Focus 580; Into A World of Hate: A Journey Among the Extreme Right

In this hour of the program we'll be talking with the journalists writer producer Nick Ryan. He's written for a number of publications The New York Times Magazine The Guardian wired the South China Morning Post The Australian The Irish Times The Scotsman and we'll be talking about a book that he's authored that's the product of several years that he spent talking with and getting to know people in the extreme right of politics particularly in Europe but also he spent some time talking with people here in the United States his book is titled into a world of hate. A journey among the extreme right Routledge is the publisher. He's also been involved as a creative producer for England expects a recent BBC drama on the extreme right. He's talking with us this morning by telephone will talk about some of his experiences how he got involved in this reporting project and some of the things that he learned and of course questions are welcome here on the program as well here in Champaign Urbana where we are. The number to call would be 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line

so if you'd be listening around Illinois and Indiana anywhere there. The signal will travel. Or if you're listening on the internet as long as you're in the United States you may use that toll free line and that is eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 0 3 3 3 W while L and toll free 800 to 2 to WY. Mr. Ryan hello. Hello thank you for talking with us. That's no problem. How are you. We certainly appreciate good thank you and yourself. Yes very well thank you. Just a start I'd like to have you talk about how it is that you got into this got started on this this project and it it sounds as if it was a little perhaps a little indirect to you certainly you didn't start out with this idea that what you wanted to do was an investigation of the extreme right. Yeah that's right and many ways the project took on a life of its own kind of sucked me in I guess by the by the end of it. It started

out fairly innocuously. I was traveling among one of the cool new religious movements. Environmental protest groups people involved in Paganism people basically involved in kind of subcultures. They were in Britain as a result of doing that of looking at the people who in the end would end up on the outside of society who would reject society and those people here in the U.K. at least in my opinion were groups like football hooligan soccer hooligans. So through my interest in following soccer hooligans that I came into contact with the extreme right those two worlds tend to be linked to a lot of shared interests. For example in Northern Ireland. So I was really looking to write a book on these subcultures. And then as a result of that and looking at these soccer hooligans moved into that world of the extreme right and you did that.

Different people have done this kind of work and done it in different sorts of ways. Some people have posed as people who are interested in joining and some people have gone in and I think in a very open way and said Well look I'm up I'm a journalist I'm a reporter I just want to find out what what you people think what you believe and to write something about you and I then that's what you did you didn't you didn't tell them anything that wasn't perfectly true that you were interested in learning about them and writing about them. Give me my my approach was really that of a personal journey. I mean there is quite a lot of me in this story it's not really and I'm not out of this or historical documents and it's the story of my journey into what I think is the hidden Weald something that company in many western societies. And you're right yeah I went in that he opened what I didn't tell these people with the help I was having from leftwing activists

from civil rights activist in the states here in Europe people who were helping me understand really something about the nature of these kind of groups whom I should contact. So in the U.K. There's a group called Searchlight which is an anti racist organization. And very very much helped me helped introduce me into a gang over here that was called Combat 18. But some of your listeners may have heard that name it's. They want tonight and then name stands for the initials A and the alphabet. Those initials and the idea was Combat 18 was it was a kind of a soccer hooligans group that was also working for the main extreme right party political party in Britain in the 1990s. So searchlight anti racist organization were following the group's activities. They actually passed addresses and names of group members to me. I then approached those members as myself and through that got access into that world. Did you point to one of the things that does make your book a little different than some of the others that I

have seen in the sense that it's not it's not an academic analysis and it's not really straight journalism. It's something a little bit different and it does. You do include your your personal reflections your reactions to the people that you met. And there there is maybe a little bit more of you in this than there would be in other kinds of life. I guess I use the word a more straight kind of journalistic approach. Yeah that's true I mean perhaps some people accuse me of having it too large an ego but that's just an approach I felt I wanted to do and I'm not somebody who reads For example George Orwell stuff or Jack London. Those kind of approaches appeal to me that referee Taj in amongst the take of it sometimes yourself included oneself included but the REPL Taj is very much telling you something deeper. So I mean at the end of a book like mine I think is all about identity. But on the page by page basis what it is is the story of my

journey deeper and deeper into this world and the kind of strange and amazing things which come up not just the violence and the physical threats for example the gang I mentioned Combat 18 dissolved into feuding and murder during the 15 months that I was in counseling the members but also because I've befriended them won the trust of different extremists first in Britain and then overseas. I was able to live with people lived with a guy in Washington D.C. for example a British extremist who then it turned out had links to extremist groups all the way from New York on a lower level for skinhead up to and including pseudo intellectual Holocaust deniers with links into the Middle East. So those kind of networks through my own journey that I physically travel there's not. Maybe you might talk a little bit more about Combat 18 and the kind of people that belong to this group and I guess we're one of the things that

