A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby American Dream » Wed Jan 29, 2014 3:38 pm

bluenoseclaret, what you are posting has little to nothing to do with the topic of this thread.

Please take your stuff to a more appropriate place.
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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby Searcher08 » Wed Jan 29, 2014 3:39 pm

QUICK REQUEST RE IMAGES

There are images on this thread that are breaking the formatting because they are too wide
Please could you check and shrink it as the thread is almost unreadable as it goes to the right way more than it should - bit like the Golden Dawn <boom tish!> :)
Thank you! S08

** Cheers - all fine now!
Last edited by Searcher08 on Wed Jan 29, 2014 4:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby bluenoseclaret » Wed Jan 29, 2014 4:02 pm

Israel's Everyday Racism — and How American Jews Turn a Blind Eye to It
By Larry Derfner

Refocus Anti-Semitism Outrage on Our Own Dirty Laundry

The Anti-Defamation League and the rest of the American Jewish establishment owe Jesse Jackson a big apology. They put the man through the wringer, they made him apologize in every possible forum for his “Hymie” and “Hymietown” remarks back in 1984. Yet look at the kinds of things Israeli leaders — senior government ministers, chief rabbis — get away with without ever having to apologize, without ever being punished in the slightest.
Just last week, Naftali Bennett, the fresh new face of right-wing Orthodox Judaism, said in a cabinet meeting how he didn’t like these releases of Palestinian prisoners. “If you catch terrorists, you simply have to kill them,” he was quoted in Yedioth Ahronoth as saying. The head of the National Security Council, Yaakov Amidror, told Bennett, “Listen, that’s not legal.” Bennett replied: “I have killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there is no problem with that.”

The media, the left and the Arabs made a big deal out of it, nobody else. Bennett defended what he said, and so did countless talkbackers and Facebookers.

Two days later the newly-elected Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, David Lau, was seen on a video telling an audience of yeshiva boys that they shouldn’t watch European basketball games in public.
“What difference does it make,” Lau said, “if the kushim who get paid in Tel Aviv beat the kushim who get paid in Greece?” Kushim, especially when used in a dismissive context like Lau did, is a well-understood derogatory term for blacks.

Again, the media, the left, some Ethiopian Jews and presumably some African refugees were outraged. But Lau defended his words, blaming the media, saying “they made a big deal out of a joke.”
Who else defended his remarks about “kushim”? Bennett: “The media are pouncing on him for a joking, insignificant remark.”

So really — what was so bad about “Hymies” and “Hymietown”? Or the thousand other anti-Semitic or even just possibly anti-Semitic remarks that the ADL and other American Jewish organizations have “pounced on” since then? Israeli public figures say the same kind of garbage, the difference is that they never, ever pay a price for it, in fact they usually manage to play the victim and get away with it, and at worst will be obliged to offer some backhanded apology.

Likud lawmaker Miri Regev is doing fine after having called Sudanese refugees “a cancer on our body” to a crowd of hopped-up south Tel Avivians in May of last year, shortly before the crowd went on a window-smashing mini-pogrom against the Africans in the neighborhood.

Legendary basketball coach Pini Gershon’s career and public stature didn’t suffer at all after he explained his racial theory about blacks to a class of amused army officers in 2000.
“The mocha-colored guys are smarter, but the dark colored ones are just guys off the street,” Gershon said. “They’re dumb like slaves, they do whatever you tell them.”

Nor was there any blowback whatsoever after Bibi Netanyahu bragged in 2007 that the cuts he’d made to child subsidies had brought a “positive” result, which he identified as “the demographic effect on the non-Jewish public, where there was a dramatic drop in the birth rate.”

Imagine the scandal if an American political leader boasted publicly that his cuts to child subsidies had reduced the “non-Christian” birth rate. Imagine the ADL’s reaction. But in Israel, in 2007, from the mouth of a once-and-future prime minister — nothing.

These are just a few of the more appalling examples of the kind of racist remarks that Israeli politicians, rabbis and celebrities feel free to make. I haven’t even mentioned Avigdor Lieberman and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. As a rule the words are directed at Arabs, now and then against blacks: either Ethiopian Jews, African refugees or athletes.

I’ve lived roughly half my 61 years in the United States, the other half in Israel. There is absolutely no comparison between American tolerance for public displays of racism and Israeli tolerance for it.

I’ve stood in the middle of Israeli crowds chanting “Death to the Arabs.” I’ve sat in a Tel Aviv soccer stadium watching and listening to an entire section of fans erupt in monkey sounds – “Hoo, hoo, hoo!! Hoo, hoo, hoo!! – after a black player on the visiting team scored a goal.

A few liberals and a few do-gooders and a few journalists wring their hands. But the racists in the street, the synagogues, the Knesset and the government go on doing their thing.

Does this mean all Israelis, or even most of them, are racists? No. Does it mean Israeli society, by commission and omission, encourages racism? Oh, yes. To a degree that would be unthinkable in the United States.

And the leaders of the U.S. Jewish establishment, Israel’s most valued, devoted, determined friends, keep pouncing on every untoward or conceivably untoward remark about Jews or the Jewish state. Yes, the ADL will send out a press release about its “concern” over the “inappropriate” remarks made by some relatively minor Israeli figure.

But it never hits hard at the major figures. It said nothing last week about Bennett or Lau. The ADL goes after anti-Semitism with a fist, it goes after Israeli racism with a sigh.

As a matter of fact, the ADL and the entire American Jewish establishment should suspend their campaigns against anti-Semitism indefinitely and take a look at what’s going on in Israel.

When the Jewish state is this riddled with racism, its advocates abroad should be a little less outraged over the offenses of gentiles. They should be a little more humble — and a lot less hypocritical.


http://forward.com/articles/182171/isra ... n-jews-tu/

Comments 108

The Hatred and Evil of the " Ultra-Nationalist White Supremacists":...
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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby American Dream » Wed Jan 29, 2014 4:07 pm

So bluenoseclaret are you suggesting that because the State of Israel does a lot of bad things that somehow the Holocaust deniers/revisionists and neo-Fascists and the Racist Right are somehow good?
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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby slimmouse » Wed Jan 29, 2014 4:22 pm

American Dream » 29 Jan 2014 20:07 wrote:So bluenoseclaret are you suggesting that because the State of Israel does a lot of bad things that somehow the Holocaust deniers/revisionists and neo-Fascists and the Racist Right are somehow good?


Maybe he's suggesting a look in the mirror?

Which might, I posit not be a bad idea all round in this particular case.
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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby American Dream » Wed Jan 29, 2014 9:14 pm

The Big Neo-Nazi Crib
Zveřejněno: 1 Březen, 2011 - 09:24, Autor: antifa.cz

ImageHave you noticed the shift in image of some neo-Nazis - a shift from the skinhead-look to an anarchist/antifascist image? Whether or not you’ve noticed, you can learn more about this recent strategy of certain factions of the neo-Nazi movement from the following analysis.

