Clarifying the story: a statement from the Dean of Bradford

There have been a lot of claims and counter-claims about the position of the Dean of Bradford in the Atzmon affair so I thought it was best to ask the Dean himself to make the last word. This is a statement he sent me last night and I hope it clarifies his position and answers those people, for their own political reasons, who have accused me of lying and falsifying documents:

Statement from the Dean of Bradford 26 November 2011:

"Mr Gilad Atzmon has posted a statement of mine on his website (http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/hope-not-hate-is-caught-falsifying-documents-again.html) which he has used to accuse Mr Nick Lowles of falsifying documents and spreading lies. I do not support this accusation.

I want to make it clear that I do not regard Mr Lowles as a liar or someone who has falsified documents, and I apologise if in any way this impression has been given by me. I did not in my initial statement quoted on Mr Lowles' blog make a public call for Mr Atzmon's concert to be cancelled, and it was on this basis that I disagreed with the headline over my statement. However, I had indicated elsewhere in a mail seen by Mr Lowles that cancellation would be preferred, since (as I note in my statement quoted by Mr Atzmon) I would have had to have withdrawn the concert if it had been due to happen on church premises due to the controversy involved, and it is this indication which led Mr Lowles to write the headline as he did; although it did not represent my intention it was not an unreasonable action for him to take, and he was engaged in interpretation not falsification.

Mr Atzmon and his supporters believe in his sincerity, and those opposed to him do not. Assessing what Mr Atzmon actually believes is not easy owing to the contested nature of the evidence. What is uncontrovertible is the fact that a lot of people believe that he behaves in a way which is anti-Semitic, flirting with Holocaust denial, and racist: and this behaviour has caused a wide variety of groups to distance themselves from him. As a cathedral we believe in truth, peace and justice for Palestinians and Israelis, of whatever faith (or none); and we will continue to hold to that often uncomfortable position - a position which makes it impossible for us to offer a platform to Mr Atzmon."

Nick Lowles at Hope not hate

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up

Dean of Bradford calls for Atzmon's invite to be withdrawn

The Dean of Bradford has added his name to the growing chorus of outrage at the decision of Raise Your Banners to invite antisemite Gilad Atzmon to perform for them in Bradford on Friday. Atzmon flirts with Holocaust Denial, Holocaust Deniers and is an antisemite and as such should have no place on a progressive platform. This is not a question of Palestine and Israel, nor is it an attempt to stifle freedom of speech. It is simply us, as anti-racists, demanding that a racist and antisemite should not be given a platform. The fact that Atzmon, and his supporters in Raise Your Banners, use information obtained from the BNP to attack us should be reason enough to shun him.

Anyway, I will go into this in more detail later but for now I would like to post a comment sent to me by David Ison, the Dean of Bradford:

"The Cathedral authorities were completely unaware of the nature of this musician, and in any case did not invite him. Our premises were hired by Raise your Banners (who have been here before, uncontroversially) who booked for a concert but told us nothing of the nature of the concert of the performers. We were not aware of any issues with this until we were contacted a few weeks ago by the Council for Christians and Jews expressing concern about anti-Semitism in the Cathedral - a concern which we completely share, as the Cathedral is committed as a Christian organisation to truth, justice and equality.

"We do not countenance or give permission for any form of racism or fascism, including anti-Semitism, to be given hospitality at Bradford Cathedral. Having asked for more information about Gilad Atzmon, it has only been in the last few days that we have received clear evidence of the nature of his public statements. In the event, the concert in the Cathedral had already been cancelled due to poor ticket sales; but it seems to be taking place in a smaller venue in Kala Sangam which is not connected with the Cathedral and over which we have no control.

"I am writing to the authorities at Kala Sangam to ensure they are aware of the issues raised by hosting a concert with this musician."

David Ison

Dean of Bradford

Hope not Hate

Neo-Nazi group hoodwinks state into selling it mansion

Officials in the former East Germany have been stung by revelations that they were hoodwinked into selling a listed 19th-century manor house to a neo-Nazi group which used a frontwoman posing as a practitioner of alternative medicine to complete the deal.

The disclosures in yesterday's Der Spiegel are a major embarrassment for the once communist state of Thuringia, which spends €2.6 million ($4.5 million) a year combating extremism in a region renowned for neo-Nazi politics and far-right violence. The neo-Nazi group plans to use the mansion as a centre for far-right extremists and Holocaust deniers.

Martina Renner, a spokeswoman for Thuringia's opposition Left Party, said the sale of the property was scandalous. "The state Government will have to explain how such a well-known building could be sold off to right-wing extremists without anyone realising what was going on," she said.

The manor in the small village of Guthmannshausen, 50km northeast of Weimar, is a neo-classical property containing a pillared banqueting hall, a sauna and numerous outbuildings. It was sold in May to a dubious neo-Nazi organisation called Gedachtnisstatte [Places of Remembrance], based in the western state of Lower Saxony. None of the officials involved realised that the buyer was a far-right group.

Yesterday, it emerged that Wolfram Schiedewitz, who is the president of Places of Remembrance, is an extremist with a track record of propagating pro-Nazi views and Holocaust denial which goes back two decades.

"We have finally found a new home," Schiedewitz declared in a message to his supporters. "We want to fill it with memory of our World War II civilians who were the victims of bombardment, expulsions and prison camps."

But experts said the group intended to set up a rallying point for the far right. The group's clandestine purchase fits a well-defined strategy which has enabled neo-Nazis to gradually increase their presence in the former communist East since Germany's reunification in 1990.

State security officials in Thuringia say the purchase of the house was most probably masterminded by a female neo-Nazi named only as "B". She posed as an alternative medicine practitioner and duped officials into believing she wanted to hold seminars in the building and rent it to other users.

However, the security officials, who insisted they were not consulted during the sale, said yesterday that "B" was not only a member of Places of Remembrance but also had close links to a Nazi group called the Society for Free Communication, the country's "largest far-right cultural organisation".

NZHerald

Debate invite to BNP chief prompts major row at TCD society

A planned debate at Trinity College’s Philosophical Society has divided its committee and been thrown into disarray following a decision to invite British National Party MEP Nick Griffin to take part.

The debate, on the motion that This House Believes Immigration Has Gone Too Far , is scheduled for October 20th next. Mr Griffin has agreed to speak in favour of the motion. Another speaker who had agreed to oppose the motion withdrew at the weekend on discovering that Nick Griffin was to take part.

John Palmer, who is on the governing board of the European Policy Centre and deputy chairman of its Political Europe programme, told The Irish Times last night he found it “totally unacceptable” that Mr Griffin should take part in such a debate, and had told the organisers he would not take part if Mr Griffin’s invitation was not withdrawn.

Former European correspondent at the Guardian , Mr Palmer said: “The BNP’s roots are in Nazism, and it is very clear those roots remain strongly Nazi.” He had “no problem taking part in debates with people who had racist or reactionary views on immigration”, but he would not do so “with a party rooted in support for the Holocaust and all that represents”. The BNP also had “extreme anti-Muslim policies”, he said.

TCD’s Socialist Party Society has also opposed the invitation to Mr Griffin, as has the Union of Jewish Students in Britain. They called on the Philosophical Society to withdraw its invitation to Mr Griffin, pointing out that “as was witnessed at Durham and Oxford universities, publicity stunts such as these tear apart student communities and contribute to a hostile environment for Jewish students on campus”.

In a brief statement last night, the Philosophical Society said: “The Phil is a neutral forum for discussion. We do not endorse the views of any of our speakers. Nick Griffin has been invited to speak solely on immigration. He is a prominent speaker on this issue. The debate will be balanced, with two guest speakers on each side of the motion.”

When asked who those guest speakers would be, society president Eoin Ó Liatháin said he did not wish to comment further.

According to Trinity News, the story about Nick Griffin’s participation in the debate first leaked on the blog of the BNP’s press officer, Simon Darby.

Mr Palmer said last night he had been first contacted by the Trinity society about taking part in a debate “some months ago, and had agreed in principle”. He was presented with the motion “a couple of weeks ago, but no further information”.

He believes he was sent another message in the middle of last week indicating Mr Griffin would be taking part, but as he was abroad at the time he did not receive it until Saturday evening last. He then contacted the society to say that “unless the invitation to Nick Griffin was withdrawn I would not participate”.

He also believed the debate had divided the Phil committee, some of whom had told him they “strongly opposed” the Griffin invitation.

