National-anarchism

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National-anarchism is a

traditional.[6][8]

Although the term national-anarchism dates back as far as the 1920s, the contemporary national-anarchist movement has been put forward since the late 1990s by British neo-Nazi Troy Southgate, who positions it as being "beyond left and right".[6] Scholars who have studied national-anarchism conclude that it represents a further evolution in the thinking of the radical right rather than an entirely new dimension on the political spectrum.[3][4][5] National-anarchism is considered by other anarchists[according to whom?] as being a rebranding of fascism and an oxymoron.

National-anarchism has elicited skepticism and outright hostility from both

Jewish anarchists.[7][8] Most scholars agree that implementing national-anarchism would not result in an expansion of freedom and describe it as an authoritarian anti-statism that would result in authoritarianism and oppression, only on a smaller scale.[9]

History

Origins and Troy Southgate

The term national-anarchist dates back as far as the 1920s, when Helmut Franke, a German conservative writer, used it to describe his political stance. However, it would be the writings of other members of the

Nazi movement".[9]

National-Anarchist Movement flag

In the mid-1990s,

post-left anarchy and the primitivist green anarchism articulated in Richard Hunt's 1997 book To End Poverty: The Starvation of the Periphery by the Core.[6] However, Southgate fused his ideology with the radical traditionalist conservatism of Italian esotericist Julius Evola and the ethnopluralism and pan-European nationalism of French Nouvelle Droite philosopher Alain de Benoist to create a newer form of revolutionary nationalism called "national-anarchism".[6]

Graham D. Macklin writes that although "[a]t first glance the 'total insanity’ of this incongruous ideological syncretism might be dismissed as little more than a quixotic attempt to hammer a square peg into a round hole or a mischievous act of fascist Dadaism'", national-anarchism "appears as one of many groupuscular responses to globalization, popular antipathy towards which Southgate sought to harness by aligning the NRF with the resurgence of anarchism whose heroes and slogans it arrogated, and whose sophisticated critiques of global capitalist institutions and state power it absorbed and, in the case of anarchist artist Clifford Harper, whose evocative imagery it misappropriated".[6]

Southgate claimed that his desire for a "mono-racial England" was not "racist" and that he sought "

regions of the United Kingdom "were to be governed according to the economic principles of Catholic distributism and a wealth redistribution scheme modelled on the mediaeval guild system. The ensuing growth of private enterprise and common ownership of the means of production would end 'class war' and, ergo, the raison d'être for Marxism, and would also encourage an organic nationalist economy insulated from 'foreign' intervention".[6] Politically, "the regions would be governed by the concept of 'popular rule' extolled by Gaddafi. The resulting restoration of economic and political freedom would re-establish the link between 'blood and soil' enabling the people to overcome the 'tidal wave of evil and liberal filth now sweeping over our entire continent'. 'Natural law' would be upheld and abortion, race mixing and homosexuality forbidden".[6]

About Southgate's vision of Western culture, Graham D. Macklin writes that it is "saturated with a profound pessimism tempered by the optimistic belief that only by 'complete and utter defeat' can tepid materialism be expunged and replaced by the 'golden age' of Evolian Tradition: a return of the

völkisch identity has its roots in the ideological ferment gripping National Front News and Nationalism Today in the 1980s".[6]

In 1998, inspired by the concepts of the

ethnoreligious identity for all people they believe belong to the "Aryan race".[4]

Shortly after, Southgate and other NRF associates became involved with Synthesis, the online journal of a forum called Cercle de la Rose Noire which sought a fusion of

subversive ideas throughout society in order to achieve cultural hegemony.[6] The national-anarchist idea has spread around the world over the Internet, assisted by groups such as the Thule-Seminar which set up websites in the 1990s.[13] In the United States, only a few websites have been established, but there has been a trend towards a steady increase.[7]

BANA

National-anarchism in the United States began as a relatively obscure movement made up of probably fewer than 200 individuals led by Andrew Yeoman of the Bay Area National Anarchists (BANA) based in the San Francisco Bay Area and a couple of other groups in Northern California and Idaho. Organizations based on national-anarchist ideology have gained a foothold in Russia and have been accused of sowing turmoil in the environmental movement in Germany.[8] There are adherents in Australia, England and Spain, among other nations.[8] In the San Francisco Bay Area, BANA began appearing in public only in late 2007. Since then, BANA members protested alongside the

white supremacist skinhead group based in California.[8]

On 8 September 2007, the

white nationalist movements in the United States.[8]