Some people say that we live in a time of uncertainty. For those who watch the neo-Nazi movement from a distance it might be hard to tell if a gathering of people dressed in black is a neo-Nazi or antifascist gathering. There are people denying holocaust on some of the demonstrations in the name of freedom and people raising right hand on some of the hiphop shows. A neo-Nazi is no longer just seen as a skinhead in boots holding a beer bottle. The scene that attracts the followers of National Socialist ideology has undergone major changes in the past few years.

Which way does the wind blow?
At the end of World War II, many Nazi criminals were taken to court in an endeavor to wipe Nazism out of German society. Denazification was originally supervised by the U.S., but in 1946, German institutions took over. The Germans decided to draw a thick black line under this chapter in history and set hundreds of thousands of Nazi functionaries free. The estimations from1949 assumed that 30% of government posts were staffed by former Nazis, with only few hundreds of them remaining imprisoned for war crimes. A number of Nazis managed to escape with the help of the underground organization ODESSA, finding shelter in South America or Franquist Spain. New neo-Nazi politics were created by these former nazis, attracting young supporters and influencing the youth.

The pasts of Hitler’s former supporters were also blocked out by the Cold War. Both sides tried to recruit former Nazis. Some ex-Nazis who remained in Germany didn’t change their views to become more “democratic”, but instead, constituted new Nazi political forces and educated new generations of supporters. Otto Ernst Remmer, Hitler’s bodyguard, played an important role in this process by taking the lead in the neo-Nazi political party SRP (Sozialistische Reichspartei Deutschlads), which stood side-by-side with the forming NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) in the mid sixties. NPD then took the role of SRP when it was banned. Even the Czech Národní odpor (National Resistance) honors Remmer’s heritage. One of his wards, Michal Kühnen, established the Action Front of National Socialists (Aktionsfront Nationaler Sozialisten/Nationale Aktivisten) in 1977. Kühen brought the violent aspect back to neo-Nazi politics and quite successfully infiltrated skinhead subculture. It is not without piquancy that Kühnen, even after publicly disclosing his homosexuality remained a leading figure of the German neo-Nazi movement until he died of AIDS in 1991. German neo-Nazis gained significant power after the fall of the Berlin wall when attacks on the minorities became more frequent, culminating in the Molotov attack on a lodging-house in Rostock.

When there is a lack of creativity
The connection between neo-Nazis and skinheads was successful for years, but at the end of 90’s, the boundaries became an anachronism and a burden. What previously seemed militarist and tough became ridiculous; a neo-Nazi skinhead wearing a bomber and boots with white laces became a symbol of eness and primitivism. Trying to modernize their image, neo-Nazis gathered inspiration from the anarchist, autonomous and antifascist scenes. The word “inspiration” is rather an euphemism. Neo-Nazis usually steal symbols and methods as they are, without modifying them. That might not be surprising with a single motto or symbol, but Nazis are starting to steal the visual concept and practical methods of the autonomous scene as a whole. Practical ways of self-organization; its ideological content – everything can shamelessly become an armory of the proud nationalist. What is so attractive about this attitude? There are several reasons that Nazis are drawn to this attitude:

Neo-Nazis suffer from the lack of creative people inside their own movement.

Neo-Nazis need to put their radical views in a nice and acceptable package.

For neo-Nazis, it is not the views, political agenda or coherent ideals that are important. They care more about gaining political influence, power and action of any kind – even senseless.

Neo-Nazis want to confuse the public and make it hard to tell who is on which side of the barricade.

Neo-Nazis have gotten into a situation where any change is better than none


Founding of Antifascist Action (AFA)
The founding of Antifascist Action dates back to 1923. It originally came into existence as a part of Rotfrontkampferbund, an organization aiming to actively fight Nazis. There were battles for literally every street, pub and factory. The goal was to take every place to gather or recruit new supporters away from the Nazis. Antifascists had already begun using the logo with two flags in a circle. When the Nazis took over the government, antifascists were killed, sent to concentration camps or they started illegal organizations and alliances.

ImageAfter World War II there were few antifascist groups. The real boom began in the eighties, when several active and coordinated groups emerged from the squatter and autonomous communities. Regional groups formed and started to use a new tactic – Black Bloc as the militant front line at demonstrations. During this period, Nazis were still stuck in the nazi-skinhead subculture.

In the 90’s, the principles of AFA expanded abroad. Autonomous antifascist groups realized that clear rules are necessary for any kind of action and became more open to the public. Besides demonstrations and direct actions, they started organizing cultural events, lectures, seminars, exhibitions and concerts. The new motto stated that political work should not depend on personal contacts and affection, but on political goals and ideals. A constant struggle started, which aimed to build a firm structure and gain new supporters for the organization as well as independent individuals and collectives to cooperate with.

Back to the Plagiarizers : The First Big Crib
The influence of Nazis and Fascists in the skinhead subculture can be considered as the first big Nazi crib. The skinhead subculture grew at the end of sixties as a stepchild of the British mod subculture and Jamaican immigrants‘ Rude boys. This subculture consisted of working class youth, both white and black, opposing the mainstream. Ideologically tinged, racist and fascist politics were brought in it later by Ian Stuart Donaldson and his band – Skrewdriver. Stuart openly supported the British National Front, and they, in turn, supported him to gain youth supporters.

Later, a need to stand up to the Nazi theft of the skinhead subculture emerged. In the eighties the SHARP movement (Skinheads Against the Racial Prejudice) and RASH (Red and Anarchist Skinhead) started in the US. Among these movements, groups of traditional apolitical skinheads honoring the classic sixties‘ concept remained.

It is without a doubt that neo-Nazis succeeded in infiltrating the skinhead subculture and making people in many countries perceive „skinhead“ as a synonym for ‚neo-Nazi‘. This successful crib of the skinhead subculture helped the Nazis gain many supporters, although later, it became a limitation leading to a mass turning away from the skinhead subculture. Nevertheless, this crib is a good illustration of the neo-Nazis‘ thief-like practices.

The Situation in the Czech Republic.
In Czechoslovakia, a strong racist movement started to grow in the early nineties, with the band OrlÌk as the leading influence. Orlík managed to attract the undecided youth, those looking for an attractive lifestyle, with their racist lyrics and idealogy. OrlÌk records were sold in mainstream record stores and made it to the top of the charts. The band broke up after two releases and the invention of “Calixtinism”, a theory linking modern fascist tendencies to the Hussite era. This was soon replaced with neo-Nazism – a more attractive phenomenon that is easier to understand.

Czech racists, fascists and neo-Nazis preferred to use as their symbols the Confederate flag, the Celtic cross or the triskele “three sevens” symbol, sometimes in a form of the three-branch svastika (a symbol of Afrikaans Movement of Resistance in South Africa).

