By Eric Vandenbroeck

Modernist Religions Continued from Part One:

Few subjects are as ill defined as extremism. Extremists may lead peacefull lives, but the ideology they espouse may cause followers to take actions that produce loss of life and destruction of property.

Before World War II, extremism had been mostly represented by the two ideologies of Communism and Fascism and although already there was an overlap between for example right and left wing conspiracy theories, this overlap became even more evident after WWII.

Initially left-wing groups benefited at first from the discrediting of Nazism and Italian Fascism. Student activism led to revolts in France and the United States in the late 1960s, which spread worldwide.

Intense debate took place among left-wing revolutionaries on the strategy and tactics to produce a successful revolution.

Latin American revolutionaries examined both urban and rural insurrectionary strategies. Che Guevara, the Argentinean revolutionary and Cuban Revolution hero, and his theories on rural guerrilla tactics had an impact on all such discussions. In Asia, the revolutionary strategies of Mao Tse-tung echoed Guevara's in Latin America.

Nazi supporters on the other hand realized that as long the Holocaust remained unchallenged, a neo-Nazi movement had little of success. Holocaust denial became article of faith of all neo-Nazis and organized international campaign.

The Italian neo-Fascist party, the Italian Movement, and its successor, the N. Alliance, did have the advantage of parliamentarianism in a state that had a tradition of parliamentary instability.

But extremism in the Middle East also had an anti-Jewish agenda, plus hostility toward the state of Israel has become an article of faith. Hostility toward Israel has come from both secular organizations, such as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and Muslim organizations, such as Hamas. All of these groups consider Israel an interloper in Palestine and a creature of Western imperialism.

The Neo-Nazi’s again have in commen with the previous that also they believe in a worldwide conspiracy of ‘Jewish Bankers in New York’ among esoteric groups pictured as ‘ Illuminate’.

Islamists however want an adherence to Islamic law (sharia) of the Koran. Despite religious differences between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, Islamists, they share the common belief that Western culture and mores have corrupted modern Islam. They hold that only by returning to the precepts of original Islam can the evils of the Western world be driven out. In the case of the left wing ‘Black Blok’ (that also include radical environmentalists) the same belief exists as the neo-Nazi ‘New World Order’ conspiracy theory.

Thus while many mainstream Americans were swept away with patriotic feelings in reaction to the terrorist attack against the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Aryan revolutionaries and some neo-Pagans were among the few Americans to openly applaud the event. This should of course not be understood as if every counterculture activist praised the attack.

But again, this tide of racist and ethnic paganism in the UK and the United States is linked with the processes of globalization and with the mainstream redefinition of the "nation" to include as co-nationals all people within its territory irrespective or race, ethnicity, or religious preferences. Globalization involves a tension between centripetal and centrifugal forces. The gradual construction of a global culture that increasingly becomes the larger context for all previous cultures of man by necessity involves a relativization of systems of meaning and values.

So at the end of this overview, part b, I will after an alphabetical listing of some right wing extremist groups in Europe, also mention some of the more ‘esoteric’ right wing groups.

But first as an introductory example one that illustrates the above merging of right and left extremism so characteristic for the post WWII era.

For example Alexander Dugin in Russia was one of the founders of the National Bolshevik Party yet next became active in the newly created Eurasia Political Party. He also became a part of the Golovin Circle. Yevgeny Golovin, a scholar in European mystical literature and poetry, had gathered two others, Yuri Mamleyev, a Christian philosopher, and Geidar Jema, a specialist in Islam studies, to study mysticism.

Dugin was a natural member of this circle because he had mastery of nine foreign languages. His first contribution was translation into Russian of Julius Evola's Pagan Imperialism. When Soviet authorities learned of his contacts with the Golovin Circle, he was dismissed from the Moscow Aviation Institute. To earn a living, Dugin became a Moscow street sweeper, but continued his study of right-wing and neo-Fascist thought.