A December 2008 report by the Political Research Associates, described as "a Massachusetts-based progressive think tank", stated that "[t]he danger National Anarchists represent is not in their marginal political strength, but in their potential to show an innovative way that

anti-racists, have been aware of national-anarchists "attempting to infiltrate and exploit their scene" since at least 2005. Entryism, defined as "the name given to the process of entering or infiltrating bona fide organizations, institutions and political parties with the intention of gaining control of them for our own ends", is one of national anarchists' principal tactics.[8] In The Case for National-Anarchist Entryism, Southgate called for national-anarchists to join political groups and then "misdirect or disrupt them for our own purposes or convert sections of their memberships to our cause".[8]

On December 28, 2008, BANA members, dressed with hoodies emblazoned with "Smash All Dogmas" on the back and "New Right" on both sleeves, joined "a protest of several thousand against Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip. Practicing full-blown entryism, they marched between groups carrying the Palestinian flag and the gay-pride flag, while shouting, "F---, F---, F--- Zionism!"

neo-Confederate secessionist groups like the League of the South and the Republic of South Carolina. Some of the site's content is unintentionally comical. For example, BANA exalts the lily-white town of Mayberry in the 1960s TV sitcom The Andy Griffith Show as 'a realized anarchist society'".[8]

Writing for the

Intelligence Report that "[w]e are racial separatists for a number of reasons, such as our desire to maintain our cultural continuity, the principle of voluntary association, and as a self-defensive measure to protect each other from being victimized by crime from other races".[8] Sanchez describes BANA members "and other likeminded national anarchists" as cloaking "their bigotry in the language of radical environmentalism and mystical tribalism, pulling recruits from both the extreme right and the far left". Sanchez quotes Yeoman as saying that BANA is "an extremely diverse group. We have ex-liberals, ex-neo-cons, we have Ron Paul supporters, we have ex-skinheads, we have apolitical people that have been turned on to our causes".[8]

On

anti-immigration Senate bill. The march took place during International Workers' Day demonstrations as an attempt to counter mass protest against the bill in Mission District, San Francisco. Local news media reported that Yeoman and four other national-anarchists were physically assaulted by about ten protesters as they left the march.[15]

According to Matthew N. Lyons, "[f]reedom from government tyranny has always been a central theme of right-wing politics in the United States". Lyons cites "the original

anti-Jewish conspiracy theories worthy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion".[9] According to Lyons, anti-statism is "a key part of National-Anarchism's appeal and helps it to deflect the charge of fascism".[9]

Keith Preston

American Keith Preston, a

traditional values.[16] Preston's opposition to oppression is linked only to the state, arguing that "the state is a unique force for destruction".[9] In The Thoughts That Guide Me: A Personal Reflection (2005), Preston wrote that "what I champion is not so much the anarchist as much as the 'anarch,' the superior individual who, out of sheer strength of will, rises above the herd in defiance and contempt of both the sheep and their masters".[9] Preston is described as "the moving force behind" the anti-state website Attack the System and the American Revolutionary Vanguard, its affiliate organization".[9]

According to Matthew N. Lyons, "Preston's own relationship with

people of color groups".[9]

Although claiming "many leftist ideas in his political philosophy and apparently is still in touch with some actual leftists", unlike other

Orthodox Jews" as "a broad array of potential partners" for Preston's "pan-secessionist" strategy.[9]

Preston embraces a

anti-humanist philosophy that echoes Friedrich Nietzsche, Ernst Jünger, and Ayn Rand".[9] While stating that it would be a mistake "to see Preston's elitism as a mask for bigotry against any specific group of people", Lyons argues that "standard right-wing prejudices periodically creep into his prose".[9] Lyons states that "Preston only acknowledges oppression along lines of race, gender, sexuality, or other factors to the extent that these are directly promoted by the state, particularly through formal, legal discrimination against specific groups of people", ignoring or trivializing "the dense network of oppressive institutions and relationships that exist outside of, and sometimes in opposition to, the state".[9]

According to Lyons, "[i]t is these societally based systems of oppression, not

centralized state, but can operate on any scale, such as a region, a neighborhood, or a family. With no program for liberation except ending big government, pan-secessionism", as advocated by national-anarchists such as Preston, "would foster many smaller-scale authoritarian societies".[9]

Ideology

The

ecological collapse.[6][7]

National-anarchism expresses a desire to reorganize human relationships with an emphasis on replacing the hierarchical structures of the state and capitalism with

right to difference, national-anarchists publicly advocate a model of society in which communities that wish to practice racial, ethnic, religious and/or sexual separatism are able to peacefully coexist alongside mixed or integrated communities without requiring force.[16] National-anarchists claim that "national autonomous zones" (NAZs) could exist with their own rules for permanent residence without the strict ethnic divisions and violence advocated by other forms of "blood and soil" ethnic nationalism.[16] National-anarchist Andrew Yeoman has stated that this racial segregation is actually a belief adopted from anarchists of color, who sometimes refuse to allow those of white descent into their spaces.[8]