During this time, the antifascist and anarchist movements appeared in Czechoslovakia. These groups stuck to their autonomous principles and D.I.Y. politics.

The skinhead image, once so popular among Nazis and feared and respected among the public, later came to be perceived as ridiculous and disgusting. After fifteen years, neo-Nazis found themselves at a crossroads. They could either stick to their skinhead image, or they could turn their backs on it and find something new. Time passed, and none among the nation’s elite had been able to come up with something new. Neo-Nazis had seemingly reached their limits and couldn’t go any further.

Around 2000, National Alliance activists made he first attempts to refresh the neo-Nazi image. Their outfits, consisting of white short-sleeved shirts and Daddy’s tie didn’t last long. Nevertheless, it was resuscitated by National Corporativists and former Nazi skinhead Jiří Petřivalský (currently a Workers‘ Party member) – and it failed again. The National Resistance was a little more successful with their attempt to mix the skinhead image with expensive sports brands.

The Nazi Image Turns
German neo-Nazis faced the same problems in the mid-90s and tried to find a way out from their limited reach. The NPD appeared on the political scene, offering neonazis an official platform (the same as the Workers‘ Party in Czech Republic at the end of 2007), and ways of attracting young people were being sought. Neo-nazis were starting to look to the style of the autonomous antifascists - their political opponents - and to copy it. The first “autonomous nationalist” organizations appeared, and brought a brand new aspect to neo-Nazi street politics. The Plagiarism era had begun, and it still goes on, in spite of the conflict between the skinhead neo-Nazi traditionalists and those who see copying the antifascist image and practices as the way out of the ghetto. Something has changed, though. Most neo-nazi groups in Germany have implemented the concept of autonomous nationalism. The names of these groups vary – Kamaradschaften, Free Nationalists, Autonomous Nationalists - yet they all copy the antifascist and autonomous demonstration tactic (the media-beloved Black Bloc) and they all have changed the structure of the hierarchical groups according to the older neo-Nazi pattern, so-called Leaderless Resistance. The groups are supposed to be leaderless, but “small leaders” emerge from the regional groups, with the rest forming into a mindless mob of followers.



Continues at: http://www.antifa.cz/content/big-neo-nazi-crib
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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby American Dream » Thu Jan 30, 2014 6:38 pm

https://londonantifascists.wordpress.co ... he-bosses/

HOW ANTI-IMMIGRANT MYTHS SERVE THE BOSSES
JANUARY 25, 2014

The relentless diet of anti-migrant hysteria served by the mainstream press for the past few months has been staggering, even by their standards. The Daily Express in particular outdid itself, promising a “crusade” against Bulgarian and Romanian immigration.

But as a study in the Guardian showed, there’s rarely much of a correlation between the headlines and the reality. The study showed that headlines about migrants have increase out of all proportion to the actual levels of immigration, which have tended to rise only slowly, and with the occasional dip.


A study by academics at the University of London showed that migrants contribute vastly more in tax than they claim in benefits. Up to 2011, migrants from the EU contributed 34% more in tax than they claimed in benefits. Migrants from outside the EU contributed 2% more. “Benefits tourism” is a right-wing, anti-migrant myth.

Image

The idea that Britain is “full up” is also somewhat complicated by the fact that, according to the government’s own figures, more than 700,000 homes in Britain stand empty, including nearly 300,000 which have been empty for more than six months.

Data collected by the Ipsos MORI polling organisation in December 2013 found that “race relations/immigration” was the second most important issue for respondents, with 37% citing it as their main concern (“the economy” topped the poll at 39%). Of course — polls aren’t entirely reliable, and their outcomes can be manipulated or distorted depending on how a question is phrased. But, those qualifiers aside, it doesn’t take a statistical genius to conclude that the disproportionate, and disproportionately negative, focus on immigration in the media is contributing to people’s concerns.

Perception is not reality

The media, whose owners make up part of the bosses class, help set the agenda for their friends in political parties to make increasing severe policies more palatable. And its not just immigrants that face these attacks. Channel 4′s “Benefit Street” is one such programme that apparently attempts to portray the struggles of those on benefits in the face of adversity in a positive light, whilst systematically reinforcing the most vicious stereotypes of unemployed people, the result being another moral panic that reinforces the dominant policy of all major parties for the need to tackle the growing benefits costs and to call an end to “entitlement culture” that is apparently the cause of it.



Charlie Brooker’s excellent take down of Channel 4′s “Benefit Street”

The media shapes public opinion, even if that opinion is formed by our own experiences, it is manipulated into worst case scenario knee jerk soundbites, constant and all pervasive, until what we think on an issue is so influenced by the arguments we are spoon fed, that a process of de-indoctrination is needed just to gain some clarity on what is actually happening. A recent study, again by Ipsos MORI, illustrates how our perceptions do not match reality. It is precisely this that politicians and their far-right cheerleaders utilise to distort and mis-inform large parts of the populations into believing, accepting and supporting government policies.

Bosses, not migrants, are running the show

Working-class people in Britain are right to be concerned about the lack of affordable housing, low wages, and the strain faced by our public services. But migrants (on whose labour our essential public services often rely) are not to blame for those problems as migrants are not in control of rents, wages or public sector spending. Employers, landlords and the government which represents their interests are. Therefore it is where any struggle that hopes to challenge this situation needs to target – not migrants, not minorities, not muslims, romanians or bulgarians but those that are actually in control.

Politicians of all three mainstream parties compete to see who can best pander to anti-migrant sentiment. Their rhetoric is cynical vote-grabbing; savvy Tories, Lib Dems, and New Labourites know that stopping immigration is neither desirable nor possible. Even on capitalist terms, Britain’s economy needs immigrants. But politicians play up to, and help reinforce, fears about immigration in order to bolster their support and to keep working-class voters from turning on the real enemy: the capitalist parties and their policies.

Working class anti-racism

Working-class anti-racists should fight to build social solidarity between migrant and local workers, organising together in unions and community campaigns to fight for jobs, homes, and decent services for all. The 3 Cosas Campaign is one recent campaign whereby a largely migrant work force co-ordinated and built links with non-migrant workers and students in Bloomsbury, Central London to build up the necessary structures to start winning real material gains. In turn, the workers of 3 Cosas regular support the struggles of students for a free education amongst the other struggles in that area.

This is class unity, this is working class struggle.

Image

When we talk about working class anti-racism, its not a meaningless label that we tag on – it is a fundamental, practical and effective means to win, to respond to the divide and rule of bosses in a way which undermines their ability to play one set of workers off with another. It is a means to recognise the interconnectedness of struggles and how they relate to wider workers struggles. Bosses attempt by any means necessary to prevent any form of collective action, where the media and politicians provide the social and political climate for such divisions to exist even before any struggles emerge. Thats why as militant anti-fascists, we are also committed working class anti-racists, as we believe one without the other means with can be neither.

