Learning from Europe: How Our Nationalist Movement Can Enter the 21st Century

The infighting and failures of most American White nationalist groups makes our movement look like this

Written by American White Nationalist, Matthew Heimbach - Reblogged from TradYouth.

I just returned home from spending two weeks in Europe with comrades from Golden Dawn in Greece and the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) in Germany. Having the opportunity to stand with comrades in Europe at local meetings, rallies, and even a national Party congress has helped me better understand the European nationalist movement and how we can improve the movement here in America.

In order to be successful, we must understand that the American nationalist movement must evolve in terms of rhetoric, style, presentation, and more. It is time to model ourselves after our European brothers and sisters, adapting their successful strategies to our American context.

I had countless conversations with Party members of both the NPD and Golden Dawn ranging from young enthusiastic comrades to those who have been in the struggle for decades. Each person was able to give me a unique perspective on ways that our movement in America can tactically and optically adapt and improve to succeed in the contemporary political reality.

I have come to some conclusions which will not be popular with the “Old School Movement” but are necessary for our movement to finally begin to move forward after decades of treading water relative to our colleagues abroad. There are differences between our struggle and theirs which must be accounted for. But for the most part, it’s a straightforward matter of learning how to do a better job from people who are doing a better job.

The comrades in the Czech Worker’s Party who I had the pleasure of marching with last year in Brno are a small Party by Czech standards and yet in a nation with a population smaller than the New York City Metropolitan Area was able to mobilize more Party members on the street than I have ever seen at a protest or rally here in America.

So the question is, “What Changes Need to Be Made?” Something people have debated for decades in our movement and now, after being able to spend two trips to Europe with comrades from multiple countries, I think I have a few ideas.

Things That Must Go

1. Supremacism in any form
2. Petty Factionalism
3. Support of Capitalism
4. Violent Rhetoric
5. Acting fringe

Thing That Must Go #1: Supremacism in any form

The White Nationalist movement in America for decades hasn’t actually been a nationalist movement, it has been a hateful and supremacist movement. I personally disagree with this attitude and it actively alienates normal White Americans from our positions. There’s been a move to reframe the supremacism in dry academic language, and some disingenuous posturing against supremacism, but a neo-colonialist fixation on “greater” and “lesser” people remains.

A nationalist movement historically and today is based on love of ones culture, Identity, traditions, and ethnic extended family, not hatred of other groups simply because they are different. Frustration and resentment is natural, and there’s a thin line between love towards one’s own and prideful chauvinism. We must strive to avoid crossing that line.
Corneliu Codreanu, the founder of the Legion of Saint Michael the Archangel in Romania discussed how the Legion and thus all Romanian nationalism was based on a love of our ancestors, maintaining their traditions and building a moral and healthy future for our children.

“When we speak of the Romanian nation, we refer not only to the Romanians currently living on the same territory, with the same past and same future, the same habits, the same language, the same interests. When we speak of the Romanian nation we refer to all Romanians, dead or alive, who have lived on this land of ours from the beginnings of history and will live on it also in the future.”

This is the definition of a nation and thus a nationalist works to protect and fight for these noble concepts of Faith, family and folk. Never does nationalism fall into hatred. It is a worldview based exclusively on love, honor, and sacrifice.

White Supremacy is the racist grandpa of neo-colonialism, and it’s a distraction and detractor from the post-colonial yet pro-white dialectic we must arrive at. It desires for Whites to rule over and dominate other ethnic groups. This comes from many sides, but the ideological basis of using language that dehumanizes communities based on their ethnicity need to go.

Nationalists are not supremacists and in my mind, supremacists are not true nationalists. Positions found in literature like The Turner Diaries and other old movement rhetoric about dominating the world and destroying indigenous populations for the sake of White supremacy belong in the trash, not on your reading list. Fight for your people and your Patria, that is all.