Irish Times

BNP leader Nick Griffin to be mocked at Pride London, tomorrow

British National Party leader Nick Griffin will be satirised and mocked at London's Gay Pride parade, tomorrow

British National Party leader Nick Griffin will be satirised and mocked at London's Gay Pride parade, tomorrow. Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell will march at the front of the parade with a placard featuring a doctored image of Nick Griffin with blue eye shadow, red lipstick and pink swastika earrings, captioned with the words: 'Nick Griffin, Queen of Fascism. Homophobe. No to BNP.'

Tatchell is a Patron of Pride London and helped organise Britain's first ever Gay Pride march in 1972. Speaking to PinkPaper.com, he said: "Griffin and the BNP are tin-pot fascists who deserve to be mocked and ridiculed. I'm satirising Griffin to debunk his grand political pretensions and to skewer his claim to respectability and legitimacy. He's a joke and my placard reflects that.

"Griffin has a long history of homophobia. His party is notorious for its racism, anti-Semitism, holocaust denial and Islamophobia. A disturbing number of past and present BNP members have criminal convictions for violence," he added. "The BNP has fought previous general elections on a pledge to outlaw homosexuality, jail gay people and to bring back Section 28. It has described AIDS as 'nature taking revenge' on gay men."

Pink Paper

Former Stoke-on-Trent British National Party man criticises party

Alby Walker and Porky Griffin in happier times

A former leader of the British National Party (BNP) in Stoke-on-Trent has criticised his old party as he prepares to fight it in the general election. Alby Walker said "there's a vein of Holocaust denying within the BNP".

Mr Walker will stand as an independent parliamentary candidate in Stoke-on-Trent Central and face the BNP's national deputy leader, Simon Darby. Mr Darby said the chances of Mr Walker becoming an independent MP for Stoke-on-Trent "are zero".

Mr Darby said: "It should be obvious to everybody that this is somebody who's a bit disillusioned with the party, as many people within other parties become disillusioned, struck out for themselves and want to become an independent candidate."

Mr Walker told the BBC's Politics Show in the West Midlands: "There's a vein of Holocaust denying within the BNP that I cannot identify myself with. They've still got senior members of the BNP who will be candidates in the general election that have Nazi, Nazi-esque sympathies."

Mr Walker had been in the BNP for eight years and was leader of the group of nine BNP councillors on Stoke-on-Trent City Council until he quit in January.

BBC

Anti-fascist assaulted outside BNP court case

Simon Assaf (centre) is dragged away by two of Griffin's group (Pic: Fil Kaler)

An anti-fascist was assaulted outside the central London county court on Thursday while protesting against Nazi British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin. Griffin was in court because he had missed the deadline to scrap the fascist BNP’s “whites only” membership policy.

Two of Griffin’s group grabbed anti-fascist demonstrator Simon Assaf around the throat and head. His glasses were crushed into his face and he was left with cuts around his eyes. Simon was part of a protest organised by Unite Against Fascism outside the court.

Simon Assaf had to go to hospital to have cuts around his eyes attended to (Pic: Fil Kaler)

He told Socialist Worker, “We wanted to show our contempt for Griffin’s racist views. He came out of the court to make a statement to the press. I moved forward shouting ‘You dirty racist’. Some of Griffin’s group went for me. They tried to drag me away so that Griffin could speak to the press uninterrupted. But protesters managed to drown him out.”

Griffin scuttled away quickly by car.

Simon had to go to hospital to have the cuts around his eyes attended to. He added, “We did nothing wrong. Griffin has been found guilty of Holocaust denial and has been tried for inciting race hatred. The BNP thinks it can attack and injure people who are exercising their right to protest. If it does this in front of the press, I hate to think what it when no one is watching.”

The judge gave the BNP a further two weeks to amend its constitution before facing a possible court injunction.

Socialist Worker

CPS refuses to reveal details of Nick Griffin's race hate trial

Prosecutors claim releasing information about 1998 case would breach BNP leader's data protection rights

The Crown Prosecution Service is blocking attempts to disclose details about the prosecution of Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National party, for race hate crimes, claiming that to do so would breach his data protection rights.

Griffin was given a suspended prison sentence in 1998 after being convicted of "publishing or distributing racially inflammatory written material", an offence under the 1986 Public Order Act. The following year he was elected leader of the BNP.

The prosecution centred on a magazine edited by Griffin called the Rune, in which he dismissed the Holocaust as a hoax. At the trial he sacked his legal team and, conducting his own defence, attempted to justify the material he had published.

Griffin has been widely reported as dismissing the Holocaust as an "extremely profitable lie" when he gave evidence at Harrow crown court. But no transcript of the hearing was made and the only records about the case are held by the CPS.

Although the trial was heard in open court and ended in Griffin's conviction, the CPS has rejected an request made under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) for disclosure of information in its files on the grounds that it is "sensitive personal data" that is protected by the Data Protection Act.

In a letter to the Guardian, which submitted the request almost four months ago, the CPS said: "The majority of the information contained in the case papers is personal data.

"A large proportion of this personal data is sensitive personal data because it consists of information as to the commission of an offence and Mr Griffin's political opinions."

On appeal, the CPS last week reiterated its view that Griffin's rights are not outweighed by the public interest in the disclosure of the information.

Only last month the government announced fresh guidelines intended to give the public more information about criminal prosecutions.

Unveiling the guidelines, Alan Johnson, the home secretary, said they were intended "to set straight the misconception that human rights and data protection laws prevent criminals and their punishments from being exposed".

The Guardian is now lodging a complaint with the Information ­Commissioner's Office, which is responsible for final decisions on FoI requests.

The Guardian

Twisted History

When an article of mine looking at the role of African, Caribbean and South Asian troops in the British army during the two World Wars was published on Remembrance Sunday, some people criticised me for “re-writing history in favour of the BME community.

So I thought I’d see what the BNP had to say on the subject, by way of comparison. To be totally honest, I hoped to find ammunition for another article like my original “They’re taking our Spitfires!” After all, making your political opponents look ridiculous is often a good way to defeat them.

Of course I didn’t expect to find anything about non-white troops fighting for Britain in the two World Wars; but I was surprised to find nothing about the white British troops in those wars either. There’s a picture of Churchill on the home page, but no profile – though figures of legend such as Hereward the Wake get one – and he’s not one of the “British Giants”. The section on defending us from invasion has a Spitfire picture, but while there’s an article on Boudicca, there’s no Battle of Britain.

Potteries historians note there’s no RJ Mitchell, nor James Brindley and Josiah Wedgwood. I guess Wedgwood’s politics were wrong, as social and political reformers are notable by their absence. Whole political movements are missing too – nothing on the Chartists or Suffragettes, and for a party supposedly all for the working class, no mention of the Levellers, the Tolpuddle Martyrs or the Jarrow Marchers.

Art and literature are clearly for wimps – Shakespeare gets a mention but not Dickens, Jane Austen, George Eliot or the Bronte sisters; no Wordsworth or Tennyson, and no sign of Dr Johnson (another snub to Staffordshire!). There’s a serious lack of the “Christian heritage” the BNP claim to defend too, but lengthy articles full of glossy illustrations on the “Gods of the Ancient Britons” and Anglo-Saxon gods. No Quakers, no Methodists – all that social reform and concern for justice and the poor must be totally the wrong values for the BNP!

And I thought that was about it – a version of history ending with the British Empire at its height full of the sort of uplifting stories of powerful men taught when a quarter of the globe was coloured pink – a sort of “Boys Own Yarns” meets “1066 and all that”. The makings of a witty little item, perhaps.

But it’s not that simple, and not actually funny at all when you look a bit deeper.

On every page of this site, there’s a flyer for a book called “March of the Titans” by Arthur Kemp. If you click on this, you can buy the book via the BNP’s merchandising site, or you can read it on line. If you do so, you’ll find the whole of human history twisted to support the following:

“revealed in this work is the one true cause of the rise and fall of the world’s greatest empires – that all civilizations rise and fall according to their racial homogeneity and nothing else – a nation can survive wars, defeats, natural catastrophes, but not racial dissolution”.

Arthur Kemp moved to Britain from a murky past in South Africa in 1996 and is responsible for writing the BNP’s education and training manuals and the content of their website. He also runs the party’s merchandising arm, Excalibur.

If you are under any doubts at all about the ideology still at the heart of the BNP, you’ll find it within the pages of Kemp’s book, in all its ugliness. Note that this isn’t just a link among many other links – it’s an integral part of the BNP’s history section. Some items on the main site are lifted straight from it – “British Genius” is simply Kemp’s list of clever white folks with the non-Brits cut out.

Still, it might not have done the BNP’s reputation much good to include Kemp’s analysis of the Second World War, where sympathies seem to be very much with the Third Reich. He’s full of praise for Nazi science and medicine, and their banning of vivisection, but draws a discreet veil over the issue of how such “progress” was made with the frequent use of unwilling human “guinea pigs”. Here are a few extracts on what Kemp calls the “Second Great Brothers’ War”.

