On the Fence | School shooting points to global issue of hate groups

Ian Saxine Columnist

At a glance, the Red Lake High School killings are merely a depressing continuation of the school shooting trend in the United States. The most recent addition to the list of high school murderers, Jeff Weise, seems to fit the profile of the depressed teenager who inexplicably shot his grandfather, a teacher, and seven classmates—apparently selected at random—with a 12-gauge shotgun before taking his own life. He had displayed a persistent fascination with violence and death, even frequenting neo-Nazi websites and writing about his admiration for Hitler. Yet Red Lake High School was not in affluent Littleton, Colorado, but on the poor Ojibwa reservation in Minnesota. Jeff Weise, an Ojibwa worrying about the decline of Native Americans’ racial purity due to intermarriage, used the screen name NativeNazi to voice his concerns online. Neo-Nazi tinged hatred, it seems, is becoming more “accessible.” The long arm of racist extremism that touched Red Lake is not a domestic problem, but a global one.

For some time now, bigots in the United States who wanted to join a hate group have chosen from a variety of skinheads, Aryan nationalists, and neo-Nazis rather than the almost completely defunct Klan. Because America provides more free speech protection than anywhere else, the United States has become the host to a number of militant neo-Nazi organizations who enjoy more freedom here than they would in Europe. According to the Anti-Defamation League, neo-Nazis have been the primary source of domestic terrorism in the United States in the past 25 years.

One unexpected and disturbing wrinkle in the international neo-Nazi agenda of hate has been an increased willingness to cooperate with Militant Islamist movements. This is due to a shared hatred of America, democracy,and—above all—Jews. After Sept. 11, a number of neo-Nazi groups worldwide cheered for Al Qaeda. A prominent member of the National Alliance (America’s biggest Nazi party) said he wished his own followers had as much “testicular fortitude.” According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Islamists and neo-Nazi networks have been exchanging funds and moral support. Even as early as the 1950s, refugee Nazis and worldwide Fascist admirers were collaborating with Arab nationalists in projects like the translation into Arabic of the infamous anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which details a supposed Jewish plot to take over the world. The Protocols are quoted in Article 32 of the charter of the Palestinian terrorist group, Hamas. Neo-Nazis in Europe provided funding and other assistance to the militant Islamists who murdered nine Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Currently, links to Islamic terrorist websites are provided on several neo-Nazi sites. Iran’s Radio Tehran has given interviews on several occasions to the now dead William Pierce, one of the most prominent American Nazis of the 1990s. Neo-Nazis supported the Iranian fatwa against Salmon Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.

This collaboration after Sept. 11 has intensified with the growth of xenophobic, right-wing militant groups in Europe and the redoubling of Islamist terrorist efforts in the Middle East. Sharing a paranoid hatred of America and Israel, this unholy alliance between Islamists and neo-Nazis is an under-appreciated threat to peace both at home and abroad. The two movements have more in common than it seems. Neo-Nazis and Islamic militants share a paranoia fuelled by ignorance that is difficult to combat. The two movements also share a glorification of martial values and violence to achieve their goals. Both claim the title of the ideal “third way” between capitalism and communism.

It would be an improvement if mainstream Islam were half as critical of Hamas as mainstream Christianity is of pseudo-Christian hate groups. All too often, however, this is not the case. Racist extraordinaire David Duke has appeared on the front page of the newspaper Oman Times. In 2004, a conference was held in Canada called “Reviving the Islamic Spirit.” One of the guest speakers was neo-Nazi William Baker. The Mayor of Toronto gave the conference his tacit support by making an appearance. Baker has also been hosted by the Muslim Student Association at the University of Pennsylvania. Critics of this stunt were labeled “anti-Muslim.” A rabidly anti-Semitic 2003 speech by the President of Malaysia earned the applause of the skinhead community and most of the leaders of the Muslim world!

Even the most vocal (although still rational) critics of the Bush administration would never go so far as to suggest that the President was cooperating with neo-Nazis and their ilk. Without congratulating Bush on most of his foreign policy thus far, I will say that the state-sponsored hatred in places like Iran makes a policy of keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Ayatollah sound like a good idea. Bush’s hard-line stance against Iran acquiring nuclear weapons makes more sense when viewed in light of the above information.

Some people will undoubtedly suggest that merely discussing the Nazi-Islamist links is somehow “anti-Muslim.” That is the sort of thinking that can open the door to legitimacy of dangerous hate groups. To denounce certain Palestinian groups for openly spouting anti-Semitic nonsense and cooperating with white supremacists is not to defame Islam, but to be against hatred in general. To defend hatred by cloaking it in religion—any religion—is an insult to whatever faith is being used. The realization that the fringe movements in the United States share goals with other nations was a sobering one indeed. Any realistic appraisal of America’s foreign policy must take into account the amount of irrational hatred that is infused into the governments—and therefore their press—in certain Muslim nations. Bigotry and violence go hand in hand at home and abroad, and should thus be given the same treatment, education, information, and firmness.

The events at Red Lake High School serve as a stark reminder that race hatred is still a powerful force in the world today, and even as America faces state-sanctioned hate abroad, it would be well advised to take note of its own messy backyard.