is the New Right position on repatriation, and does it believe that repatriation can be achieved through the State, e.g., through a State controlled by a nationalist party?"
In a word: yes.
However, Herfurth notes that there's more than one way to skin a cat, and aliens may be removed from Australia by the use of extra-parliamentary violence. "However, probably the best, most efficient (and most humane) way of achieving the two objectives [that is, halting non-European immigration and sending non-Europeans already residing in Australia 'home'] is politically, through the State. The Australian State can put forward legislation halting non-European immigration immediately, and then use its financial resources to provide the inducement for non-European immigrants to resettle in their homelands."
And who in their Right mind could argue with that?
Nevertheless, actually achieving the best, most efficient, and most humane means of purifying Australia first requires the establishment of a 'Nationalist Gub'mint'. This means either: a) getting a 'Nationalist' Party elected or; b) staging a coup d’état ("or a protracted period of insurgency"). "In Western liberal democracies", notes our anarchist comrade, "such options are not usually considered, and in some Western countries (such as Australia) it is illegal even to contemplate, on paper, such possibilities."
So much for Plan B.
As for Plan A: Q. "Where does New Right stand?" A. "A party with mass-based, popular support, winning power through an election is the best way – and the only legal way"; whatever difficulties such a party may face obtaining its wholesome goal. But of course, that's not the only thing Herfurth ('the Committee') has to say on the subject, and it's at this point that the distinctive contribution of the New Right becomes apparent. Thus:
New Right differs from Australian nationalists insofar as that it makes a thoroughgoing intellectual and sociological analys[i]s of what it is that makes some nationalist parties win and others fail. It has held the NPD up as an example because it believes that the NPD, with its ‘three pillars’ strategy, is going about electioneering the right way. New Right has stated, many times, that the essential thing for a nationalist party to do is to a) build trust and support among the community and b) win over the intellectuals and the students. New Right looks forward to the day when nationalists can use the same tactics, with similar success, as the NPD here in Australia.
New Right believes that power can be won – if it can be won – by a series of sustained ‘shocks’ to the liberal democratic system. In other words, a ‘state of exception’ (to use Carl Schmitt’s phrase) needs to be created in Australia, a disruption of the day to day constitutional functions of the Australian State, when the constitution itself becomes in temporary abeyance... It is only during that disruption – which will break up the normal order of things – that Australian nationalists can go ahead and ‘seize power’.
So how will those ‘shocks’ be brought about? Those shocks need to be induced practically (at the street level); intellectually; and emotionally. At the street level, there needs to be a political confrontation, carried out publicly (and with maximum media publicity) against the Left, who, more than any other group, seek to oppose nationalists’ presence on the street. Intellectually, nationalist intellectuals need to make the case to the public that the liberal democratic system is not working, has not worked, and never will, to make them stop believing in the worthwhileness of the liberal parliamentarian system. Emotionally, nationalist propagandists need to induce a state of permanent emotional agitation in the general public, through media and propaganda organs... Such propaganda aims at keeping the public’s nerves permanently on edge, and directing public animosity against the enemies of nationalism.
These are the same techniques as those used by the German National Socialists and the Italian Fascists in the 1920s and the 1930s, and by the British National Front in the 1970s. It is the New Right’s belief that they can be used, successfully, in Australia. They are means, not ends in themselves, and the end is, in the long-term, the successful ‘seizure of power’.
Not that Herfurth's a neo-Nazi or nothing.
He's an anarchist.
A national anarchist.
Or something.
========================
Welf Herfurth writes a letter to Crikey!, April 22, 2008: Re. "Torch protest: who'll be there, from Amway up" (yesterday, item 10). As a Member of the National Anarchists, and a subscriber to Crikey for many years, I am disappointed that Crikey has not spent more time evaluating their articles by reactionaries like Cam Smith, who was quick to slander the Nationalist Anarchists, whilst at the same time over-looking the Nationalist implications of the Tibetan struggle. One is left with no other conclusion that a double standard exists for those fighting for freedom and self-determination is a struggle that those of European heritage have no right to exercise. The only thing Smith managed to correctly assess in his article about the 'National Anarchists’ is that we are indeed planning on making an appearance at the Torch Relay in Canberra, in support of the Tibetan struggle for independence.
"[The] charter of human rights (guaranteed by international law), says that indigenous populations have the right to resist colonisation and immigration. So the Tibetans are justified – legally – in doing what they do. So are we in the West: after all, we are being colonised: the massive flood of immigration in Europe, North America, Australia, is neo-colonialism." From the New Right Website – Tibet and the Lessons for the West
Every other comment is slanderous deceitful rubbish, used for intellectual repression of ideas that do not support Smith's cultural Marxism. The New Right / National Anarchists are about freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and the right of national, ethnic self-determination for all peoples. I find it paradoxical that someone who preaches tolerance, diversity and racial harmony would use a racial epithet to criticise those he considers Nazis. The Australian people are intelligent enough to recognise Mr Smith's hypocrisy. The National Anarchists are not Nazis, nor do we support Nazism, or supremacy of any race towards another, including Zionism. I cannot stress highly enough; violent racist action is as far from National Anarchist ideology as you could possibly be. For further information regarding the National Anarchists and the New Right, please have a look at our website. I would recommend Smith do so before writing any other articles about the New Right/National Anarchists.