Dunkirk – HITLER LETS BRITISH ESCAPE

By 26 May – 16 days into the campaign – the Allied army in the north was trapped along a coastal enclave next to the town of Dunkirk. For reasons which have never been explained (the most common belief is that Hitler wanted to let the British escape so as to facilitate a peace with them at a later stage) the German panzers were deliberately stopped outside the town.

So it was that when Winston Churchill became prime minister of Britain on 10 May 1940, his first act the next day was to announce that German cities would be targeted for bombing attacks. The same month the first German cities were bombed by British aircraft. The German air force however avoided bombing British cities, concentrating on the strategically more important airfields and ports, launching the first of these major raids during August 1940.

The Blitz STARTS IN RESPONSE TO BRITISH AIR RAIDS

In the interim, British bombers had been raiding German cities for almost four months: finally, after a bombing raid on Berlin itself, Hitler authorized the Luftwaffe to start bombing British cities in return.

Nazi atrocities are given a sinister positive gloss: note the phrases “granted euthanasia” and “mercy killings” for the murder of disabled people.

In all, some 5,000 retarded and deformed children were granted euthanasia by the German government before the end of the war – with each case being individually reviewed by a specially appointed committee. The policy of administering euthanasia to retarded and deformed children was then also extended to incurably insane adults. Thanks to the German habit of keeping meticulous records, the exact number of incurably insane adults granted euthanasia is known: 70,273. Although the adult euthanasia project was conducted in secret, it was impossible to conceal such things from the German public, and by 1941, news of the mercy killings had been leaked. Growing public pressure on the Nazi government forced the abandonment of the program in that year.

The Concentration Camps

Nazi Germany is however most known for its concentration camps, and particularly those in which large numbers of emaciated and dead prisoners were discovered at the end of the war, and which have become synonymous with any image of that era. The first concentration camps were set up soon after the Nazis came to power, with the best known being Dachau, which is situated to the north of Munich.

These camps were in fact large prisons, and the prisoners were sentenced by civil courts to fixed terms of imprisonment which depended upon the crime committed. These crimes could be overtly political – membership or activism in the banned Communist Party was common – but was also extended to all other crimes, including conventional criminal activities such as theft or robbery. Eventually homosexuals were also interned: although this would only occur quite a while later.

All things said, to have been a Jew in Nazi Germany could not have been a pleasant experience: but, as the over 4.3 million claims against the post war German state from Jews who suffered as a result of this persecution, (by 1998 the German state had paid out over $50 billion in reparations), certainly far fewer died than what is most often claimed. Increasingly, all the evidence urges a complete revision of this aspect of the history of World War Two.

The effect of the Jewish factor was a primary reason for the outbreak of the war and lay behind much of the Allies’ double standards when reacting to German and Soviet aggression at the beginning of the war.

So much for Griffin’s claim to have left the bad old days of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism behind him; this book so keenly promoted by the BNP also says:

The well known Jewish propensity for business and the ability to accumulate vast amounts of money – a phenomena well known to this day – was the source of much original anti-Jewish feeling.

Whether by deliberate plan or accident, the situation has arisen whereby Jews have ended up dominating the mass media forms of both the USA, and to a slightly smaller extent, of Western Europe. The ownership of the mass media by a small group of Jews is well documented and full details are easily obtainable on the Internet. Given the long association between Jews and assorted left-wing causes, varying from hard-core Communism to all manner of pro-Black activities, it is therefore not surprising that the mass media then also mirrors an uniformly pro-non-White message in its portrayal of current events and opinion. This Jewish domination of the mass media means that what is generally construed as ‘public opinion’ is in fact always presented in a way which is as sympathetic as possible to Jewish interests.

This Jewish domination of the media can, and does, have serious consequences, so vividly illustrated by the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York’s World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.. These events were triggered exclusively by the unflagging US support given to Israel against the Palestinians. The fact that the USA – and much of the West – continues to support Israel at any cost – including the deaths of thousands of its own citizens – is the surest evidence yet of the power of the Jewish lobby in both the mass media (which generates ‘public opinion’) and of the Jewish lobby’s famed control over the US government, and to a lesser extent, the governments of Western Europe.

Note particularly the claim that “These events were triggered exclusively by the unflagging US support given to Israel against the Palestinians”. Consider for a moment what our local BNP councillors might have to say if such a comment was made by, say, a Muslim student union officer…

And in case you think it’s just the Jews Kemp despises, here are a few words about Christianity, from the people who are telling us they are the true defenders of the faith:

The introduction of Christianity has to count as the single greatest ideological catastrophe to ever strike Europe.

So it was that Christianity came to be the dominant religion of Europe – the first religion to convert by mass murder. The original White religion had never tried to convert followers upon pain of death, and had never waged a war in its name – and as such it was psychologically unprepared to do battle with a Middle Eastern religion which engendered a genocidal fanaticism amongst its followers. Once the Christians had run out of pagans to kill, they turned upon themselves in a violent and bloody fratricidal conflict which saw the Church split and the various protagonists kill each other in a crazed blood lust.

I ’m an agnostic, and my point here is not to defend Christianity, or for that matter Judaism or British strategy in World War Two; it’s to highlight the BNP’s hypocrisy. Their enthusiasm for our “Christian” heritage and sudden keenness to see it promoted in schools is surely exposed here as just another means to divide “us” from “them”.

Remember that this book was written by one of Nick Griffin’s right-hand men, who strongly influences party ideology. The new website might look pretty flashy, but it’s just a new set of sheep’s clothing for the same very dangerous wolf.

Pits'n'Pots - The Radical Press

Boggart of the BNP falls

Anyone who has read the Harry Potter books will know how to deal with a boggart*.

Boggarts are creatures that reveal themselves to you in the shape of your greatest fear. If you hate spiders they will appear as a six-foot tarantula, and if you hate racism they will look like Nick Griffin of the BNP. The way to deal with a boggart is to use the Riddikulus spell. You point your wand at the creature and think of something really funny.

I think the nation must have been using the Riddikulus spell last Thursday night when the BNP leader joined the BBC Question Time panel. To me, the man lost a lot of his menace and by the end of the programme was more a figure of fun than a serious threat to British politics.

He came across as a bumbling fool. There were moments when he made a little sense but they were few and far between. Most of the time he denied any quotes attributed to him, backtracked on everything he had ever said and laughed, apparently at his own inability to answer questions. He didn’t want to comment on his Holocaust denial, he said, because European law made it illegal to do so. There was some laughter when Jack Straw, the Justice Minister, gave him permission to expound his theory without fear of prosecution. He then admitted that he used to deny the Holocaust but now he believed it because he had listened to recordings of some intercepted radio messages from Germany during the war.

What this tells me is that he is slow; he has finally taken on board an historic fact that everyone else knew 60 years ago. He had previously said that the Jews who spoke of the Holocaust were like the people who once thought the world was flat. I wonder when Nick Griffin discovered that it was not flat? Did someone intercept a message from Neil Armstrong on the moon? The alternative, forgive me for suggesting it, is that he is lying through his teeth.

Last Friday’s papers, television and radio were full of reports of the programme that created such controversy and trebled Question Time’s viewing audience. Some suggested that Griffin had been bullied. I didn’t see evidence of that. He was given plenty of opportunity to answer questions but seemed unable to do so. All he did was smirk, laugh and nod his head vigorously as though to show he agreed with all reasonably minded people. The bulk of the questions related to BNP attitudes, but Griffin must have known that would be the case. I laughed at Griffin, but perhaps that was the wrong response. Perhaps that could lull me into a false sense of security because, when all is said and done, this man is selling a message of hate wrapped in a parcel of fear.

Should Griffin have been allowed on Question Time? Yes he should. Our rules of democracy say that if a political party reaches a certain threshold they are entitled to be heard. And, on balance, I thought having him on TV might have done some good because he did not come across well. He tried to sound moderate, when moderation is certainly not something that he wears with any comfort.

I hate what the BNP stands for because I have lived in racist societies and seen what destruction they cause. But I also hate the fact that so many of their rank and file members are afraid to stand up and be counted.

I have had several anonymous letters from BNP members but on a recent occasion I was impressed to get a letter through the door at work that had been signed, with an address given. Unfortunately the address was just a couple of doors away from a colleague of mine who knew the owners of the house who certainly did not go under the name given.

If the BNP is a moderate party seeking only what is best for the citizens of Britain, why are so many members scurrying around in the shadows? Why are they so afraid to stand up and be counted?

