Rome Jews rail against far-right figure

Italian Jews are threatening to stage a counter rally against a far-right nationalist who announced a recruitment rally next month for a paramilitary-style vigilante group.

Rome Jewish community president Riccardo Pacifici joined political leaders in condemning Gaetano Saya's weekend announcement of a recruitment rally Sept. 24 and Sept. 25 in Genoa for a "homeland defense legion." Meanwhile, Italy's minister of equal opportunity opened an investigation into Saya's declarations against gays, immigrants and Roma, or Gypsies.

Pacifici called on Italy's interior minister and local authorities to take action against Saya's planned rally, threatening a counter-protest if it wasn't blocked. If nothing is done, he said in a statement, "We Jews will make our voices heard by promoting, on the same day and in the same place, a demonstration against this xenophobic and racist initiative."

Two years ago, Saya sparked outrage when his Italian Nationalist Party, a neo-fascist movement modeled on Britain's National Front, launched a paramilitary group. It came under immediate investigation for promoting fascism, which is illegal in Italy. A Nationalist party video that is still online shows Saya and other members giving the stiff-armed fascist salute and wearing uniforms reminiscent of those from pre-World War II fascist militias.

ICARE

Thanks to Italia Antifa for the heads-up

A Sikh joins the BNP – and another Sikh writes this…

Rajinder Singh, 78, has announced his support for the BNP

Following the big-girls’-blouses of the BNP being forced in law to accept members from ethnic minorities, the idiotic Sikh-born Rajinder Singh from West Punjab is up for joining the full-fatty version of the British Union of Fascists, saying that people are naturally racist.

I must have missed the turkeys voting for Christmas a couple of months ago. Anyway, my friend Hardeep Singh, who is press secretary for the Network of Sikh Organisations UK writes to me and I thought I’d offer what he has to say on Rajinder as a personal view. It’s particularly interesting, I think, that Islamophobia among Sikhs can make them sympathetic to neo-fascists in the BNP – my enemy’s enemy and all that. I haven’t tidied up Hardeep’s open letter, because I think it should be read as he wrote it; it’s a magnificent Sikh insight into racial hatred. Here it is, with many thanks to Hardeep

A Lapsed Sikh & the BNP: A Personal View by Hardeep Singh

When someone mentions the British National Party, I can’t help but construct ghastly images of frog marching skinheads with scowling faces performing the Nazi salute to all the ‘darkies.’ Albeit now just figments of my imagination – these images were on the contrary, once a stark reality for my parents & grandparents and many of their generation who moved to West London in the 1960’s, from the leafy villages of rural Panjab. They lived through the Southall riots where Sikhs along with others formed a vanguard against aggressive ‘Paki -bashers’ of the National Front, (the BNP parent movement), it was during these tumultuous events in 1979 that Blair Peach was tragically killed.

As a British Sikh, my closest encounter with a ‘skin-head’ with a swastika festooned on his forehead was on a bendy London bus. On politely paying my fare to the driver on entry (the full seventy pence worth), my detractor loudly uttered the unforgettable words “Rag heads got more of a cockney accent than I have!” Fortunately for me he was just the commentator type, not a fully fledged head-butting storm trooper.

That’s why it’s difficult to fathom the penchant Mr. Singh, a man born into the Sikh faith, has for becoming the first non Caucasian member of the BNP, if the BNP decide to change their membership requirements and acquiesce to the EHRC demands for an amended constitution.

The communications and campaigns officer Martin Wingfield has endorsed Mr. Singh and called the party to “adapt and survive and give the brave and loyal Rajinder Singh the honour of becoming the first ethnic minority member”.

Mr. Singh has inadvertently become a political pawn utilised in explicit rebranding by the sharp suited fascist brigade, he may also emerge symbolic of a seismic shift in British politics based on the fear of radical Islamism held by both white non-turban wearing and in his case strategic Panjabi turban wearing Brits. Could this be part of a pseudo-reality whereby Mr. Griffin is a likened by Mr. Singh to Bruce Willis and will for better or worse save a bedevilled Britain from Islamism, with nothing but a dirty vest? Or is it more like a fatal attraction and will Singh’s infatuation for the far right all end up in tears and symbiotic failure?

Born in West Punjab in 1931, Rajinder Singh witnessed the violence of Indian partition firsthand. Millions of Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims were killed during partition, his father among them, murdered when Singh was only 15. He lays the blame squarely with Muslims. The memories of partition (which Singh refers to) are a synapse transmission away from many who lived to tell the tale, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. There was butchery on all sides along with acts of great humanity shown by fellow human being to his brethren, be it Sikh, Hindu or Muslim.

Although it is understandable why someone like Rajinder Singh has such a perspective considering the loss of his father during partition, it’s not justifiable from a moral standing and equally from a Sikh perspective. The importance of this, I cannot stress enough…

My grandfather survived partition in one of the ‘death trains’, he was a commissioned officer in the British Army, a proud Sikh infantryman with what I would describe a touch of swagger. His experience of brutal massacre did not lead him to a deep-seated hatred of adherents of Islam, because this would have been inconsistent with Sikh teachings. My grandfather took the example of another Sikh who suffered immense personal tragedy at the hands of Muslims, the tenth and last human spiritual leader of the Sikhs Guru Gobind Singh, some 300 years ago.

Inspite of loosing his father at the age of nine (Guru Tegh Bahadur was executed at the behest of the Emperor Aurungzeb for standing up against the forced conversion of the Hindu Holy men in Kashmir) and his four sons, two of whom were bricked alive and two whom died in battle against Mogul aggression, Guru Gobind Singh did not use any of these examples to vilify, demonise or tarnish any of the adherents of Islam.

In fact, Guru Gobind Singh actively promoted the notion of desiring the wellbeing and happiness of the entire human race without any kind of distinction or bias regarding people’s individual religious affiliations or ethnic background for that matter. He explicitly promoted the teaching that people should “view the whole of humanity as one race”

It is in the spirit of true Sikh teachings, that stories like those of Dr. Anarkali Kaur Honaryar bring a smile to the face of many worldwide, rather than a general ambivalence to the controversial Mr. Singh. She is a 25 year old from Afghanistan and was chosen by Radio Free Europe’s Afghan chapter as their “Person of the year”. The award has made her a household name in the Afghan Capital Kabul.

Since the ‘Talibinisation’ of Afghanistan in the early 1990’s the numbers of Sikhs which was estimated to be 50,000 has dwindled to around a 3,000, Sikhs have been reported to be kidnapped and held hostage by Taliban affiliates as well as forced in some instances to pay the jizya (tax imposed on non-Muslims). Inspite of the appalling treatment of minority groups including her very own community, heroines like Dr. Anarkali Kaur Honaryar, A Sikh – continues to work for the Afghan Human Rights Commission (which she joined in 2006), fighting for amongst others the rights of Muslim women in Afghan society. Many of her relatives chose to move to avoid the hostilities and emigrate to safer part of the world such as Canada, Europe & India.

I think we should spend far more time celebrating heroes and heroines of this ilk and much less time on the strategic turban wearing Mr. Singh and his reprehensible grandstanding with Mr. Griffin’s party. Perhaps he should be reminded that it wasn’t that long ago that Mr. Griffin was talking about the voluntary repatriation of Sikhs to India so that ‘West London, wouldn’t be so crowded at rush hour’.

If he chooses to join the ranks of the far right, he will do so at the disgust of the vast majority of Sikhs across Britain. He is lapsed not only in his appearance, but more importantly in his love affair with an organisation that totally rejects Sikh teachings on the equality of all human beings.

Hardeep Singh is is a freelance journalist & broadcaster & the Press Secretary for the Network of Sikh Organisations, UK.

Telegraph

Neo-fascist Jobbik try to gain foothold in UK

Neo-fascist and uniformed Jobbik members on the march

The Hungarian neo-fascist organisation Jobbik intend to spread their racist crap around the Hungarians living and working in England. All anti-fascist organisations should take the necessary steps to ensure that this meeting doesn't take place!

Gloucester Arms Pub
Kentish Town, Leighton Road 59-61, London, NW5 2QH
Telephone: 0871 258 8628
December 6th at 1pm

The details of the meeting are below:
Founding of the British Jobbik Society
On 22nd November a new 'nationalist' group was founded, the 'British Jobbik Society'. Its aim is that Hungarians living in Great Britain 'understand and support the national values and the programme of Jobbik'.

Speaking:
Zoltan Fuzessy - head of cabinet for Csanad Szegedi MEP, International Secretary
Tamas Feher - head of the British Jobbik Association
tamas.feher@jobbik.com
Tel: (44) 07852 357206

More on Jobbik here and here.