"People are sick and tired of them. No one's saying 'Oh just let them get on with it.' All this has had a positive side effect. People are discussing human rights and democracy in the pubs; there's a process of politicization," said the high school teacher.
The forum has come up with a variety of stunts to counter the NPD. During one far-right rally in the carnival season last February, it got 400 people to turn up with brooms and brushes to "sweep" the far right out of town. "Of course it was just a symbolic act, but the way they were standing there, it looked like a peasants' revolt," said Helmbrecht.
Other tactics have included a local firm counting NPD demonstrators and donating €5 per head to an organization that helps people quit the far-right scene. Sausages were sold under the motto "In Franconia, only the sausages are brown," in reference to the so-called "Brownshirts" of Hitler's Nazi party.
"We've also been projecting messages on facades behind NPD speakers as well as photos from Auschwitz," said Helmbrecht. "When they come here and go on about the memory of their grandfathers, we project a photo of granddad shooting a Jewish prisoner in the head."
Another stunt has been to declare a "Traditional Day of Woodcutting" to coincide with one NPD demonstration. A screaming buzz saw was switched on in a shed next to the memorial site to interrupt proceedings.
NB. See also this brilliant documentary (produced and directed by the London Video History Group), on the 43 Group, a band of British ex-Army, ex-Navy and merchant seamen who after WWII, and in response to a re-emergent fascist movement, formed to defend London by physically beating them off the streets.
Note that in 2005, local fascists and a sprinkling of boneheads attempted to hold their annual gathering -- the Sydney Forum, co-hosted by Dr James Saleam of the Australia First Party (NSW) and Welf Herfurth of the Sydney-based fascist groupuscule 'New Right' -- at the Russian Club. Upon being publicly revealed as hosts for the racists, the Russian Club pulled the plug, and the event was held at Saleam's bunker in Tempe instead. In 2006, the Estonian Club bravely stepped into the breach, with minimal or no apparent opposition from members of the local Estonian community, who are apparently happy to have their Club associated with the promotion of racism and fascism. Last year (2007), it was the RSL's turn, the venue for the Sydney Forum, in addition to the bunker, being Eastwood; the Bexley RSL hosted the Forum in 2004. As for 2008, who knows?
Locally, bonehead venue The Birmingham Hotel (Fitzroy/Collingwood, Melbourne), despite quite vocal support from local fashion punks, has recently undergone a change of management to a new, less fascist-friendly team.
RUSSIA'S BONEHEADS [not 'skinheads'] have begun to hunt and kill immigrants "like game" in the most serious surge in neo-Nazi violence since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Human rights groups say nationalist extremists murdered 41 people in the first three months of this year, more than four times as many as the same period last year. Some groups put the death toll even higher, at 53.
The number and severity of attacks seems to indicate that radical nationalists have become more organised and more willing to kill and maim, usually with a knife.
Victims are stabbed not once but sometimes 20 or 30 times in frenzied attacks accompanied by racial abuse. Those that survive are often scarred for life; in one recent case an immigrant had his nose and lips sliced off. Some of the victims have been women and children.
The attackers are driven by a hatred of non-Russians, who they believe are diluting the gene pool and irrevocably changing the fabric of their country.
"Russia for Russians" is their main slogan. Far-right websites warn that their followers are poised to crank up the severity of the attacks still further, turning to bombs and guns. The victims are mostly people from former Soviet republics in Central Asia, who come to Moscow and St Petersburg to work in construction or do other manual work that Russians don't want to do.
Though the migrant workers fill a gap in the job market, opinion polls show that many ordinary Russians are uncomfortable with their presence and would like to see immigration controls severely tightened. City officials in Moscow, where most of the killings take place, say there are around 850,000 migrants from Central Asia living in a city that has a total population of 10 million.
Their Asian features make them easy targets for boneheads scanning the streets for people of non-Slavic appearance. The killings have sparked a wave of diplomatic protests from the victims' home countries and stirred talk of a street war between boneheads and revenge-minded migrant workers.
Raimkul Attakurov, ambassador for Kyrgyzstan in Russia, complained in a letter sent to Russia's human rights ombudsman earlier this year about what he called "the savage attacks of fascist monsters".
Police have responded by clamping down [sic] on bonehead activity, especially in Moscow. But rights groups accuse them of a cover-up when it comes to discussing the problem publicly or providing meaningful crime statistics. Police prefer to classify many of the attacks as mere "hooliganism".
[In reality, Russian police are far more likely to repress anti-fascists than they are the murderous gangs of boneheads who regularly assault and kill, not only 'foreigners', but anti-fascists. A recent, unauthorised protest (March 19) by anti-fascists in Moscow was conducted in memory of murdered Russian punk, 20-year-old Aleksey Krylov (March 16, 2008); Aleksey was on his way to a gig by the band Nichego Horoshego. Unusually, none of the several hundred-strong crowd were arrested.]
Moscow prosecutor Yuri Semin said last week that he thought the media had "exaggerated" the upsurge in killings and questioned the reliability of statistics released by human rights groups. The police itself keeps no detailed records but insists the number of race hate crimes is falling.
"If someone kills a Kyrgyz, it's inevitably assumed it's on ethnic grounds," said prosecutor Semin. "For some reason, it's assumed that people can't kill Kyrgyz people for other reasons."
