Is the BNP Nazi? No, it's worse: it isn't
Andrew McKibben
With the increased BNP vote in the last local elections, a chorus of 'these
Nazis must be stopped' has gone up, along with suggestions concerning what
organising tactics might be effective against it. Unfortunately, most such
tactics are presently handicapped by a misapprehension about the BNP that
leads well-intentioned activists into ineffective tactics. This suspicion is
bolstered by the failure of the brave and sincere efforts of Stop the BNP
(publisher of Searchlight magazine), Unite Against Fascism, the Anti-Nazi
League, and others to stop the party's growth.
The problem? While it is morally satisfying to call the BNP Nazis, and while
their ideology is indeed racist, xenophobic, and abhorrent, it's starting to
become clear that this rather slippery political beast has in fact shed its
old skin, and is no longer plausibly describable as a Nazi, or fascist, party
at all. Why is this 'worse'? Because, although one must rejoice in the
abandonment of this diabolical ideology by anyone, it also increases their
chances of success.
The likelihood of real, live, goose-stepping Nazis actually winning much
support in Britain is far less than that of some better-packaged and
locally-palatable variety of racist extremism. Unfortunately, after 40 years
(if you count its National Front predecessor) the BNP seems to have finally
figured this out. So the Nazi business has been junked. This is logical:
racial hatred is their only political bedrock, and the swastika is just one
expendable way of expressing it.
Before I discuss the evidence they really have done this, it's important to
remind ourselves that 'Nazi' isn't just a word to toss around, even at people
who richly deserve any insult they get. Nazism is a real, historical,
political ideology, like Marxism, with a specific content and specific
criteria for who is one. It is National Socialism, the philosophy of the
National Socialist German Workers Party. There's some leeway to include people
who don't literally fit, but not every racist demagogue is a Nazi, not even
remotely. Some, especially in foreign countries that fought Hitler in WWII,
are even anti-Nazi.
Why care about being so precise? Because attacking the BNP for being Nazis
will backfire, if they're not. It only invites them to prove to the public
that they aren't, and, because this is now probably technically true, they can
then just sit back, smile, and say to the public, 'See. Our opponents told
you we were bad because we were Nazis, and we've now proved we're not Nazis.
So we must not be bad. Furthermore, our opponents are liars and you can't
believe anything else they say about us.'
This is not good. When the public hears, 'don't vote for them, they're Nazis,' and then, partly out of sheer titillation at the naughtiness of somebody daring to be such an evil thing, goes and looks at the BNP website and starts reading their propaganda, they will discover fairly quickly a group that has gotten rid of the old swastika trappings, and adopted the image of nice British patriots. If they are taken in, they may then conclude they're a legitimate party, merely being attacked by silly and hysterical left-wing cranks who exaggerate things.
I realise some readers will believe the BNP is still Nazi, and maybe they
really have taken it deep enough underground that I'm fooled. But I think not,
as some signs are just tell-tales. One of them is the reported expulsion of
hardcore Nazis from the party, something loudly complained about on
openly-Nazi websites, accompanied with howling accusations of betraying their
cause directed at BNP chairman Nick Griffin. Another is the BNP's sudden
change in attitude towards Jews, after having vilified them since the earliest
days of the National Front. Basically, they now seem to be openly proclaiming
they don't consider them evil anymore, and have even publicly mocked Nazi and
other anti-Semitic ideas about Jewish world conspiracies and the like.
Take a look at this article by their chairman, for example:
https://www.bnp.org.uk/columnists/chairman2.php?ngId=30
Excerpt:
' If the neo-cons didn’t have the baggage-laden anti-Semites, especially in
America, as bogeymen, they’d have to invent them… The neo-cons are mainly
Jewish, but they are not “the Jews”. When it comes to Middle Eastern policy,
they are a particular faction, an unofficial overseas agitprop department of
Israel’s ruling Likud party. To oppose their war is not to oppose “the Jews”,
but only one group of Jews and their Christian-Zionist and plutocrat allies….'
