eurofascism.info

Democracy won’t stand the test of time
Unemployment and a rising rate of crime
Will you stay or will you go?
When the time comes you will have to know
Are you gonna stand and fight for your race?
When the storm breaks, which way will you go?
When the storm breaks, you will have to know
When the storm breaks, what you gonna do?
When the storm breaks, can we count on you?

(When the Storm Breaks, Skrewdriver*)

For a number of years Jared Taylor, of the pseudo-scientific racist magazine American Renaissance have been sponsoring a series of biennial conferences. The magazine, which portrays itself as «America’s premiere publication of racial-realist thought», spends much of its time opposing immigration from Mexico and is promoting «the clear conception of the United States as a nation ruled by and for whites».

The theme of the 2006 conference was, however, «The Global Crisis: Perspectives from Europe, Africa and Australia».

Present at the conference was David Duke, a well-known Holocaust denier, former Klan-leader and 1990 governor candidate for the Republican Party in Louisiana (he was also running in the 1988 Democratic primaries).

Stormfront.org, one of the largest fascist websites in the world, was represented by its founder Don Black, another former Klansman, known for planning an invasion of the island state of Dominica in 1980. The announced speakers included South-African Dan Roodt (‘Prospect for the White Tribe’), French Guillaume Faye (‘The Threat to the West’) and Andrew Fraser (‘Reversing the Racial Revolution –
Reinventing a Responsible Ruling Class’), the Canadian-born professor who stirred up quite a storm in Australia with his talk of a rising ruling class of Asians. In one article Fraser writes:

[...] Our still predominantly Anglo-Australian rulers are indifferent; some profit from, and others actually take pride in their active collaboration with the Third World colonisation of Australia. None of the major parties, indeed, not one member of the Commonwealth Parliament, offers citizens the option of voting to defend and nurture Australia’s Anglo-European identity. The problem, in short, is clear: The Australian nation is bereft of a responsible ruling class. The solution is, in principle, no less obvious: namely, the restoration of a ruling class rooted in the reinvigorated folkways of an authentically Anglo-American civic patriotism, a ruling class re-attached to the history and destiny of its own people. Only time will tell whether and how any such constitutional reformation could take place.

Fraser ends his article with calling for regime change, and this – together with his more or less open association with far right groups – does not make it all too difficult to place the Canadian-Australian professor in an ideological context. But what about the American Renaissance conference? One illuminating incident is reported by the Canadian white supremacist Paul Fromm and quoted by the Australian anti-fascist group FightDemBack:

There were some fireworks this morning during the question and answer period following the speech given by Guillame Faye (sic!) of France. Dr. Duke took to the mic and began asking a question in which he alluded to the IP’s control of our media and culture. Although he never mentioned the J word (despite a request from someone in the crowd who yelled “Tell us!”) a member of the IP in the crowd became offended at Dr. Duke’s allusions to IP power and got up from his seat yelling something. I didn’t quite understand at which point another conference goer jumped up and yelled back at him “The door’s right there!”

The letters IP are taken from the Inner Party in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. In the book, the Inner Party regulates the totalitarian ideology referred to as IngSoc, English Socialism. In the code language of today’s white supremacists, however, it refers to Jews. And while people like Guillaume Faye, one of France’s nouvelle droite-thinkers, focused on Islam as the great danger and portrayed the 2005 riots in France as a vital precursor to the explosion of «ethnic civil war» which alone would «wake up white racial consciousness», the anti-Semitism of yesterday was not far way. Duke thanked Faye for a speech which «stirred our genes» and asked the Frenchman whether there was not a more insidious threat to the West than Islam? As Fromm describes, a call came from the back of the room: «Tell us what it is».

«I am not going to say», said Duke to rising laughter.

The «IP man» of Fromm was Martin Hart, a right-wing Jewish astrophysicist who has attended the American Renaissance conferences since 1996. He was annoyed at Duke’s obvious reference to the Jews, not least because he had only just reassured Herschel Elias, a new-comer to the American Renaissance circuit, that although the conference was «infiltrated by Nazis and Holocaust deniers» this should not detract from his enjoyment of the gathering. «You fucking Nazi, you’ve disgraced this meeting», Hart shouted at Duke before storming out of the hall followed by boos and catcalls.

Nick Griffin probably did not boo. Although he in a 1997 booklet entitled «Who are the Mind Benders?» outlined a Jewish media conspiracy «providing us with an endless diet of pro-multiracial, pro-homosexual, anti-British trash», anti-Semitism has not been one of the British National Party’s selling points these last few years.

Instead, the focus is on Islam, referred to as «an aggressive imperialistic, anti-white, anti-Christian, anti-scientific, anti-human menace, [...] on the verge – in historical terms – of conquering the whole of Europe».