Semyon Charny, an expert at the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, believes the authorities find the problem inconvenient. "The authorities in Moscow are interested in creating a good image for the city," he said. "(But) in recent times the number of extremist crimes is on the increase. It is, as one magazine put it, like a safari."
Police also cite the large number of crimes committed by immigrants whenever the problem is raised, hinting that they are facing a backlash of their own making. Embassies are advising migrant workers to avoid going out on their own, to always be smartly dressed, and to drink alcohol in private rather than in the street.
Galina Kozhevnikova of rights group Sova believes official rhetoric, which has become increasingly strident and nationalistic in tone, is partly to blame. Politicians from outgoing president Vladimir Putin to Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov have made comments that appear to favour ethnic Russians over immigrants, while laws have been introduced to limit the number of non-Russians working in the retail sector.
Police made a string of high-profile arrests in the last year that appeared to have decapitated the underground neo-Nazi movement. But Kozhevnikova said the arrests have, paradoxically, only encouraged others who seek the same notoriety and infamy in far-right circles.
It has, she said, become "fashionable" to be a bonehead and "cool" to kill an immigrant.
Sociologists say Russia is home to about 70,000 skinheads and that they tend to congregate in large urban centres such as Moscow and St Petersburg, which has also seen a large number of murders of non-Russians. About 30,000-35,000 of them have neo-Nazi beliefs.
Yevgeny Proshechkin, chairman of Moscow's anti-fascist centre, urges the authorities to wake up to what he calls "acts of terrorism".
"Things need to be called by their name," he told the liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta. "We are standing on a dangerous threshold."
See also : Aryan Guard rocks complacency, Jamie Komarnicki, with a file from Tony Seskus, Calgary Herald, April 20, 2008: "Disaffected youth seeking shock value, or something far more sinister?" | Neo-Nazis Clash With Protesters, Pamela Constable, Washington Post, April 20, 2008: "3 Arrested as White Supremacist Group Marches on Capitol" and as 30 losers from the NSM traipsed about Washington. "Members of the public were kept far from the marchers, who wound up on the West Lawn of the Capitol, where they waved flags and made speeches to an empty, sloping expanse of green, surrounded by hundreds of riot police." Oddly, despite being exposed as an FBI informant, Hal Turner was there too.
"(AGI) - Bolzano, 17 April - Bolzano state police are in the processing of arresting 16 individuals in Merano, Scena, Tirolo, Lagundo and the surrounding areas as part of the "Odessa" operation. The latter is an operation conducted by the DIGOS section of police (special investigations) and is the conclusion to a complex and articulated investigation which identified and disbanded a consolidated and sizeable South Tyrol group between the ages of 17 and 27, accused of incitement to discrimination, hatred and violence for racial, ethnic and national reasons. The 8 violent acts by the youths (assault and battery as well as intimidation) were committed against young Italians and foreigners held to be different for racial, ethnic or social reasons. The group had been in contact with extreme right movements in Austria, Switzerland and Germany."
"A gang of violent neo-Nazis arrested in South Tyrol on Thursday have links to right-wing extremist groups in Austria, police believe. It was announced on Thursday that 16 men were arrested in Bolzano, Italy, all between 17 and 27-years-old, on charges of violence and instigation of racist, ethnic, and nationalist discrimination. Propaganda materials, Nazi symbols, and German Navy war flags were confiscated from members of the group who held regular meetings at a cabin in the woods - with "One Tyrol" carved into the door - where ritual induction ceremonies would take place for new members. Police could give no further clarification as to the links with Austrian extreme far-right groups but it is believed the Austrian and Italian neo-Nazis met regularly."
"...An "Adolf Hitler Memorial and BBQ" planned in association with the neo-Nazi Hammerskin Nation in Houston will involve live entertainment and a swastika lighting."
Locally, the Hammerskins are also organsing a party. Well, by 'locally', I actually mean Wellington, where local (and by that I mean 'Melbourne') boneheads Bail Up! are scheduled to play a gig, presumably at the same location as last year's event: the Satan's Slaves MC HQ in Berhampore, where Blood Red Eagle played.
"Litvinov, North Bohemia, April 17 (CTK) - The court has permitted Czech neo-Nazis to stage a march through Litvinov which the town hall previously banned, Tyden.cz said Thursday, adding that the extremists organise the march annually to commemorate one of them who was stabbed to death in Litvinov nine years ago. The court said there was no evidence proving that law might be violated during the march, the server Tyden.cz writes. "Unfortunately, this is true. The court has abolished our ban saying we did not meet the legal conditions for the march to be banned. Nothing can be done about it. We respect the court decision," Litvinov town hall's secretary Alexandra Sixtova is quoted as saying. She said the town hall would not be opposed to a commemorative meeting, but it minds the march that is to follow. "Last year, cases of violation of law occurred during the march," she added. The participants in the Litvinov neo-Nazi march annually move from Litvinov to the nearby town of Most, where left-wing extremists protested against their march last year. A 26-year-old right-winger then ran with his car into a group of anarchists, injuring two girls. The court sentenced him to three years in prison."
I believe I noted this at the time on my previous blog. The dead bonehead, Reho Miloš, was stabbed to death at a railway station in May, 1999. The person responsible was supposedly a Romany, and sentenced to 10 years in jail for the crime. Every year since then, on May 20[?], fascists have organised a protest march, often confronting counter-protesters. The year before last (2006) the fascists were attacked by antifa, who threw bottles, rocks and Molotov cocktails.