The introduction of more freedoms after 1987 allowed Dugin to enter Russian politics. In 1987, he joined the anti-Semitic Pamyat (Memory) group. Leaders of Pamyat appreciated his abilities and, in late 1988, he assumed a seat on Pamyat's Central Council. By the middle of 1989, Dugin decided that he could no longer associate with Pamyat because of its low intellectual level. He decided to travel to Western Europe and contact leading neo-Fascist figures. On his travels, he had talks with Alain de Benoist, the French intellectual, and Jean Franqois Thiriart, the Belgian neo-Fascist. They reinforced his distaste for the Ameri events left this movement as a relic of a bygone age until Dugin adopted it. Dugin gathered allies, from Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin on the Muslim side to Rabbi Avrom Shmulevich on the Jewish side, to form the Eurasia Nationwide Political Movement on April 21, 2001. Since then, Dugin has been active building the movement and attracting political allies. He has been wooing Russian President Vladimir Putin to adopt the Eurasian concept as an alternative to the American alliance.

Dugin not unlike European counter cultural groups in general, found the American-British invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003 to be an attempt by the United States to establish worldwide hegemony. In several articles, he advised the Putin government to oppose American policies.

Suggested readings: Yelena Dorofeyva, "Eurasia Movement Created in Russia," TASS (April 21, 2001), p. 1; Aleksandr Dugin, "Columnists Eye War's Implications for Russia, World," Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, vol. 55, no. 15 (May 14, 2003); Aleksandr Dugin, "Russia Watches Europe Split over Iraq," Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, vol. 55, no. 7 (March 19, 2003); Grigory Nekhoroshev, "'Eurasians' Decide to Rely on Vladimir Putin," Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press (May 23, 2001), p. 14; Stephen D. Shenfield, Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2001).

From here then first an alphabetical overview of other extremist groups in Europe:

 

The Black Banker

Born Franqois Genoud he was a Swiss banker who assisted extremist groups from neo-Nazi’s to Middle East terrorists. Born in 1914, and a member of the Swiss Nazi Party during World War II, he played role in the negotiations between the head of the American OSS Strategic Services), and Nazi SS to end the war. After the war, he acquired the publication rights to the works of Hitler, Martin Bormann, an Goebbels.

Plus Genoud became the banker of both the neo-Nazi movement a East extremist groups,thus earning the name “Black Banker.” After developing

contacts with the Egyptian government of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, he started shipping arms to the Algerian independence movement FLN (National Liberation Front). After Algerian independence, he was appointed head of the Arab Popular Bank (Banque Populaire Arabe) in Algiers. After his involvement in a feud among Algerian leaders, Genoud was arrested in October 1964 for an illegal transfer of funds. This ended his involvement with Algeria.

In the late 1960s, Genoud turned his attention to supporting anti-Israel groups, and backed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) with funding and legal support. He also established a working relationship with the leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Genoud openly applauded Black September’s attack on Israeli athletes at the Olympic games in Munich, Germany.

In 1982, Klaus Barbie, the accused Nazi war criminal, was extradited from Bolivia to France. Genoud and his close associate Jacques Verges provided the funds and the legal defense for Barbie. They used the trial to attack Barbie’s accusers and at the same time to highlight France’s crimes against Algeria. Despite their defense, Barbie was convicted of war crimes.

Genoud also backed Ramirez Sanchez, or Carlos the Jackal who after the Sudanese government relinquished Sanchez to French authorities on August 15, 1994, was brought to France to stand trial for the killing of two French policemen.

Genoud arranged the defense for Sanchez, but despite Genoud’s efforts, Sdnchez was convicted. Genoud took the occasion to express his admiration for Sanchez as a hero of the Palestinian struggle.

Finally Genoud committed suicide by drinking a cocktail of drugs in his home in Pully, a district of Geneva, Switzerland, on May 30, 1996.

Suggested readings: Kevin Coogan, Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International (Brooklyn, NY: Autonornedia, 1999); John Follain, Jackal: The Complete Story of the Legendary Terrorist, Carlos the Jackal (New York: Arcade, 1998); Martin A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens (Boston: Little, Brown, 1997).

 

British National Front (BNF)

Leaders of the League of Empire Loyalists (LEL) and the British National Party (BNP) decided to merge into an umbrella organization in 1967. Two leaders of this merger were A. K. Chesterton, a veteran neo-fascist and head of the League of Empire Loyalists, and Andrew Fountaine, head of the British National Party. Chesterton was the first president, but he soon engaged in a power struggle with Fountaine that led to his resignation as president in 1970.