In this article, written in the wake of the American Renaissance conference Griffin warned against «siding with Islam against the neo-cons», pointing out that the job of white nationalists is «not to apportion blame for the chaos, but to position ourselves so as to take maximum advantage of it [...], ride the wave of public opinion and harness its power for our own use».

In his speech at the AmRen conference, Griffin only made what some see as an allusion to the Jews, when he stated that «the proper enemy to any political movement isn’t necessarily the most evil and the worst. The proper enemy is the one we can most easily defeat». His focus was on the «bastardised, mongrelised
democracy» that had tried to deprive him of his «free speech» and on the «ghastly multiracial experiment that has been forced upon us». His conclusion was that «people are going to be killed before we deislamify Europe». These statements are hardly unique, their tone typically Eurofascist, or «national democratic». But how did Nick Griffin – the man who has led the British National Party through its alleged change from «the authoritarian BNP» to the «new democratic nationalist BNP» – fit in at the AmRen conference?

To answer that, it is time to consider his past. Griffin started his career at the socalled far right end of the political spectre when his father, Edgar, took him to meetings of the National Front. By 1978, he was a local secretary for the group. In 1980 he became a member of its National Directorate, and also was instrumental in
setting up the student organisation of the front.

-

One of the deadliest terror attacks in recent European history took place in Bologna, Italy on 2. August, 1980. It was a hot Saturday morning, the first weekend of Italy’s traditional holiday month.

Thousands of vacationers were on their way to and from the trains in the central railroad station of the city. In the midst of that noisy crowd someone stopped midway between the second-class waiting room and the coffee bar, put down a heavy suitcase and quickly left the station.

The suitcase contained a timed bomb, made with TNT and T4. At 10:25 it went off, the explosion destroying most of the main building and hitting the Ancona-Chiasso train waiting at the first platform. The roof of the waiting room collapsed onto passengers there. In all, 85 people were killed, over 200 wounded.

In the beginning, investigators thought the blast might be accidental, caused by a defect boiler in the station restaurant. Soon, however, it became obvious what really had happened.

Several groups reputedly took responsibility for the attack. One of them was the right-wing terrorist group Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari. In spite of that, years of confusion was to follow regarding who was really behind the attack, and a number of conspiracy theories gained foothold **. Even today, what happened and who was behind it is not entirely clear. Two members of the NAR, Francesca Mambro and Valerio Fioravanti have been convicted for the bombing, but deny having had anything to do with it.

The terror attack in Bologna was the culmination of a long line of terrorist bombings and assasinations in Italy, involving both left-wing and right-wing groups. The Ordine Nuovo, an offshoot of the fascist party MSI and also connected to the NAR, was involved in the bombing of the Piazza Fontana in Milan in 1969, of the Roma-Messina train in 1970 and of the hand-grenading of an anti-fascist march in Brescia in 1974. The group, which shared its motto «Our honour is called loyalty» with the Waffen-SS (“Unsere Ehre heisst Treue”), has also been accused of being directly involved in the Bologna bombing.

A number of neo-fascists wanted for questioning in connection with the bombing – and for a series of killings and bank robberies – sought refugee in England. This was facilitated by the League of Saint George, the political home of some of the more
intellectual amongst English neo-fascists and an attempt at setting up a neo-fascist umbrella group***.

A leading figure amongst these Italians was Roberto Fiore. Upon arriving in the United Kingdom, he soon became the mentor of a hard-line faction within the National Front. Amongst the prominent members of this faction were Nick Griffin, Derek Holland and Joe Pearce. Fiore, Holland and others worked jointly on a sporadical magazine called Rising, putting across their thinking. Holland also wrote a 24-page booklet which was to become central for a rising branch of European fascism. The text has notable similarities to some radical Islamist thinking, and also mentions the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in Iran favourably:

[W]hat is needed above all else is a fundamental shift in attitude towards struggle, towards life, towards destiny; that there cannot be, and will not be, any serious change in the overall direction taken by the countries of Europe until the New Man, like a giant on the horizon, capable of moulding and inspiring a New Social Order… Europe does not have a monopoly on Political Soldiers and all peoples and cultures have the potential to produce this type of man, each fitted to his peculiar circumstances.

Take for example the Islamic Revolutionary Guards in the Iran of the Mullahs… Their eblief in their Cause is so strong that they will run through minefields unarmed to attack enemy positions… This power drove the Yankee war machine out of the Lebanon – whilst U.S. troops were fighting for job security, a wage packet and a pension, their opponents in the Revolutionary Guards were fighting for an Ideal, an independend Iranian Iran.

It is the task of the Political Soldier to promote the Will to live by revelaing the true nature of life – as opposed to the materialist nightmare of this century which is mistakenly taken to be «life» – and by living this life. In order to do this the Political Soldier must undergo a Spiritual Revolution, an inner revolution which guides, directs and pervades his life.