3 Cosas are on strike on 27, 28 and 29 January 2014 please consider attending their picket lines during those days. Also consider donating money to their strike fund.
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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby American Dream » Sun Feb 02, 2014 3:41 am

http://libcom.org/library/some-thoughts-coming-year

Some thoughts for the coming year…

Image

A member of Portsmouth Anti-Fascists takes an interesting look at the situation British anti-fascists find themselves in, the enemy we find ourselves against and what we can do to move forward.

The below is an article written by a socialist activist from Portsmouth Antifascists just before the new year. To add a bit of context – we are a collection of people with different political beliefs who are united against racism and fascism. The author wanted to mention that the views expressed in this article are their own.

Portsmouth Antifascists – Where we are, what we are up against and what we can do.

Where we are?

The demonstration on the 4th December opposite the Jami mosque by a group still identifying as the EDL, despite the recent shenanigans of Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll, shows that their are still those in the town who have been won to far-right street politics still willing to organise and act. The EDL’s origins as an viciously anti-Muslim street outfit born in the Islamophobia that saturated British society to justify the Afghan and Iraq wars after the 9/11 attacks introduced a whole swathes of angry and misguided young men across to proto-fascist marching. It’s a sad fact is that despite appallingly boneheaded leadership and strong opposition over the last few years that the general anti-muslim climate persists and feeds into their support. Indeed, an anti-migrant message from the right-wing press and from three main political parties is a convenient excuse for the drop in living standards their austerity policies entail.

It was an interesting test for the Portsmouth Antifascists group. Firstly and foremost our aim has been to provide a network for a quick response to these racist thugs in Portsmouth and a physical solidarity with communities under siege. At the incident mentioned above we managed to mobilise pretty much the same numbers as them within an hour of the call going out. Because of the surprise nature of events our mobilisation did not include some regular activists of the left in Portsmouth. It did however include a number of people who members of this group know and invited. We should be moderately pleased here. We can justifiably say we have introduced new people to anti-fascist activity over this year. On the blog shortly after the event we called it neither a victory nor a defeat, this is an assessment I am inclined to agree with.

What we are up against?
The beeps from the horns of works vans and taxis directed at the EDL were frequent and distressing. The violent posturing and acting out was reminiscent of football hooliganism. There is clearly an aspect of the EDL and its spin-off groups where intimidating demonstrations and marches functions as a form of self-actualisation for deeply alienated, misinformed and degraded people.

It was quite often said of classical fascism was a reactionary movement of the middle class, albeit one with a plebeian street fighting base. There is still some truth to this. But classes have been restructured. Outside London the small shopkeeper – the exemplar of petit-bourgeois fear and hatred of anything that may displace his property – is dying as chain stores and big business drive them out. Outside the ranks of the wealthy those most drawn to identify with reactionary nationalist-racial ideas are those who have the least experience of social solidarity. Today’s exemplar is the precarious self-employed. The man in a van, small tradesman and his cash-in-hand crew. Of course, we don’t want to tar all with the same brush. There are white self-employed people and their day labourers (for instance) who wouldn’t touch the EDL with a bargepole and no doubt some who are anti-racist and for a multi-ethnic open culture. However, I would argue that those in this socio-economic situation are layers which are particularly likely to draw the most destructive conclusions from the racist, immigrant bashing journalism and politics peddled in the name of division at home and war abroad.

When you work with groups of people in standard workplaces there are a number of factors best described as a backstop that can help mediate against racist ideology:

(i) Even in unpleasant workplaces there is often a culture of solidarity between the workers that will help one draw the conclusion that authoritarian mono-culture and violence against the “othered” isn’t a solution to societies ills. There is also the possibility of a trade union culture. Those that don’t work because of disability, caring responsibilities (or both) often have an underdogs understanding of scapegoating and being downtrodden for who they are. On the other hand those who work alone all day, the cabbie, van driver, can easily make themselves ill with talk radio and festering stress.

(ii) Those that abhor racism are far more likely to know Black and Asian people. Those most likely to believe the racist prejudices are those who do not. In larger workplaces and the public sector you are far more likely to have a mix of different ethnicities.

(iii) Despite the racism of tabloids and some popular culture the victories of the past has made broad swathes of people feel that racism is not only a great ill but that it actually degrades those who practice it. More than official policies against discrimination (which flow this fact from this and provide an important formal buttress for it) it means people just can’t be openly racist as they once could. The informal validation of the casual racist is absent; people start to think for themselves.

For the self employed and, in particular, precarious workers that work for them (often by family or social connections) it is a particularly cut and thrust world. As somebody put it to me ‘their customers are bastards that don’t want to pay, their suppliers are bastards that fleece them, and the government are bastards that tax them’. Like security guards and cops they experience the world as predicated on permanent conflict.

This social world is one that is extremely close to the neoliberal conception of society as a world of individualized consumers responsible for their own success or failure which has become the official establishment ideology. This has fed back into mainstream culture since at least the eighties: the logic of this shift has produced a generalised anti-politics -understandable disillusion with all political parties and a culture of personal self-advancement at all costs. Depression, alienation and a feeling of being duped is widespread.

As the very rich increased their wealth at the expense of the rest of us new hate figures were promoted to take the rap for it: benefit scroungers, asylum seekers and economic migrants. The figure of the Muslim in the clash of civilizations propaganda of the now spectral ‘war on terror’ has become a peculiar composite of the these types fused with terrorist danger and implied sexual threat reminiscent of old school anti-Semitism.

The danger the EDL pose is that they are often the people that have been most affected by the atomisation of social life and racist rhetoric under the successive neoliberal governments. As austerity, immigrant bashing, wars (and of course the terrorism they inevitably provoke) continues the EDL (or a refashioned group based on similar foundations) may grow stronger and become attractive to those outside their current core audience. If they are not challenged and an alternative offered at best they will push British politics even further to the right, at worst, it could be much, much worse.

What can we do?
The task we must set ourselves is to build a movement that is locally accountable, that is based on real grassroots activism in communities, especially making links with targeted communities. This has to happen in every locality. For too long Anti-fascism in Britain has been based around bureaucratic maneuvers with trade union money and backdoor deals with community leaders and councillors. We need not leaders of stage armies but to build networks that can offer real solidarity to the targets of racism. It that way we can win both the political and moral arguments against the racists.

Anti-Fascism needs to have autonomous organisation within the left – therefore we need to be non-partisan, to be better than an organisation that is seen as the property of one group while developing links with all those who wish to organise.

We need regular meetings in which we invite all those that share the politics of anti-fascism – open meetings as far as safety allows – creating a network which all members feel they have some ownership over. We need to stress that the far right is not just a danger to ethnic and religious minorities but their open misogyny, homophobia and transphobia makes them a danger to all of those of us who believe in a free society.