I'm interested in is whether you felt that they had some kind of real complex thought out political ideology. Could they could you really have engaged them in a kind of a conversation about what it was they believed and why do you disagree with that but at least you could get some. They would tell you what it was that they thought and why. Or was it more the case that it's that what drives them is even harder for them to understand and talk about. I think combat a very brutal very tribal comes across in the writing. One of the first scenes I'm describing is the murder trial of the guy who is then the leader guy by the name of Charlie Sargent and the world these people inhabit it. So he was then it was a bit I guess like a biker gang or a criminal gang and they were

making actually quite a lot of money out of the sale of illegal white power music CDs stuff that's illegal here. It's not necessary legal in the States but it's illegal over here under our race relations laws. And and that was as important to them making the money being being a power on the projects on the estates on the streets as any wider ideology. Now having said that there were a few individuals within that group and others like them stateside as well who do have a sort of more defined ideology a quite virulent white supremacist ideology. And you find even a very subculture gang like that through the use of things like the Internet or reading books written by key individuals in the extreme right. They will take on board that ideology for example anti-Semitic beliefs also beliefs about how you can construct a race war how you can you can attack members of minority communities hoping to instigate some sort of backlash

against whites by that minority and thereby stoke up racial tensions. I'm an individual level you're often won't find that the members can really as you said pay any deep opinion one or two can and those want to have and will take it to the extremes. And also I think one of the points that you make is that it is not uncommon in groups like this for them to fight among themselves almost as much as they fight with the people that they consider their opponents and in this particular case the the the group fell apart because there was this struggle over who would be the leader of the group. That's why Ganymede in some ways depending on your political point of view of course but in some ways you could take comfort from that kind of thing I think. Yes OK if you walk down a dock alleyway and these guys find you you might have trouble. Other than that perhaps the misfits and weirdos and some of that does come out through my writing I mean again through their own actions and you have lots of guys living on their own and in the book If It's about anything it's also

about men. People who are looking for a moment of power in their lives. However on the other hand you know these these guys are only one part of the bigger picture. That's something I discovered as I was joining around for six years for Europe and in the states that these groups. Fit into a much wider net. And in some ways it's what they represent that's also dangerous. In my own opinion is the rise of the extreme right as well as the rise as we have here in Europe of quite a xenophobic anti-immigrant sentiment. It's part of a changing you know shape of society really almost a flipside to al-Qaida. It worried about the East you know in the west we've got potentially enemy within. Let me introduce Again our guest in this part of focus 580 which I'm here with Nick Ryan he is award winning writer and producer. It's written for a number of publications He's the author of the book into a world of hate a journey among the extreme right. It's published by

Routledge she was also a producer for drama bringing that using that as a way of telling the story of the extreme right of one that was produced and aired recently on the BBC. Questions are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5. Fund what sort of relationships are there. Connections are there between groups like C 18 and people who work in the more more visible above ground world of electoral politics. Guest in thinking of in Britain but the other there are other kinds of connections between similar kinds of groups elsewhere in Europe I think. Yes it's quite interesting because here in Europe we've had the rise of the far right as a political force in Britain it's still quite stunted as a group of the British National party known as the BNP which has some

seats in the local town councils at the moment but nothing else. But if you travel across the border into France for example the national front to front the front that's not regular gets about five and a half million votes in presidential elections or in Austria. You had a far right party rising that Belgium right across the continent by around semi between 10 to 25 percent of voters in many countries are voting for the extra for extreme political parties. Now what happens is those parties rise and again I saw this myself they try and get rid of the militants from the pot they try and get rid of the associations that see Godling with the brown shirts with with this wealth because and often you'll find gangs like Combat 18 and then brethren. Spread over in places like Germany for example. There is that youth rebellion element. People want to lash out against something they want to have that tattoos. The violence the drinking the Kamerad are very it's only a very few number of those that actually stay within those

movements in progress on Woods. But those people become an embarrassment to the more successful political movement. This successful political movement don't want to be associated with that image of thuggery they want to appeal to white and glossy men and women middle class people. Well ironically us you find so many in Britain the British National Party for example its constituent its main support base is white working class males age 18 to 35 you normally don't vote for anybody that don't participate so the rise if you like of the political extreme right is very much a protest and on the flip side when I was in the US I was travelling with British extremists who were working with the US extremists to try and build that kind of political power base at the moment you don't have. Well that's one of the I suppose on the one hand people might say that certainly groups like this can be dangerous in

isolated instances but that their numbers are small enough so that as individual groups perhaps we don't need to worry about what it was that what it is they could possibly do now having said that though I think what does concern people is the fact that groups like this have attempted to network with one another. And in that sense in in large there are possibilities for action for violent for violent acts and that is that that is something certainly that does seem to concern people how to what extent do you think that that that actually has taken place there. The different groups perhaps operating in different countries have managed to establish relationships with one another to quite a greater extent actually made for example the leader of the party I was just talking about the British National Party. He's a close friend of David Duke. Many people have heard of in the US the former KKK leader turned himself into a politician.