The pamphlet gives four historical examples of its new man, the Political Soldier: the Spartans, the Roman centurion, the Crusaders and the fascist Iron Guard of Romania. It has been translated to several European languages. One notable translation is the one done into Polish for the Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski mentioned in the first chapter of this book.

As the Political Soldier-wing became dominating in the National Front throughout the 1980s, its activists advanced a program drawing from sources as diverse as the agrarian socialism of William Morris, the Green Book of Muammar Qadaffi and Strasserite National Socialism. It claimed to be «beyond left and right» and began advocating «racial separatism» and «ethnopluralism», rather than open race hatred.

This led them to express solidarity with not only the Libyan and Iranian  governments, but also with the Black separatist Louis Farrakhan.

In 1985, Griffin wrote: «white nationalists everywhere wish [Farrakhan] well, for we share a common struggle for the same ends: Racial Separation and Racial Freedom». Around that time, he also visited Libya, and the National Front News noted:

Common interest must be turned into practical cooperation. Those involved must work to nail the media lies which are used by our enemies to try to divide us and make us afraid to be seen standing side by side with Third Way nations such as Libya and Iran.

Very often the common interest was little but a shared strong anti-Semitism.

For some years in the mid-1980s, Griffin hosted summer concerts at his father’s farm near Suffolk, featuring Skrewdriver and other racist bands. Then, in 1989, he went on to form the International Third Position together with Derek Holland, continuing the Political Soldier ideology. The group campaigned against Coca Cola, McDonald, urbanisation and – of course – «Zionism». This bizarre offshoot of the British far right still exists, changing its name to England First in 2001. The ITP has also worked in a group called European National Front, joining forces with Forza Nuova, the German NPD, Spanish neo-falangists, the Romanian Noua Dreaptâ and Greek Chrysi Avyi / Patriotiki Symmachia.

Nick Griffin remained involved in ITP until well into the nineties, but eventually gravitated towards the BNP. He began to edit a quarterly published by Croydon BNP, The Rune. As editor of this magazine, he referred to the Holocaust as Holohoax, something which did not stop him from becoming the editor of Spearhead, at the time still very much a BNP publication. In one 1995 issue of
the Rune he wrote: «Mass alien immigration and suicidally low birthrate mean that the White Race is poised on the brink of a precipice of rapid and irreversible decline. If we do not step back now, we face political and then physical extinction. A stark
choice. UNITE OR DIE!».

He also noted that «the electors of Millwall did not back a post modernist rightist party, but what they perceived to be a strong, disciplined organisation with the ability to back up its slogan ‘Defend Rights for Whites’ with well-directed boots and fists. When the crunch comes power is the product of force and will, not of rational debate».

Two years later he wrote the already mentioned anti-Semitic rant «Who are the Mind Benders?» and the following year he noted the he was «well aware that the orthodox view is that 6 million Jews were gassed and cremated and turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also also once held that the Earth was flat… I have reached the conclusion that the ‘extermination’ tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter witch-hysteria».

Today, this man – who in the mid-1990s still argued against moderation – is trying to sell the BNP as a respectable, democratic party. In April 2001, Griffin spoke to the American Friends of the BNP. He said:

So, what are we now doing with the British National Party? Well, we tried to simplify its message in some ways and to make it a saleable message. So it’s not white supremacy or racial civil war or anything like that, which is what we know in fact is going on, and we’re not supremacists, we’re white survivalists, even that frightens people. Four apple pie words: freedom, security, identity and democracy.

That saleable message has been summed up on the BNP’s webpage (seemingly no longer available there, but quoted on for instance Stormfront.org), as well:

The BNP has moved on in recent years, casting off the leg-irons of conspiracy theories and the thinly veiled anti-Semitism which has held this party back for two decades. The real enemies of the British people are home grown Anglo-Saxon Celtic liberal-leftists who seek to destroy the family as the building blocks of society and impose multiculturalism on a reluctant indigenous population and the Crescent Horde – the endless wave of Islamics who are flocking to our shores to bring our island nations into the embrace of their barbaric desert religion.

Footnotes:

* Skrewdrivers was a punk rock band founded in 1976 by Ian Stuart Donaldsson. Later on, it started playing white power rock. The band was influential in the neo-Nazi Blood & Honour movement, and Donaldsson has described himself as a «British National Socialist». For some years in the mid-80s BNP-leader Nick Griffin hosted summer concerts at his father’s home, inviting Skrewdrivers and other such bands.

** It might be added that some of these conspiracy theories are far from as non-sensical as the theories surrounding the 911 terror attacks. A former operative of the CIA-sponsored «stay behind»-project Gladio, Roberto Cavallaro, told Italian parliamentary investigators that he «had specific knowledge that many of the terrorists – both red and black – were acting on the basis of directives or suggestions from the secret services». Members of the secret services have also been convicted for «obstructing justice» through deliberately providing false information in the Bologna case.

*** A notable member was Keith Thompson, an Odinist who had formerly been
involved in Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement.