NOTE MARCH 17 2019 - In 2014 I offered this story widely around NZ media. No publications were interested in exploring the dangerous worldview of white separatists. 

One particularly memorable rejection came from the Sunday Star-Times deputy editor who said ‘I wouldn’t touch this one with a stick.’

That’s a shame, as more light on the white separatist movement could have helped burn it away. 

It sucks when media are ignorant about important issues. 

Michael Botur

PHOTO: Right Wing Resistance meets in Christchurch. 

Vaughan Tocker phones me in a panic. The 53 year old scrapyard operator has just been knighted as a lieutenant within Right Wing Resistance, an organisation which seeks to defend white interests. He’s exasperated that he’s been receiving abuse and threats from strangers, and during the panicked five minutes in which we set up another time to talk, he manages to mention he’s concerned because the prime minister is Jewish. “We used to represent a third of the world population, now we’re down to a tenth,” Tocker says. 

PHOTO: Following Kyle Chapman’s plan for armed coastal forts to keep out refugees, a boat patrol is now sought

White nationalists in New Zealand belong to a range of different groups, but they have the following in common: a belief that NZ is British, bicultural, a belief in the concept of race, and the position that Chinese aren’t welcome.

WHITE PRIDE PRIED WIDE OPEN

In 1997, neo-Nazi skinhead Neihana Foster killed Hemi Hutley by beating him to death outside a West Coast pub. The victim was Maori; so was the racist killer, who explained to police “My heart is white.”

Shannon Flewellen, who selected random Korean tourist Jae Hyeon Kim for a ritual murder in 2003, was the stepson of a Maori leader. There are Samoan and Maori skinheads; many white racists support Palestinians. A Samoan skinhead once told researcher Dr Paul Spoonley that he was more Aryan than regular white supermacists because of his German heritage. White nationalists have complicated codes. While I’ve interviewed several murderers and numerous ex-cons before, I’ve never been told to be cautious until now. It’s Dr Spoonley of Massey University who warns me. As the country’s pre-eminent scholar on neo-Nazis, he receives death threats on a regular basis. 

PHOTO: Dr Paul Spoonley

Spoonley achieved his Ph.D. by studying extreme right wing groups in NZ in the 1980s, comparing NZ white extremists to members of the British National Party and National Front and monitoring their anxieties and worries.

“There’s a tendency to dismiss them as being nutters or people who don’t think about the world. That’s true for some, but for others they have a very clear view of the world. We’ve got to treat them seriously.”

“We’ve had a lot of violence in Wellington directed at the Jewish community – building burned down, cemeteries attacked. The John Birch Society in Christchurch for a long time, producing books about white supremacy. The guy in charge of the California KKK published work here, and the Bay Area Skin Heads were influential. There have been up to 30 groups associated with white supremacy – but they fought amongst themselves.”

Wellington’s latest Jew-hater is Nic Miller, who ran a web page in 2006 denouncing Wellington Jewish people before declaring a jihad to retain the spelling of Wanganui.  

“Wellington is a stronghold of anti-Semitism and Oi music because it’s got a strong set of alternative subcultures.”

PHOTO: The White NZ League’s 1926 statement of intent

While the first White New Zealand League emerged in Pukekohe in 1926 in a panic over Indian immigrants, Spoonley says Nazealand really arose in the 1980s. “The Springbok tour was the beginning of that. Two groups emerged. The first said Maori should have same rights as whites; the second group said that Maori assertion is hurtful to white interests.”

Maori have traditionally been more assertive, and Chinese communities less-so, which is connected to some whites’ surprising aversion to criticising Maori. Today, the leader of Right Wing Resistance Kyle Chapman says “I have far more in common with a nationalist Maori than I do with a middle class lefty white…I get a lot of support from Maori. Whenever I visit my Maori relatives it’s always ‘Hey bro, good job, hope you’re pissing the government off,’ it’s never anti.”

“There were skirmishes between Maori gangs and white gangs in the 1980s,” Spoonley says, “But generally white power groups didn’t come off the best – so there was a pragmatic reason for not confronting Maori. Chinese people and gays would not complain as much [when attacked.]” Spoonley can’t quite decide why Asian students are targeted for random beatings, especially in Christchurch, such as a mob beating by skinheads on people of Asian descent at the Palms mall in 2010, or on Lincoln Road in 2011, in which a woman sicced her dog on random Asian people. “It’s likely because Asian students are often on their own on South Island streets, they’re visible, vulnerable, and have been here in increasing numbers. Some whites have perceived this arrival as a threat to their culture.”

LEFT OUTSIDE OF RIGHT

 PHOTO:Kyle Chapman in his Hamilton man-cave. PHOTO - Michael Botur

Kyle Chapman is a diabetic grandfather with a beer belly. He’s cosy with the Falun Gong and works as a landscape gardener. He protects his mum’s neighbourhood, values free speech, he’s against the Free Trade Agreement.

The very same person recently campaigned to form an armed coastal patrol of NZ to keep asylum seekers out. He only got one boat, and that was in Whanganui.

At 43, he’s still into toy guns and survivalism and enjoys healthy competition between countries, like a child playing Risk.

The man I pop down to the Tainui kingdom to visit is the worldwide head of Right Wing Resistance, spanning 20 countries from eastern Europe to Latin America. “South America has always had strong extreme political left and right. Our guy in Chile has been stabbed five times, he almost got killed in jail, communists outnumber and attack them all the time.”

“RWR is a political activist group. It’s also a club for white people to bond and drink with like-minded people. We do charitable stuff for our own people, like delivering food after the Christchurch earthquake.”

“RWR are like the boy scouts, but we adjusted military rank for what we want. I’m the Lieutenant-General.”

While his sprogs run around the lounge sipping juice, classical music plays and his beautiful Aryan wife Claire hands me a cup of immigrant (Thai) soup, he tells me where he comes from. “We were King Country farmers. Then we moved to Invercargill so Dad could work at the smelter. Back then you had to be in the union. They used to ring up and threaten us. That was my introduction to communists.”

Chapman seems like an average bluecollar Kiwi. It’s when I ask provocative questions that the Lieutenant General emerges.

“RWR members are poor white people from low income areas where they’re left on the backburner – Levin, Palmerston, North, Hawkes Bay – where if you’re not brown, you don’t get any help. It’s easy to recruit those people because no one else gives a shit about them.”

A typical day’s work as leader sees him settling internal disputes and coup attempts, moderating what RWR writers post online, and sighing at the abuse he receives by people offended at his work (recently, his phone’s been getting bombed with facts about cats.)

“People accuse me of being a Nazi, but I’m against anything that causes people to be killed for no reason. I’m against communism, Nazis, America and Israel because they all cause mass murder against innocent people. Even though some of our members are sympathetic to [Nazism], they have the right to freedom of speech.”

“I hate being called a white supremacist, but I won’t lie and say I don’t have white supremacists amongst my ranks.”

While Claire goes to pick peaches, Kyle explains how NZ First aren’t nationalist enough. The Armed Intervention Group run by militant Kelvyn Alps, which once announced a war on the NZ government, briefly interested Chapman, but that didn’t last either. It’s hard for Chapman to find a fit, which is why he formed his own organisation – one which
Spoonley says is like a retired gang.   

“We stormed one of the Greens meetings once because we heard they were planning to protest against us. We went there to intimidate them but when we got there we liked everything they had to say! We sat there and listened and told all the Greens to bugger off! Rod Donald was there and he was awesome, I liked him. I had a big chat with him and found a lot of common ground.”

“The Falun Gong once invited me to one of their movies and it was quite interesting. It gave me way more material against China. Falun Gong definitely has a common cause with us against the Chinese government. I found them very friendly, good people.” 

The unmistakable uniform of Right Wing Resistance. Photo / Michael Botur

Chapman’s world view is complicated. He admires Castro, and ‘that anti-Zionist guy’ in Iran whose name he can’t quite remember. He says Israel should pay for its genocide of Palestinians. He has some sympathy for Muslims – only Sunnis, though. “Shi’ites want to kill us all.”