Times and Star

*Or indeed, a bogart, which was how boggart was spelled in the article.

Question Time: The Establishment Mugs Nick Griffin – But Only So They Can Steal His Political Clothes!

What entertainment! What a fascinating and gruesome TV spectacle! Griffin the fool on the box! What a ratings boost for ‘Mentorn’ (the private company that runs question time, that’s been begging the BBC for years to have the Griffo freakshow). Yes it was great to see Nick Griffin look ridiculous on TV. He really is an unctuous buffoon. But it was still a bad idea to give him a platform on Question Time. The only mitigating factor was being able to see a huge, angry demonstration by anti-fascists outside the BBC TV centre to show how we all feel. (The woman seen being dragged along the floor still wagging her finger at a copper is my especial hero).

Firstly, while it was fun to see Griffin exposed and beset by angry questions from all sides, this will just add to the feeling of victimhood and marginalisation by the millions of alienated white and working class people who may be tempted to look to him. Especially as now Griffin has been made into a household name. Notoriety is still celebrity and ‘outsider’ status can be political gold-dust in these cynical and troubled times. For some people it will just be seen as Griffin (and sections of the marginalised white poor) being ganged up upon by the ‘clever-clogs liberal metropolitan elite’.

Secondly, the subsequent discussion on immigration was appalling. After ‘ganging up’ on Griffin, the whole panel and audience then went on to agree that there was ‘too much immigration’! Thus immigrants became the main problem, the scapegoats for the social crisis, while capitalism gets let off the hook (off course!). This was therefore an establishment consensus, designed to shield that very establishment! In this establishment consensus that is simultaneously ‘anti-fascist’ and anti immigrant, there can be no mention of greedy bankers or capitalism’s chaos. No mention of the virtual abolition of council housing and the welfare state. No mention of tax cuts and tax loopholes lining the pockets of the super-rich. i.e no class politics – off course! If we can’t blame the greedy rich and the madness of capitalism, then instead immigrants must get it in the neck – as the sole cause of homelessness, unemployment and poor services – and it seems they are even to blame for the rise of their persecutor, the BNP, all the panel could agree. From victimising Griffin, they all seamlessly morphed into victimising Griffins victims! And this even harder to stomach when coming from a political establishment soaked in the blood of the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as of our young soldiers, offered as a blood sacrifice to global corporate power. Furthermore, it is this terrible and senseless sacrifice that is now fuelling a tribal and virulent Islamophobia.

This BBC freak-show and media feeding frenzy represents how the establishment is using the BNP. They use them to drag politics to the right, and promote racism and Islamophobia – but then try to make sure that the BNP are not the main beneficiary of this rightward shift. An operation to make sure that that it is the mainstream establishment parties that benefit from racism, Islamophobia, and anti-immigrant feeling, that is stirred up, and then controlled. The BNP are demonised as Nazis (and yes, they are) so vote for the ‘respectable racists’ instead. And all the time the media plays its despicable role, churning out anti-immigrant / Islamophobic propaganda, week after week.

On Question Time we saw Griffin mugged by the establishment, so they can steal his political clothes! (Of course, then they must wash these clothes in bleach, making them a more acceptable and fashionable lighter shade of xenophobia before they will wish to wear them).

Rather than getting hysterical that the BNP are gonna suddenly take over, establish a fascist regime and put us all in the gas chambers, the real worry is that the BNP help push politics to the right. The danger is that by becoming established as a minor ‘anti-establishment’ party they will pollute grassroots dissent within the new epoch of war, unemployment and austerity with racist and Islamophobic poison. This will let capitalism off the hook and cripple working class resistance with a vile game of divide and rule. And of course, this can have tragic consequences at the level of the street and workplace, helping to unleash a wave of discrimination and violence against ethnic, religious, racial and sexual minority groups.

Putting the unctuous Nazi Nick on QT, no matter how ridiculous he looked to the majority, will still have empowered every nasty little racist to come out of the closet. It still gives the BNP more space to organise, more spurious legitimacy to seek a place on political platforms, to try and book rooms previously out of bounds to them in our town halls, colleges and community centres. It may become more of a challenge for anti-fascists to deny the BNP the platform it seeks to poison public debate. But at the same time, the repulsion the BNP provokes in the majority of people, and the huge demonstration witnessed by millions on TV gathered outside the BBC shows the potential for resistance. The more fascism grows, the more resistance to fascism will also grow. We must now find the right strategies to enable the anti-fascist side to win this crucial battle.

What we need is a new working class politics – uniting people of all religions and races against the massive assault on our living standards that is coming. Our pensions schemes will be degraded, so we cant afford to retire when the time comes. The retirement age will be raised, so manual workers (who generally die younger) will be worked until they drop dead. Wages will be cut. Unemployment will rise. And our welfare state will face its final destruction. Meanwhile, this will be accompanied by a still greater shift of wealth and resources from the working class to the super rich. Neither the BNP’s racism, Islamophobia and (now thinly veiled) fascism, nor the bluff and bluster of ‘establishment anti-fascism’ can offer us a way out. Only the rebuilding of a popular, working class and democratic socialism can do that. And the best place to start is getting together to ensure a victory to the current postal workers strike.

Barry Kade

Centre for Social Cohesion reveals BNP's online fascist network

On the day that two leading British National Party (BNP) members take their seats in the European Parliament, a new Centre for Social Cohesion report reveals that members and supporters of the BNP and its online activists display significant ideological affinity with key tenets of the neo-Nazi ideology. This included: support for violence; antisemitism and an admiration of the Third Reich; extreme racist views; and Holocaust denial.

The BNP and the Online Fascistm Network shows blogs run by members and self-professed supporters of the BNP continue to host, and link to, material that is pro-Nazi, racist, antisemitic, and homophobic. The BNP continues to sell books produced by neo-Nazi publishing houses on its website.

Support for violence:

• Lee Barnes – leading member and head of the BNP legal team – supports the National Front on his blog. He refers to the group as a valid ‘nationalist’ organization and suggests that they operate as a street force for the BNP.
• Barnes advocates the downfall of western civilization: ‘The West deserves all it gets. The faster the fools that run the West destroy the West the better.’
• The BNP supporting blog Britain Awake praises Combat 18 and supports violent attacks on Muslim women. Britain Awake is hosted by a self-described member of the BNP who claims to have attended the party’s exclusive Red, White and Blue festival.

Antisemitism and an admiration of the Third Reich:

• The official BNP YouTube account and the official YouTube accounts of the Thurrock and Burnley BNP branches show close links with neo-Nazi and antisemitic activists and organizations, as do the users who have been accepted as ‘friends’ of these channels.
• Blogs run by members and self-professed supporters of the BNP continue to host, and offer links to, material that is pro-Nazi, racist, antisemitic, and homophobic.
• A member of the Covert Tactics blog, strongly linked with the BNP, refers to Jews as ‘greedy subhuman scum’. One member, Tommy Williams, is a neo-Nazi whose name appeared on the leaked list of BNP members. The blog expresses admiration for Hitler and has on a number of occasions denied or trivialised the Holocaust.

Extreme racist views:

• So-called patriotic concerns of the BNP mask an underlying fear of racial ‘dissolution’ and a commitment to ’soft’ ethnic cleansing in the form of policies attempting to coerce non-white Britons into leaving the UK.
• Material found on BNP supporting YouTube accounts, blogs, and internet forums contravenes the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006.

Holocaust denial:

• The BNP website promotes books by neo-Nazi publishing houses which are dedicated to rehabilitating Nazism and denying the Holocaust.

Edmund Standing, author of the report, says:
“The report shows that the BNP is a party dedicated to promoting racism, and continues to attract and empower adherents to neo-Nazi ideology, whose supporters include admirers of Adolf Hitler.”

Douglas Murray, Director of the CSC, says:
“This report shows that members and supporters of the BNP continue to hold and express the vilest racist, antisemitic, homophobic and sexist views - shocking even to those of us who thought our opinion of the BNP could never be lower.”

Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, Research Fellow at the CSC, says:
“The BNP leadership insist that they are a mainstream political organisation, yet this report demonstrates how abhorrent their views truly are."

For a pdf of the full report, click here.

Centre for Social Cohesion

BNP deputy leader addresses international fascist rally

Speakers enter the hotel greeted by fascist salutes

The deputy leader of the British National Party has spoken at an international fascist rally alongside a man convicted of a terrorism offence and a convicted Holocaust denier.

Simon Darby claims he addressed a 400-strong audience in Milan today (5 April). Representatives of extreme-right parties in Germany, France, Romania, Hungary and Cyprus were expected to take part in the meeting.