Fountaine became the new head, but his refusal to use his large family fortune to back the party led to his expulsion from the BNF in 1970. By the 1970s, John Tyndall, who was selected and ,served as the head the British National Front until the leadership removed him from authority in 1980, was the party's most prominent leader. Leadership problems had continued to haunt the BNF enough so that at times the party has been marginalized.

The British, National Front had the same neo-fascist, racist, and anti-immigration orientation of the British National Party. Sometimes the two parties united in demonstrations, but other times members fought against each other. They combined to conduct demonstrations against Asian immigrants in the spring and summer of 2001. Racial tensions had been high over incidents between British whites and Asians in the former industrial towns of Bradford and Oldham. Riots broke out beginning April and did not end before August, leaving several dozen injured and damage to property in the thousands of pounds.

Suggested readings: Nuala Haughey, "on the Streets," Irish Times (August 11, 200 60; Ian Herbert, "In Oldham's 'No Go' Z Independent (London) (May 28, 2001), Angus Roxburgh, Preachers of Hate: The R the Far Right (London: Gibson Square B 2002); Peter Webb and Malcolm MacPhe "Britain's New Ultra-Right," Newsweek (A 29, 1977), p. 44.

British National Party (BNP) (Great Bri The British National Party (BNP) is o the leading neo-Nazi parties in Great Br Leaders of two neo-Nazi groups-the tional Labour Party (NLP) and the V Defence League (WDL)-formed the B National Party in 1960. Andrew Fount a wealthy landowner and a vetera Franco's army during the Spanish Civil became BNP's first president. Other pr nent leaders of the BNP were John Be chemist and veteran fascist leader; Colir dan, a former English and mathem teacher and former head of the WDL; John Tyndall, salesman and former he the NLP and the BNE This galaxy of ers soon had to weather leadership disa ments. Jordan's refusal to stop build separate neo-Nazi movement caused hi be expelled from the BNP in 1962. Ty left at the same time, and together started the National Socialism Move (NSM).

The ideology of the British National was racial nationalism. Protectio, England's Nordic heritage from Jews an migrants from Third World countries w, main preoccupation. Part of this pro was to force non-English elements to the country. Efforts to turn the BNP i neo-fascist or neo-Nazi party had adhe in the party, but most of them left witt dan and Tyndall. Bean remained a

leader, and he directed most of his atte to gaining political influence by running didates for Parliament. His use of the p newspaper, Combat, was an effective to spread propaganda. He was able to ca ize on British unrest about immigrati stage some upsets in the mid-1960s.

In the early 1990s, Tyndall rejoined the British National Party and became its head. During this time, in an effort to help the BNP, American neo-Nazi William Pierce advised the party on political tactics. However, the British National Party went into a period of decline until Nick Griffin assumed control of the party in 1999. Griffin had been active in the British National Front until 1989. After flirting with other right-wing neo-fascist groups, he joined the British National Party in 1995. After winning a power struggle with Tyndall, he emerged as the head of the party. He had long emphasized Holocaust denial and he led the party in this direction. Soon Griffin decided that anti-immigration agitation was the way for the British National Parry to carve out a political constituency. In 2001, Griffin's strategy of anti-immigration demonstrations attracted enough supporters for the British National Party to become an electoral force in British politics. His father's role in the Conservative Party caused a scandal, but Griffin used the opportunity for more publicity. Griffin has also been active in the recruitment of skinheads to serve as shock troops for the BNP. See also British National Front (BNF); Holocaust Denial; Jordan, Colin; Skinhead Movement.

Suggested readings: Chris Blackhurst, "World's Leading Nazi Advises British Fascists," Independent (London) (March 2, 1997), p. 3; Steve Boggan, "March of the Far-Right," Evening Standard (London) (February 3, 2003), p. 16; Sarah Lyall, "Shadowy Party Heats Up British Racial Tensions," New York Times Juby 4, 2001), sec. A, p. 3; T. R. Reid, "Party Stokes Racial Ire in Britain," Washington Post (July 10, 2001), p. A12; Angus Roxburgh, Preachers of Hate: The Rise of the Far Right (London: Gibson Square Books, 2002); Richard Tburlow, Fascism in Britain: From Oswald Mosley's Blacksbirts to the National Front (London: Tauris, 1999), Sarah Wilson, "BNP Feeds Off Docklands Dogged by Racial Prejudice," Scotsman (Edinbrough) (April 26, 1997), p. 8.