Ideologies that dehumanize non-Europeans as “mud people,” “beasts of the field,” and such were wrong when they were concocted and they are wrong now. The struggle of Arabs to free themselves from Zionism or the battle of Latin American nations to battle against international finance controlling their economies are battles in the same war that Europeans are fighting. It’s difficult for many raised and steeped in the old colonial and neo-colonial mindsets to wrap their minds around, but our nationalist project is necessarily anti-colonial, against what the West has become.

An example can be found on the issue of Hispanic immigration into America. Hispanics are immigrating by the tens of millions into America primarily because of Western-backed destabilization of their nations’ economic and foreign policies during the Cold War and current Free Trade Agreements like NAFTA. They’ve destroyed the agricultural base for tens of millions of Mexicans and Latin Americans. The reason they are flooding north is because globalism and capitalism have destroyed their homelands and many of the leaders of these nations are in the pockets of international business and the banking elites, leaving many without options.

When political and economic stability return to areas, many immigrants self-deport to their nation of origin. If we fix the problem of global capitalism, the immigration crisis wouldn’t he happening. Hispanics shouldn’t hate Whites just as Whites shouldn’t hate Hispanics. It’s globalism causing the demographic and economic issues we are all facing. For too long the White Nationalist movement has been angry at the symptoms, not the root cause of our current plight.

The immigrants must go, but not because they’re somehow “bad” or “inferior.” They just don’t belong here.

All nationalists, regardless of ethnicity, should stand united against our common foes, the rootless international clique of globalists and bankers that wish to dominate all free peoples on the Earth. We man the same barricades against the same enemies, to attack other nationalists of different racial backgrounds is like shooting into the foxhole next to you instead of at the enemy who is charging your lines. It is all hands on deck for all free peoples of the world, it is time to start acting like it.

Thing That Must Go #2: Petty Factionalism

A social or political movement is like an army, you need to have commanders who direct the forces to make wise decisions on the field of battle. If every private in the trenches was able to form his own army and do whatever he wanted, a war effort would come grinding to a halt. A political movement needs to have a command structure that is formed around maintaining messaging, ideology, use of resources and organization.

For decades the White Nationalist movement has had more chiefs than we have indians in many respects. This factionalization is not new to either nationalists or the far Left. On the Left, you have Stalinists fighting with Trotskyists, who battle it out with anarchists of every different variety. Division keeps a movement weak, where unity leads to strength.

Historically every nationalist movement that has been successful has started with a diversity of movements that coalesced into a unified front. Now every year the movement spends likely hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless man hours on leafleting, propaganda videos, billboards and rallies yet this effort is diluted. There is no unified message for the public to grab onto, there is no unified messaging to build brand awareness in the mind of normal citizens.

There is no branding or content control to ensure that everything from spelling errors to cartoonish rhetoric are stopped before they see the light of day. Our efforts as a movement would be magnified under one banner, with one clear and concise message and under direction to ensure that our movements looks, acts and organizes like a real professional political movement.

There were dozens of small nationalist movements in Germany and Greece that have come together under the unified banner of the NPD and Golden Dawn while maintaining the values of the Party and that has allowed the movement to make dramatic gains for the cause of nationalism. This process can’t be forced, of course. The organization which becomes that central organization must constructively audition for the position, not destructively attack others. Coalescing takes time and work. But there should be a general effort towards unity.

We will need to of course make compromises and allow representation of a variety of groups on the Board of Directors of the umbrella Party. We must also ensure the Party is grounded on a firm ideological foundation that refuses to change based on whims of individuals. Success will be based around proper presentation, messaging, ideology, and other factors. A tent that is too wide will fall in on itself and that is why we cannot trade away our dearly held beliefs for the sake of mere numbers.