Darby, who flew out to Italy this morning, heads the BNP’s European election candidates’ list for the West Midlands, a region in which the party could win a seat. He has a “Mr Clean” reputation in a party in which many leading activists have criminal convictions, a nazi past or both.

The rally was titled: “Our Europe; Peoples and Traditions Against Banks and Big Powers”, a change from the original, “Our Europe; Peoples and Traditions Against Banks and Usury”. The term “usury” is traditionally used by Nazis against Jews and it may have been altered to avoid accusations of antisemitism.

It had been booked at a major conference centre in Milan, but widespread protests from MEPs and Italian partisan veterans, as well as a 20,000-strong petition forced its move to a private hotel.

Simon Darby (right) with Bruno Gollnisch MEP (left) and Roberto Fiore MEP (second from left)

The meeting was organised by Forza Nuova, whose leader Roberto Fiore, was convicted in Italy in 1985 for “subversive association” for his involvement in the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei. Two members of that organisation were convicted for the Bologna railway station bombing in August 1980 which killed 85 people, including two British tourists, Catherine Mitchell and John Kolpinski, and left over 200 wounded. It was the biggest postwar terrorist attack in Europe.

Fiore became an MEP after Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of the Italian fascist dictator, resigned her seat to take up a post in the Italian government. He has been a friend, financial supporter and political mentor to BNP leader Nick Griffin since 1980, when Fiore arrived in Britain on the run from justice in Italy.

Fiore helped Griffin run the National Front “political soldiers”, described at the time as a “proto-terrorist organisation”. When the political soldiers collapsed, they went on to found a new fascist group, the International Third Position.

Alongside his political activities Fiore amassed a huge fortune through business interests in London and later around the world. They included operating as a slum landlord and exploiting people brought in from eastern Europe, Italy and Spain, whom he passed on to gang masters to work on the land and in food processing plants.

Fiore was also one of the founders of the extremely violent Hammerskins skinhead movement, part of the nazi music and football hooligan gangs responsible for violence on the terraces. They have strong links with one of the most vicious fascist football hooligan gangs in Europe, the Roma Ultras, who recently attacked English football fans, stabbing one. Their most infamous episode was when they unfurled a banner down one side of their home stadium with the words “Jews to Auschwitz”.

Father Giulio Tam raises his hand in support of fascism

Hammerskins members recently marched through Bergamo in northern Italy armed with sticks and metal bars and with helmets on their heads. At their head were Fiore and Father Giulio Tam, a priest revered by Spanish falangistas and Italian fascists, who blessed the FN’s new headquarters in the town. Father Tam was in the audience at the Milan rally.

Fiore is closely associated with the Catholic Society of St Pius X, in which Bishop Richard Williamson was a leading light. In January 2009 in a television interview Bishop Williamson denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers, a statement that caused a scandal when the Pope lifted his longstanding excommunication a week later.

Also in prime position on the platform with Darby was Bruno Gollnisch. An MEP for the French National Front, Gollnisch was given a three-month suspended prison sentence in January 2007 for denying the Holocaust. He was also fined €5,000.

The court, in Lyon, found he had “disputed a crime against humanity” in remarks he made during a news conference in the city in October 2004. Gollnisch, who was chair of the Identity Tradition and Sovereignty far-right official group in the European Parliament, had questioned the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust and said the “existence of the gas chambers is for historians to discuss”.

Security for the fascist rally - almost as ugly as Martin Reynolds

In April last year, just three days before polling day in the London Assembly election, in which the BNP won one seat, Griffin brought Gollnisch and other European extremists to a private meeting in a South Kensington hotel.

The meeting took place at a time when Griffin, a long-time Jew-hater who has a conviction for race hate, had approached the Jewish community in a bid to form a united front against Muslims, an invitation that the Jewish community firmly rejected.

Despite the BNP’s anti-EU stance, Griffin is keen to build links with European far-right parties, hoping that if he is elected as an MEP, he will be able to join a far-right bloc. If enough far-right MEPs can put aside their nationalist rivalries and form an official group in the European Parliament, they will benefit from a further €1 million a year on top of their salaries and staffing and expenses allowances. They would also be entitled to committee positions and enhanced speaking rights.

In October Griffin addressed an open-air rally of the Hungarian hardline fascist Jobbik party and its private army heavy mob, the Hungarian Guard, in Budapest. Griffin has been flirting with the Hungarian fascists since May when he met the Jobbik representatives Bela Kovacs and Zoltan Fuzessy in London.

Jobbik, also known as the Movement for a Better Hungary, is strongly anti-Jewish. Although the BNP has courted the Jewish community and denies it is antisemitic, Darby said recently on a radio broadcast that BNP MEPs would welcome cooperation with Jobbik.

A few days after his return from Hungary Griffin was cementing his relationship with the tiny anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-Romani Czech National Party (NS) by addressing its rally to celebrate Czech independence. Griffin’s trip, accompanied by several BNP activists, followed the visit by the NS leader, Petra Edelmannová, to the BNP’s Red White and Blue festival last August.

That Darby has now joined Griffin in linking up with these far-right extremists in Europe shows that the BNP is still an out-and-out fascist and antisemitic party, despite the fine words and smart suits of its leaders.

Searchlight

And the sun kept shining over Auschwitz

Keynote speech by Ronald Eissens during the INACH/ADL Global Summit on Internet Hate, 17 & 18 November 2008, Washington D.C.

Let me start by thanking the ADL and Chris Wolf for making this into a great conference. I’m pleased to be here in the United States, in fact I’m always happy to come here but this time is doubly joyful since America has voted massively for hope. Hope for America and hope for the world. Now, step into my time machine, we’re going back 2000 years.

The first dissemination of antisemitism comes to us from the Alexandrian Apion, a Greek-Egyptian philosopher and writer. When the great library of Alexandria burned down, Apion’s Egyptian History burned with it. We only know partly what was written in those books because the Roman historian Tacitus quotes some of the content. Another source for Apion’s antisemitism is to be found in the work of the historian Titus Flavius Josephus, the former Jewish military leader Joseph ben Matthias. Josephus wrote a treatise called ‘against Apion’ in which he attacks and refutes Apions’ ideas, which probably makes him the first advocate against antisemitism.

Apion described Jews as sinister and revolting, barbaric because of the practice of circumcision. Apion was not unique, many popular believes about Jews during those days –we’re talking about the year 30- were extremely negative. Because of the Shabbat, Jews were thought to be lazy. Jews were thought to sacrifice humans during strange rites – the blood libel throwing its shadow backward - Jews were considered anti-social and worshipped only one god, which in those polytheistic times was considered to be foolish and alien, although some of the Greek intellectuals thought the idea as such was very stylish. Apion’s antisemitism was quite popular with the Greek elite of Alexandria and his writings fuelled the flames of the first pogrom in history, in the year 38. That pogrom broke out when the Jews of Alexandria protested a decree by Roman Emperor Caligula in which they were ordered to pray to his statue. Apions’ rabble-rousing resulted in the murder of thousands of Alexandrian Jews.

Now, Apion was a charismatic individual, who did not have the use of Internet but rather his writings, copied by scribes and disseminated by –and through his friends and admirers and he used public speeches to spread his hatred. Instead of Internet the Alexandrians of that age knew the bathhouse.net and the marketplace.net, where information, gossip, writings and speeches went from person to person.

Jumping forward in time, we have to note that for every succeeding pogrom there was either a verbal or written slander campaign to incite the masses to attack Jews. Sometimes it was writings by religious leaders; sometimes it was word-of-mouth, often instigated by kings, emperors, religious or other leaders, creating myths like the blood libel, the poisoning of wells by Jews, the Christ-killers accusations, and many variations on those and other themes, culminating in what Lucy Davidowitz very aptly calls ‘the war against the Jews’, the Shoah.

After the Shoah followed a period in which antisemitism in the western world was mainly spread underground, on paper – books and pamphlets. The protocols, Mein Kampf and other leftovers of Nazi ideology were disseminated both in Europe, the U.S. and the Middle East, where European-style antisemitism found an already fertile breeding ground. But, both in volume and in reach it was nothing compared to what we see these days on the Internet.

From 1992 on, Neo-Nazis started to use the Internet to spread their rhetoric. Already in the in the pre-world wide web age German Neo-Nazis saw the potential of Information Technology, using Bulletin Board Systems and moving onto the web when it came available.

In as sense, those German Neo-Nazi’s did not have to go far from home. As the journalist and writer Edwin Black proved, the information age was not born in Silicon Valley but in 1933 in Berlin. IBM facilitated the administration of the Holocaust with census cards and punch card technology, even after 1941, through full IBM subsidiaries managed from Switzerland. The Nazi’s had a problem and IBM had a solution for their final solution. It teaches us to be wary of those who say that they are only selling technology and don’t care what it is used for. Or those who say that others should do no evil while they themselves engage in the large–scale technological facilitation of oppression.

