National-anarchism

This article is specifically about the National-Anarchist movement. See Nationalism and anarchism for a general article on fusions of nationalist and anarchist ideas.

National-Anarchism is a syncretic political movement that developed in the 1990s out of a Third Positionist attempt to reconcile anarchism with nationalism and in some cases voluntary racial separatism. National-Anarchists advocate a decentralised social order wherein like-minded individuals voluntarily establish and maintain distinct communities. It also has intellectual roots in the writings of the neo-Spenglerian Francis Parker Yockey and Julius Evola.

Used in this sense, the term was coined simultaneously by Troy Southgate (England), Peter Topfer (Germany) and Hans Cany (France), and was defined by the now defunct National Revolutionary Faction to describe its ideological position. National-Anarchists see the hierarchies inherent in government and capitalism as oppressive, and advocate collective action organized along the lines of national identity. They may more accurately be referred to as Tribal Anarchists. They cite Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Leo Tolstoy, Murray Bookchin and Max Stirner among their influences. National-Anarchism has been denounced by left-wingers, who regard it as a far right ideology, and by some white nationalists, who accuse it of being left wing.

History and organizations

The term national anarchist predates the development of its contemporary use, going as far back as the 1920s, when Helmut Franke, a German writer involved with the Conservative Revolutionary movement, used it to describe his own political outlook. More recently, in Britain during the early-80s, the Black Ram group described itself as national anarchist and anarcho-nationalist. However, in its present context it dates back to the 1990s. French National Anarchist Hans Cany first made use of the term in the early 1990s, along with the related terms national-libertarian and anarcho-identitarian. Around the same time, Richard Hunt left the editorial board of Green Anarchist, due to a disagreement over political strategies, and formed his own journal, Alternative Green. Due to Alternative Green's policy of publishing articles from across the political spectrum, Hunt was constantly accused of fascism by the remaining Green Anarchist staff, as well as by other anarchists and left-wingers, such as Stewart Home, who accused both Green Anarchist and Alternative Green of supporting ecofascism.

In the mid-1990s, Troy Southgate, a Strasserite former member of the British National Front and International Third Position, began to move towards Hunt's green anarchism, and fused it with racial separatism (which Hunt did not support) to create the best-known modern form of National Anarchism. Southgate then formed the National Revolutionary Faction (NRF), officiating as its National Secretary, and was for a period on Alternative Green's editorial board. The NRF has since split up, and Southgate along with other NRF associates became involved with a United Kingdom-based successor group, the Cercle de la rose noire, of which Southgate is president. Its web presence is the online journal Synthesis. Southgate is also an organiser for the British New Right group, inspired by the French Nouvelle Droite movement.

Core positions

National-Anarchism shares with most strains of anarchism a desire to reorganize human relationships with an emphasis on replacing the hierarchical structures of government and capitalism with local, communal decision-making. National-Anarchist Troy Southgate has stated:

We believe in political, social and economic decentralisation. In other words, we wish to see a positive downward trend whereby all bureaucratic concepts such as the UN, NATO, the EU, the World Bank and even nation-states like England and Germany are eradicated and consequently replaced by autonomous village-communities.

National-Anarchists tend to advocate economic practices which can be described as distributism and mutualism, where the emphasis is placed on a wide ownership of the means of production, as in small businesses and workers' cooperatives. The revolutionary conservative concept of the Anarch is central to national anarchism.

National-Anarchists advocate a view of society where segregation exists along lines of ethnicity, religion, and even sexual orientation without requiring force. They suggest that "autonomous zones" would exist with their own rules for qualifying acceptance into permanent residence in a community without the strict ethnic divisions and violence advocated by racialised nationalism. This view of ethnoparticularism is a key tenet of National Anarchism. Genocide, murder, and social conformism (as typical of America and Western societies on the whole) are seen as unnecessary by National Anarchists, even as tyrannical and an affront to 'libertarian minded people'. They suggest that each collective would be allowed to practice the economic or political structure of their choosing as long as it does not interfere with the rights of other communities to follow their own lifestyle choice (excluding the above mentioned crimes). However most National Anarchists generally believe that environmental protection and conservation are matters on which all people should coordinate. Areas without significant human development and borderlands would be maintained collectively and the existence of free zones allowing trade and sharing between communities would be established with the agreement of all parties involved.

Some proponents of National-Anarchism support the voluntary existence of racial separatism, but not racial hatred or racial supremacy such as white supremacy and black supremacy. Most National-Anarchists believe that miscegenation destroys cultural diversity. This belief is rooted in the notion that intermixing of cultures destroys one or both of the cultures involved. Some critics of National-Anarchism hold that this implies racial hatred. However, National-Anarchists argue that there is no hatred involved, but unavoidable consequences of allowing a totally different culture to dominate all spheres social, civic, and cultural life of a nationality. It is their view that separatism stops racial hatred from developing by allowing indigenous cultures and biodiversity to continue. Southgate has stated: "Our concept of the word ‘national’ relates not to territory but to the racial identity which is a natural facet of all peoples" and that "We simply want our own space in which to live according to our own principles." The United States National-Anarchist group Folk and Faith states: "Being firm believers in true bio-diversity, National-Anarchists are staunch racial separatists."

Relations with other movements

Many left-wing anarchists regard National-Anarchism's concept of racial separation as intrinsically leading to racial hatred. Green Anarchist published an article accusing National-Anarchists of being state-backed fascist infiltrators with the goal of discrediting mainstream anarchism. National Anarchism has also attracted criticism from members of white nationalist movement, many of whom misunderstand it as being communist, and some white nationalists have accused it of being a plot backed by "Jewish oligarchs" to infiltrate white nationalism. Most National-Anarchists distance themselves from both mainstream anarchists and white supremacists. One anarchist group that has accepted National-Anarchism as an ally is the American Revolutionary Vanguard, which proposes a cross-ideological alliance opposed to the present governments of the Western world.

National Anarchists reject fascism as statist and centralist. However, the neologism post-fascist has been used to describe their beliefs, owing to their intellectual roots which lie partly in Third Positionism, an ideology often interpreted to be neo-fascist. National-Anarchists reject liberalism as a primary cause of the social decline of nations and cultural identity. National-Anarchists reject National Socialism as a failed dictatorship of a totalitarian government.

See also

• Alternative Green
• Anarchism
• Anarchism and nationalism
• Bases Autónomas
• Communities
• Cultural identity
• Integralism
• National Bolshevism
• National syndicalism
• Nouvelle Droite
• Separatism
• Strasserism

External links

• Attack the System
• Bay Area National Anarchists
• Beyond Left and Right
• Folk and Faith - American National-Anarchists
• National-Anarchism and Classical American Ideals: Is A Reconciliation Possible? by Keith Preston
• National Anarchist!
• New Right Australia New Zealand
• Synthesis, Journal du Cercle de la rose noire