There goes the neighborhood

Friday I posted (bit actually wrote on March 5, 2021) about the minor brouhaha over the stage design of the 2021 CPAC.  Seems it was basically the Odal rune (ᛟ), a symbol used by a variety of SS units and subsequently a number of white supremacist groups.  Intentional or not, the appearance of a symbol favored by Nazis is sadly appropriate for an event in which Trump is the star of the show.  We'll get back to the Odal.

This morning I read in WaPo about a bit of a kerfuffle in Linden, NC.  Apparently, the Parkers Grove United Methodist Church, strapped for cash, sold their church building last year.  They are now mortified that the buyer is a Neo-Pagan group called the Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA).

The AFA has been called a "hate group" and a "white supremacist group".  I don't know to what degree they are hateful, but they are certainly all for separation of the races.  They claim to support any ethnic group which strives to develop their people in matters both of the spirit and the world, and for all I know, they do.  But it's hard to read their views and feel a benign vibe.

Their Declaration of Purpose is clear about their agenda (from Pt. II "The preservation of the Ethnic European Folk and their continued evolution"):

If the Ethnic European Folk cease to exist Asatru would likewise no longer exist. Let us be clear: by Ethnic European Folk we mean white people....All native religions spring from the unique collective soul of a particular race. Religions are not arbitrary or accidental; body, mind and spirit are all shaped by the evolutionary history of the group and are thus interrelated. Asatru is not just what we believe, it is what we are. Therefore, the survival and welfare of the Ethnic European Folk as a cultural and biological group is a religious imperative for the AFA. (Boldface added)

So, that's pretty clear; they want to preserve and advance the spiritual and material welfare of white people.  I also emphasized a second sentence to show that they conflate their spiritual identity with their ethnic identity.  They reject Christianity one supposes not so much for its theology and teachings, but because it is alien; it is the spirituality of another race.

Pt. 4 of their Statement of Ethics ("The Family Principle") reiterates this concern for white people:

We in Asatru support strong, healthy white family relationships. We want our children to grow up to be mothers and fathers to white children of their own. We believe that those activities and behaviors supportive of the white family should be encouraged while those activities and behaviors destructive of the white family are to be discouraged.

Miscegenation, it would appear, isn't one of their favorite things.  Clearly for Asatru, white people should marry white people and have white children.  This concern for "keeping the numbers high" is a pretty common anguish among the alt-right, and there's a lot of hand-wringing over declining birth rates among whites in Europe versus the much higher birthrates among immigrants from Africa, the Maghreb, and Asia. Changing demographics terrify these people.

Asatru's ultimate concern for having kids is quite simply a reflection of the alt-right's obsession with maintaining a white majority in Europe and the USA.  Or a least making sure there are enough white people to maintain the machine with white people at the helm.  Having kids is about maintaining the privilege of being in the dominant group.  The US today is one of de facto white supremacy in its political and financial institutions and its assumptions of white cultural and moral superiority.  Why?  How do we know we are superior?

Because Gott Mit Uns - God with us - or so it says on the Wehrmacht belt buckle sitting on the table next to me.  Because In God We Trust, and God Bless America and God is my co-Pilot. Groups in power have always sought to justify their actions by linking themselves with the gods, or to God.  Manifest Destiny.  This hasn't gone particularly well for Africans and Native Americans.

Enter again the Odal rune.  

Continuing my visit to the AFA website, runestone.org, I clicked onto the "Kindreds" page (the Kindreds are local groups affiliated with the AFA). What immediately caught my eye was a picture of Kindreds Coordinator Jason Gallagher.  He sports a prominent Odal rune pendant. Continuing through the page, one can also see that least 5 flags of regional Kindreds also feature the Odal rune:  Wisconsin, British Columbia, Minnesota, Colorado....

Detail from the Vedrfolnir Clan flag; Wisconsin

But so what? The runes themselves aren't inherently evil.  Heck, even the swastika was a universal symbol of all things good until the Nazis turned it on an angle and ruined it perhaps forever.  One can't tar the entire Neo-Pagan world, and one can't even tar the Odinist and Teutonic groups with the racist brush due to others.  True, there have been a lot of overtly racist groups within these spheres, long a source of frustration for those groups who aren't.  Unfortunately one can't say this about the AFA.  Their mission statement is unambiguous, as is their whites only policy

As much as anything is logical regarding white supremacy, rejecting Christianity in favor of Norse mythology makes sense.  Christianity is a Romanized Mystery religion born from a non-white Semitic people.  But through an impressive feat of mental gymnastics, the spiritual racist can turn to a Christian identity-based congregation.  These churches racialize Christianity, and make Europeans the true Israelites and descendants of Abraham, Isaac, et. al., whereas the Jews are the cursed offspring of Cain.  They are openly white supremacist.  Yet despite the symbolism, we'd never mistake such a group as an accurate representation of Christianity as a whole.  The same would go for Neo-Paganism.  The racist spirituality of the AFA shouldn't be taken to represent any kind of other pagan group, whether they venerate Norse, Celtic, or Germanic gods.  Heck, neo-Pagans have it tough enough already; being branded as Satanists is bad enough.  Racists too?

One local reverend said local residents are disturbed by the group’s white supremacist beliefs. “But at the same time, it’s safe to say they may be either as concerned or possibly more concerned about the group’s pagan beliefs,” he said.  At least one African-American resident interviewed seemed nonplussed about the group's white supremacy and in fact, doesn't associate with non-Christians anyway.

I don't think this incident in any way sheds light on the CPAC / Odal "controversy," but it is a nifty example of how a frequency phenomenon begins. Go through life never having heard of an Odal, and it comes up twice in 2 days, an interesting billboard along the trail beginning with the CPAC conference and ending passing the Asatru "whites-only" church. 

It seems that every day I see a headline about the threat posed to American security by white supremacist and other far-right groups.  The risk of terrorism from a white "identitarian" is as likely if not more likely than from a Jihadist, so they say.

I'd say it's worth shedding a bit of light on this area of the American demographic.  The extreme fringes of the right and the alt-right are not some monolithic group, but a spectrum of groups with a varying degrees of radical beliefs.  The Tea Party movement is a part of it, moving through Oath Keepers and Proud Boys and more extreme and overtly racist groups. Charlottesville, the the tiki torches reminiscent of Nazi night parades, the chanting, the fisticuffs:  You will not replace us!  Who's "you?" And who's "us?"  "Make America Great Again!"

25/02  Found I'd never published this one. I suppose it's because I never finished.  I don't think I will, just publish it as is....