We need to have a relationship with bureaucratic campaigns like UAF. They can perform a propaganda function on a widespread basis that can be useful in disseminating anti-racist ideas but they have shown that their narrow base cannot win over activists unwilling to follow their unaccountable orders. They have links with the trade unions that can be extremely useful but their mobilising potential doesn’t often go beyond the existent far-left.

We need to develop links with the arts and music scenes. Often the cultural sphere contains people who already have consciously anti-fascist politics. We need to develop a cultural presence to argue for a militant approach to anti-fascism.

I suggest we enhance the network in a number of ways:

1) An attempt to make cultural inroads by organising gigs and other cultural events.

2) That we open the network to also work against racist immigration policies and for refugee rights. We need to make links with groups that already campaign around these issues.

3) To become a recognised as a key network on the left without limiting our horizon to those who self-identify as leftists.

4) That we try to develop better links with feminist and gay groups – let us unite in the name of human liberation.
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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby jakell » Sun Feb 02, 2014 7:57 am

If you want to know about this subject in Britain AD, you could do worse than to ask me.

Anti-Fascism in the UK has actually suffered from the demise of the BNP, because this was it's main focus. They've been wandering in the wilderness for a bit, but the above article does seem a step in the right direction as it seems to recognise that their original focus was too narrow.

I would say that the main area where they are lacking is failing to tackle their opponents directly on an ideological basis. I haven't looked in for a while, but there was an enormous dearth of ability in this area when I was paying attention.
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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby American Dream » Sun Feb 02, 2014 8:57 am

Gee, I'll bet the anti-Fascists never thought of such an easy solution...


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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby American Dream » Mon Feb 03, 2014 1:08 pm

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/darker-shades-of-green/

Darker shades of green

Derek Wall traces the thread of ecofascism through the Green movement's history
August 2000

Paradoxically, while Greens argue for social justice and other left themes, environmentalism is often linked to the right. Hitler believed in a politics of hatred ordained by iron 'laws of nature'. Former Green Party speaker David Icke advocates a convoluted anti-semitic conspiracy arguing 'that a Jewish clique' caused the Russian Revolution, two world wars and now runs the world. US Earth First!er Chris Manes praised the Ethiopian famine and AIDS for reducing population. In the 1930s, the grandfather of post-modernism, Heidegger, attacked the alienation of industrial society and supported the Nazis as an antidote.

Far-right attempts to influence the British Green movement take three forms. Firstly, an authoritarian strain in the environmental movement has proclaimed the need for a centralised and strongly 'eco'-policed state, since the publication of Garrett Hardin's 1968 essay 'The Tragedy of the Commons'. Immigration, seen as threatening the ecological carrying capacity of a country, should cease. Population must be cut, by coercion if necessary. Social issues such as homelessness and poverty are seen as a distraction from the essential job of tackling the environmental crisis. In Britain, this strain dominant in the environmental movement of the early 1970s has waned considerably. It is represented by the Campaign for Real Ecology and eco groups disillusioned with the Green Party, with an ideology rooted in the pessimistic conservatism of Malthus. Far from overtly racist, despite some frankly repellent views - neither can this conservative environmentalism be seen as a fascist movement - it is clearly positioned on the statist right.

Its main ideologue, Sandy Irvine, a former International Socialist organiser, criticises those who in ecological destruction from individuals to wider social forces such as the multinationals and financial institutions. Ecological salvation is rooted in personal lifestyle choice. Empowerment (a buzz word of radical greens) is part of the problem. He even condemns the fact that 'women working at night are glad to see lights wastefully left on in empty corridors, simply because they feel safer.' [Irvine 1996]

Secondly, in contrast with the Malthusians are groups with neo-Nazi pedigree who claim to advocate 'social justice' and decentralization. In the 1980s, the National Front's Joe Pearce described 'Social Justice, Ecology and Racial Purity' as the three pillars of 'nationalism'. Ruralism, spiritual values, social credit and even animal rights are themes that both appeal to greens but are also given a far-right spin by these groups. Social Credit is a 1930s theory devised by anti-semite Major Douglas, which advocates community take-over of banks, that places the blame for ecological destruction on the banking system rather than capitalism/industrialism. And from here it is a short step to the NF's shrilling about a global Jewish banking conspiracy and 'Alien Bankers Destroying British Countryside' (see Nationalism Today, March 1980). Their espousal of animal rights focuses on ritual slaughter, with the right forgetting that kosher and halal practices are intended to reduce the suffering of animals.

The Naalso advocates of decentralisation. The most sophisticated group, Trans-Europa, publishes Perspectives, a cultural magazine advocating a Europe of the regions. The slogan 'Europe of a Hundred Flags' sounds appealing but hides the racial separatism assumed in Fascist decentralization. A model for these variants of the far right is contemporary Croatia. The small-scale racial state is utilised to challenge internationalism and the formation of 'One World' government. Richard Hunt - former editor of Green Anarchist, who regularly publishes material from Perspectives, Patrick Harrington and others on the far right - speaks of the 'unspoken, illegal, iron law "Our side, right or wrong". This loyalty to the family, then to the group - the clan - the nation, is the glue which holds the small community together' (in Alternative Green no.2).

Finally, we have those like David Icke who explicitly advocate the anti-semitic conspiracy. The far right have long argued for the existence of a Jewish-Masonic conspiracy, which manipulates the world. For example, funding the Russian Revolution and, confusingly, Hitler's rise to power. The conspiracy provides an explanatory framework to describe the origins of almost any popular fear, from progressive concerns to irrational prejudice. Icke now argues that environmental problems have been manufactured by the conspirators as yet another excuse to introduce 'Onwhich is far younger, larger and socially active, than any that the likes of John Tyndall or other far-right leaders are likely to attract.

Eco-fascism also has a lengthy lineage in Britain. The Soil Association, Britain's organic lobbyists, counted amongst their earliest members Jorian Jenks, former agriculture advisor to the British Union of Fascists. AK Chesterton, first Chairman of the National Front, was closely linked to far-right environmentalism of the 1930s. His uncle GK, Catholic apologist and purveyor of the Father Brown stories, invented the ideology of Distributism with Hillaire Belloc. Distributism, proclaiming the principle of 'three acres and a cow', seen as a 'third way' between capitalism and communism, drifted into the anti-semitic sphere before becoming the inspiration behind the modern remnants of the Front. Issues of Distributist newsletters in the 1950s advertised support for car free cities, decentralisation, the racist League of British Loyalists and Rudolf Hess.

To an extent all of this is unsurprising. The far right in Britain have tried to gain legitimacy by appealing to green sentiments, while ignoring manifestations of environmental concern that they find unpalatably egalitarian, anti-sexist and multi-cultural. Equally, opponents and especially the State have an interest in labelling greens as 'Nazis'. What better way, after all, of destroying a radical movement than by connecting surrogate body to suggest that infiltration by the far right has occurred and that names/addresses should be handed over for prudent disinfection?