Thing That Must Go #3: Support for Capitalism

There are few things more evil in the modern age than capitalism. Working families are attacked by capitalism every single day of their lives and too many believe the phony rhetoric of the elite that we should follow and deify an ideology that puts profits ahead of people. Dr. Goebbels wrote of capitalism in 1932 that,

“The worker in a capitalist state—and that is his deepest misfortune—is no longer a living human being, a creator, a maker. He has become a machine. A number, a cog in the machine without sense or understanding. He is alienated from what he produces.”

This alienation plagues modern America and the West as a whole and it must be combated by an economic system that supports the best interests of working families and the nation as a whole.

The model that our Party needs to follow is best described by Gregor Strasser when he said, “We must take from the right nationalism without capitalism and from the left socialism without internationalism.” Capitalism and internationalism are the enemies of our movement and our people and must be dealt with accordingly.

Too many American nationalists are stuck in either being reactionary or living in the worldview of 1950s America during the Cold War in a “Capitalism vs Communism” struggle. In our modern age both capitalism and communism are servants of international finance and multinational corporations and both must die. Our movement cannot defend the ramparts of our enemy’s fortress and except to be successful. The capitalists have drafted the victims of capitalism to fight for it, and our Party must break the people from their gilded chains.

Capitalism is tied intricately with the merchant elite which works to disenfranchise and displace the European peoples. Capitalism turns human beings into commodities serving profits for corporations, instead of proud workers serving the interests of the people and of the nation. If we as nationalists are going to be able to free our people, we must also liberate our economy from the grips of the enemy.

To be true nationalists, we must have a worldview that puts the interests of the people, both physical and spiritual, ahead of any personal petty concerns. Every nationalist Party in Europe that I have met with are economic Third Positionists and this is the model that we should follow here in America.

Thing That Must Go #4: Violent Rhetoric

The rhetoric of much of the America movement is found in the failures of groups that have either disintegrated due to a lack of public support or from attacks by the State and Federal police agencies. There is a huge difference between believing in self defense and gun ownership, which I support, and working to either overthrow the United States government or attack non-Whites because of the color of their skin. Planning illegal activities is not just a good way to end up in prison or dead, it delegitimatizes the struggle for White Americans who are working legally and politically.

The principle of how unnecessary force and violent rhetoric undermining the interests and activities of the pro-White movement stretches back all the way to the Civil Rights battles of the 1960’s. This isn’t about pacifism, courage, radicalism, or passion. It’s about doing what’s best for our people and our struggle. And trust me, if carefully executed violence could achieve anything, it would have achieved something by now. There may well be a time for violence at some point in the future, but it’s definitely not now.

The battle against the forced integration of the South is said by many on both sides of the argument to have been lost with the tragic terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama. More and more White Americans on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line were beginning to see that the Federal governments push to forcibly integrate schools and communities at bayonet point was not a good thing, until of course the media was able to capitalize on the callous murder of four young Black girls and use it as a propaganda victory for the pro-integration forces.

Using force against innocent people is also the reason why Martin Luther King Jr. brought his protests to Selma Alabama in 1965. Prior to the marches in Selma, many Southern police departments would simply arrest the Black protesters and outside agitators for breaking local laws while treating them peacefully and with dignity. Martin Luther King Jr. knew he had to be able to use the media to shift public opinion in favor of his movement and peaceful police enforcing the rule of law was not going to give him that propaganda victory that he so desperately needed and craved.

In Selma, Sheriff Jim Clark was known for using police brutality against integration activists so Martin Luther King Jr. knew that he could provoke Sheriff Clark to overreact in front of the media and essentially force the public to side against the Southern people. When a peaceful march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge Sheriff Clark had his men, many of whom were not even police officers, charge into the crowd and beat men, women and children in front of the media.

At that point Alabama Governor George Wallace was gaining support across America for his stand against forced integration. But all of his political work and the work of tens of thousands of White Southerners was undone overnight by Sheriff Clark and his use of unnecessary violence because of the graphic images that were broadcast to tens of millions of Americans on the six o’clock news. If the movement against forced integration had remained peaceful and political it is likely that history might have ended up differently for not only the Southern people, but all Whites in America.

