(en)[excerpts] The Internet Anti-Fascist, Fri 14 May 99 -- 3:36/37 (#264-265)
Paul Kneisel
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
http://www.ainfos.ca/
________________________________________________
ANTI-FASCIST ACTION ALERT #79: PROTEST DEPORTATIONS TO TURKEY
Committee Against Disappearances and Torture
"Yesterday, May 10, 1999, at around 11:00 a.m., two plain clothed and
four uniformed policemen raided the Turkish Speaking People's Cultural
Centre, on 84 Balls Pond Rd. of London and arrested two of our friends.
The reason for the arrests were that our friends were staying in the UK
without a valid permit. In fact the aim of the British Police is
different than that. The police offered them to co-operate with police
and be an informer. If they would agree to co-operate, they have been
promised to receive any legal help from the police and the necessary
permit of stay would be supplied. Otherwise, they have said that they
would be sent to Turkey. The following lines are what exactly the
police have told them: 'Do you know what had happened to Meryem Altun
who went to Turkey? They would also send you to be killed there but we
saved your life' .... "
<ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/publish/afaa/afaa79.txt>
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THE HIGH PRICE OF IGNORING TEEN-AGE FASCISTS
Guerry Hoddersen (Seattle United Front Against Fascism) 30 Apr 99
On the 110th anniversary of Hitler’s birthday, twelve Littleton,
Colorado high-school students and one teacher died in a hail of
automatic gunfire and shrapnel from homemade bombs. Their executioners
were their classmates and neighbors, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris.
Within hours of the shooting, the national media descended on
Littleton, a suburb of Denver, and attempted to answer the question:
how did this tragedy happen? An evolving portrait of the killers
emerged on TV and in newspapers over the next two weeks.
At first, they were described as intelligent, hardworking, relatively
law-abiding computer nerds. Soon a more sinister picture emerged. The
boys were "misfits," leaders of a Trenchcoat Mafia that listened to
German rock music and hated jocks and people of color. They wore
clothes with Nazi insignia. They made death threats to other students.
Klebold kept a diary filled with racist, anti-Semitic and Nazi
references. And they singled out Isaiah Shoels, an African American
athlete, and shot him in the face during their murderous rampage at the
school. They also picked out Kyle Velasquez for execution.
TV commentators urged the public to listen to their children and to
learn how to recognize the warning signs of psychiatric illnesses in
teenagers. President Clinton and Ceasefire renewed their calls for gun
control. Preachers exhorted parents to "take responsibility" for their
families. School administrators considered outlawing trenchcoats.
Lost in the rush for quick fixes is the realization that the teenaged
killers in Littleton, Colorado had a *political* illness, not a
psychiatric one. They were adolescent fascists, set on the path to
destruction by a well-funded international *adult* movement.
Their rampage is not the first of its kind. In 1980, a youth named
Gundolf Kohler walked into an Oktoberfest beer garden in Munich and
detonated a bomb that killed dozens of people and injured more than
200.
Kohler was a member of the Hoffman Militia, a German version of the
survivalist militias in the U.S.
In 1992, two young Nazi skinheads firebombed the home of a Turkish
family in Molin, Germany. Two children and their grandmother died in
the blaze. The youthful killers in this case had been in contact with
an American neo-Nazi group.
After the Molin deaths, Ingo Hasselbach, a former Nazi recruiter in
eastern Germany, renounced white supremacism. He wrote in the New York
Times (April 26,1995) "...extremist groups in America and Europe create
a climate through printed propaganda and computer networks that
encourage young people who might be antisocial to go over the edge and
commit violent acts...The rightwing... movement is a loose network of
people with a great deal of hatred and potential for violence, and all
over the world they are constantly exchanging information.
Indoctrination is a slow, careful process, in which leaders like I used
to be incite newcomers step-by-step."
Klebold and Harris must be seen in a larger social framework than that
provided by their family histories, school problems or wardrobe
preferences. They were the ideal cannon fodder for grown-up Nazis.
Scapegoated and abused at their high school, they looked, consciously
or unconsciously, for an ideology that put them on top, that gave them
power. And they found it in neo-Nazi German rock music and the ideology
of white supremacy. Klebold, whose great-grandfather was Jewish,
separated himself from this heritage in his embittered need to be
superior to someone.