 

Fortuyn, Pim (The Netherlands)

He was The Netherlands' leading right-wing, populist politician until his assassination in May 2002. He was born on February 19, 1948, into a respectable Catholic family. His father was a traveling salesman and Fortuyn grew up in the village of Driehuis, just outside Amsterdam. After local schooling, he attended The Netherlands Business School in Breukelen, where he studied economics, history, law, and sociology. At this time, Fortuyn considered himself a Marxist. He was also active in the Dutch student movement. After graduating in 1970, he went to study sociology at the University of Amsterdam, where he received a doctorate in 1971. Next he enrolled at the Rilksuniversiteit Groningen for further study in sociology, and in 1980 he received his doctorate in the social sciences. After service in both government and private industry, Fortuyn obtained a teaching position at the Erasmus Univarsity in Rotterdam in 1990. While he was a successful professor, Fortuyn became fascinated with politics.

Fortuyn pursued a political career as a populist and a libertarian. Soon after taking his position at Erasmus University, he began writing in newspapers expressing his views. He began to question his Marxist views and soon developed a right-wing viewpoint. He began attacking the liberal consensus of the Dutch government, and, in particular, its open immigration policies. His target was Muslim immigration, because he believed that Muslims could not be assimilated into Dutch society. In a series of books, including Against the Islamicisation of Our Culture; Fifty Years Israel, but for How L The Orpbaned Community, he a lamic fundamentalism as incomp Western life. His anti-immigrant corresponded closely to that of and Austrian right-wing leader Joerg Haider, but Fortuyn rejected him because of Nazism and anti-Semitism. With the 'Liveable Netherlands' (Leefbaar Nederland) party in November 2001, he turned this party toward the radical right, but he was removed from leadership of the party in February 2002 because of his charge to abolish the Dutch constitution's Article One, which bans discrimination.

He reacted by establishing his own party, List Fortuyn, to contest the Dutch March elections. His success in these elections gave him hope that he could play a leading role in the Dutch government by winning in the May 2002 elections. Fortuyn knew that his confrontational style had risks, so he employed bodyguards. But on May 6, 2002, after Fortuyn left a radio station in Hilversum near Amsterdam an animal activist of all, killed him. Despite Fortuyn's death, his sounding victory at the pol pated in the creation of government.

Suggested readings: Da 'Fascist' and the 'Activist,"' (London)] (Mary 20, 2002), vol. Evans-Pritchard, "Holland's Hi New Politics," Daily Telegraph 2002), p. 16; Stryker McGuire, Newsweek (May 20, 2002), Osborn, "Gay Mr. Right W Observer (London) (April I Stephen Robinson, "Colourf Touched a Raw Nerve until Telegraph (London) (May 8, 2 Roxburgh, Preachers of Hate: (London: Gibson Square Books,2002)

 

Frey, Gerhard (1933- )

The leader of Union (Deutsche Volksunion) was born in 1933 and earned a law degree in political science. After a stint working as a freelance journalist for the German (Deutsche Soldatenzeitung) newspaper in the late 1950s, he started the German Weekly Newspaper (Die Wochenzeitung). By 1998, his publishing business was estimated to b $300 and $500 million.

Soon upon establishing his business empire, Frey turned to right-wing politics. His newspapers have always touted nationalism, anti-Semitism, and anti-immigrant views. In January 1971, he founded the German People's Union as a right-wing lobby group. Then in 1987, Frey tuned the DVU into a political party. This party depends exclusively on Frey for its financial support and in return it serves as an outlet for his political ideas. Frey is not a charismatic figure and he is more comfortable operating behind the scenes. He has been careful not to let any rivals for leadership into the DVU. Frey's party has been moderately successful in German state elections. Several times it has been rumored that Frey had concluded an electoral alliance with other German right-wing parties, but each time Frey had backed out. The German government estimated in 2000 that the DVU had around 15,000 active members, but Frey claims that this figure is much too low. His party has been able to capitalize on the general economic and political malaise among young Germans following reunification in the early 1990s.

