Book Review: ''Homeland: Into a World of Hate''
Today reading the irish times i came across a book review by Nuala Haughey of the book: ''Homeland:Into a world of hate'' by Nick Ryan.here it is :
''Neo-nazi's,Holocaust revisionists,white supremacists and palin ordinary racists are seldom engaging people, and heir hate filled theories are only interesting in that voyeuristic way that perversity intrigues.
The Irish discussion page of the Stormfront white nationalist website is full of low brow rants from such people about how African savages are invading the country and how disgraceful it is that Samantha Mumba,a black Irish pop star,led the St Patricks day parade in Dublin.
These contributors,going by pseudonyms such as ''War Maiden'' and ''White Irish'' exist in a twilight underworld peopled largely by misfits,loners or just plain hooligans looking for an underdog to pick on. But then,sometimes,the extreme right throws up characters like the late Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands,Austria's Jorg Haider and even Nick Griffin from the British nationalist Party.
These are people with intellect and varying degrees of support,but they are the exception to the rule. Nick Ryan delves deeply into the sub-culture of the extreme right for his book.His is a six year long odyssey from Central London to North Carolina,from Alabama to Berlin,meeting people whose ideas are repugnant to him.
Ryan bravely declares himself to be a journalist in this sometimes violent world where people from the ''liberal media'' are often met with at best distrust and at worst contempt. This is a hefty book,a sort of world compendium of the far right(as well as their anti fascist nemeses in organisations such as the Searchlight magazine who help Ryan along the way).
The homeland in the book's title is a reference to a utopian project of the violent British extreme right gang,Combat 18,to create a self contained community in the hinterlands of Essex along Aryan lines - a vision which suuposedly takes its inspiration from segregated communities in Belfast.The C18 characters Ryan meets draw inspiration from how the North's loyalist and republican paramilitaries have policed their respective communities.
Even odder bedfellows still are the Holocaust deniers and Islamic fundamentalists who had planned to attend a conference in Beirut which Ryan was due to attend. However,the Lebanese authorities eventually banned the conference organised by the Swiss Institute for Historic Review,described as a revisionist think-tank. It is a pity that,instead of telling us more aobut the dynamics of this odd coupling of revisionists and Zioniss (a case of my enemy's enemy is my friend?) Ryan instead sets off plannig his next trip to Belgium to meet members of its ultra-nationalist movement,the Vlamms Blok.
Ryan encounters many people who don't hold our interest for any length of time,like Charlie,the working class British ''Big Man'' of C18,a convicted murderer and enemy of immigrants and the State, (also known in those circles as ZOG-Zionist Occupation Government)
But he also encounters figures such as Griffin and David Myatt,an ENglish eccentric,former Satanist and martial arts expert,who provides much of the intellectual legitimacy groups like C18 lack.
Then there's William Pierce,a reclusive American former Physics professor who lives in a compound in West Virginia where he heads a pseudo-religious entity,the anti-Semetic Cosmotheist church. He is also the creator of the National Alliance,an exclusive white power organisation with a nearly cult like structure. Ryan describes him as holding almost mythical status among white supremacists. Pierce wrote ''The Turner Diaries'',a fictional account of the activities of a racist,anti-Semitic underground power. Copies of this book - as well as ''The Hunter'',by the same author,about a man who kills race mixers - were found in possession of the Oklahoma Bomber Timothy McVeigh and the LOndon nailbomber David Copeland.
Ryan gets within a hair's breadth of interviewing Pierce (who has since died of cancer) but unfortunately is rumbled by an article he wroe in the Guardian,as well as suspicions that he has links to Searchlight.
While this book is as much about a ''liberal journalist'' trying to access this underworld as succeeding,such failures are forgivable.
However, Ryan has an annoying habit of repeatedly reminding us of how brave he is to be out mixing with these violent types.His hard swallows and self pinches tend to distract from the flow of the book,which is already slightly disjointed as he jumps from country to country ,dateline to dateline,encounter with extremist to encounter with extremist.
There is also something laddish about his fascination with this male-dominated world,and Ryan comes out with many cringe-inducing lines such as this description of Will ''The Beast'' Browning from C18: ''I met him only once,but i sensed his pall-like presence constantly''. Or this gem while musing on his own childhood and life whie travelling to meet a British National party member: ''What would i tell an outsider about my world? About us? After my travels,Ive seen how mean,twisted and introverted we can be.Can we offer no better than these puerile extremes of religion,ethnicity and poltical beliefs? Why do fear and hate rule so much of our lives - not just in the war zones I've seen-but here,too?''
This book is a timely and well researched excursion into white nationalism. But,while it is an interesting journey in parts,it lacks an analytical edge which would make it more than a who's who of right-wing extremism.''
About the author: Nuala Haughey is Social and Racial Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times.
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