Bonehead found guilty of threatening juror TV3 [NZPA] April 9, 2008
A Lower Hutt bonehead was today found guilty by a High Court jury of trying to corrupt a juror during a white supremacist trial last year.
Lloyd James Bowling, 40, unemployed, sighed and shook his head after a jury took 2-1/2 hours to find him guilty of being party to an attempt to corruptly influence a juror during the High Court trial in Wellington last July.
He was remanded for sentence on May 30, but will appear in Wellington District Court on Friday to be sentenced on another, unrelated, charge of injuring with intent.
During the trial, which began on Monday, the court heard a juror had received a note with "not guilty" in capital letters and a swastika written on it during the trial of four men charged with the kidnap, robbery and assault of a Canadian Indian tourist in April last year.
Three of the defendants in the trial, Jaydon Borland, Jason Gregory and Benjamin McPadden, were found guilty of various charges, while the fourth, Mark Gage, was discharged due to lack of evidence.
On the last day of the trial, the juror -- whose identity is suppressed -- found the note on his doorstep, was discharged from the jury and later left New Zealand, in part due to concerns over his family's safety.
Crown prosecutor Mark Anderson said the juror was targeted by white supremacist associates of the men as he was not Caucasian.
A search of Bowling's home located pro-nazi paraphernalia and writings and articles about the trial of the men.
Bowling's fingerprint was on the note, and it came from an exercise book he owned. When arrested, he posed a hypothetical question to a police officer, asking what would happen if it emerged he had written the note but not delivered it.
The Crown said this constituted an admission.
Bowling's defence lawyer Keith Jefferies said the Crown had the wrong man, and implicated two other people who also had the motive and means to have sent the note.
Today, Justice Robert Dobson told the jury to put aside feelings of prejudice or sympathy while considering the evidence in the case.
"You may find that anti-Black or anti-Jewish slogans are offensive. You must put any such feelings to one side," he said.
April 11 marks the liberation of Buchenwald, the Nazi concentration camp, opened on July 15, 1937, and closed in 1945 by the entry of the Sixth Armored Division of the Third U.S. Army. The first inmates to arrive -- 149 in total -- were members of the resistance (see Frank McDonough, Opposition and resistance in Nazi Germany, Cambridge University Press, 2001 [PDF]), Jehovah's Witnesses, previously convicted criminals, and "a few" homosexuals. Its first victim was the 23 year-old labourer, Hermann Kempeck of Altona, who was found hanged on August 14. In the intervening years, approximately 56,000 more people died at the camp. (SeeA Chronology of Buchenwald Concentration Camp.)
The liberation of the camp produced a rather remarkable phenomenon: The Buchenwald Ball, an annual celebration organised by some of the Jewish boys who managed to survive the horrors of the camp. Thus "Every year on April 11, the anniversary of their liberation, the Buchenwald Boys hold a ball filled with music, dancing, and an energy that defies their advancing ages. The ball is a defiant celebration of life, friendship, family, and love". The Ball is also the subject of a film. The celebration is also remarkable for the fact that it takes place in my hometown: Melbourne, Australia.
In Melbourne, neo-Nazis are rather thin on the ground. In fact, two local neo-Nazi groups, Blood & Honour Australia and the Southern Cross Hammerskins, have experienced some difficulties in organising their activities, activities which -- outside of babbling on the Internet -- principally revolve around the organisation of an annual gig to commemorate the death in 1993 of the founder of B&H;, the English bonehead Ian Stuart Donaldson.
In September 2006, this event took place, as it had in previous years -- in addition to gigs to celebrate Hitler's birthday and bonehead organising meetings -- at The Birmingham Hotel in Fitzroy. As a result of protest, complaint, and a boycott initiated in October 2006, the pub's management has just recently changed, and the new management is allegedly less sympathetic to the presence of neo-Nazis than the former mob. (SeeBoycott the Birmingham blog.) Support for the successful boycott came from a variety of groups -- anarchist, socialist, anti-fascist, anti-racist, queer, women's, punks and skinheads -- while opposition was largely confined to a small number of fashion punks, for whom The Birmy had also served as a venue, and for whom anti-fascist solidarity was less important than the opportunity to drink and to listen to music.
The venue for the 2007 ISD memorial gig was the Melbourne Croatia Social Club, the management of which -- like that of The Birmy -- denied and then defended the use of their premises by neo-Nazis. Fortunately, the President of the Melbourne Knights football club, Matt Tomas, took a very different line, describing the boneheads as "scum", and later apologising for the Social Club's irresponsibility (Greg Roberts, Neo-Nazis split Croat community, The Australian, October 27, 2007: "Contacted by The Weekend Australian, social club manager Catarina Malacic denied the event was held. "There was nothing on at the venue that night," she said"!).
Of course, much more information regarding fascist organising in Melbourne, Australia, Europe and elsewhere was, until earlier this week, available on my previous blog: http://slackbastard.anarchobase.com. Unfortunately, as well as having to weather demented death threats, as a result of a complaint lodged by Mathaba New Network, I've had to temporarily revert to this location, and all of this information is subsequently -- albeit temporarily -- unavailable. What's interesting about this attempt at censorship, in the context of remembering the Nazi regime in Europe, is its origins. Thus among its dozen or so regular contributors, Mathaba.net boasts the presence of Welf Herfurth, a Sydney-based, German-born neo-Nazi, formerly a member of the NPD in Germany and One Nation in Australia, but currently functioning as the leader of a recently-established fascist groupuscule known as the New Right, a loose association of white supremacists who promote an ideology they term 'national anarchism'.