He's also our leader here the BNP leader he's been over to Germany to meet a former leftwing terrorist who was a founding member of something called The Bottom Line house gang which in the 1970s was carrying out attacks in Germany and then the guy called Horst Mahler switched his political position and became a member of the extreme right for sound old but perhaps that's where the extremes meet. You've got to you've got to make with these two for Historical Review which is based on the west coast of that that organizes itself around the issue of Holocaust denial or as they call it Holocaust revisionism that links them that issue by the anti-Semitic issue you link them with dozens of groups around the globe not just in the extreme right but with Muslim radicals as well so that in 2001 for example I was invited out to Beirut for a conference of Islamic radicals and extremely right wing. What is pseudo intellectual

Western is to debate the issue the Holocaust. Of course you or the Internet. You've got books you've got e-mail groups there's a well-known website called Stormfront which is operated out of Florida by a friend of David Duke and Stormfront for example used to swap ideas facilitate information because you're ideology the ideology of being a lone wolf. The ideology of something called leaderless resistance. Just like terrorism having small cells of people operate autonomously in different parts of the country so that if one cell is infiltrated the rest will be protected. All those kind of things all sort of facilitate these networks. So yes you find people talking to one another physically meeting. I mean I even went to a conference of something called the Council of Conservative Citizens. They had a conference in North Carolina when I was over there was very much like it was in a holiday and it was very similar to going to any business conference people in suits

with conference badges and leather pads. Of course the issues that talking about you know all revolve around white supremacy the most sophisticated form of white supremacy than a bonehead gang but it's still white supremacy. Well if it's one of the things I find myself wondering is if if we went out say in. In London we went on a street and we started engaging people about the conversation about their political beliefs that while we might if we to end that if we took we asked them about the agenda of a very hard core white supremacist organization like like see 18 for example my guess is that maybe people would say no that they would not support those ideas that were wrong. But I wonder if we could take it in if we if we just made it a little bit milder if we watered it down to just a little bit. But essentially it contained some of the same kind of beliefs about race issues about immigrants about economic issues.

Could we could we would we then find ourselves getting much more agreement with your person on the street to those kinds of those. Kind of positions short on that yet. Here in the UK we just had a whole series of elections for the people to join the European Parliament is right across the continent. We also had a local city elections as well as the elections in London for the representatives that had a party called the UK Independence Party. Take 12 seats in the European Parliament. The seven hundred thirty two seats in total right across the EU. This party took 12 seats and they've got a message through says Britain must leave the EU and immigration in effect must be drastically reduced. So they are a kind of sort of British National Party in suits the respectable version. You just travel over here on the continent to Belgium I've been many times Belgium is the heart of the

EU. It's one night so is it where the EU courts are. And it has a reputation and certainly in Britain and some other countries in Europe as well have been the heart of bureaucracy quite a sleepy place for the bureaucrats. That said Belgium has one of the largest extreme political movements on the continent. It's got a party called the Flemish bloc which represents the Flemish people but the people of northern Belgium has been Dutch around a quarter 25 percent of the Flemish people support his party. One of the party's main aims is to repatriate foreigners or as they call them a non integrating aliens from their soil. Now this is a very rich part of Europe. It is a sophisticated multi-lingual part of Europe you know this is right in the heart of the EU. At the same time you've also got Jews in the historic city of Antwerp which is Belgian Second City are voting for that far right party over fears of attacks by young North African Muslims to going to extremely complicated picture of confused

identity if you like it always is really a byproduct of many issues affecting the world today. Some people might say globalization but there's many many many issues causing the world to change faster pull apart and so you've got the rise of these single issue groups whether they are gangs whether thou Qaeda where there's extreme right. So in my opinion that's what's going on. We have a caller I'd like to bring them into the conversation. Someone listening in champagne so we will do that right now. Line number one. Hello. Hi. I find the topic a bit overwhelming so I'm not sure I make a clear question but you mentioned something about the and I get the impression you're saying that in some ways these groups are copycat and in other ways they may be responding to a terrorist threat or a you know some sense of whatever immigration otherness different culture different religion being a threat which happens to be what's going on

of both sides. But I'm wondering if you can talk about I think when this program was announced the words something like politics of hate or hate groups. Came up and I'm just wondering about. You know I mean sometimes when we think of religion we think of love maybe naively. And that's a bit different in actual practice in maybe Christian in many Muslim societies. But I'm just wondering if you can talk more about this call for violence. Maybe sometimes coming from biblical sources or you know this kind of really kind of warrior approach. Does it have to do with threats economic threats that are causing these kind of religious and militant discourses. I think there's many different questions and there are many answers. I mean some senses when I talk about being the flip side al Qaeda

one can talk about copycat to some extent but really I'm talking a metaphorical level. I think there's a perception particularly and more into the parts of the West or of each of our countries. If for example in England it's. Often in the northwest there were race riots here three years ago between young Asian men of Pakistani origin and and white white English. These are people both at the bottom of the pile and you could argue that's about economic resources lack of resources lack of jobs lack of housing. On the other side you have got people in extreme movements who do see themselves as not as terrorists but as freedom fighters. They even claim they love their race they would say a classic liberal like me as they would like to castigate me. You know must must I hate who I am right. Want to see yourself bred out of existence. And there is a subsect of Christianity or probably a heresy is a better word to Christian identity thing which might be what you're referring to I don't know but