These are not the first politically motivated murders in Colorado. In
1984, Alan Berg, a Jewish talk-show host, was gunned down outside his
home by members of The Order of the Silent Brotherhood, an Aryan
Nations offshoot. In 1997, over a one-week period, racist Denver
skinheads executed an African immigrant at a bus stop, shot and
paralyzed a nurse who came to his aid; and also ambushed and killed a
policeman.
Among the far-right groups and spokespeople who call Colorado home are:
* The Coors family which bankrolls National Empowerment Television
whose director William Lind has noted "...if we are going to rescue our
culture, we need a lot more hate."
* Focus on the Family, which played a major role in the passage of
anti-gay Amendment 2.
* The Posse Comitatus whose members were arrested in 1982 for
conspiring to kill two federal judges and to blow-up the IRS building
in Denver.
* Pete Peters, a Christian Identity radio preacher, who is
credited with launching the U.S. militia movement in the ‘90s.
These political influences provide the backdrop for the Columbine
killings. While the adult leaders of some of these groups generally
limit their hatemongering to words, young people are more likely to use
fists, knives, guns, Doc Marten boots, and bombs.
The prescription for the political illness of fascism is education and
community mobilization against the Hitlerites and in support of all
those targeted by them.
Teachers, school administrators, students and parents need to recognize
and talk frankly about the dangers posed by fascist organizers in their
midst or on the internet. When youth come to school in swastika-
emblazoned clothes, the response should be teach-ins and school
assemblies on what Nazism means and why the whole student body has an
interest in taking a stand against racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-
Semitism, anti-communism, and ultra-nationalism.
White supremacist recruiters and Nazi bands should be met by community
protests and rallies. United Front Against Fascism, a Seattle-based
coalition of unionists, feminists, people of color, Jews, gays and
radicals, has picketed numerous white supremacist events over the last
10 years. Most recently, KKK recruiters in Auburn were exposed and
Michael Moynihan's Nazi rockers in Blood Axis were forced to cancel
Seattle and European appearances because of UFAF publicity and
protests.
In order to prevent future massacres here or abroad, let us honor the
dead at Littleton with a growing determination to combat the fascists
who are trying to recruit our children.
* * * * *
Hoddersen is co-founder of Seattle’s United Front Against Fascism and
an analyst of modern fascist movements in the United States and Europe.
She can be reached via <hjn...@juno.com>
It’s fine to reproduce this article with credit given to the United
Front Against Fascism, 5018 Rainier Ave. S., Seattle WA 98118.
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AN APPEAL FROM AMERICAN JEWS TO THE GREEN PARTY OF GERMANY
We are Jewish Americans who are deeply concerned that the memory and
tragedy of the Holocaust is being invoked in order to justify an unjust
bombing campaign against the civilian population of Yugoslavia. Many of
us have friends who lost family members in the Holocaust, or have lost
relatives ourselves. We are deeply aware of our own history and the
need for the world community to intervene in situations where there is
a threat of genocide, in order to prevent it. However, this is clearly
not what is happening in Yugoslavia today.
We do not believe that our government's war against Yugoslavia is
motivated by humanitarian concerns. This is evidenced by their refusal
to airlift food and water to desperate refugees within Kosovo, as well
as the paltry sums allocated for refugee relief as compared to the
billions of dollars spent on the bombing. The Clinton Administration's
great reluctance to pursue a negotiated solution to the conflict also
indicates that this intervention is mainly about power: showing the
world that the United States (and NATO, which it largely controls) is
the self- appointed international policeman, and stands above
international law and the United Nations. They are waging their war
against civilians, destroying the Yugoslav economy and killing hundreds
of innocent people, in order to demonstrate and consolidate their
power.
Many supporters of the bombing have drawn analogies to the Holocaust,
arguing that the world cannot simply stand by in the face of ethnic
cleansing in Kosovo. But the bombing has greatly worsened the situation
of the Kosovar Albanians, as is now universally recognized. It has also
destroyed the pro-democracy movement within Yugoslavia, and is
destabilizing neighboring countries.
We urge you to reject these false and exaggerated analogies to the
Holocaust and World War II, which are being used to garner support for
a bombing campaign that is intensifying the suffering of all
nationalities in Yugoslavia. We appeal to the Green Party of Germany to
oppose this war, and to support a negotiated solution of the conflict.
(Organizations listed for identification only).