Golden Dawn supporters recently sent him death threats over Facebook, after he expressed support for Macedonian nationalists. “They said if they ever see me they’ll kill me,” he laughs. He straightened that one out by having a yarn with the Golden Dawn’s leader.

Claire interrupts to say ta-ta. She’s off around the corner to visit another mum. “By the way, all of this bores me absolutely stupid,” she says. “We don’t even talk about it, let alone all the stuff you’re getting involved in. Kyle’s phone has to be on silent because he’s texting all the time, it drives me mental.”

“Lefties usually wait ‘til 3am when they’re really drunk to make their death threats,” Chapman chuckles. “Now they get more imaginative and try to overload my phone with interesting facts about cats.” That aside, Chapman has a grim vision of his future in politics. “I wouldn’t be surprised if some nutjob leftie or Mossad takes me out because I’m anti-Zionist. I’m not anti-Jew, it’s just that Zionists believe Jews are the master race and they’ll try to take over the world.”

WAYS OF THE WHITE MAN

It’s tricky to call oneself white. White isn’t a country, religion or political stance – but it is a subculture. White separatists have adopted knights, wolves, shields and chalices into their culture in the same way some Polynesians and Maori have adopted reggae colours, rap and the Black Power fist. NZ whites often sport the US Confederate flag; ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ used to be the national anthem of skinheads. The language of neo-Nazis begins with the mantra of ’14 Words’ (celebrated on the NZ National Front’s Facebook page.) That mantra, taken from a 1980s American neo-Nazi gang, is ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.’ If you’re hanging around whites, you’ll need to know that RaHoWa is slang for Racial Holy War, a boot girl is a female skinhead, etc. Whites like to put double esses on the ends of words, such as the Christchurch skinhead gang Backyard Boozerss, and they reference secret code numbers all the time – 88 represents the eighth letter of the alphabet, so 88 stands for Heil Hitler. 

From the NZNF website. The 14 words mantra is ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.’

Extremists shave off their eyebrows and replace the hairs with tattoos; they call people ‘mate,’ not ‘bro.’ Whites have a genre of music known as Oi, which is a derivative of punk, although slower nationalist folk tunes, popular in Britain, play over the videos which RWR posts on YouTube. There’s also NSBM: Nationalist Socialist Black Metal. 

Members of a National Socialist Black Metal band in – where else? – 1990s Christchurch

The white subculture is littered with Odinist crosses and SS lightning bolts – you can see a few on the RWR account on YouTube. Odinism is the religion of choice for many whites; it’s always had its home in Wellington. Odinism is attractive because “The Odinists were people considered ‘uncontaminated’ by Jews or Christians,” says Spoonley.

As a Mormon, Chapman himself is a member of one of the world’s brownest churches. He says the attraction of Odinism for his flock is “It is an aggressive form of paganism, which is about dying in battle. On the left, Pagans go towards Wicca, which is gay shit, but now Greek and Roman paganism is creeping into right wing movements all over the world. Some of us actually believe in Greek and Roman gods. Some people are mixing it together with[the ancient Icelandic religion] Ásatrú.”  Fallen warriors are canonised, such as Troy Cullinane of Hamilton. 

Scandinavian paganism and Viking culture is popular with some white nationalists, who can have trouble fitting in with Christian churches

The white separatist mentality took a horrifying form in Christchurch Prison, where whites created the Fourth Reich gang in 1992. The Fourth Reich became so menacing that a specialist ‘goon squad’ was formed by guards to stop whites from causing a riot on New Year’s Eve, 2000. In the tradition of Auckland’s Stormtroopers and Mongrel Mob, the Fourth Reich adopted a Nazi name and imagery. Its members – many of who were junkies and bank robbers – went on to strangle gay Greymouth transient James Bambrough, bomb a Nelson bikie gang, and cut off the fingers and scalp of a someone who tried to leave the gang. Dr Spoonley says the Fourth Reich sat somewhere between organised neo-Nazis and disorganised crooks. “They were driven both by white supremacy and drugs/robbery. When they came out of prison, they spread to Nelson and the West Coast. In many ways they looked like any other gang members, but their white supremacist views marked them. They had strong ideology around maintaining racial purity and opposing the threat of foreigners. There is still a Fourth Reich, but many are not as strong or as organised as they used to be. Really it’s only RWR that maintains organisation and commitment.”