Frey has developed extensive contacts with neo-Nazis and other extremists both in Germany and in Europe. He has always been careful to skirt on the edge of German law against Holocaust denial and Nazism. He has espoused Germany's claim to land that formerly belonged to the German Reich under the Nazis, and he has opposed efforts for European unification. Frey developed a relationship with Franz Sch6nhuber and the Republican Party, but this relationship cost Sch6nhuber his leadership of that parry. His friendship with the British historian and Holocaust denier David Irving led him to collaborate with Irving on exposing the Nazi ties of German political figures. Frey has close ties with France's right-wing political leader JeanMarie Le Pen and Russia's neo-fascist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky. His relationship with other German right-wing leaders is less cordial because they distrust him and they fear that his financial resources will overwhelm them.

Suggested readings: Markus Krah, "Danger on the Right," Jerusalem Report (July 6, 1998), p. 30; Martin A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens (Boston: Little, Brown, 1997); David Marsh, "West German Rigbt-Wing Publisher Combs Nazi Files in Berlin," F.-nincial Times (London) (March 14, 1988), p. 3; Ca; Mudde, The Ideology of the Extreme Rigbt Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press; Philip Sherwell, "Bavarian Tycoon Fans Flantes of Racism," Ottawa Citizen (May 3, 1998), p. F8; Philip Sherwell, "Secretive Tycoon's Poll Victory Raises Nazi Fears," Sunday Telegraph London) (May 3, 1998), p. 29; Denis Staunton, -Far-Right Party Little More Than One Wealthy Fanatic's Toy," Irisb Times (April 28, 1998), p. 11.

 

Front National (FN)

Founded October 5, 1972, the initial goal was to unite all of France's right parties into a coalition party that could make efforts to gain control by parliamentary means. The new party elected Marie Le Pen as itsleader. Le Pen's strategy appealed to the disaffected in France motto "France for the French."

The Front National had limited success during its first few years. After several municipal elections, and change of the French electoral law to proportional representation, the Front National was able to win 35 seats in the 1986 elections. However the FN's political success tapered after 1986 when efforts to collaborate with other right-wing parties proved unsuccessful.

Le Pen organized the party in an authoritarian manner with Jean-Pierre Stirbois as the party's secretary-general. Both Le Pen and Stirbois allowed no discussion or dissent from subordinates. This intolerance toward dissenting views led to a constant turnover of party members. Still, Harvey Simmons reported in his book on the Front National that it had 50,000 members in the 1990’s.

And Le Pen led the parry to a stunning success in the first round of France's 2002 presidential election. He received 16.8 percent of the vote in April 21, 2002. But President Jacques Chirac was able to gather allies and resoundingly defeated Le Pen in the second round of the election. Le Pen has used the 2002 success to begin grooming his youngest daughter, Marine Le Pen, to replace him as head of the Front National.

See James Cohen, "Le Pen's Pitchfork Populism, in These Times (October 28-Novem 1996), p. 25; Christopher Flood, "Or Fear and Indignation: The Front Nat France," in Richard J. Golsan (ed.), Scandal, Revision, and Ideology, 1980 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998); Harvey G. Simmons, The French National Front: The Extremist Challenge to Democracy (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996); Alex Duval Smith, "Racist Party Wins Over the Workers," Guardian (London) (November 3, 1996), p. 21.

 

Republican Party (Die Republikaner)

Die Republikaner (REP) was co-founded by Franz Schoenhuber, a former radio journalist and former member of the Waffen SS in World War II in a Bavarian tavern on November 17, 1983. A divergence of political viewpoints between Schonhuber and his two co-founders Handlos and Voigt led to them leaving the party, thus in June 1985, Schoenhuber was elected chairperson.

Schoenhuber's intent was to build a party that would attract German nationalists by not repudiating its Nazi past. Among his platform points were the abolition of trade unions, curtailment of the welfare state, expulsion of all foreigners, and a return to Germany's 1937 borders. This party has been successful in appealing to traditional German nationalistic value by combining it with condemnations of foreign workers.

Since the enactment of the Maastricht Treaty establishing the European Union, the Republican Party began enjoying political success. In June 1989, the party garnered enough votes to send Schoenhuber and five of his colleagues to the European Parliament in Strasburg.

Many of his supporters also belong to other extreme nationalistic or neo-Nazi groups, the German Alternative (Deutsche Alternative, or German National Democratic Party (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands or NPD), German People's Union (Dentsche Volksunion, or DVU), and Liberal Gern Workers Party (Freiheitliche Dentsche Arbeiterpartei, or FAP)-many of whom have been banned by the German government.