[partial list of signers -- tallpaul]
Noam Chomsky
Institute Professor of Linguistics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Edward S. Herman
Professor Emeritus, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Robert Weissman
Editor, Multinational Monitor
Michael Albert
Z Magazine/Znet
Michael Brün
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Mark Weisbrot
Research Director, Preamble Center
Dean Baker
Senior Research Fellow, Preamble Center
Robert Naiman
Research Associate, Preamble Center
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MASTERS DEGREE IN HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES
Four exciting graduate courses are being offered this summer at the
Richard Stockton College of New Jersey as part of the Master of Arts in
Holocaust and Genocide Studies Program.
Session I - Professor Murray Kohn
Jewish History and Culture in Eastern Europe
May 18 - June 17 (5 Weeks)
Tuesday - Thursday 5-9 P.M.
Session II - Professor Franklin H. Littell
Literature of the Holocaust: A Biographic Approach
June 22 - July 1 9:00 A.M. - 4:00 P.M.
Session III - Professor Henry Huttenbach
The Holocaust and Comtemporary Genocides
July 6 - July 15 9:00 A.M. - 4:00 P.M.
Session IV - Professor Paul Lyons
The Holocaust and the American Experience
July 27 - August 26 (5 Weeks)
Tuesday - Thursday 5-9
A number of fellowships are available for qualified students. Housing
is also a
vailable for out-of-state students.
For additional information contact:
Dr. Marcia Sachs Littell, Director
The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
Post Office Box 195
Pomona, N.J. 08240-0195
Telephone 609/652-4418 E-mail litt...@stockton.edu
- - - - -
ONLINE COURSE: TEACHING THE HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE
California State University, Chico is offering an online course for
teachers on TEACHING THE HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE, CMST/SOCI 256-11s 3
UNITS (This course may be taken for graduate credit).
Students will study six major genocides from the 20th century including
the Holocaust/Shoah, the Soviet mass murders under Stalin, the Armenian
Genocide, the Cambodian killing fields, and the recent slaughter in
Rwanda and Yugoslavia. Not only have the Holocaust, genocide in Rwanda
and the ethnic war in Kosovo been in the news, but also the study of
these events has been mandated as part of the educational curriculum in
the state of California and other states. This seminar is designed to
help teachers prepare curricular materials and assist them in dealing
with these topics in the classroom. For a sample syllabus go to:
<http://www.csuchico.edu/mjis/>
This course will be offered online using Web-based documentation and
lectures via streaming video. Students will need access to a high-
speed computer, the Internet and have the RealPlayer application
loaded.
Dates: June 14 - July 1
Course #: CMST 256-11s, 3 units
Professor: S. Edelman
Fees: $360
To enroll please call CSU, Chico Continuing Education at 530-898-6105
or visit
<http://rce.csuchico.edu/registration>
- - - - -
WRITER's CALL
Issue Devoted to Native American Women's Literature & Art
Send submissions to:
Elizabeth McNeil, Guest Editor, FEMSPEC
Department of English
Arizona State University
Box 870302
Tempe, Arizona 85287-0302
mcn...@asu.edu
(480) 965-5303; FAX: (480) 965-3451
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NEW E-MAIL ADDRESSES FOR ANTIFASCISTISK AKTION-SWEDEN
During recent months, AntiFascistisk Aktion-Sweden has had many
discussions concerning our security on the Internet. The result of
these discussions is now being put into practice with the application
of similar e-mail addresses on the Swedish extra-parliamentary web-
hotel <www.motkraft.net>. The word motkraft means counter-power in
Swedish.
These new addresses will act as a type of guarantee for those
individuals and groups that want to contact AntiFascistisk Aktion. You
can be assured that an AFA address that ends with @motkraft.net is
indeed an AFA address.
The new e-mail addresses are the following:
afago...@motkraft.net
afahelsingborgmotkraft.net
afajon...@motkraft.net
afal...@motkraft.net
afanor...@motkraft.net
afasto...@motkraft.net
afaost...@motkraft.net
In addition, we have a common web site at <www.motkraft.net/afa>. Only
the web sites that are accessible from this page are guaranteed to
belong to groups within the network AntiFascistisk Aktion-Sweden.
During the coming weeks, we imagine that the remaining groups within
the Swedish network will establish similar e-post addresses at
motkraft.
We look forward to a continued international co-operation and
solidarity.
AntiFascistisk Aktion-Sverige
Countrywide meeting in April 1999
PS: In connection with this change of e-mail address AFA-Stockholm has
taken the opportunity to change it's PGP key as well. Please make a
note of our two new keys.