The Internet gave Antisemitism a new common carrier, to use a technical term. Thanks to the Internet, there is more antisemitism and Holocaust denial available in the world than ever. Thanks to the Internet, there is more information on the Holocaust and antisemitism available than ever. But these positions hardly cancel-out each other, even if you believe that bad speech can be countered by good speech. No longer is it the grubby bookstores, which sold stenciled copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion under the counter. No longer is it the house-to-house delivered stenciled antisemitic pamphlets, a hundred here, a thousand there. Now it's tens of thousands of websites and hundreds of thousands of expressions of antisemitism and Holocaust denial. Now it's millions of hits here and hundred thousands of page views there.

In 1995 who had heard of Stormfront? Yet there they were, in the forefront of the Internet age. As no other, Neo-nazi’s, white supremacists and other extremists understood the potential of the Internet for the unbridled dissemination of their ideas. Antisemitism. Holocaust Denial. National Socialism. Racism.

By now, the bulk of all antisemitism and Holocaust denial has firmly moved onto the Internet. Old media have become obsolete. You will still be able to find Mein Kampf or the Protocols or Hardwoods ‘did six million really die’ in the proverbial grubby bookstore – or get it by post order through the Internet. But ask yourself, who under 30 years old still reads books? Very few. In the 15 years since the Internet took off, antisemitism and holocaust denial have penetrated every nook and cranny. You can find it on web logs, web forums, Youtube, in online games, in chat boxes, on facebook, myspace, et cetera, and it is the largest category of online hate.

The number of websites offering antisemitism or Holocaust denial runs in the tens of thousands. We’re not only talking about ‘dedicated’ Neo-Nazi or other extremist sites here. A “normal” popular web forum has 1000-plus postings per day, of which on average 50 are of a racist or antisemitic nature. There are thousands of web forums like that. If you add the thousands of extremist web forums that generate hundreds of hateful expressions per day, the total volume of hate on the net is mind-boggling. I understand that the latest CD Digital Terrorism and Hate 2007, published by our colleagues at Simon Wiesenthal Center identifies some 5000 “problematic” websites. I think that is quite an underestimation. We’re not even taking into account all the web logs, and the still existing Usenet newsgroups, historically known for a large hate content. It is impossible to really give exact figures on online hate. We only know that the volume is enormous, but registering and monitoring is a bit like trying to count fruit flies. There are lots of them, they die soon but since they breed fast new ones appear all the time.

The current interactive web, web 2.0 as it’s is called, with its blogs, forums, photo –and video repositories like Youtube turns everybody into an instant publicist. Internet is the biggest soapbox in the world, and people who would not dare air their views offline find their outlet in posting them on the Internet, thinking they are totally anonymous. Internet is also the big recycler. Once something is online, it is quite hard to get rid of it for good. The boost the Internet gave to The Protocols is enormous. Twenty years ago, it had almost sunken into oblivion. The immensely popular Youtube is used on a large scale to share short video-clips with the world. Neo-Nazis use Youtube as another great tool, but you can also watch Holocaust deniers like David Irving walking in Birkenau, explaining why Jews were never gassed there. You can see Leuchter fans doing a so-called scientific experiment ‘testing’ Zyklon-B on each other, showing that ‘the concentrations of Zyklon-B that were allegedly used to kill Jews are in fact harmless’. Do a search on the Youtube site for ‘gas chambers’ and the second video that will be presented to you is footage of Fred Leuchter talking about his report which claims that the gas chambers at the death camps were never used to gas people.

Then there’s the online games and games sold over the Internet, like Ethnic Cleansing and ZOG’s nightmare, which add another level of nausea and last but not least there’s the virtual ‘Furry Nazi groups’ in Second Life, who amused themselves by building gas chambers and ‘playing’ camp, trying to capture Jewish Second Life users in order to ‘test their facilities’. Good news is that just two weeks ago, after pressure brought by Jewish groups in Second Life, owner Linden Labs removed the Nazi’s and their virtual ‘Third Reich’. A small victory.

The Netcraft October 2008 web server survey tells us there are now almost 200 million websites online. A sea of data, which would be impossible to navigate without search engines. But here’s the rub. Your average non-Jewish student who becomes curious about his Jewish classmate goes to Google and types in the word ‘Jew’. The third search result is the infamous hate site ‘Jew Watch’, which will teach the student that Jews control the world and every evil deed ever done in history was done by Jews. Oh yes, since recently you will see as a first search result a notice by Google saying that they do not endorse some of the disturbing search results and that it is better to search on Judaism then on Jews, in order to get informative and relevant results instead of ‘unexpected ones’. How easy it would be for the privately owned company Google to just omit sites like Jew Watch from their database. But I guess that would be ‘doing evil’.

Sadly, it doesn’t end with ‘classic’ antisemitism. Where before you could only find a limited amount of left-wing antisemitism, after the disastrous 2001 World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa, which turned into an antisemitic hate-fest, the masks came off. Blatant antisemitism on left-wing sites is now quite acceptable, of course prudently called “anti-Zionism”. Some left-wing sites even link to antisemitic content on neo-Nazi sites and since the rise of Islamism and Jihadism there is an increasing overlap between Islamist and neo-Nazi rethoric, uniting seemingly natural enemies in their joint struggle against the “Zionist world conspiracy”. The common ground for online hate-mongers is called Jews.

The Internet not only dramatically changed the scope of antisemitism, it also facilitates its mutation. The antisemitism-virus always seems to seek a new myth to piggyback on and if there’s one thing the Internet is good in, it is the fast dissemination of urban legends and myths. The Jews are behind 9/11. The Jews working at the World Trade center stayed home on 9/11. The Jews are behind the financial crisis.

Then there is the online trivialization of the Holocaust – which is maybe the biggest danger. The Holocaust depicted as a dance party in the infamous video ‘Housewitz’. A Belgian far-right politician singing a song about ‘the little Jewess that is going to Dachau to be gassed’. Or comparing the Holocaust to anything, from bad treatment of animals and abortion clinics to discrimination of smokers.

Lastly, there is the encrypted antisemitism, a language of code words for Jews -like Zionists, or cabal, or the media elite, or those that control the banks. This language creates an environment that eases the path for openly antisemitic rhetoric.

The results: Holocaust Denial is becoming fashionable, antisemitism quite normal, Zionism is deliberately depicted as racism and antisemitic violence is on the rise.

Those who say ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’ need to do a reality check. Apion’s words fuelled the flames of the first pogrom. Hitler’s and Goebbels’ and Streichers’ words caused the Holocaust. Every genocide, pogrom, or act of antisemitic violence in history was built on words.
There’s a well-known quote from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” He wrote this in 1914 in his publication Other People's Money—and How Bankers Use It, referring to the benefits of openness and transparency in financial issues. Many an advocate of freedom of speech takes this quote to mean that hate speech, once it is exposed and out in the open, will shrivel away and die. First of all, I think it is doubtful that Brandeis meant this. Justice Brandeis died in 1941 but had he lived to see the Holocaust, I don’t think he would have agreed with the new meaning his quote was given. Secondly, in recent history, let’s says since 1900, we’ve had very little success countering genocides or atrocities only by publicity and sunlight. The sad thing is that the amount of people outside of Germany who were aware of the holocaust already in 1941 is quite large. But nothing happened while the sun kept on shining over Auschwitz.

The Shoah itself illustrates the danger of the repetition of hate speech best. Nazi propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels loved to advise everybody to “make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually people will believe it.” Mass-murderer Rudolf Höss, commander of Auschwitz, illustrated this further during his interrogation shortly after his capture in 1945 when he said: “I was absolutely convinced that the Jews were at the opposite pole from the German People, and sooner or later there would have to be a clash between National-Socialism and World Jewry…but everybody was convinced of this; that was all you could hear or read.”

The role of antisemitic propaganda and language was significant in creating a mindset in Germany in the 1930s that predisposed acceptance of racial policy even in its most radical form. The constant repetition of antisemitic sentiment, whether fanatical Party propaganda or the casual racial aside, lodged in the collective psyche in ways that reduced the ability and willingness of a great many Germans to question race policy and encouraged them to endorse it.[1]

So why should everybody work on countering antisemitism and Holocaust Denial? Many think that National Socialism and the Holocaust are things of the past, and antisemitism is not seen as a real problem.