But the Republican Party lost most of its political gains in the 1990s, because in 1994, the German Federal Government declared the REP a right-wing extremist group.

Schoenhuber concluded an electoral alliance with Gerhard Frey and the German People's Union (DVU). But because the REP had a lengthy history of opposition to Frey and the DVU, this alliance caused a backlash in the REP. In a subsequent meeting of the leadership of the REP in October 1994, Schoenhuber was dismissed as party leader. Rolf Schlierer, a lawyer and the leader of the moderate wing of the REP, replaced him. Schoenhuber and his adherents opened political warfare on Schlierer and his supporters, and in the process, the party has become further marginalized in German politics.

Suggested readings: Adrian Bridge, "A Far Cry That Sounds just Like Hitler," Independent (London) (March 21, 1993), p. 14; Paul Hockenos, Free to Hate: The Rise of the Right in Post-Communist Eastern Europe (New York: Routledge, 1993); Martin A. Lee, The Beast Awakens (Boston: Little, Brown, 1997); The Ideology of the Extreme Right (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2000); Angus Roxburgh, Preachers of Hate: The Rise of the Far Right (London: Gibson Square Books, 2002); Serge Schmemann, "Is Extremist or Opportunist behind Bonn Rightist's Tempered Slogans?" New York Times (June 27, 1989), p. Al.

 

One Nation Party (ONP)

Pauline Hanson formed this party in 1997 shortly after she was elected to the Australian Parliament from Oxley in Ipswich, Queensland. After her maiden speech in the House of Representatives during which she attacked taxpayer support for minority groups, a spontaneous group of backers formed to give her political support.

Her advisors David Ettridge and David Oldfield advised her to divide One Nation into two separate entities. The first, One Nation Limited, was incorporated so that Hanson, Ettridge, and Oldfield could control it. The other, One Nation Party, had a membership and operated as a political party. Within months One Nation Party had 200 local branches across Australia. The political stronghold of the One Nation Party was in Queensland.

The first indication of the drawing power of the One National Party was in the 1998 Queensland election. Adherents of the ONP won 11 of the 89 seats. Almost as soon as the ONP deputies assumed their seats, dissension broke out within the party. Dissidents claimed that the ONP had been fraudulently registered in the 1998 Queensland election. In August 1999, the Supreme Court of Queensland ruled that the registration had indeed been fraudulent. Even before this ruling Hanson, Ettridge, and Oldfield began purging the party of dissidents.

Internal dissention and failure in the 1998 federal elections weakened the One Nation Party. Many of its deputies in the Queensland Parliament broke away from the party and became independents. Despite the populist rhetoric emanating from Hanson, the leadership in the ONP was autocratic and it became less popular over time. Charges of election irregularities also appeared involving the registration of the party in 1997. In January 2003 Pauline Hanson resigned as head of the One Nation Party to face the fraud charges along with her chief aide, David Ettridge. Their later conviction of election fraud and prison sentences have had a further negative impact on the party. After an appeals court quashed their sentences, Hanson and Ettridge gained an early release from prison in December 2003. Hanson has since retired from politics. See also Hanson, Pauline; League of Rights.

Suggested readings: Dennis Atkins, "How the West Has Won," Courier Mail (January 19, 2002), p. 28; Paul Kelly, Paradise Divided: The Cbanges, the Challenges, the Choices for Australia (St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2000); Michael Leach, Geoffrey Stokes, and Ian Ward, The Rise and Fall of One Nation (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2000); Gerald McManus, "Why They Vote for Hanson," Sunday Herald Sun (Melbourne) (February 18, 2001), p. 38; Natalie O'Brien, Belinda Hickman, and Dennis Shanahan, "Western Showdown," Weekend Australian (Sydney) (May 26, 2001), p. 21; Greg Roberts, "Tactical Withdrawal," Sydney Morning Herald (January 19, 2002), p. 27.