The following groups are active within the network AntiFascistisk
Aktion-Sverige:
AFA Borås, post via Göteborg, <afa...@usa.net>
AFA Dalarna, post via Stockholm, <afada...@hotmail.com>
AFA Göteborg, Box 881 Kustroddaregatan, 414 51 Göteborg, (0739) 757226,
<afago...@motkraft.net> <http://www.motkraft.net/afa>
AFA Halmstad, Box 399, 391 09 Halmstad, <afa_ha...@hotmail.com>
<http://www.motkraft.net/afa>
AFA Haninge, post via Stockholm
AFA Helsingborg, post via AFA Malmö, <afahels...@motkraft.net>
AFA Jönköping, c/o L.G., Box 3015, 550 03 Jönköping, (0740) 544942,
<afajon...@motkraft.net>
AFA Laholm, post via AFA Halmstad, <afal...@motkraft.net>
<http://www.motkraft.net/afa>
AFA Linköping, post via Stockholm
AFA Lund, post via Malmö, <afa_...@hotmail.com>
<http://www.motkraft.net/afa>
AFA Malmö, Box 17597, 200 10 Malmö, <malm...@hotmail.com>
AFA Norrköping, post via Stockholm <afanor...@motkraft.net>
AFA Nässjö, Box 252, 571 23 Nässjö, <afa.n...@mailcity.com>
<http://www.motkraft.net/afa>
AFA Norrtälje, post via Stockholm, <afanor...@hotmail.com>
AFA Partille, post via Göteborg
AFA Stockholm, Box 381 96, 100 64 Stockholm, (070)-5665135,
<afasto...@motkraft.net> <http://www.motkraft.net/afa>
AFA Trollhättan, post via Göteborg
AFA Östersund, Box 7070, 831 07 Östersund, <afaost...@motkraft.net>
-- AntiFascistisk Aktion-Stockholm
Box 38196
100 64 Stockholm
Sweden
+46-([0]70)-566 5135
PG 4849894-3
afasto...@motkraft.net
<http://www.motkraft.net/afa>
Mot sexism, rasism, kapitalism och homofobi.
- - - - -
afa-stockholm has produced a limited quantity of round enamel metal
pins (19 mm with "safety-locks") as well as embroidered patches (75
mm) with afa's "two flags" logtype. The flag in the foreground is
black and the one in the background is red. the text reads
"antifastisk aktion".
the patches and pins cost (outside of scandinavia) 30 SEK, or one patch
and one pin for 50 SEK. for orders outside of scandinavia it is proably
easiest to just send cash to afa-stockholms post box. otherwise you can
deposit the appropriate amount into afa-stockholms swedish post giro
account.
if you would like to order a larger amount please contact afa-stockholm
for a wholesale price quote.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT'S WORTH CHECKING
stories via <ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/publish/story4/>
Irish Republican Socialist Party (press release), "Rosemary Nelson
Memorial Protest Campaign web site," 29 Mar 99, "Today the Rosemary
Nelson Memorial Protest Campaign launched a web site (www.free-
eire.org/nelson.html) and petition drive, in support of international
calls for the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) to be removed from the
investigation of the murder of the defence attorney and human rights
advocate. Mrs. Nelson, 40, was killed on March 15, 1999 when a bomb
exploded beneath her car. A loyalist paramilitary organisation, the Red
Hand Defenders, has claimed responsibility for her murder."
<story910.txt>
Thomas Leavitt (CEO, NextShift, Inc.), "More on 'banning hate on the
Internet'," 25 Mar 99, "DeClan [moderator of PolicyTech list], As
owner/operator of a web site hosting service since 1994, and a
proponent of free speech etc., here is my opinion:" <911.txt>
Dennis McCafferty (USA Weekend), "Hate on the Web: Is it free speech?
Or does it incite violence?," 28 Mar 99, "Think of the World Wide Web
as a visit to the greatest convention of the 1990s. Over in the corner,
a crowd of attendees clip on badges bearing names like Amazon and eBay
and brag that they're turning shopping malls into dinosaurs. On the
floor, vendors stand at booths hawking wares that represent a decade's
worth of buzzwords: cyberschools, intranets, e-trade, e-tail."
