Stonewalling Nazis Works
As a brief departure from strictly music/arts discussion⸺
I just picked up a book again that I started reading earlier this year, called Reichsrock. Kirsten Dyck published it last year, stemming from her dissertation research. Basically, it is a history and map of "the international web of white-power and neo-Nazi hate music." In each chapter, she provides an overview of the history and current state of the white-power music scenes in several regions, beginning with the UK. Surprisingly, this book is the first of its kind, as far as I know, and it's an immensely useful reference.
As I've mentioned, my own dissertation is on medievalist popular music, and unfortunately, one manifestation of medievalism in pop arises through the growth of nationalist movements in a given area. One chapter that I hope to include, if the project does not prove too immense to be limited to a single chapter (some things you just can't narrow down to that extent), is how medievalist elements are used to express nationalism.
Dyck cites a review of a particular NSBM (National Socialist Black Metal) album on the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront, which says, "I've always thought that traditional folk music and black metal fit together like bread and butter" (p. 90). This is intriguing because in so many ways, metal and folk are antithetical. My favorite explanation of this is from Metalocalypse, a show about a deathmetal band that's a loving parody of all things metal. In this episode, the band has accidentally awakened a troll through metal:
(The following scene demonstrates the ridiculousness of acoustic heavy metal, as the band rehearses on lutes.)
So why are there so many folk-metal groups now? It's a pretty interesting juxtaposition. By no means are all folk-metal bands nationalist or neo-Nazi, but it certainly is a recurring theme. Referring to another Stormfront review, Dyck writes, "Significantly, this listener is responding not only to...neo-Nazi themed lyrics, but also to the way the band references the sound of Third Reich-era military marches in their music, making it clear that many white-power music fans consume white-power music...for important aspects of the non-verbal racist symbolism that white-power musicians employ" (p.90). I'm trying to identify some of those musical symbols that lie beyond the more obvious national anthem-type sounds.
Anyway, my reason for starting this post—her chapter on British white-power bands is well worth a read just for seeing strategies in combating neo-Nazis. Over the course of the '80s, Nazi skinheads became a huge force in the UK, pressing local communities to deal with the problem head on. Most of what happened was pre-WWW, so perhaps it was somewhat easier then to control information, but the tactics of activists successfully quelled the nazi-skinhead movement and can hopefully serve as inspiration in the present.
To begin, mainstream record labels and record stores stopped selling records tied to Nazi skinheads. Venues stopped booking bands because they attracted large protests, and these protests, unfortunately, often resulted in violent clashes. Apart from concerns about community safety or losing money, venues were sometimes straight up destroyed after booking white-power bands. The Hambrough Tavern was burned to the ground.
The Nazis, of course, took matters into their own hands, starting their own record labels and stores and other channels of distribution. This is where tactics in the modern day, such as cutting off PayPal accounts, come in useful, because you can't sell records online if you have no way of processing payments.
When a huge white-power festival was organized in the early '90s, it was killed after both activists and law-enforcement put massive pressure on the venue to cancel the bands. Whenever a white-power gig was advertised, protesters were there to shut it down, and the organizers were forced to go underground. But events that are hidden from anti-racist activists also means that they're harder for other Nazis to find. Gig sizes shrank, not only limiting the physical presence of neo-Nazis in any one area, but reducing their ability to attract new recruits.
In one example, a gig was scheduled in a secret location, and attendees were given instructions to show up at redirection point (Waterloo Station), where a representative was standing by to give directions to the venue. Protesters found out about the meeting place and from there, it probably wasn't too hard to figure out who the rep was. He was promptly arrested, and then all of the would-be concert-goers were left without any ability to find the venue.
In addition to limiting the organizational power of white-power groups, this was all extremely embarrassing for the leadership that was trying to keep the scene going. These embarrassing failures contributed to in-fighting and power struggles which further splintered organizational ability and outreach. (And we've seen that within the alt-right this past year, haven't we?) By no means have white-power groups in the UK died out, and racism, of course, is not solved. However, after these massive failures in the early to mid '90s, the size of the white-power music scene in Britain, Dyck notes, has been both reduced and stunted. She writes that observers say gigs seem to be more like nostalgia meetups for aging neo-Nazis, with a notable absence of fresh blood.
There are new political (as opposed to musical) nationalist groups, and the old skinhead scene has had plenty of international influence that continues to this day. However, as we can see, the direct intervention of activists to limit the physical presence of white-power music, by preventing concerts and preventing the recording and distribution of their albums, had a real impact on the size and influence of the scene.
So don't let anyone tell you to stay home and not "waste" your time with counter-protests. We outnumber our enemy, and when we show up, we can keep them under rocks where they belong. (Just don't throw malotov cocktails into venues. Please.)
I just picked up a book again that I started reading earlier this year, called Reichsrock. Kirsten Dyck published it last year, stemming from her dissertation research. Basically, it is a history and map of "the international web of white-power and neo-Nazi hate music." In each chapter, she provides an overview of the history and current state of the white-power music scenes in several regions, beginning with the UK. Surprisingly, this book is the first of its kind, as far as I know, and it's an immensely useful reference.
As I've mentioned, my own dissertation is on medievalist popular music, and unfortunately, one manifestation of medievalism in pop arises through the growth of nationalist movements in a given area. One chapter that I hope to include, if the project does not prove too immense to be limited to a single chapter (some things you just can't narrow down to that extent), is how medievalist elements are used to express nationalism.
Dyck cites a review of a particular NSBM (National Socialist Black Metal) album on the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront, which says, "I've always thought that traditional folk music and black metal fit together like bread and butter" (p. 90). This is intriguing because in so many ways, metal and folk are antithetical. My favorite explanation of this is from Metalocalypse, a show about a deathmetal band that's a loving parody of all things metal. In this episode, the band has accidentally awakened a troll through metal:
(The following scene demonstrates the ridiculousness of acoustic heavy metal, as the band rehearses on lutes.)
So why are there so many folk-metal groups now? It's a pretty interesting juxtaposition. By no means are all folk-metal bands nationalist or neo-Nazi, but it certainly is a recurring theme. Referring to another Stormfront review, Dyck writes, "Significantly, this listener is responding not only to...neo-Nazi themed lyrics, but also to the way the band references the sound of Third Reich-era military marches in their music, making it clear that many white-power music fans consume white-power music...for important aspects of the non-verbal racist symbolism that white-power musicians employ" (p.90). I'm trying to identify some of those musical symbols that lie beyond the more obvious national anthem-type sounds.
Anyway, my reason for starting this post—her chapter on British white-power bands is well worth a read just for seeing strategies in combating neo-Nazis. Over the course of the '80s, Nazi skinheads became a huge force in the UK, pressing local communities to deal with the problem head on. Most of what happened was pre-WWW, so perhaps it was somewhat easier then to control information, but the tactics of activists successfully quelled the nazi-skinhead movement and can hopefully serve as inspiration in the present.
To begin, mainstream record labels and record stores stopped selling records tied to Nazi skinheads. Venues stopped booking bands because they attracted large protests, and these protests, unfortunately, often resulted in violent clashes. Apart from concerns about community safety or losing money, venues were sometimes straight up destroyed after booking white-power bands. The Hambrough Tavern was burned to the ground.
The Nazis, of course, took matters into their own hands, starting their own record labels and stores and other channels of distribution. This is where tactics in the modern day, such as cutting off PayPal accounts, come in useful, because you can't sell records online if you have no way of processing payments.
When a huge white-power festival was organized in the early '90s, it was killed after both activists and law-enforcement put massive pressure on the venue to cancel the bands. Whenever a white-power gig was advertised, protesters were there to shut it down, and the organizers were forced to go underground. But events that are hidden from anti-racist activists also means that they're harder for other Nazis to find. Gig sizes shrank, not only limiting the physical presence of neo-Nazis in any one area, but reducing their ability to attract new recruits.
In one example, a gig was scheduled in a secret location, and attendees were given instructions to show up at redirection point (Waterloo Station), where a representative was standing by to give directions to the venue. Protesters found out about the meeting place and from there, it probably wasn't too hard to figure out who the rep was. He was promptly arrested, and then all of the would-be concert-goers were left without any ability to find the venue.
In addition to limiting the organizational power of white-power groups, this was all extremely embarrassing for the leadership that was trying to keep the scene going. These embarrassing failures contributed to in-fighting and power struggles which further splintered organizational ability and outreach. (And we've seen that within the alt-right this past year, haven't we?) By no means have white-power groups in the UK died out, and racism, of course, is not solved. However, after these massive failures in the early to mid '90s, the size of the white-power music scene in Britain, Dyck notes, has been both reduced and stunted. She writes that observers say gigs seem to be more like nostalgia meetups for aging neo-Nazis, with a notable absence of fresh blood.
There are new political (as opposed to musical) nationalist groups, and the old skinhead scene has had plenty of international influence that continues to this day. However, as we can see, the direct intervention of activists to limit the physical presence of white-power music, by preventing concerts and preventing the recording and distribution of their albums, had a real impact on the size and influence of the scene.
So don't let anyone tell you to stay home and not "waste" your time with counter-protests. We outnumber our enemy, and when we show up, we can keep them under rocks where they belong. (Just don't throw malotov cocktails into venues. Please.)
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