And now something I prepared earlier:
THE NEW REICH
All Heil The New Reich!
On September 8, 2007, approximately 15—30 individuals, all white, mostly young, and overwhelmingly male, dressed in black clothing and wearing caps, dark glasses and scarves, gathered in a group outside of Sydney Town Hall as part of a public protest against the APEC summit, scheduled to take place elsewhere in Sydney that weekend. The group carried with them three long banners — with slogans reading ‘Australia: Free Nation – Or Sheep Station?’, ‘Globalisation is Genocide’ and ‘Power to the People, Not Political Parties’ – which were joined together to form a three-sided bloc, within which those gathered assembled to form a ‘black bloc’. The group also distributed a leaflet, and claimed to belong to a group known as the ‘New Right’, one which — as other statements on the banners and on the leaflet stated — consists of ‘National Anarchists’ espousing a ‘Traditional-European Revolutionary’ philosophy. This brief essay examines ‘New Right’ philosophy and its origins in Europe, the emergence of this groupsucule in Australia, and argues that it can best be understood as the latest incarnation in a European-based trend in neo-fascist ideology and practice.
Who or what is the New Right? In Australia, the group was established in late 2005, largely via the efforts of one man, a German-born, Sydney-based businessman named Welf Herfurth. Herfurth has a long history of involvement in the far right, having been a member of the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) prior to his arrival as an immigrant in 1987, and following that a member first of the Democrats, and then of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party (ONP), serving as the vice-president of the New South Wales state branch (under David Oldfield) and as President of ONP’s Riverstone branch. More recently, from its inception in 2001, Herfurth has served as MC, and as one of the principal organisers — along with Dr. James Saleam of the Australia First Party (AF) — of the annual Sydney Forum. In this capacity, in 2007, Herfurth helped to arrange the visit to Australia of Croatian fascist Dr. Tomislav Sunic, a key New Right thinker, and in previous years has attempted, unsuccessfully, to arrange for a number of key members of the NPD (Gerd Finkenwirth and Udo Voight) to tour Australia and to address the Forum.
[Note that Sunic was present at the meeting which formally launched the New Right in London in December 2004. In fact, the meeting was partly organised to provide Herr Doktor with an opportunity to launch his then-recent book, Against Democracy and Equality. This text was published by Noontide Press. Noontide specialises in publishing and distributing Holocaust denial literature, and has since its establishment in 1978 by Willis Carto (1926--). It's also the publisher of The Journal of Historical Review, a key journal of Holocaust denial. Other titles published by Noontide include the notorious Tsarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as well as other classic titles such as Mein Kampf, The Turner Diaries and ex-Ku Klux Klown David Duke's My Awakening. More recently, "The Institute for Historical Review, the most active Holocaust-denial organization in the United States, held a public meeting in Irvine, California, on March 24 [2007]. IHR director Mark Weber and two other veteran Holocaust-denial activists, Bradley Smith and Tomislav Sunic, were the featured speakers." Sunic's Kamerad in Sydney, Herr Herfurth, is also a Holocaust denialist, and a very close Kamerad of the Adelaide Institute's Frederick Toben. See Holocaust Denial: A Global Survey - 2007, Wyman Institute (PDF).]
Subjected to a liberal, middle-class upbringing in post-war Germany, as a young man in the 1980s Herfurth rejected his parent’s liberal values to embrace those of the neo-Nazi movement, establishing a role for himself as a fascist militant. Since then, his politics have developed into a more sophisticated version of the crude neo-Nazism of his youth, one which retains an overriding commitment to race and nation, but shorn of the naked bigotry and crude political analysis which remains one of neo-Nazism’s hallmarks. In particular, Herfurth is part of a generation of far right activists heavily influenced by the philosophies of figures such as Alain de Benoist (1943–), a French intellectual who, beginning in the mid- to late-1970s especially, and together with a small group of others centred around the ‘ethno-nationalist’ think-tank GRECE (1968–), reinvigorated post-war fascist thinking. Part of this project consisted of popularising and critically re-examining the ideas of earlier thinkers such as Carl Schmitt (1888—1985) and Julius Evola (1898—1974), and thereby attempting to craft a philosophy that would somehow transcend the divide between the political left and right; all in the name of establishing a new political order in Europe – a ‘communitarian’ one consisting of nation-states, but under the domination of neither the then-Soviet Union or the United States. It was this posture which also fed into the (re-)development of ‘Third Position’ politics within the far right, one which even attracted the intellectual support of nominally Marxist thinkers such as Paul Piccone (1940—2004), editor of the US journal Telos.
Such is, necessarily, a much-simplified version of the political etymology of the New Right. Of most importance in relation to Herfurth and the New Right in Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand), however, is their embrace of the idea of the transcendence of the left-right divide, and their commitment to elaborating a contemporary form of fascist politics; one attuned to the history of ideas, and one which recognises the necessity of building an extra-parliamentary social movement which is capable of responding to contemporary political realities, especially in the realm of popular culture. And it’s in the realm of popular culture that the idea of ‘national anarchism’ has greatest relevance.