The Nizkor Project– whose director, Ken McVay, to my great pleasure, is present here today, gives us the answer. In 1996, a small Neo-Nazi group, the National Socialist White Peoples Party, wrote in their electronic magazine "The real purpose of Holocaust revisionism is to make National Socialism an acceptable political alternative again." Nizkor published this profound quote on its main page – and it is still there today.

This is why we need to counter antisemitism and Holocaust denial. We want to do it because we need to remember those who were murdered, lest they be forgotten, but we need to do it to make sure National Socialism never again becomes an acceptable political option. Now to make the world understand that. A tough challenge.

Of course we need good speech. Of course we need truth. So are we doing that? In the physical world I think we can’t complain. Lots of great work is done by scholars, Non-Governmental Organizations, Jewish Communities and Community organizations. Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial are illegal in a number of European countries. Thanks to the effort of a number of Jewish NGOs and individuals, some present here, the EU Fundamental Rights Agency now has a Working Definition of Antisemitism. We have Holocaust museums. We have a wealth of online information on the Holocaust, available through the Nizkor Project, the Survivors of the Shoah Foundation, Yad Vashem and many others. We commemorate. We warn. We give testimony. We educate. We take young people to see the camps. We try to prevent.

On and through the Internet, NGOs like mine, the INACH Network, the ADL, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and others work on countering hate. Since 2002, the INACH network has gotten thousands of instances of antisemitism and Holocaust Denial removed. That sounds like a lot, but looking at the vast hate-scape that has unfolded on the Internet, it seems almost futile. I fear we are not able to stem the tide in this way.

The memory of the holocaust is fading, the first and second generation of Holocaust survivors are passing away, and antisemitism is moving into the electronic mainstream.

What we should do is put all our efforts in education, not only anti-hate education and education about the Holocaust but also Media literacy; how to assess information on the Internet, how to check for credibility, how to check sources and how to think critical. But we should also advocate for anti-discrimination lessons and for Holocaust education and prejudice reduction modules to be included in all school curricula. That is in my view the only way to –in time- effectively counter hate.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the new library of Alexandria, opened 5 years ago and is built next to the location of the antique library. It contains millions of books. It aims to be ‘a center of excellence in the production and dissemination of knowledge and a place of dialogue, learning and understanding between cultures and peoples’.

It has Tacitus’ Histories, quoting Apion’s antisemitism. It has The Protocols of the elders of Zion in many translations. The online catalog proudly describes ‘The protocols’ as a ‘Complete plan for world destruction’. This august new institution for knowledge in the Middle East, partly financed by UNESCO, also has the Leuchter report in Arabic, Mein Kampf, and other antisemitic material. Of course it has a complete copy of the Internet Archive containing most hate sites on the Internet. From Alexandria in the year 30 to Alexandria in 2008 - it seems that Apion has come full circle and not only that – antisemitism is now part of the largest library in the world – unquestioned, uncommented antisemitism.

During the 2007 annual INACH conference in Berlin a resolution was adopted which calls upon countries and international bodies like the OSCE and the EU to coordinate measures against cyber hate and to start working on media education. That’s excellent, but we need to do more. When I did one of my usual gloomy speeches last February during the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem, people asked me ‘but what can we do?’ Well, we need to engage our schools and our politicians, to make it clear to them that we have to take action now.

After Lunch, some of you will be visiting the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Right after the main entrance, on your left, you will see the flags of the U.S. Army units that liberated the concentration camps. One of those is the flag of the 4th armored division of General Patton’s 3rd army. I have an interest in that since the 4th armored was the division that liberated my father-in-law from Buchenwald.

The motto of the 4th armored was “They shall be known by their deeds alone” and I think that is a fitting message to all of us. Let’s stop talking, and be known by our deeds.

Keynote speech by Ronald Eissens during the INACH/ADL Global Summit on Internet Hate, 17 & 18 November 2008, Washington D.C.

[1] Richard Overy, Interrogations – the Nazi elite in allied hands, 1945. P.196, The Penguin Press, 2001

Disquiet in the BNP over a strange invitation

Some longstanding members of the BNP have been asking why Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, took time out from the election campaign only three days before polling day to attend a secret meeting in London with three leading European extremist politicians, one of whom has a recent conviction for Holocaust denial.

Initially billed as a press conference, its true purpose seems to have been to further Griffin’s ambition to become a Member of the European Parliament by building links with far-right MEPs.

The meeting had been organised by Arthur Kemp, the former agent for the South African apartheid regime and now keeper of the BNP’s ideological Holy Grail. Making the arrangements on behalf of the visitors was Georg Mayer, a senior officer in the Austrian Freedom Party. Mayer had also acted as the spokesperson for the short-lived Identity Tradition Sovereignty (ITS) group in the European Parliament until its collapse late last year when five ultra-nationalist Romanian MEPs walked out in protest at anti-Romanian remarks by their Italian colleague Alessandra Mussolini, the dictator’s granddaughter.

Their ill-conceived plan was to send out invitations to the media to attend the press conference only a short time in advance. Initially three MEPs were down to attend, then fairly late in the day Marie-Rose Morel, a member of the Flemish Parliament for the extreme-right Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) and former Flemish beauty queen, said she would come along too.

The star guests were to be Bruno Gollnisch, a French MEP and vice president of the far-right National Front, and Andreas Mölzer, an Austrian MEP and leading member of the Austrian Freedom Party.

Their presence revealed the true face of the BNP and confirmed Griffin’s continued failure to break away from Holocaust denial and antisemitism. In January 2007 a French court handed Gollnisch a three-month suspended prison sentence and fined him €5,000 (£4,000) for denying the Holocaust. The court in Lyon found he had “disputed a crime against humanity” in remarks he made during a news conference in the city in October 2004.

Gollnisch, who was chair of the ITS group, had questioned the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust and said the “existence of the gas chambers is for historians to discuss”.

Mölzer is the publisher of Zur Zeit, an Austrian political magazine in which racism, antisemitism and xenophobia are staple features. Its recent promotion of openly Nazi and antisemitic books prompted the Berlin weekly Junge Freiheit, on which Zur Zeit was originally modelled, to sever all connections. All that did not stop Griffin giving an interview to Zur Zeit earlier this year, in which he assured Mölzer of his firm belief in “nationalist cooperation” to deal with the “Islamic threat” and “the tide of Third World immigration” and to oppose the entry of Turkey into the EU.

The third MEP who was due to come was Philip Claeys, a VB MEP who was the vice-chair of the ITS. He did not want to show his face at the press conference but was keen to join a private meeting.

Claeys had previous links with the British far right. In May 2005 he addressed a conference organised by Right Now!, a now-defunct magazine that claimed to be the “voice of the patriotic and conservative Right”. It was Right Now! that hosted a column by Nick Eriksen, who at the beginning of April was forced to stand down as number two on the BNP’s list of candidates for the London Assembly to save the BNP from further bad publicity over his despicable views on rape expressed on his blog.

Writing in Right Now! under the name “John Bull” Eriksen maintained that voting BNP represents the “only solution” to remedy the current malaise in Conservative politics. BNP members regularly attended the magazine’s conferences and no doubt listened avidly to Claeys railing against Islam in general and Turkey in particular.

Arrangements for the press conference were proceeding in secret, though not without Searchlight’s knowledge through one of our main moles in the BNP hierarchy. What puzzled us was why, at a time when the BNP was trying to shed its antisemitic image in a bid to win Jewish votes, the party leadership should want to parade a bunch of Holocaust deniers before the media.

But Kemp had made a fatal mistake, possibly intentionally, in his choice of Jason Douglas to pick up the guests from the station in his black cab. This decision had also surprised some party members who know what a loose tongue Douglas has. Douglas, a convicted football hooligan, runs three BNP groups in east London.

The BNP had been attempting to play on what it sees as historic enmity between the Jewish and Muslim communities. But Jewish organisations had denounced the BNP’s advances and were giving strong support to calls by the HOPE not hate campaign for a high turnout of Jewish voters against the BNP in the London and other local elections.

Then suddenly despite weeks of secrecy, Simon Darby, the BNP’s press officer and deputy leader, used his blog to announce on 24 April that the party was “honoured to be playing host to a special press conference to be held on the afternoon of Monday 28th April 2008” with “a number of guests from allied Parties from Europe”. He even named Gollnisch and Mölzer.

Had Darby boobed? Two days later the BNP had pulled the plug on the press conference, with Darby lamely declaring: “It looks like we’ve lost the venue, but our foreign friends have been most understanding about this.”

Searchlight was unconvinced, believing this to be a smokescreen to cover up Darby’s breach of security in publicising the event so far in advance. Other senior figures in the BNP then tried to reinforce the claim that the meeting was off.