THE CAUCASIAN CAUCUS: WHITES IN THE BEEHIVE?

Chapman says it’s “a joke” that the National Front could get a seat in parliament like the British National Party, that doesn’t mean our most racist political party has given up its fight to get into government.

“If there’s a Maori Party, why can’t we have a white party?” says Vince Stephens, acting president of the NZ National Front. “The Maori Party are modelling themselves on South Africa. What other countries in the world have their own black schools and rugby team? It’s offensive.” A sheet metal engineer by day, Stephens was brought up in a standard Wellington family with hard working white parents. The National Front leads its campaign from his hometown, just south of a rival RWR chapter in the Wairarapa. Stephens says the NF is more about being right wing than white wing. “Our specific policies aren’t just white pride. Other groups have splintered off us because they believe we’re becoming too PC, too soft.” Considering the NZNF Facebook page bears the 14 Words, it’s a stretch to see the NZNF as politically correct. “The minute you say you’re white pride you’re called a racialist. To be proud to be white you are deemed racialist. It’s ridiculous. So we don’t push pride, we push the culture of the white man and the culture of the country before this multicultural bullshit.” 

NZNF Acting President Vince Stephens. Photo / Vince Stephens

He’s upset that NZ is has become ‘diseased’ like England. “They’ve got Somalis, Muslims, you name it. You can’t recognise London any more. It’s been taken over by cultures which aren’t compatible. You’ll see headlines over in Europe now saying Multiculturalism has failed. Why can’t we learn from their example?”

“White culture was brought here from England. When we got to NZ it became NZ culture.” Pressed to define white culture, Stephens simply says ‘Barbecues.’ 

“If you go to Auckland, English culture is lost there, it’s been completely taken over by Asians. For some reason we’ve decided we want to let in boat people who have nothing to do with our culture. In Naenae, the Somalians are taking over. Everyone says ‘be nice to this people’ but then a dozen of them start walking down the street, attacking everyone.” What Stephens is describing sounds similar to the booted RWR mobs who patrol eastern Christchurch suburbs.

It may have all gone wrong when our supposed bastion of Englishness was lost. “Christchurch used to be an NF stronghold, because it’s such a white city to start with. People are getting outnumbered and scared in Auckland so we find it hard to protest there. In Wellington, members come from the northern suburbs like Johnsonville. We don’t have the Somali and Muslim issues there. Housing NZ piles immigrants into the Hutt Valley.”

“A lady phoned me the other day from Naenae, she’d lived there for 26 years, She’s starting to get terrified. Her son won’t wear trousers now at school, he has to wear shorts so he can run away from the blacks who walk around in groups and target white people.” 

NZNF hope to be inside the Beehive after this year’s election. Photo / NZNF

As with RWR, the NF suffers most criticism not from Maori or Jewish communities, but from ‘white Marxists.’ “I personally have had no trouble with Maori groups. The lefties give us all sorts of grief. They’ve decided we are a bunch of Nazis. This Nazi stuff is lost on me, we don’t walk around in Nazi uniforms or do Nazi acts. The 2012 attack on Jewish graves in Auckland coincided with our Flag Day march in Wellington and we were accused of being grave desecraters. We were going ‘What the fuck are you on about?’”

Stephens says skinheads are welcome in the NZNF, but gang members and thugs who are white pride in name only are ‘totally against’ what the NF stands for. “We’ve tried to clean up our image. We feel solidarity with NZ First, whether they agree or not. Winston Peters’ policies are good. He preaches what the NF says half the time.”