Briefly then, ‘national anarchism’, at least as it’s understood by the New Right, is the means by which those grouped around Herfurth in particular, and New Right philosophies generally, seek to intervene in political struggle: “National-Anarchism represents the political embodiment of the European New Right — it is the political wing”. Before examining what this means in practice, however, it’s worth also briefly examining the short history of this rather unlikely doctrine.
In the English-speaking world, the figure most commonly associated with ‘national anarchism’ is the English activist, writer and musician Troy Southgate (1965–). A member of the National Front in the mid-80s, Southgate left it in the late ‘80s to join the ‘International Third Position’; left the ITP to form the ‘English Nationalist Movement’ in the early ‘90s; abandoned this not especially successful group in 1998 to form the ‘National Revolutionary Faction’; and following that declared himself to be a ‘national anarchist’. What this actually means in terms of ideology is a difficult question to answer. However, Graham D. Macklin (‘Co-opting the counter culture: Troy Southgate and the National Revolutionary Faction’, Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 39, No. 3, 2005 [PDF]), for one at least, has tried to do so. He argues that:
When put into its wider context… ‘national-anarchism’ appears as one of many groupuscular responses to globalization, popular antipathy towards which Southgate sought to harness by aligning the NRF with the resurgence of anarchism whose heroes and slogans it arrogated, and whose sophisticated critiques of global capitalist institutions and state power it absorbed… Central to ‘national-anarchism’, however, is a far older paradigm drawn from conservative revolutionary thought, namely, the Anarch, a sovereign individual whose independence allows him to ‘turn in any direction’…
In practice, what this means, at least in part, is demonstrated by the emergence of the so-called ‘black bloc’ at APEC in September (from which the ‘Anarch’ Herfurth was conspicuously absent). Specifically — in addition in adopting the name of anarchism to advance a far right agenda — fascists seek to appropriate anarchist imagery and rhetoric. Like Herfurth himself, this tactic appears to have been born in Germany, where in the last 5—10 years, the neo-Nazi movement has increasingly sought to use the radical chic associated with ‘anarchism’ and ‘autonomism’ to recruit youth. (For example, in addition to appropriating fashions associated with anarchists and leftist youth, “autonomous nationalists” have for some years now formed ‘black blocs’ at public protests).
In Sydney, the APEC ‘black bloc’ was the first public protest attended by the ‘national anarchists’ of the New Right, but given its success – in his online account of the protest, one pseudonymous member writes that “We were tremendously pleased, afterwards, that no arrests had occurred and that none of us had been physically assaulted. We had avoided identification, too” – it is unlikely to be the group’s last. Further, while the majority of its members appear to have been drawn from Sydney and Newcastle, a few travelled from Melbourne to attend, and it’s possible that others came from other parts of the country as well. It’s therefore possible that there will be other demonstrations in other cities; certainly, the New Right, on the basis of this success (however meagre), has the potential to draw towards it the many competing factions of the extra-parliamentary far right (including remnants of AF and the Patriotic Youth League (PYL), the more straightforwardly neo-Nazi Blood & Honour and the Hammerskins, as well as others) and in turn help stimulate the growth of a reinvigorated, if still tiny, fascist movement in Australia.
Finally, while the New Right’s adoption of ‘national anarchism’ may be considered bizarre, even comical, it nevertheless retains the potential not only to confuse the broader public with regards the nature of contemporary anarchism, its aims and methods, but also to confuse some who may be approaching anarchism as a serious political philosophy for the first time. As to the question of how to respond to the emergence in Australia of a small group of fascists in anarchist drag, it is beyond the scope of this very short introduction to the New Right to address. At a minimum, it would appear necessary to ensure that this confusion is addressed publicly, in both theory and practice, and the sooner, the better.
Further reading: Kevin Coogan’s Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International, Autonomedia, New York, 1999, provides an exhaustive account of the far right in Europe and North America following the end of the Second World War, and much of the background to the emergence of the New Right and associated ideologies and movements in the last few decades, and is highly recommended.
But to return to Europe, and first to Portugal, where members of the local "Hammerskin Nation" are currently undergoing trial.
The trial of 36 Neo-Nazi members of the Hammerskin Nation organisation commenced on Tuesday, with the activitists facing charges including racial hatred, illegal firearms possession, kidnapping, assaults, and spreading far-right propaganda.
The three dozen members of the [bonehead] gang, arrested a year ago in a major police swoop netting guns, ammunition and explosives, made their first appearance amid tight security before judges at the Monsanto court, just outside Lisbon.
Among those in the dock is Mário Machado, a leader of the far-right gang who has already served a four-year jail term for participating in a 1995 attack that killed a Portuguese citizen of Cape Verdean descent.
The [bonehead] leader has been in preventive detention since his arrest last year.
Most of Machado’s co-defendants were placed under strict bail conditions, including electronic tagging, ahead of Portugal’s biggest-ever far-right trial.
Best of luck boys!