The BNP’s real concern is race, not Islam

Here’s what I said in a recent piece for eGov monitor that is causing a lot of fuss in certain quarters:

"There are a number of factors involved in the rise of the BNP as an electoral force, and I do not think that a sudden conversion of large numbers of white Britons to hardline racist sentiment is one of them. The question of Islam is one factor. Recently, I have been accused by the usual suspects of not bothering to properly examine the BNP’s anti-Islamic rhetoric because I don’t take anti-Muslim bigotry seriously enough or don’t really care about it. At worst, it has been implied that I am an anti-Muslim bigot myself or, to use the catchphrase, an ‘Islamophobe’.

This approach indicates a complete failure in understanding of the true nature of the BNP’s anti-Islam campaign, and the fact that writers who are supposedly anti-fascist should choose to attack a report aimed at exposing racism is disappointing to say the least. The reality is that Griffin and co don’t really care about Islam. Griffin may be an odious figure, but he’s not a complete idiot, and he knows very well that Britain is not on the verge of turning into an Islamic State.

Following his strategy for making the BNP electable, Griffin has tried to steer the party towards populist issues, picking up on fears and resentment among the electorate in an attempt to use such issues as a Trojan horse for his underlying racist agenda. The truth is that the BNP hates Muslims because they are predominantly brown skinned. In ‘white nationalist’ ideology, everything ultimately boils down to an obsession with race."

Just to clarify for those who seem to think the babbling of Bob Pitt and iENGAGE should have made me change my position, let me reemphasise the fact that I still stand by it. I have written on this topic on a number of occasions so I feel no need to ‘justify’ myself, but for ease of understanding, here’s how I see it:

Imagine you’re a ‘white nationalist’ leader who has spent his entire ‘political’ career in the wilderness. You’ve tried and tried to make white people see the ‘evils’ of ‘race mixing’ and the hidden hand of ‘the Jew’, but have had no success. Finally, you realise that the only way to get any chance of power is to tone down the rhetoric and rebrand yourself as a populist nationalist. In order to shake off the ‘fascist’ label and thereby to hopefully win votes you decide to start using words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ instead of writing about your love of the SS and talking about using ‘well-directed boots and fists’. In order to appeal to white Britons who are worried about the effects of immigration but who are not ideologically racist, you stop talking about ‘racial purity’ and start talking about ‘identity’ instead.

This doesn’t get you very far and you really need an ‘issue’ around which to campaign. Nothing is forthcoming but then comes 9/11 and then 7/7. You note the rise in hostility towards Muslims and you also notice that on a parallel track a hatred for asylum seekers is becoming more common. Now, you’ve decided that the only way to get power and to ‘ethnically cleanse’ Britain through a process of mass deportation of non-white citizens is to appear more moderate and in touch with ordinary people’s concerns. So, with the rise of anti-Muslim feeling, you decide to jump on the bandwagon.

“But,” your old comrades say, “the Jew is the real enemy, not Muslims.” You try to reassure them that the new tactics are the only way forward and that for now the anti-Semitism needs to go back into the closet. After all, you tell them, “The proper enemy to any political movement isn’t necessarily the most evil and the worst. The proper enemy is the one we can most easily defeat.” You go on to tell these fellow ‘white nationalists’ that “there is a piece of plain realpolitik that those who attack the BNP stance on Islam should also take into account,” which is that:

“They are perilously close to entrenching themselves in political dead ground from which there can be no escape. Instead of working to take advantage of the biggest crisis that the genocidal multi-culti ‘experiment’ has ever faced, they are in danger of turning themselves into a despised, powerless and doomed cartoon caricature - a composite of Tokyo Rose, Lord Haw Haw and Jane Fonda. Truly, they are living examples of the old adage that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, and then as farce.”

You find some success with this approach, and you also note how successful anti-Islam campaigning is turning out for other neo-fascists on the Continent who have had a similar ‘conversion’ to ‘moderation’. For tactical reasons, you bite the bullet and reach out to Jews - “They can’t call me a Nazi then,” you think, “plus, they control the media anyway so I may as well try to please them.” In addition to this, you think, by adopting a superifically pro-Jewish stance you can also make use of the very language that has haunted you all your life - ‘anti-Semite’, ‘Jew hater’, ‘fascist’, ‘Nazi’ - and throw it at Muslims. After all, who could think that you’re the bad guy when you’re sticking up for the Jews and defending Western civilisation against those who would destroy it?

You continue to lead a dual campaign. On the one hand, you appear largely obsessed with Islam and ridding Britain of Muslims, but on the other, you maintain your true racial beliefs. The fact is, you are still ‘wholly opposed to any form of racial integration between British and non-European peoples’. You see Muslims and asylum seekers as easy targets to begin with. With them, you can talk about culture and tax payers’ money being wasted. You don’t have to try to explain your ideologically racist worldview which revolves around beliefs about a well planned conspiracy by ‘international Jewry’ to destroy the white race through immigration and the promotion of race mixing.