The biggest motivator of the NF is ‘Flag Day,’ held annually on Labour Day (a Marxist holiday.) It involves a march in defence of the current NZ flag, a flag which NF and RWR members believe is going to be replaced because of scaremongering from the newsmedia.

The current focus of NZNF is to secure 500 paid members and register as a political party. “You don’t have to be white to join. We do ask everyone who joins if they are on the electoral roll because we’re after the 500 voters. Unfortunately so many members are transient, keeping track of them does my head in. Once, I took my paperwork to the electoral commission and it got thrown out again because it turned out that 12 people had said they were living at my house!”

NAZI OF THE ‘NAKI

The National Front president was until recently one of the only Kiwis ever prosecuted for anti-Semitism: Colin King-Ansell. He’s 67 now and runs a printer in sleepy Hawera – where he was once chased out of the business association for his controversial past. Colin King-Ansell says he’s one of the oldest nationalists in NZ. He got involved with what he calls ‘nationalism’ in the 1960s, but today he’s keeping up with trends – his Facebook groups include ‘Asylum seekers = benefit-seeking scum,’ and ‘Say no to gay marriage.’

“I am not really a fascist. Lefties like to use the terms fascist and Nazi as a put-down.”

“You could call me the great grandfather of nationalism. When the NF was set up again under Kyle Chapman, who was in the NZ Fascist Union, I fell out with Chapman’s stupid policy ideas. Chapman was telling people he is descended from Alexander the Great. Chapman knighting people with a sword is childish, and the coastal forts and the European homeland are hare-brained ideas.”

“When I took over the NF I got rid of the military ranks. I tried to turn it into a national socialist movement.”

Colin Ansell, highlighted. Ansell says he’s now retired from National Socialism.

I ask Ansell for his interpretation of ‘socialism’ – a dirty word in politics. “We classify ourselves as beyond left and right in the third position. The International Third Position founders were under the first NF in England.” Ansell says the version of National Socialism which Hitler tried in Germany doesn’t translate to other countries. “NZ is different in that it has two distinct ethnic groups who formed a partnership.”

“Some Maori and Mana party policies are Maori versions of ours. Years ago I sat down in my living room with Pita Sharples, who was with the Race Relations Commissioner’s office. He agreed that links to tribalism were holding Maori back.”

“I’ve found a lot of Maoris believe and agree with some of the things in the NF. We have allowed mass Asian immigration. In the 1970s that happened in Australia and before long you had the Vietnamese crimelords popping up. Our police don’t know what they’re in for.”

“Muslim terrorists will be the world’s biggest threat. Muslims born in NZ will be more susceptible to Muslim extremism.” He has theories on the Jews, too. “Jews are entitled to their own homeland. Hitler said if the Jews are given a homeland, it will become a festering sore. Sooner or later the Arabs will tool themselves up to fight.”

He doesn’t mind that he’s associated with white pride. “I am proud of my ethnic origins. My father was the first born in NZ. I can trace the Ansells back to William of Normandy. They were a power behind the throne.” Didn’t Kyle Chapman claim something similar?

“People joining the NF now are feeling alienated from society… Nationalism gives them a purpose and direction. John Key has stirred up a hornet’s nest with the suggestion that he will change the flag.”

‘White New Zealander’ is the preferred term in NZNF circles. Ansell-King says people hardly use the word Pakeha. “A lot of old school nationalists look at the term as derogatory. When I was younger, calling a Maori Hori was common, and they called us Pakeha.”

PAKEHA POWER

It’s true: not a single white nationalist I interview uses the word ‘Pakeha’ once – apart from the Pakeha Party founder, who, ironically, detests using the word ‘white’ to describe himself. 

David Ruck says he’s not white – he’s Pakeha. Photo / David Ruck

“Saying I’m proud that I’m white instantly puts images of skinheads and swastikas into your head,” says David Ruck, 36, interviewed after Waitangi Day at the Remuera house he’s just moved into from – where else? – Christchurch. “That’s not what I’m about, there’s not hatred of any other race. I’m proud to be who I am – why shouldn’t I be? It’s not about downing any other race at all.” He’s been to Christchurch Prison, where the Fourth Reich appalled and intimidated him.