In the Czech Republic, meanwhile, Aisha Gawad has penned some thoughts on the local neo-Nazi and fascist movements (Neo-Nazis emerge from the shadows, The Prague Wanderer). As is the case with Portugal -- the organiser of a gathering of the far right in April of last year, the National Renovation Party (PNR), called on immigrants to "leave Portugal to the Portuguese" -- Czech fascists rally around the slogan of a 'Czech Republic for the Czechs'. In November of last year, several hundred local boneheads and assorted other racist wankers -- reinforced by some of their German Kameraden -- attempted to assemble in Prague, ostensibly in order to protest against the Czech Republic's involvement in the US occupation of Iraq, but not coincidentally on the 69th anniversary of Kristallnacht (aka Pogromnacht), and -- again, not coincidentally -- in an attempt to goose-step about the Jewish quarter of the city. According to Aisha:
Propagating outright Nazi ideology would be breaking Czech law, so [neo-Nazis] skirt around it. Prague, for example, struck down their request to march through the Jewish quarter on November 10, 2007, the 69-year-anniversary of Kristallnacht, yet they tried to gather there anyway, claiming to be protesting the Czech Republic's involvement in the Iraq War. The Czech police managed to keep hundreds of [boneheads] from coming into the city, a move praised by anti-racism groups.
Which is only half the story -- and perhaps not even that. In reality, in addition to the Czech police, the neo-Nazis were confronted by a large number of antifa, including many anarchists. In preparation for the neo-Nazi assault, Czech antifa produced a video:
And again, after the events -- which ended up being something less than a total victory for the Master Race -- other videos were produced. Like this one:
To be fair, Aisha does not entirely ignore such manifestations of militant opposition to fascism. Thus: "At the March 1 rally in Plzen, neo-Nazi opponents outnumbered the demonstrators by the hundreds, although many of these counter-protestors, anarchists and anti-fascists, were extremists in their own right". In other words, Aisha is drawing an explicit equivalence between the 'extremist' neo-Nazis and the 'extremist' anarchists. Note that the march of March 1 took place on the 66th anniversary of the beginnings of mass deportations of Jews to death camps. ("From March to October 1942, 57,752 Jews were deported from the Slovak puppet wartime state. Only some 800 of them survived World War Two"; Train exhibition on WW2 Jewish transports opens in Plzeň, ČTK, April 8, 2008.) Plzen is also home to what is allegedly the third largest existing synagogue in the world, and the march was -- surprise surprise -- scheduled to pass the building.
In terms of opposition to neo-Nazi shenanigans, Aisha notes approvingly the institution of an advertising campaign directed at young Czechs. "For instance, "Neo-Nazi. Do You Want Him?," is a new ad campaign designed by People in Need to show young people what is really behind the behavior of hate groups masked as defenders of Czech honor". Which is well and good, but it would also be worthwhile to note that such behaviour intermittently results in the deaths of those whom Aisha describes as similarly 'extreme' in their views. One recent victim was the teenage Czech anarchist skinhead, Jan Kučera, who was stabbed to death by a neo-Nazi in January. Still, accounts of anarchist resistance rarely receive positive press, and that includes some of the earliest instances of resistance to the Nazi regime itself.
...In Berlin the anarcho-syndicalists were part of a much wider anarchist movement and operated within a distinct socialistic culture, bitterly divided between orthodox Socialists and Communists which minimalised the effect of anarchism. The success of Hitler's party had a shattering and paralysing effect on the working class movement. For years it had been thought, even by those who opposed the Communist Party, that its Red Front/Army would put up a fight. It was expected that the struggle would come with its success, not with its failure. This attitude was ingrained even with those who advocated Socialist-Communist unity against Nazism. Though working class formations had long since battled in the streets against Hitlerism, nobody anticipated the struggle would be given up without a shot or a blow.
In a town like Cologne, only months before Hitler took power anarcho-syndicalists had organised a demonstration, receiving huge popular support, against the visit by Dr Goebbels, who bitterly complained he was 'chased out of his native town like a criminal'. It was a challenge to the larger tendencies, who felt obliged to organise similar demonstrations, making Nazi propaganda tours, at the height of the Depression (and therefore when 'historians' later claimed they were building support) risky in the extreme. Hitler took to travelling by plane (then considered hazardous) as the lesser danger.
In Berlin, marches by Nazis were surrounded and heavily protected by police (like fascist marches in Britain). Isherwood, as a young observer a few months before the Nazis took power, noted how the hostile crowds in the Moabit working class district laughed when an elderly and portly SS captain could not sustain the pace, and finding himself on his own, frantically tried to catch up with the protective cordon. (A few months later and that captain would probably be invested with the power of life and death over the scoffers.)
The Nazi murder gangs attacked individual opponents out on their own (something in the nature of contemporary gay-bashers) but shied in the main from open confrontation. One gang, to which Horst Wessel belonged, tried it on and he became a Nazi martyr. The Nazi (prepower) Jew-baiting activities were against professional people or writers, often when sitting around in cafes, and petty shopkeepers, on their own.
It never occurred to people, least of all organised workers living in proletarian districts, there they too would become isolated. After Hitler took power - was handed power by Hindenburg, with the tacit approval of most parties - the power of the SS dramatically increased.
Almost overnight the top-heavy organisation of the workers collapsed with the wholesale arrests, quite illegal, of their leadership. Nothing disappeared more ignominiously than the Red Front army, one day parading through the streets with its Moscow - trained generals, the next day languishing in holes and cellars in the hastily formed concentration camps (at first, converted derelict warehouses) without striking a blow (the despised Austrian reformist Social-Democrats at least fought it out to the last against Dolfuss).