 

Zhirinovsky, Vladimir Volfovich (1 (Russia)

Vladimir Zhirinovsky is the lead fascist politician in Russia and the the Liberal Democratic Party o (LDPR). He was born in A Kazakhstan, on April 25, 1946. 1was Volf Isaakovich Eidelstem, a P ish lawyer. His mother was a Shortly after he was born, his fath an automobile accident. Zhirino tended a school in Almaty and was member of the Komsomol, the co youth organization. He had difficul in school because of his Jewish bac In 1964, he graduated from high sc changed his name from Eidelste mother's name, Zhirinovsky. In th( of 1964, Zhirmovsky moved to Mo attended the Moscow University In Asian and African Studies, where h ized in studying Turkish affairs. In traveled to Turkey to work as a con interpreter-translator at the Iskend and Steel Joint Soviet-Turkish W( stay in Turkey was brief, however, ish authorities arrested him for e and deported him. Soviet authoritie ered him politically unreliable an him admittance to membership in munist Party.

Soon after graduation, Zhirino drafted into the Soviet army. He ser officer in the Transcaucasian Mili trict at Tbilisi, Georgia, for two yea being discharged as a captain in

held a variety of jobs while studying law at Moscow State University night school. In 1977, Zhirinovsky obtained a law degree. He then took a position as vice president at the Higher School of the Trade Union Movement where he remained until 1983. Zhirmovsky's next job was head of the law department at the Mir Publishing House where he stayed until he entered politics.

In 1988, Zhirinovsky decided to enter politics. He founded the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) in December 1989 and became its head at the March 1990 Congress. The LDPR was the second party officially registered in Russia. Zhirinovsky's call to Russian nationalism garnered him almost 8 percent of the vote in the June 1991 presidential elections, finishing third in the election. Help in making Zhirmovsky acceptable to the Russian right wing came from Eduard Limonov, the novelist and head of the National Bolshevik Front. Zhirmovsky's position in Russian politics improved in the December 1993 parliamentary elections when the LDPR captured nearly one quarter of the electoral and elected 64 deputies to the Duma. His efforts in the December 1995 elections resulted in a drop in popular appeal, but the LDPR still won 51 seats in the Duma. Zhirmovsky ran for the presidency in the June 1996 elections, but the result was less than 6 percent of the vote. His political strength fell during the late 1990s because of his disqualification and the disqualifications of his running mates for not reporting properly before elections.

Zhirmovsky is still a political force in Russia because of the popularity of his extremist views. He stands for the re-creation of the Russian empire by a large-scale southward expansion. His vision includes includes access to the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Ocean. An expansion of this nature means that the Russian army would have be expanded and used in the drive to the south. Russia's sphere of control would have to include Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey. Central Europe would be divided between Germany and Russia, and Poland would no I ist. He has supported the war in C because it coincides with his dri south. Zhirmovsky believes that the States is too passive to interfere wit ation of a Russian empire.

Besides his geopolitical he is also controversial because of his anti-Semitic views. One of his more extreme has been for Jews to be segregated vations. His anti-Semitism a right-wing views have made him among other European right-wing groups including France's Jean-Marie Le Pen. His popularity with other right-wing extremists, however, has deteriorated because of what they consider his erratic behavior.

Suggested readings: Susan B. Glasser, "Russian Revises His Heritage; Anti-Semitic Politician Zhirinovsky Admits Father Was Jewish, " Washington Post (July 17,2001), p. A13; Vladimir Kartsev, Zhirinovsky! (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); Martin A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens (Boston: Little, Brown, 1997); Stephen D. Shenfield, Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2001); Mark Smith, "The Last Dash South-The Geopolitics of Vladimir Zhirinovsky," Jane's Intelligence Review 6, no. 6 (June 1, 1994), p. 250; Vladimir Solovyov and Elena Klepikova, Zhirinovsky: Russian Fascism and the Making of a Dictator (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995).

Julius Evola became the leading philosopher of the European neo-fascist movement. Born May 19, 1898, in Rome, he descended from an aristocratic Sicilian family and was raised a strict Catholic. He started out as a Dada artist and poet before turning to journalism.

After WWI Evola became a student of magic, the occult, alchemy, and Eastern religions. And although he never joined Mussolini's Fascist Party, Evola accepted the Fascist state.

However Evola was critical of the Fascist regime because it was not fascist enough. In 1927, his book Pagan Imperialism (Imperialismo pagano) appeared, and in it he attacked the Catholic Church. Later he opposed the Lateran Accords that made peace between the Mussolini regime and the Catholic Church. He also served as the cultural writer of the influential journal, The Fascist His solution was that the state primacy over civil society. Rulers were to be an elite that would with spiritual ideals.