Greens have, to their credit, fought back. Earth First! now prioritises anti-racist campaigning, proclaiming the slogan 'Monkey Wrench a Fascist' and work with the predominantly black radical ecology group MOVE. After research by veteran anti-fascist and state watcher Larry O'Hara, the Green Party banned Icke. Green Anarchist threw out both their former rapidly-moving-right editor Richard Hunt and apparent agent provacateur/BNP member Tim Hepple. The Third Positionists have remained a tiny, divided and whole uninfluential force. Yet often Greens argue that their politics is 'new' and beyond, as they see it, the essentially trivial 'old' arguments of left and right. Without engaging with such 'old' politics, Greens can place themselves in a position were appropriation by both the State and the far-right becomes all too easy. Ironically, Herbert Gruhl - who coined the phrase that Green 'is neither Left not Right but ahead' - promptly left the German Greens to form his own far-right Ecological Democratic Party in the 1980s, complete with neo-Nazi sympathisers.

Ignorance is far from bliss. Fascism/Nazism is a surprisingly plastic fundamentalism, willing to change ideological clothes to gain support and win power for a core philosophy. The far-right, briefly, inhistorically recruited radical Greens and successfully presented their own arguments as part of an environmental agenda. Unless Greens clearly define how they differ from the far-right, they will continue to be ripe for reappropriation by softly-spoken Nazis who articulate a rhetoric of decentralisation, justice, and the rural, while seeking to build insular authoritarian communities based on atavistic notions of blood-and-soil and anti-semitic hatred.

The Green movement, often better at providing a description of crisis and utopian prescription, seems to lack a firm and convincing explanation of why we live in a world of injustice and ecological destruction. Yet without an analysis of power and a much clearer debate around the issue of agency, the world merely appears to be a confusing and depressing place, where Conspiracy can become a way of explaining apparent injustices and irrationalities. Far-right ideologies, although relatively isolated, are dangerous because they provide an explanatory framework within which any problem can be placed, and presented to groups who feel disempowered and under threat. The authoritarian environmentalists can be seen as substituting social explanation for biological myth, seeing destruction of the Earth as a function of diffuse human nature. Without an account of how capitalism fuels ecological destructive growth and feeds from human exploitation, Green politics is prey to righ

But Green concerns are spectacularly multi-cultural. They are to be found in Jamaican society, amongst African-American deep ecologists such as MOVE in Philadelphia, amongst the emerging West African Green Parties, within Muslim and Jewish traditions. The opportunity for learning and mutual criticism is almost infinite but relatively unexplored.

Global environmental destruction and poverty are products of racist colonialism and neo-colonialism. Without a culturally informed self-critical and anti-imperialist analysis, today's youthful environmental protester could, via the explanations of the far right, become tomorrow's embittered anti-semite.

Derek Wall is a member of the Green Party's Anti-Fascist and Anti-Racist Network, author of Green History (Routledge 1994) and co-founder of the multi-cultural green group Friends of Move with Jamaican poet Brian Wilson in 1995. He teaches at the University of the West of England.

Further reading: Alan Roberts, The Self-managing Environment (Allison and Busby, 1979). David Icke: Time for the Hard Truth by Larry O'Hara in Greenline, Winter 1995. Stan Taylor, The National Front in English Politics (Macmillan, 1982). Open Eye magazine, issues two and three (send £1.50 for each copy to Open Eye, BM Open Eye, London WC1N 3XX); D.Gasman, The Scientific Origins of National Socialism
"If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything."
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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby jakell » Mon Feb 03, 2014 2:28 pm

Sounds pretty speculative to me, and I haven't really come across anything that sounds like this in Britain today.

Of course, the 'green' agenda can be seen as outside of politics, and therefore up for grabs by anyone with an axe to grind. It's a bit odd how he ends the piece with anti-semitism, can't see how he shoehorned that in there.
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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby American Dream » Mon Feb 03, 2014 3:36 pm

http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germa ... intro.html

Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience

by Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier

Introduction

For most compassionate and humane people today, the ecological crisis is a source of major concern. Not only do many ecological activists struggle to eliminate toxic wastes, to preserve tropical rainforests and old-growth redwoods, and to roll back the destruction of the biosphere, but many ordinary people in all walks of life are intensely concerned about the nature of the planet that their children will grow up to inhabit. In Europe as in the United States, most ecological activists think of themselves as socially progressive. That is, they also support demands of oppressed peoples for social justice and believe that the needs of human beings living in poverty, illness, warfare, and famine also require our most serious attention.

For many such people, it may come as a surprise to learn that the history of ecological politics has not always been inherently and necessarily progressive and benign. In fact, ecological ideas have a history of being distorted and placed in the service of highly regressive ends--even of fascism itself. As Peter Staudenmaier shows in the first essay in this pamphlet, important tendencies in German "ecologism," which has long roots in nineteenth-century nature mysticism, fed into the rise of Nazism in the twentieth century. During the Third Reich, Staudenmaier goes on to show, Nazi "ecologists" even made organic farming, vegetarianism, nature worship, and related themes into key elements not only in their ideology but in their governmental policies. Moreover, Nazi "ecological" ideology was used to justify the destruction of European Jewry. Yet some of the themes that Nazi ideologists articulated bear an uncomfortably close resemblance to themes familiar to ecologically concerned people today.

As social ecologists, it is not our intention to deprecate the all-important efforts that environmentalists and ecologists are making to rescue the biosphere from destruction. Quite to the contrary: It is our deepest concern to preserve the integrity of serious ecological movements from ugly reactionary tendencies that seek to exploit the widespread popular concern about ecological problems for regressive agendas. But we find that the "ecological scene" of our time--with its growing mysticism and antihumanism--poses serious problems about the direction in which the ecology movement will go.

In most Western nations in the late twentieth century, expressions of racism and anti-immigrant sentiments are not only increasingly voiced but increasingly tolerated. Equally disconcertingly, fascist ideologists and political groups are experiencing a resurgence as well. Updating their ideology and speaking the new language of ecology, these movements are once again invoking ecological themes to serve social reaction. In ways that sometimes approximate beliefs of progressive-minded ecologists, these reactionary and outright fascist ecologists emphasize the supremacy of the "Earth" over people; evoke "feelings" and intuition at the expense of reason; and uphold a crude sociobiologistic and even Malthusian biologism. Tenets of "New Age" eco-ideology that seem benign to most people in England and the United States--specifically, its mystical and antirational strains--are being intertwined with ecofascism in Germany today. Janet Biehl’s essay explores this hijacking of ecology for racist, nationalistic, and fascist ends.