<912.txt>
European Roma Rights Center (press release), "Letter to Acting General
Prosecutor of Macedonia Mr Vladimir Smickovski," 29 Mar 99, "The
European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), an international public interest
law organisation which monitors the rights of Roma and provides legal
defence in cases of human rights abuse, is alarmed about reports of two
recent instances of police retaliation against Roma in the central
Macedonian town of Stip." <story913.txt>
Jessica McBride and Colleen Krantz (Journal Sentinel), "2nd fire set at
women's centers in a week," 2 Apr 99, "For the second time in less than
a week an area women's health center has been the target of a small,
deliberately set fire, police said Thursday. Early Thursday someone
tossed combustible materials, including an artificial fireplace log,
through a window of Waukesha Planned Parenthood...." <story914.txt>
Amnesty International (press release), "Cambodia: Time to judge past
atrocities," 8 Mar 99, "PHNOM PENH -- Following the arrest on 6 March
of Ta Mok, a senior member of the Khmer Rouge, Amnesty International
today called on the Cambodian authorities to join the international
community in establishing an international court to bring to justice
all those implicated in the mass violations of human rights while the
Khmer Rouge were in power -- or to surrender them to the courts of
other states able and willing to conduct fair trials." <915.txt>
Daphne Merkin (New York Times), "Meditations on the Unthinkable: An
Australian anthropologist challenges traditional views on the horrors
of the Holocaust," 11 Apr 99, READING THE HOLOCAUST, By Inga
Clendinnen, Illustrated. 227 pp. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Cloth, $49.95. Paper, $14.95. "Is silence, as the German philosopher
Theodor Adorno thought, the ideal response to the lurid, desolate
history of the Nazis? Adorno's famous remark continues to be cited,
even as the mountain of testimonial literature grows, not least because
of its remorseless conviction: "After the Holocaust there can be no
poetry." We know what he means, of course; in the wake of such mind-
numbing atrocity, there can be only linguistic diffidence, an exhausted
heap of words. Perhaps it's a sign of human resilience, or of something
less elevated -- a kind of compulsive gabbiness -- that there has in
fact been a great deal of poetry after the Holocaust, and even more
fiction, not to mention movies and drama. Sometimes it seems as though
every survivor has a story to tell, even those who are not particularly
skilled in the art of telling it, while others, who are too young to
have survived, often try to imagine themselves into the horror. More
than 50 years after the end of World War II, there has been so much
written and depicted about the subject that one might go so far as to
argue that no one's afraid of the Holocaust. Indeed, the problem has
gradually mutated from how best to respond to the experience of
genocide -- whether at the stark periphery, or the hellish center of
the concentration camps -- to how best to respond to the response. Much
of the time, I think, guilt piles on guilt, for what is often felt, if
rarely articulated, is that with the exception of those who come upon
the historical facts anew, our receptors for outrage have been dulled.
Even when it comes to the revelations of catastrophe, it seems, it's
possible to reach a saturation point. "Not another book about the
Holocaust!" a woman whose family fled Hitler said to me when I told her
what I was reading." <916>
Yumi Wilson (San Francisco Chronicle Staff), "Archdiocese Protests
Easter Street Party: 'Sisters' got approval to close Castro Street," 17
Mar 99, "The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are hoping to take over a
block of Castro Street on Easter Sunday to celebrate their 20th
anniversary -- but not if San Francisco's Roman Catholic Archdiocese
has anything to say about it. Maurice Healy, spokesman for the
archdiocese, said allowing a group that "mocks the Catholic Church" to
close a public street on the holiest day of the Christian year is just
as reprehensible as 'allowing a group of neo-Nazis to close a city street
for a celebration on the Jewish Feast of Passover'." <story917.txt>
<snip>
Mary Jacoby (St. Petersburg Times), "Lawmaker grabs spotlight to attack
racist fringe: At the news conference, a split in the extreme right
wing is visible," 19 Mar 99, "The recently notorious Council of
Conservative Citizens was the subject of a news conference outside the
U.S. Capitol on Thursday, and the event to condemn the group's white
supremacist beliefs drew a large crowd. On an usually warm late winter
day, journalists and other spectators basked in the sun as a parade of
mostly black and Jewish Democrats -- and two moderate Republicans --
came before the microphones to excoriate the organization and its ties
to prominent Republicans. <story919.txt>
* * * * *
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research
and educational purposes only.
______________________________________________________________________
FASCISM:
We have no ethical right to forgive, no historical right to forget.
(No permission required for noncommercial reproduction)
- - - - -
back issues archived via:
<ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/publish/tinaf/>
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