In 1953, he published Men among the Ruins (Gli U Robine) in which expressed his views. His pessimism with modernity attracted Italian youth and young fascists around Europe.

Two of his disciples, Girogio Freda and Adriano Romualdi, continue to advance his ideas. After scattering Evola's ashes in the Italian Alps, his admirers established the Foundation Evola to advance his ideas.

Another group is called Ordine Nuovo, the New Order a militant Italian right-wing group. Many of its members earlier left the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement because they found it too moderate politically. German Nazism appealed to them more than Mussolini's Fascism.

Early on members of the ON were attracted to the philosophy of Julius Evola who rejected both Marxism Leninism and Western capitalism. In the place of these ideologies, he advocated an aristocratic elitism that would lead easily to a neo-fascist society.

Summer camps were established to train young recruits and to indoctrinate them. A relationship was also developed with the Italian military intelligence in a alliance against Italian leftists.

A Rome court sentenced 30 members of the New Order to various prison terms on November 21, 1973, for reconstituting the banned Fascist Party. New Order members in this case later assassinated the judge, Vittorio Occorsio, in July 1976.

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, its chief rival among right-wing terrorism groups was Stefano Delle Chime's National Vanguard (Avanguardia Nazionale). Both groups engaged in disinformation campaigns by blaming their terrorist acts on leftist groups, including the Red Brigades. Only after investigations in the early 1980s that proved that the New Order had participated in terrorist incidents with the collusion of Italian intelligence services did the group start to whither away, but re-surfaced briefly after 9/11.

See also Alexander Dugin:

Suggested readings: Kevin Coogan, Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 1999); Richard Drake, The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1989); Franco Ferraresi, Threats to Democracy: The Radical Right in Italy after the War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996); H. T. Hansen, "Julius Evola's Political Endeavors," in Julius Evola, Men among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2002); Leonard B. Weinberg, After Mussolini: Italian Neo-Fascism and the Nature of Fascism (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1979); Leonard B. Weinberg and William Lee Eubank, The Rise and Fall of Italian Terrorism (Boulder, CO: Wesrview Press, 1987).

Since the Eurocentric reconstructions of premodern Norse, Celtic, or Mediterranean traditions, racist Satanism, and occult national socialism Evola’s theories seem to thrive again in the Aryan revolutionary milieu.

But why would a white racist eagerly embrace theories about, say, the polar origins of Aryan man, speculations about race-specific divine archetypes engraved at birth in the cerebral cortex in each person of pure Aryan blood, or assertions of a post-I945 esoteric war in which Hitler is still alive as fuehrer of a hidden bastion of supreme Aryan warriors inside the hollow earth?

A common denominator between racism, alternative science, and paganism is that adherents accept as truth knowledge that is rejected or ridiculed by the institutions of mainstream culture that claim monopoly in the field of production of knowledge.

These milieus however center around what Michael Barkun in his November 2003 book “Culture of Conspiracy” terms "stigmatized knowledge". That is, knowledge that claimants regard as empirically verifiable but that has been censored by the universities, academic press, school authorities, and communities of scholars. Barkun subdivides the domain of stigmatized knowledge in five categories: 1) forgotten knowledge, that is, knowledge once known but lost through faulty memories, cataclysm, or some other interrupting factor (e.g., Atlantis, the divine origin of Aryan man); 2) superceded knowledge, that is, knowledge previously recognized but now rejected as false (e.g., astrology and alchemy); 3) ignored knowledge, that is, knowledge claims that persist in low prestige social status groups but are ridiculed by others (e.g., herbal and folk medicine); 4) rejected knowledge, that is, knowledge that is explicitly rejected as false from the outset (e.g., UFo abductions); and 5) suppressed knowledge, that is, knowledge that authoritative institutions know to be valid but that is suppressed by the powers that be (e.g., alien origins Of UFOS, the poisoning effect of fluoride drinking water, the true JFK assassins).

Believers in one kind of stigmatized knowledge as Barkun points out, tend to be receptive or open to other kinds of stigmatized knowledge. The fact that a knowledge claim is not accepted as true by the universities and mainstream media is interpreted to mean that there must be something to it.

 

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