Taken together, these essays examine aspects of German fascism, past and present, in order to draw lessons from them for ecology movements both in Germany and elsewhere. Despite its singularities, the German experience offers a clear warning against the misuse of ecology, in a world that seems ever more willing to tolerate movements and ideologies once regarded as despicable and obsolete. Political ecology thinkers have yet to fully examine the political implications of these ideas in the English-speaking world as well as in Germany.

What prevents ecological politics from yielding reaction or fascism with an ecological patina is an ecology movement that maintains a broad social emphasis, one that places the ecological crisis in a social context. As social ecologists, we see the roots of the present ecological crisis in an irrational society--not in the biological makeup of human beings, nor in a particular religion, nor in reason, science, or technology. On the contrary, we uphold the importance of reason, science, and technology in creating both a progressive ecological movement and an ecological society. It is a specific set of social relations--above all, the competitive market economy--that is presently destroying the biosphere. Mysticism and biologism, at the very least, deflect public attention away from such social causes. In presenting these essays, we are trying to preserve the all-important progressive and emancipatory implications of ecological politics. More than ever, an ecological commitment requires people today to avoid repeating the errors of the past, lest the ecology movement become absorbed in the mystical and antihumanistic trends that abound today.
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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby jakell » Mon Feb 03, 2014 3:58 pm

Any response to my previous comment AD?

If you want to get to grips with this subject, you need to start conversing about it. Then we start to possibly discover what is relevant in these articles.
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Re: A New Europe: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Nation-State

Postby American Dream » Mon Feb 03, 2014 4:03 pm

jakell » Mon Feb 03, 2014 2:58 pm wrote:Any response to my previous comment AD?

Just this article:


From Green Messiah to New Age Nazi

by Matthew Kalman and John Murray

Matthew Kalman and John Murray are editors of the eco-political investigative magazine Open Eye, which has been uncovering and exposing David Icke and “New Age Nazism.” Address: BM Open Eye, London WC1N 3XX. Issue 3 is available for £1.70.


It has been hard in recent years to ignore the rising popularity of almost everything that comes under the heading New Age. Yoga, meditation, Kabbalah, Buddhism, alternative medicine, environmentalism, and self-improvement, as well as an array of New Age therapies, have all gained in popularity, as have other fringe interests like UFOs and the paranormal, which often appeal to the same people. Few will have avoided at least some contact.

The movement even has its own stars. In Britain, David Icke, the TV sports commentator turned Green Party national spokesman turned purple-robed “Son of God,” is the best-known leader. [See "British Green Party Cofounder Icke Goes New Age," Green Perspectives, no. 24, October 1991.] His books sell fast, and he pulls in the crowds as a charismatic speaker on a hectic schedule of speaking engagements and workshops. Though many see him as a figure of fun, his popularity is undimmed.

Icke has led a public life: from goalkeeper for the Coventry City and Hereford United teams, he then moved on to the BBC as a sports commentator. He later became national spokesperson for the Green Party before resigning in 1990, declaring himself to be “a Son of the Godhead,” wearing turquoise, and predicting catastrophic geological upheaval. His latest incarnation is more sinister.

In the summer of 1994 Icke wrote The Robots’ Rebellion: The Story of the Spiritual Renaissance, a book which indicated a convergence of New Age thinking with Nazi philosophy. Casting aside his pat concerns about the environment, Icke enthusiastically embraced the classic Nazi conspiracy theory, alleging that the world is controlled by a secret cadre of “The Elite.” He openly endorsed the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the tsarist anti-Semitic forgery that informed Hitler’s notion of a global Jewish conspiracy.

Icke seems oblivious to the fact that the Protocols were long ago exposed as a crude device to stir up hatred of Jews. Nor is he concerned about their popularity with Nazis from Hitler onwards. “Just because Hitler used knowledge for negative reasons doesn’t reflect on the knowledge,” says Icke.

The Robots’ Rebellion weaves a complex tapestry of extreme right-wing concerns about conspiracies to control the world through such diverse means as banking, the New World Order, freemasons, the FBI, the Waco siege, microchips, extraterrestrials, and gun control.

The anti-Semitism of the book is not concealed. Icke accuses Jewish bankers of funding both Hitler and the Bolsheviks,a classic piece of far-right propaganda. He attacks “Jehovah, the vengeful God of the Jews,” as “quite possibly an extraterrestrial.” He is unabashed in sourcing his material back to leading U.S. right-wing militia figures such as Bill Cooper, who believes in a UFO/world government conspiracy that includes aliens both good and bad: “blond Aryans” and large-nosed “Greys.”

Unfortunately, the publication of The Robots’ Rebellion aroused very little criticism of Icke, although many Green Party members began to realize the danger that their one-time figurehead now represented. Some began to picket meetings, with other antifascists later following their lead.

Now Icke has published a new book, . . . And the Truth Shall Set You Free [Cambridge: Bridge of Love, 1995], which brings his anti-Semitic ideas to a chilling conclusion.

Following an Open Eye investigation and the resulting negative publicity, Icke’s publisher, Gateway, refused to handle the new book. Icke has been forced to produce it himself, with financial backing from a Jewish supporter named David Solomon. The book contains a desperate plea to readers to help sell copies.

Icke’s basic thesis is that “almost every major negative event of global significance has been part of the same long-term plan by the All-Seeing Eye cult to take over the planet via a centralized world government, central bank, currency and army.” Although Icke uses terms like Illuminati and Brotherhood to describe this elite, their true identity soon becomes apparent. “There is a global Jewish clique,” he writes, who “worked with non-Jews to create the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the Second World War. This . . . elite secured the Balfour Declaration and the principle of the Jewish state of Israel in Palestine.”

Icke says that, “given the genetic history of most Jewish people,” the Jews have no claim to Israel. This is a common argument among the far right, some of whom believe that the Anglo-Saxons of northern Europe are the true descendants of the “lost tribes of Israel.” Just in case readers have any doubts, Icke explains that the “Israeli government, its army, and its intelligence arm, Mossad, are neo-Nazi, terrorist organizations.”

Further revelations from Icke include the news that the same Jewish clique “financed Hitler to power in 1933,” and that an “Estonian Jew,” Nazi party ideologue Alfred Rosenberg, gave Hitler a copy of the Protocols, thereby sealing the fate of the Jews by encouraging Hitler to embark on the Holocaust. Rosenberg was not, of course, Jewish but a viciously anti-Semitic Baltic German. In the meantime bankers like Max Warburg had already left Nazi Germany. “All this was coldly calculated by the ‘Jewish’ elite,” says Icke. The elite is “merciless . . . sick and diabolical,” as well as being controlled by the “Luciferic Consciousness.”

As if the suggestion that Jews orchestrated the Holocaust were not enough, Icke also condemns the Nuremberg trials. “Nuremberg was an insult to natural justice,” he sputters. He condemns the practice whereby free copies of Schindler’s List “are given to schools to indoctrinate children.” This is because Icke, like other neo-Nazis before him, has decided that the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust is a myth.