In the post-1960s White Nationalist movement, there has been a fascination with militia movements and an idea of fighting the United States government. These projects have failed one-by-one or have been destroyed as seen with the White Patriot Party that “declared war” on the US government. Historically, violence has only worked after the hearts and minds of the people had been won and only after peaceful avenues had been thoroughly discredited. That’s not our situation.

The work ahead of us will be hard and inglorious. It will involve countless hours of handing out leaflets, attending rallies, organizing soup kitchens, helping the poor, patiently networking, and mobilizing the workers. This is the work that real revolution comes from, not bombastic and short-sighted calls to violence. If violence would work in our situation, then Anders Breivik would have started a political revolution. Timothy McVeigh would have kickstarted a massive resistance against the Federal authorities.

Whether or not our problems can be solved at the ballet, we certainly can’t solve it with bullets.

The reality of many of these militia groups or organizations that talk about “Racial Holy War” are either made up of men who for whatever reason could never be real soldiers, play-actors, or government agents. Countless groups have been taken down by Federal informants due to the fact that members actively seek out to buy illegal weapons, commit terrorist acts, or have loose lips when it comes to saying things that cross the boundary from free speech to incitement for violence.

If you are organizing peacefully and politically, even if the government works to infiltrate you these informants will have nothing to report. The government will have no cause to dismantle your Party and your work can continue in working to mobilize our people to speak up for their best interests. The federal government’s trying to take you down. Don’t make their job easier by falling into their tiresome and predictable script.

Thing That Must Go #5: Acting Fringe

The White Nationalist movement has long fallen into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The media tells us that we are fringe angry outsiders and thus many groups and individuals turn themselves into actual Hollywood stereotypes and caricatures. The love of one’s people and culture is so rooted in human biology that even children as young as a few months old experience a closer affinity to those who look like them. Nationalism is literally in the blood, so there is no reason that is be considered on the fringe of our society, only an enemy media and our own missteps have led us to this place.

One of the major failures of our movement is believing in the myths that the media creates about our movement. A good example is how the media says that all National Socialists were frothing at the mouth wanting to hurt and kill Jews, homosexuals, non-Whites, and other groups of people. In reality, the mission of National Socialism was working to help men and women to become more moral, physically healthy and heroic in their defense and service for their nation, their God and their extended family.

When you confirm with your thoughts or actions that nationalism and socialism are about hatred, violence, and misanthropy, you’re clapping along with the enemy’s propaganda.

In the modern age if you describe yourself as a National Socialist, you should be focused entirely on mentoring young people, honoring your culture and folk traditions, settling down with a family to have children, and working politically for the preservation of your ethnicity. Nowhere in being a National Socialist should be race-based hatred of other groups, using racial slurs against non-Whites, or promoting lifestyles that degrade the physical and spiritual health of our nation.

Films like American History X, Romper Stomper, and countless Jerry Springer episodes and “documentaries” on the History Channel have put forward that nationalists are violent, hateful, and degenerate. If you want to be part of a “scene” then steer clear of constructive activist projects. If you want to be a nationalist, you must reject all of this and instead embrace a movement built on love, respect, sacrifice, and hard work. As G.K Chesteron said  “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” We are not cartoons, we are a culture with a noble history that we must live up to.

The movement is at a crossroads, we can continue to remain politically impotent and ostracized from the community we are working to save or we can professionalize, rally behind a strong Party, and begin moving towards engaging our society in a positive and productive way. My hope is that the leaders and members of various groups can come together under the banner of the Traditionalist Worker Party, with each leader and group represented. Together we take lessons from Europe and here at home to craft a Party that will truly become the voice of the American White working and middle class. The future belongs to us, but only if we seize these opportunities and march forward as a unified front.

(For more information on Matthew's visit to Greece, please see here for another related article).