Sure enough, in the early afternoon of 28 April, Gollnisch, Mölzer and Mayer arrived at St Pancras International station on the Eurostar and were whisked off, not to a press conference but to a private meeting with Griffin. They were two short. Claeys, already nervous, had pulled out as had Morel, so it was just the beasts without the beauty.

Searchlight later tracked down the visitors at the plush Rembrandt Hotel in South Kensington where they were staying. By that time, Griffin had already sped off into the night.

The hotel confirmed the three men’s presence and a Searchlight reporter had an illuminating telephone conversation with Mayer before he caught the 8.05am Eurostar back home the next morning.

So what was Griffin playing at? Is he so consumed with his desire to join these latter-day fascists in the European Parliament next year that he did not care what damage exposure of such a meeting might have done to the electoral chances of Richard Barnbrook, the BNP’s lead candidate for the London Assembly? Such selfishness would be typical of Griffin.

Some senior and very angry BNP officers think the whole thing was set up by the intelligence services to discredit the party on the eve of the election. Perhaps that is something Colin Auty, who is challenging Griffin for the party leadership, might like to investigate.

One thing we can be sure about is the sort of disgusting company Griffin intends to keep if ever he does manage to make it to the European Parliament.

Searchlight

Six Million Dead "just another atrocity" - BNP's mask slips

Some readers of this blog will know that I was a member of the British National Party from its formation until the late 1990s, and that before then I had been a member of the National Front.

Eventually I came to renounce my racist and fascist opinions and joined the fight to expose and combat latter day Nazism, especially that of the BNP.

One thing was de rigueur in the British National Party during my time, and that was a flat denial that the Nazi extermination of six million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and others ever took place.

Why?

Because the BNP, like other organisations worldwide calling themselves "nationalist", were so closely associated with Nazism (and rightly so) in the public mind that it was necessary to "cleanse" the history of Nazi Germany.

The largest piece of dirt to scrub away was the Holocaust, and the BNP set to work trying to convince the public that this most horrific of events had never happened.

One leading denier of the Holocaust was the BNP's current leader, Nick Griffin.

In 1998, before becoming BNP leader, Griffin wrote:

"I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that 6 million Jews were gassed and cremated or turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the earth is flat... I have reached the conclusion that the 'extermination' tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter day witch-hysteria."

For your benefit, here's Griffin denying the Holocaust again in a 1997 "Cook Report"

So there's no doubt at all what Griffin believed and had believed for years.

He wasn't alone, and it wasn't difficult to be at any BNP gathering when the latest piece of Holocaust denial "evidence" was announced and then discussed into the ground.

But the BNP Holocaust deniers were always in a split mind. On the one hand they denied the Holocaust, but wouldn't have minded at all if it was true.

That's because most of them knew it was true, and quietly approved.

You see they had to deny the Holocaust to make nationalism "respectable", and nationalism had to be made respectable for the BNP to achieve power, and once in power - believe you me - the BNP wouldn't be able to get its own British versions of Auschwitz built quickly enough.

When the BNP's vote began to rise and the party started to win local council seats the question of Holocaust denial became awkward and embarrassing, especially as some BNP councillors openly denied while others floundered hopelessly when put under media inquisition.

Nick Griffin, a man who has done so many u-turns on policy throughout his career on the far Right that he's virtually a walking Spaghetti Junction, then decided that the Holocaust did not happen.

He's never explained why, probably because the day will come when he needs to revert to type. Nobody should underestimate Griffin's eye for the main chance. He wants his highly paid seat in the European parliament (more because it's highly paid than of any use to the BNP) and he doesn't want to put his financial future at risk by sitting in front of the news cameras explaining away the far Right's crankiest dogma to a disbelieving audience.

Thankfully, Jewish organisations and BNP watchers have never believed that Griffin's about turn was anything more than a sprat to catch a mackerel. His followers on the Nazi Stormfront website openly debate whether the political acrobat's change of mind is real or feigned, the hope being that it's feigned.

I think I know which it is.

Unable to openly deny the Holocaust, the BNP has to settle for the next best thing: belittling it.

So when the government announced on Monday morning that every school in the country would send two pupils to Auschwitz to learn about and keep alive memories of the Holocaust, the barely supressed Jew-hating side of the BNP couldn't wait to rush out an article designed solely to minimise the sheer scale and importance of the deaths of those six million human beings.

This is part of that article:

Further to elevate just one of the many atrocities Man has inflicted on Man is in itself discriminatory and racist. Emphasis on the lessons to be learned from the horrors of the 1940s concentrates one peoples’ suffering and implies that only Europeans can be guilty of such atrocities. It is racist because it minimises or completely omits from the school curriculum the lessons to be learned from the massacres of Christians in Armenia, the butchering of Serbs in Kosovo, the slaying of Christians (including many of our own forebears) at the hands of Islamic pirates as well as the ongoing ethnic conflicts in Rwanda, Sudan and Burma.

You get the picture?

Back in my BNP days I couldn't have put it better myself. Seething that I can't deny the Holocaust I reduce it to "just one of the many atrocities Man has inflicted on Man" and go on to hit my favourite targets (or second favourites, since the Jews are now off limits), the Muslims, then get in a dig at Africans and Asians.

Somebody at the BNP (Griffin?) worked out that was how others would see it, too, and the article was removed without ceremony. All that remains of it is the snippet published above.

So don't be under any illusions about the BNP. In its poisonous heart it still believes the Jews are its greatest enemy, and now and again, as today, the mask slips.

The BNP is still Nazi and still obsessed with Jews. Never believe otherwise.

Atreus at Norfolk Unity

'Holocaust' mayor attacks BNP from synagogue pulpit

The East End's outspoken woman mayor took the unprecedented step of making a political plea at Sunday's interfaith Holocaust Memorial service to blast the British National Party.

Cllr Anne Jackson urged East London's Jewish, Anglican, Muslim, Hindu, Bhudist and Bahai leaders to mobilise their communities for May's London elections.

They had to get to the polls to reduce the right-wing extremists' percentage and prevent them getting a foothold at City Hall, she warned.

"This is not a political arena, but I have to bring up politics," she told them.

"We have to be vigilant with the London elections coming up. Proportional representation on the Greater London Authority may mean we end up with the BNP getting some seats. They only need five per cent. Then they would be part of London's ruling body. Imagine how awful that would be for us and the world."

The Tower Hamlets Mayor, whose civic role bars her from party politics, defied protocol at the synagogue pulpit on Sunday when she urged the different faith leaders: "Make your communities aware they musty vote for their preferred candidate to lower the BNP percentage and make it hard for them to gain seats. People are still out there spreading the same poison that caused the Nazi holocaust 60 years ago.

But Sunday's memorial was more about remembering the six million Jews and a million others who perished in the Nazi death camps in between 1939 and 45.

The community leaders at Sunday's service at East London Central synagogue sat silently as Holocaust survivor Henry Glaze, now 83 and living in retirement in the East End, gave his story.

Henry was, at 15, undoubtedly one of the very last Jewish youngsters to get out of Hitler's Reich, on the day Germany invaded Poland which triggered the Second World War. The invasion began just five hours after he crossed the frontier into neutral Denmark on September 1, 1939, after being sent on the Kindertransporte scheme to get Jewish children out.

"It was very tense that day I got out when the fighting began," Henry remembers. "But my brother and parents were trapped in Kiel and ended up in the camps. I never saw them again. My father died at Auschwitz, my mother at Belsec."

Britain took in 40,000 Jews escaping Hitler's persecution by the outbreak of war.

Of special importance to Henry was the British Government's decision to admit 10,000 youngsters under 18 sponsored by Jewish organisations. Henry Glaze was one of them. He ended up in East London where he has lived in freedom from fear for the past 60 years.

East London Advertiser

Austrian Holocaust denier gets six-and-a-half years in prison

VIENNA (AFP) - A Vienna court sentenced Monday a former extreme-right city councillor to four years in prison for Holocaust denial, adding another two-and-a-half years of a previous suspended sentence, a report said.

It was the third time that Wolfgang Frohlich, 56, had been found guilty on similar charges, following letters to Austrian members of parliament and Pope Benedict XVI denouncing the Holocaust as a "Satanic lie," the APA news agency said.

Pleading "absolutely not guilty," according to APA, Frohlich had already served 23 months behind bars since 2003 - and gasped in court as the other 29 months were added. Frohlich - kicked out of the populist far-right FPOe party in 1994 - is to appeal, said his lawyer, Harald Schuster.

Austria has one of the strictest sets of laws surrounding Holocaust denial and neo-Nazi activity.

British revisionist historian David Irving spent 13 months in jail after his arrest in 2005 before being expelled to the UK.

EJP