He urges his readers to take Holocaust revisionism seriously and, without giving his name, describes and praises the French founding father of Holocaust revisionism, Paul Rassinier—a one-time French Resistance fighter who was himself incarcerated in a concentration camp. “You cannot, if you are interested in truth, just dismiss his findings and condemn him as a Nazi apologist,” says Icke. “But that is what happened to him and others too.”

What exactly are the views of Rassinier? He denies the existence of death camps and rubbishes the reports of survivors as “a collection of contradictory pieces of ill-natured gossip.” Rassinier contends that the gas chambers are an invention of the “Zionist establishment.” Why is it that the rest of us, including the Nazi perpetrators themselves, are so sure that the Holocaust did indeed happen? “The Jews have been able to dupe the world by relying on their mythic powers and conspiratorial abilities,” says Rassinier. “World Jewry has once again employed its inordinate powers to harness the world’s financial resources, media and political interests for their own purposes.”

Challenged about his endorsement of these Nazi apologists, Icke’s wife Linda dares to say things that her husband has not yet committed to print. While the book’s discussion of the Holocaust merely asserts tha the Revisionist version should at least be heard, Mrs. Icke denigrates the fact of the Holocaust itself. “We’ve had the figures come down from six million to two,” she claims, citing unnamed “Jewish” sources. “We’ve had a lifetime of one view and one story. Maybe if all things were laid out on the table the truth might come out, whatever it is.”

Icke promises that “much, much more” is yet to be revealed about the Holocaust. A flavor of what might be forthcoming is contained in a striking passage purporting to explain anti-Semitism. Like many neo-Nazis, Icke goes out of his way to deny being anti-Semitic, claiming that he is merely criticizing a “manipulating Jewish clique” who regard the mass of Jews as “cattle to be used and abused as required” in their quest for world domination.

“The Jewish people (who, like the rest of us, are evolving consciousnesses that happen to be working in a Jewish genetics spacesuit at this point), will never be free until they step out of the emotional and mental control of this tiny clique, which uses them in the most merciless ways to advance its own sick and diabolical ambitions.”

Following a common Nazi thread which goes back to Hitler, Icke blames the Jews themselves for anti-Semitism. “Thought patterns in the collective Jewish mind have repeatedly created that physical reality of oppression, prejudice and racism which matches the pattern—the expectation—programmed into their collective psyche. They expect it; they create it.”

For Further Reading . . .

In the light of the book’s content, it will come as little surprise that the further reading recommended in the back pages of . . . And the Truth Shall Set You Free includes neo-Nazi and racist literature. One favorite source is the “excellent” Spotlight, an anti-Semitic tabloid published in the United States that promotes Holocaust denial as a major theme.

Icke also recommends On Target, the magazine of the British League of Rights, a racist group committed to preventing the immigration of “alien peoples” and maintaining a “homogenous” (read: whites only) society. Its editor, Donald Martin, also contributes to Spearhead, the organ of the National Front now controlled by the British National Party. Martin, whom the BNP regards as a “friend and ally,” runs Britain’s leading book-supply service for the extreme right. Among the seven hundred or so titles are Did Six Million Really Die?, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and Henry Ford’s The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem.

Donald Martin now appears to be using Icke and others in the New Age movement as fronts to soft-sell his hard anti-Semitism. As far right-watcher Larry O’Hara points out, “Icke is in many ways a more dangerous figure than Holocaust Revisionist David Irving, for he has the capacity to entice new people onto the anti-Semitic treadmill.”

The neo-Nazis have certainly picked up on Icke. Street-fighting group Combat 18 have mingled with New Agers at Icke’s lectures and favorably reviewed one of his appearances in their bulletin, Putsch.

Though Icke has now largely dropped his New Age and green message, his supporters have yet to desert him. . . . And the Truth Shall Set You Free sold out its initial print run of 4,000 in just two and a half weeks, good going for a book that has—thankfully—been sold mainly by mail order so far. The glossy New Age magazines Kindred Spirit and Vision, widely available at on newsstands, continue to promote Icke’s work.

New Age Magazines

Nexus, an Australia-based New Age/conspiracy magazine that Icke commends as “excellent,” has carried extracts of Holocaust Revisionism articles from Spotlight. It recently published a four-part history of banking that identified Hitler and Mussolini as the last two people who could have stopped the usurious bankers.

The magazine, which is hoping to build on its current 130,000-plus circulation with a special British edition due out this month, carries regular advertisements for catalogues of neo-Nazi publications and videos.

Closer to home, David Icke is not alone in pushing extreme right-wing and racist ideas within the New Age movement. The London-based magazine Rainbow Ark has a New Age appearance but has long been closely associated with both David Icke and Donald Martin, who has written articles under a pseudonym as well as lecturing at meetings organized by the magazine. Articles in Rainbow Ark attack Jewish bankers, the “Illuminati,” and Zionism. The magazine also has a strange theory about modern Israel:

“When a person has a strong hatred of another race, their higher self often (karmically) makes sure they incarnate in that race to balance them out. Thus many of the worst kind of Nazis have already incarnated in Jewish bodies, explaining therefore some of the fireworks which are going on and will go on in Israel.”

Investigations by Open Eye have revealed that Rainbow Ark has been funded by people with a long history of extreme right and racist activity and was initially based in the apartment of Mary Stanton, a prominent racist campaigner who had previously lent it out to the National Front for an election campaign. When Rainbow Ark held a public meeting at the Battlebridge New Age center in Kings Cross on September 13, a Jewish researcher who attended was physically assaulted by a Rainbow Ark editor. The researcher was mistakenly accused of helping with an exposé by Open Eye of “New Age Nazism. [See Matthew Kalman and John Murray, "New Age Nazism," New Statesman and Society, June 23, 1995.]

Despite the assault, Rainbow Ark continues to hold public meetings at the Battlebridge Center, which was originally set up to help homeless people. When the center’s organizer Julie Lowe was asked about Rainbow Ark, she explained that she believed that the Jewish conspiracy described in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is true and ought to be investigated. “I met two old Jewish men at Hyde Park Corner one evening who told me they were true,” says Lowe. “They were saying that if they didn’t get their way in the things they wanted, they were able through Philadelphia in America to pull the money out of every city in the world.

“I’ve seen it happen in Sheffield, so I believe it. It depends who’s actually doing the controlling and who’s go the money. The connection between freemasonry and Jewry is very important.”

Nor are the deluded management of the Battlebridge Center the only people to welcome Icke and give him a platform. During a twenty-minute interview on BBC Greater London Radio on October 15, 1995, publicizing his new book, Icke was given free rein to describe the global conspiracy and how he was now addressing audiences of up to three hundred a night who no longer come to laugh at him but to really listen.
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