Through this strategy you eventually find yourself elected as an MEP. Many white people who are not ideological racists or fascists have bought into your anti-Islam message. Many of these people are unaware of the fact that you want to start by deporting Muslims and then move on to deporting all non-white people from Britain. And lots more of them know about your past but think you’ve changed: “Look at the website, look at the magazines, it’s not about race any more,” they say.

The funny thing is, it’s not just your voters who think that. Even some left-wing and Muslim writers start to believe it, too.

Edmund Standing writing at Harry's Place

Neo-Nazi killing puts spotlight on Italian militants

The death on Monday of a man attacked by neo-Nazis threw the spotlight on political militancy in Italy, prompting the opposition to ask if a right-wing sweep at an April election had fed a climate of intolerance.

The victim, 29-year-old Nicola Tommasoli, finally succumbed to his injuries and died on Monday after being beaten into coma on May 1 by a group of youths identified by police as neo-Nazi soccer hooligans. The beating, in the northern city of Verona, was condemned across the political spectrum; police have so far ruled out any political motive for what appears to be an isolated act of violence.

Still, Italy's centre-left portrayed it as a sign a growing intolerance in a country where fears about crime -- particularly by immigrants -- contributed to their resounding defeat by the right in last month's national and municipal elections. The incident has put right-wingers on the defensive over the suggestion that support by militants helped them to win the April elections, including the mayorship of Rome.

"The responsibility lies with right-wing populists," said Paolo Ferrero, a leftist minister in the caretaker government expected to step down later this week. He accused the far right of creating "scapegoats" for Italy's social problems that "brings in votes in a climate of insecurity, but also sows a long trail of hate".

The defeated centre-left candidate for prime minister, Walter Veltroni, said: "We are faced with a neo-fascist-style aggression that cannot and should not be underestimated".

In an informal poll by one television station, 51 percent of respondents said they feared the Verona attack could herald the start of a new wave of violent intolerance.

City of love?

The mayor of Verona, from the anti-immigrant Northern League which backed Silvio Berlusconi as premier, rejected any link between his party and Tommasoli's assailants.

"There are millions of people that voted for us. It could be that one of them is a criminal," Tosi, who is cracking down on illegal immigrants in Verona, a city made famous by Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet".

But Tosi is not the only right-wing politician who had to distance himself from far-right elements. Rome's new Mayor Gianni Alemanno urged supporters to avoid "excesses" after a small group gave him the right-armed Roman salute associated with fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and chanted "Duce!" (leader), as Mussolini's followers called him. Alemanno, whose National Alliance is the successor to the post-war neo-fascists but is trying to become a mainstream conservative party, complained that the left tried to depict him as a fascist and anti-Semite during the campaign.

"We must condemn any form of ideological extremism regardless of where it comes from," said Alemanno as he visited monuments in Rome to Jewish victims of Nazi occupation, Italian wartime resistance heroes and Rome's synagogue. "There are extremist fringes on the far right as well as the far left, but they are more an expression of urban marginalization than actual politics."

During the mayoral race, Alemanno came under attack for wearing a Celtic cross round his neck -- a symbol of the far right in Italy comparable to the Nazi swastika.

Reuters

Neo-Fascist Magyar Garda Is 'Hungary's Shame'

Hungary's image has been tainted by the rise of far-right extremism and anti-Semitism. On Saturday the neo-fascist "Hungarian Guard" held its inaugral ceremony in Budapest, much to the alarm of Jewish groups and left-wing parties.

The founding ceremony for a new Hungarian neo-fascist group attracted a crowd of 3,000 people in Budapest on Saturday. The "Magyar Garda" or "Hungarian Guard" swore in 56 members -- kitted out in uniforms with Nazi-era symbols -- at Buda Castle, the historic seat of the Hungarian monarchy. "The Hungarian Guard has been set up in order to carry out the real change of regime (from communism) and to rescue Hungarians," Gabor Vona, leader of the far-right Jobbik party and co-founder of the guard, said at the event.

Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, leader of the Socialist Party, condemned the group and asked the country's chief prosecutor to closely monitor the group for any violations of the Hungarian constitution. He also described the founding of the guard as "Hungary's shame." At the ceremony on Saturday Vona was defiant: "Those who try to ban us want to ban all the Hungarian people and those who report us to the chief prosecutor are reporting the Hungarian people."