The Communist party became illegalised, the Socialists and trade union movement tried to make their peace and niche and were slowly illegalised - after which social democracy had nothing to offer. Trade union leaders sought to transfer their funds to war veterans' organisations (where for ideological reasons the Nazis could not sequestrate them, but controlled them anyway). The working class as a whole was stunned at the fact that the entire defence they had built around themselves had gone with the wind.
This overcame the German anarchists too, with the exception of the Rhineland, it became a marginalised dissent movement, unable to speak and therefore to grow. The Rhenish workers were slower to accept the situation, they were not initially provoked to industrial action by the Nazis, but as propaganda contacts vanished, they too succumbed (though never completely). During the twelve years of Nazi dictatorship, a few isolated, especially industrially based, groups, remained constant. But any concerted action was never possible, though in Madrid during the civil war people queued to see a dud German shell displayed in the window of a large store, bearing a sage, 'Comrades! The shells I make do not explode'. (It may have been indicative of sabotage, which certainly went on, or it may have been propaganda set up in Spain - who can tell?)
See also : Resistance to Nazism: Shattered Armies: How The Working Class Fought Nazism and Fascism 1933-45, Anarchist Federation (UK), 2006 (PDF). Includes short biographies on Edelweiss Pirates (Germany) | The Zazous (France) | Arditi del Popolo (Italy) | FAUD (Germany) | 43 Group (UK).
Hitler’s power may lay us low, And keep us locked in chains, But we will smash the chains one day, We’ll be free again!
We’ve got fists and we can fight, We’ve got knives and we’ll get them out, We want freedom, don’t we boys? We’re the fighting Navajos!
Czech Romanies stage exhibition to mark Roma Day Prague, 8.4.2008, 20:08, (ROMEA/CTK)
Czech Romany activists opened an exhibition paying homage to the victims of racially-motivated crime in Prague on the occasion of the International Roma Day today.
They lit candles near the exhibit panels with the names of 27 Romanies who have been killed by violent perpetrators in the Czech Republic since 1990 over the colour of their skin or their different views.
The panels feature, among others, the names and information about the cases of Tibor Daniel, Tibor Berki [and] Filip Venclik.
Romany Tibor Berki died from injuries he received when he was attacked by four [boneheads].
Eighteen members of the [bonehead] movement were charged with the murder of Romany Tibor Daniel but only two of them have been convicted and they only received suspended sentences.
Anarchist Filip Venclik was killed [September 5, 1993] by an attacker at a metro station. [Also Zdenìk Èepela, August 31, 1994.]
"The question is who will be the next. We want to believe in a better future," activist Gabina Hrabanova said.
According to representatives of the Romany Dzeno group, anti-Gypsy tendencies have strengthened in the Czech Republic in the past period.
The Association of Romany Regional Representatives shares this view.
The exhibition was organised by Dzeno. According to its head Ivan Vesely, the organisers did not want to mark this year's Roma Day by dance or song events as usual. On the contrary, they wanted to pay tribute to the victims of racially-motivated violence and point to the situation of Romanies in the Czech Republic and the European Union.
Romanies are the largest minority in the EU. According to estimates, up to 12 million Romanies live in Europe.
Some 11,700 people declared themselves Romanies in the latest national census in the Czech Republic. However, according to estimates, some 250,000 Romanies live in the country.
An analysis has shown that one-third of them live in ghettos in which almost all adults are jobless and families are dependent on welfare benefits. Romany children are placed in schools for children with learning difficulties which closes a path for them to a higher education.
Romanies resent when Czech and European officials describe them as a "social problem," Vesely said.
He told CTK that Romanies would like to participate in the improvement of their situation and want to make decisions concerning them by themselves.
Last year Dzeno addressed an open letter to President Vaclav Klaus calling on him to contribute to the observance of human rights and the improvement of Romany situation in the Czech Republic.
The International Roma Day has been celebrated since 1990 to mark the first meeting of Romany representatives held near London on April 8, 1971.
In the following days, the first world Roma congress took place in Britain at which the International Roma Union was established.
Participants from 14 countries, including the former Czechoslovakia, approved the Roma anthem and the Roma flag at the congress.
In January of this year, another Czech antifa, an anarchist skinhead named Jan Kucera, was murdered by a bonehead. More details on Jan's life and premature death were once available on my previous blog. For the time being -- that is, until such time as my blog is republished -- below is footage of Jan's funeral:
Andy is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a gang member in Neza, a rocker in the National University, a Jew in Nazi Germany, an ombudsman in the Defense Ministry, a communist in the post-Cold War era, an artist without gallery or portfolio... A pacifist in Bosnia, a housewife alone on Saturday night in any neighborhood in any city in Mexico, a striker in the CTM, a reporter writing filler stories for the back pages, a single woman on the subway at 10 pm, a peasant without land, an unemployed worker... an unhappy student, a dissident amid free market economics, a writer without books or readers, and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains of southeast Mexico. So Andy is a human being, any human being, in this world. Andy is all the exploited, marginalized and oppressed minorities, resisting and saying, 'Enough'!
[NB. Andy is also a bogan saying "Pies in 2009!", and has a NEW! IMPROVED! blog here : http://slackbastard.anarchobase.com]