Ruck is Caucasian Christchurch in the flesh, with blond hair, pale skin and blue eyes. He talks like a boyish true blue Kiwi and gets his world view from the six o’clock news.

The foundation of the Pakeha Party on Facebook in 2013 caused an avalanche of endorsement from Pakeha who still seem unaware that they already have an enormous amount of cultural expression available, from Highland games, cricket, wood chopping and A&P shows, Celtic tattoos, Union Jacks, country music, kilts, easy passport deals with Europe, English spoken everywhere,… the list goes on. Colonial  settlers are canonised and memorialised is every NZ town, while Maori from the same period are buried anonymously. Michael King devoted a whole book to defining Pakeha, but that hasn’t been enough to assuage the fears of Ruck’s followers, who are plainly terrified of how Maori assertiveness is portrayed by media.  

“The PP was founded as a reaction to Mana asking for cheap housing for Maori only,” Ruck says, rubbing the hangover out of his eyes. “I saw it on the 6pm news, Breakfast and TVNZ. I literally went straight to Facebook and created the party as a status update, initially. I thought ‘I don’t agree with a race-related party, I’ll set up the Pakeha Party. My view on the word Pakeha changed after reading posted comments. When there’s some sort of Maori march outside parliament, it’s the looks on their angry tattooed faces on TV when they say ‘Pakeha,’ I used to find that quite intimidating, degrading, but this experience has made me proud to be a Pakeha. I feel like a Pakeha. My ancestors came over on the first three Christchurch ships.” Pressed, Ruck is unable to name which waka his whanau arrived on.

“The party got 5000 likes in the first four days. A journo told me it was exploding all over Twitter. A lot of support came from university students who complained about grants for Maori only. The number of followers peaked at 57,000. Facebook was monitoring it because they didn’t know what a Pakeha was, like ‘is this racist?’”

Ruck struggles to identify precisely which Maori have made marginalised his people. He pronounces the word with difficulty, saying ‘Mowry’ instead of “Maari.’

“One in ten people hates the idea of the party, or doesn’t get it. The point was that there shouldn’t be any race-related parties, this is 2014 not the 1800s, I want to move on as one people. It’s fighting fire with fire. The thing is that only a full-blooded Maori could feel outcast by the word Pakeha. Now that there’s no full blooded Maori left, everyone is a Pakeha.”

Ruck tells me of the party’s policies, to be expanded upon once he’s set up a website with tight security, found a leader and handed over the money that hundreds of people have already paid to try and register the Pakeha Party. Ruck hates Chinese immigrants sending New Zealand money overseas, company owners forcing immigrants to work for citizenship, and he wants Pakeha to have every advantage that Maori have. Those three items are the party’s entire manifesto.

“Asians and students really like this party, and I had a lot of National members trying to give me advice on policies and setting the party up.” Defining what’s Pakeha should be the first step. Ruck doesn’t seem to have settled on that just yet. “Pakeha is very closely related to Maori, I grew up with Maori friends. I did a couple of wānanga courses. I was the only white guy when I walked in but at the end of it, they were stoked I was there. I enjoy Maori culture, having a hangi, a boil-up, barbecues, outdoors, it’s a lot closer-knit than my family ever was.”

“Our culture is heavily influenced by Maori culture, so it’s very hard to say something is ‘just Pakeha.’”

“There are a lot of people saying thank you so much for starting this. People are venting on the page. And it’s educational too… Still, I’m disappointed in the public because I didn’t realise this country had so many idiots in it – disgusting threats of violence posted on the page.”

Ruck doesn’t understand where the party sits on the political spectrum until I draw him a diagram and he decides that he’s right wing. I also explain to Ruck the section of the Bill of Rights Act which allows affirmative action/positive discrimination for the purpose of rebalancing inequalities. Still, he subscribes to the whites’ angsty, paranoid vision of the future. “You’ve got two groups that hate each other spending all their lives bickering about this stupid shit and in the meantime, the planet is dying. A reporter told me the Chinese want to start their own party in NZ. That offended me. I’m not doing this to cause race segregation.”