One could read the above words in the Guardian! Something is definitely going
on. Or look at this article by John Bean, one of the longest-lived right-wing
cranks in Britain, and a major BNP ideological guru:
https://www.bnp.org.uk/articles/judeo_obsession.htm
Excerpt:
' … there is no factual basis for anti-Semitism, i.e. the belief that Jews
are intrinsically our enemy. The worst one can truthfully say of the Jews is
that they are intrinsically opportunistic. To survive in other people's
countries for 2,000 years, they obviously have to be. But this doesn't make
them intrinsically bad; only people who will, like anyone else, pursue their
self-interest according to the circumstances of the time. We shouldn't
surrender to their pursuit of self-interest . We should, naturally, pursue our
own, but in a calm and rational way in the same manner as we deal with other
foreign societies, without hatred, mythology, or hostile intent.'
Unless this is completely invented out of whole cloth, something fundamental
has changed. And I suspect it isn't a complete put-on, as at least one
(extreme right-wing) Zionist magazine seems to have picked up on it, and seems
to believe it, or most of it:
https://www.think-israel.org/locke.bnp.html
Excerpt:
'… today [the BNP] is, by world standards, a fairly conventional right-wing
populist ethno-nationalist party, having abandoned the fascistic trappings,
tendency to violence, and weird obsessions that once characterized it. The
party's transformation is not wholly complete as of this writing. Some of the
rank-and-file membership is clearly not as far along as its leadership. But,
after four years of reform, the BNP seems to have managed a decisive break
with its past …The BNP's new ideological complexion is generally denied by its
opponents, both on the left and on the establishment "right" … but it seems to
be real. The accusations of "sell-out" hurled at present BNP leadership by
devotees of the old ways make this clear, if nothing else does.'
Now a change like this doesn't just happen. I think some kind of deal has been
done between the BNP and some extreme-right-wing Zionists. It's a pity that a
people who suffered so much from fascism should produce fascists of their own,
but we have all seen enough of Israel's behaviour in recent years to know that
some Jews are not exempt from this.
It's obvious that the BNP's foaming-at-the-mouth Islamophobia must have
something to do with this unexpected rapprochement. Even they are bright
enough to appreciate the logic of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. They
may, in fact, be rather jealous of the treatment Israel routinely hands out to
its Muslim population on the West Bank. Or perhaps the anti-Semitic mind just
needs someone to hate, and they just find Muslims a juicier target these days.
The BNP still says it's not pro-Israel – they claim to be isolationists, who
don't want to side with either side – but one has to wonder, if they're
resolutely uninterested in the whole thing, and simply want to ignore Jews
entirely, why they've gone to the trouble of making sure everyone knows. The
giveaway: they've made clear statements that they're against Britain's funding
the Palestinian Authority, which is a de facto pro-Israel position if anything
is, given that we currently do fund it, through the EU.
Maybe they've been paid to do this, maybe it's pure ideology, I don't know.
But don’t be surprised if this apparent new alliance lasts. Israel and
Zionists have been happy to do business with any number of extreme-right
parties, from the Afrikaner Nationalists in apartheid South Africa to the
Falangists in Lebanon to the Kuomintang in Taiwan. Historically, actual
fascists (as opposed to Nazis) can go either way on the Jewish Question: some
have been raving anti-Semites, others blasé about Jews, or sympathetic to
fascistic elements in Zionism. Extremes do meet.
So should we simply substitute the word 'fascist' for 'Nazi' in anti-BNP
campaigns? Unfortunately, I don't think the BNP is really fascist, either.
Fascism means espousing a lot of things, like military glory and massive
accumulation of state power, that the BNP sniffs at these days. Whether or not
it is sincere, it has become so good at playing this tune that it has even
managed to con a significant section of libertarian opinion in the UK, like
Sean Gabb, into supporting it, at least tacitly. So calling it fascist suffers
the same liability of calling it Nazi: it's too easy for them to convince
people they're not.
In the end, I think our best bet is simply to classify the contemporary BNP as
a right-wing populist racist and xenophobic party, of no stable ideological
substance beyond that. Don't try to fit it into a box in which it doesn't
really belong, and will wriggle out of if accused. The truth about it is bad
enough, without having to dress it up in an ideological costume drama from
1936.
'Racist' is good enough for me, adding 'xenophobe' when one needs to
elaborate. And, of course, there's always 'thuggish' and 'criminal'. This
sheep smells bad enough without having to tell people it's really a wolf.
June 2006
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