The Magyar Garda - "Magyar means "Hungarian" - has pledged to train its members in the use of firearms and its members wear a uniform of black pants and vests with white shirts, and a cap emblazoned with a medieval coat of arms, the Arpad Stripes. The striped, red and white symbol is a centuries old Hungarian banner, a version of which was used by the Arrow Cross, a pro-Nazi party that briefly ruled Hungary toward the end of World War II. The party murdered thousands of Jews and deported hundreds of thousands more to Nazi death camps. Jewish groups, including the World Jewish Congress, have condemned the founding of the new "guard" and have called on the government in Budapest to act against it.

The Magyar Guard is closely associated with Jobbik (Movement for a Better Hungary). Although the party has no deputies in parliament it does have representatives on dozens of city councils across the country. Members of the party were involved in anti-government riots last year following the leak of a tape on which Gyurcsany admitted he had lied about the economy.

The failure of the biggest center-right party, Fidesz, to condemn the Hungarian Guard has led to charges that it tacitly supports the extreme-right. Meanwhile, the participation of former Defense Minister Lajos Fur in the ceremony was condemned by his former party, the center-right Hungarian Democratic Forum, which led the country's first post-communist government in the early 1990s.

German papers on Monday voice their concerns about the founding of the Hungarian Guard and the rise of anti-Semitism and neo-fascism in Eastern Europe.

The conservative Die Welt writes:

"The founding of the Hungarian Guard is an alarming sign of sickness in a society, in which barriers to the glorification of violence, racism and intolerance are being torn down, and where there are increasing attempts to undermine the already weak institutions of democracy."

"The Hungarian Guard didn't just fall from the sky. It was founded by the far-right Jobbik ... a party that governs in some regions together with Fidesz, the biggest opposition party. It is no coincidence that a Fidesz representative made a speech at the founding ceremony on Saturday, that the defense minister from the first free government swore an oath, and that flags from associations linked to the Catholic and protestant churches were flown."

"This is the nucleus of a racist paramilitary army. With its declaration that it will train its members to use weapons it is openly challenging the state's monopoly of force."

"The European Union shares some of the blame. It has to have been aware of the developments in Hungary. But it seems that the standards for the democracies in the former Socialist countries are different to those for Western member states. How else can one explain the fact that Franco Frattini, EU Commissioner for justice, freedom and security, criticizes stable democracies like Denmark, France and Germany for the supposed virulent racism there, but doesn't criticize the events in Hungary?"

The left-wing Die Tageszeitung writes:

"The fall of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe left an ideological vacuum ... A seething ideological mix came to the fore in many countries, made up of anti-Semitic and racist stereotypes, nationalist prejudices and elements such as militant anti-communism, revisionist ambitions and a vengeful fundamentalism."

"The founding of the Hungarian Guard ... should be a warning to those who still believe that the danger from right-wing extremism is the invention of sensitive journalists, left-wing politicians and critical intellectuals. Hungary had a good image in the West even before 1990, which was in part due to skilful lobbying. That is why the Western public studiously overlooked the nationalist lapses under the Fidesz government of Viktor Orban just as it overlooks the dangerous spread of racism and anti-Semitism in Hungary."

"The fact that Fidesz is the only party in the democratic spectrum that has so far refused to distance itself from the Hungarian Guard is a cause for concern."

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"The founding of the Hungarian Guard in Budapest is no isolated phenomenon in the new EU member states. Elsewhere in Eastern Europe new paramilitary and skinhead groups are constantly being formed. It would be a big mistake to dismiss these as neo-fascist marginal groups that can somehow be dealt with. In the background there is a broad social consensus acting as a mobilizing factor."

"After the end of the Cold War the post-communist society was suddenly confronted with the phenomenon that we call globalization. West European companies pushed into the East European market and contributed to the creation of a savage capitalism. The local and underdeveloped interest groups were unable to put up any resistance ... At the same time the preparations for EU integration were pushed through ... It is little wonder that many experienced globalization as an invasion or siege, and integration as dictates, colonization or at best the simple exchange of the East (Soviet Union) for the West (European Union). Many people now see themselves in the role of the victim."

"Much time has been wasted. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall a new generation has grown up that is not really democratically socialized ... Most are captives of ethnically defined national and cultural concepts, feel their ethnic homogeny is being threatened and are now mobilizing for the battle to defend it."

"It is often said that democracy cannot be imported. The current need for harmony in the EU is preventing democratization and only benefits those who want to sweep the problems under the carpet."

Spiegel