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

 Every year, Dame Susan Devoy’s office receives complaints as a result of anti-Asian immigration groups’ dropping leaflets, she says. 31 complaints were received last year, plus six complaints about The Pakeha Party’s Facebook page. As the Race Relations Commissioner, Dame Susan has to uphold free speech, while shutting down hate speech. “When the Race Relations Office was introduced in 1972 people dismissed it saying there would be no complaints. But the truth is plenty of people suffer in silence and still do often because they are afraid to complain or because language is a barrier.” 

Following the desecration of Jewish cemeteries in July and August 2004, the Race Relations Commissioner’s office got behind the NZ Diversity Programme.  “The widespread condemnation following these incidents reinforced the resolve that there is no place for this type of hatred in New Zealand.” Annual surveys since 2001 show that Asians are consistently perceived to be the most discriminated group, she says. “A possible cause for this is that Asians tend to be new migrants, and are perceived to be less part of the social fabric and social identity of being a New Zealander than say Maori or Pacific (even though they have been migrating to NZ since 19^th century.)”

So what are the rules? How can white separatists stand up for the underdog, while supporting an overbearing Crown? How can a group of immigrants be against immigration?

 Spoonley’s studies of proud whites in England found their anxiety was often manifested in nostalgia and conservatism. New Zealand is the antipodes of the United Kingdom, and it doesn’t always feel English enough, so some whites are compensating by re-writing history.

Historical revisionists in this country have two things in common: All the proponents are white, and all their criticisms are directed at the Waitangi Tribunal. Maori are only criticised some of the time; the rest of the time, the Crown is castigated for selling out its people. Allan Titford was jailed in 2013 for, among other things, constructing fake arson attacks on his Northland farm to make it appear the local iwi were trying to burn him out. He received support from anti-Tribunal groups including the One NZ Foundation, elocal magazine (which publishes articles challenging history written by yours truly), Iwi vs Kiwi billboard creator John Ansell, and Ancient Celtic NZ theorist Martin Doutré, who is friends with famous fascist Kerry Bolton, who is friends with Kyle Chapman, who was once convicted for firebombing a marae. The ancient Celtic movement, whose followers believe that Maori fairies Turehu and Patupaiarehe are Celts who arrived here 4000 years ago, is best expressed in the work of ‘Sir’ Gary Cook (he knighted himself, believing he is a member of the Knights Templar), whose website The Secret Land shows him and legions discovering hidden European megaliths in the Kiwi bush while Wagner plays dramatically. 

A popular subculture believes Patupaiarehe are Celts who discovered NZ around 2000BC. Above, Gary ‘SpiritWalker’ prays to white faeries. Photos / “Sir” Garry Cook

That movement is an extreme example of an innate – and completely understandable – fear amongst whites that the immigration of ‘incompatible’ cultures will coincide with a severing of ties to the motherland.

“I’d like to see the king or queen protect us,” Chapman sighs. “The majority of our people are Irish and British. Not all support the crown, but most do. RWR does actually have some guys that are anti-Crown and I get sick of that.” Chapman says he would welcome anyone here who comes from ‘Commonwealth culture,’ whether from Hong Kong or India.

Spoonley has an explanation for this mentality. “NZ was deemed to be a British outpost and multiculturalism challenges that Britishness. It’s no coincidence that our most British city, Christchurch, is the centre of white power.” Spoonley is right about that: Canterbury is decorated with crusaders, shields, knights, chalices, and streets named after imperial colonies. These are all better examples of white culture than barbecues. If white nationalists appreciated their own culture more, and stopped defining themselves in opposition to Somalis, Maori and Chinese, perhaps they’d be more comfortable. Besides, with a Caucasian invasion of 30,000 people from Great Britain, the US, Canada and Germany over the last five years – far more immigrants than Chinese –  what’s there for whites to worry about?