Some leading national-anarchists have stated in the past as having originally conceived the idea of establishing whites-only NAZs which have seceded from the state's economy as

anti-universalist" because "it rejects the view that there is one 'correct' system of politics, economics, or culture that is applicable much less obligatory for all people at all times and in all places". According to this view, "any group of people could organize and govern themselves as they wished, as long as they leave other groups free to do the same. These self-governing units could be based on ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, political philosophy, or cultural practice". For those national-anarchists, this is "the best possible method of avoiding the tyrannies and abuses of overarching Leviathan states, and accommodating the irreconcilable differences concerning any number of matters that all societies inevitably contain".[9]

In terms of cultural and religious views, national-anarchists are influenced by the radical

racial mixing and cultural homogenization.[6]

Position on the political spectrum

Scholars who have examined national-anarchism consider it to be on the radical right.[3][5][6][7]

In his 2003 essay "From Slime Mould to Rhizome: An Introduction to the Groupuscular Right", Roger Griffin argued that national-anarchism is a segment of the groupuscular right which has evolved towards a "mazeway resynthesis" between "classic fascism, third positionism, neo-anarchism and new types of anti-systemic politics born of the anti-globalization movement", whose main ideological innovation is a stateless palingenetic ultranationalism.[3]

In his 2005 essay "Co-opting the Counter Culture: Troy Southgate and the National Revolutionary Faction", described as a "case study of the National Revolutionary Faction (NRF)" which "provides a salutary example of fascism's cogent syncretic core and its ability to produce novel and pragmatic syntheses", Graham D. Macklin argued that the

communitarian racism".[6] Macklin concludes that national-anarchism is a synthesis of anarcho-primitivism and the radical traditionalist conservatism of Julius Evola in a "revolt against the modern world".[6] Macklin concludes that "[a]lthough Southgate's impact on left-wing counter-cultural concerns has been completely negligible, this case study of the NRF's wanton intellectual cannibalism shows that groupuscular fascism poses a clear danger, particularly for ecological subcultures whose values are profoundly different from the ecological agenda mooted by the far right. [...] If this article is anything to go by, then anarchist, ecological and global justice movements need to remain on their guard in order to ensure that the revolution will not be national-Bolshevized".[6]

In his 2005 book The Radical Right in Britain: Social Imperialism to the BNP, Alan Sykes argued that national-anarchism represents a further evolution in the thinking of the radical right rather than an entirely new dimension, a response to the new situation of the late 20th century in which the process of

idealistic ethnic nationalism.[5]

Analysis and reception

National-anarchism has critics on both the left and right of the political spectrum as they both look upon their politics with skepticism, if not outright hostility, mainly because of the multifaceted threat they conclude it represents.

separatist ideas based on antifeminism, antisemitism, heterosexism, naturalistic fallacy and racism amongst grassroots activists.[7][9]

Scholars have reported how far-right critics argue that

revolutionary vanguard' than anarchism".[6]

Scholars such as Matthew N. Lyons argue that implementing national-anarchism would not result in an expansion of freedom as its proponents claim and that "in reality it would promote oppression and authoritarianism in smaller-scale units".[9] According to Lyons, the opposition to the state of national-anarchists such as Keith Preston is based on "a radically anti-humanistic philosophy of elitism, ruthless struggle, and contempt for most people".[9]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Activist Resources - New Right Australia / New Zealand". Archived from the original on 2008-12-28.
  2. ^ "National Anarchists AUS/NZ". Archived from the original on 2009-02-16.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Griffin 2003.
  4. ^ a b c Goodrick-Clarke 2003.
  5. ^ a b c d e Sykes 2005.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af Macklin 2005.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Sunshine 2008.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac Sanchez 2009.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Lyons 2011.
  10. ^ Quote taken from the NRF website. See Macklin 2005 for a discussion of the NRF's membership structure.
  11. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 2003, p. 50
  12. ^ Whine 1999.
  13. ^ Dahl 1999, p. 92.
  14. ^ The Sunday Telegraph, September 9, 2007. "[Some protest groups] seemed thankful for the strong police presence. Twenty members of an anarchist movement, all wearing black hoodies with their faces covered by bandanas, were escorted away by police after marching only 20m. The group, New Right Australia and New Zealand, became a focal point for the crowd, who turned on them, accusing them of being Nazis."
  15. ^ SF Weekly, May 1, 2010; KGO-TV report, May 1, 2010.
  16. ^ a b c Preston 2003.
  17. ^ Ross 2017.

Sources

Books and journal articles

News articles

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