I spent time down in there in Arkansas living with a Christian Identity minister that's included one of the chapters in my book and I described being with him and being in his house and hearing the stuff he espouses and believes he would say that regular Christians have got it all wrong and the Bible sanctifies in effect what I call right. The Jews in Hayes and his followers believe are Satan's children. Literally that's what they believe. The white man and it always seems to be men in this case not one person the white man has some kind of spirit which other races don't have. These these other races a mud people they selectively quote parts out of the scriptures to support right. I mean there's even a term they call it the Phineas priesthood. Which refers to Israelites Heroku Phineas who slew a. I think it was a fellow was right sleeping with a known Israelite tribes woman and that's recounted in the early part

of the Bible but so you know there were justifications for everything. And of course this is very dangerous over here and in London in 1999 there was a guy called David Copeland to set off a series of nail bombs killing three people and wounding more than a hundred in the minority areas of London. He used his justification partly this Christian Identity belief for heresy and we know from his police interview notes that he'd visited the website of the guy and then went out and spent time with in Arkansas. So again it's a strange introverted World News Bethany World of Men. Very much so there are some women but it's the female dominated. Well I guess that would be interesting to discuss in terms of feminism but we probably don't want to get into that event. And I'm just wondering so at the same time that you have people who believe in the rapture and if the Jews are to convert then you know they'll be OK and then in Europe maybe in France people might say well it's not race it's a

question of culture. And so it seems that there are. Do you have a sense that this is all coming into one hour going in one stream or one direction or is there something positive that some divisiveness within this. Or are you just looking at the very extreme extreme right but I mean I thought this is a very personal journey and one that when I started the book journeys begin in the fall of 1996 and I didn't really have an idea of what I was going to find really I was only looking at one area like I said soccer hooligans the rest of the journeys through the networks from lone wolves to neo-Nazi gangs to a wider political movement evolved quite organically. So the picture was always changing and I had no idea some of these parties would then be taking maybe 30 percent of the votes in the country and again it's not static it's still changing. Like I mentioned in Belgium

you recently for example the Jewish kid was stabbed by some Moroccan youth and you have thousands of Jews taking to the streets. Over that you've had examples of both Jews and Muslims in Belgium voting for this extreme right party which obviously seems a little nonsensical. But for lots of complex reasons these things happen. In my opinion the there are a whole lot of threads as to why what the rise of extremism of all different kinds this moment in time. Well I'm wondering like. I mean I would find your journey very scary and very creepy. What motivates you to go on I mean it seems to me like you're even putting yourself in a certain danger by now saying well I went in and I talk to all these people and I was kind of supported by left wing people to go and find out about this. So it seems that you really have a strong belief that this is something that needs to be talked about or needs to be

explored. Well I mean in in Britain as you probably know we've got a reputation for this sort of so-called ironic humor. There's there's a lot of sense or it's humorous to writers and sometimes documentary makers who look at a subject like this. I don't know if they do it with Islam to be honest but certainly with them white supremacy white nationalism whatever terms you want to give it they would look at this and then he was satirizing and that works very well for a British audience and that's one approach you can do you can take another approach of course is you want to do this of undercover routine dress up and pretend to be one of them. Well occasionally you have people come out of these movements and then write their accounts. We didn't really have any fancy notions when I started out I just wanted to write what I saw. You know some my favorite writers who couldn't people like Charles Dickens or whatever Graham Greene the novelist I think I've written the best stuff based on what they've seen in real life. I think even Hemingway

said words to that effect about his fiction coming out of real life. So that's just what propels me and I hope I've made the writing quite accessible by being a personal journey. I mean I don't know what the end result of all this is going to be in 1928. I think the Nazi party had about two and a half percent of the vote in Germany and in 1933 Hitler was in power. I don't necessarily think we're going to see that. What do you think we're going to see with the sort of increase in voter apathy. You're going to see the rise of the single issue movements coalescing around one or two issues certainly here in Europe immigration and immigration linked to the idea of terrorism and Islam is something very very high on the agenda it's something like number two or three. People stopped voting concerns. I appreciate the comments of the caller. I need to reintroduce our guest and also do a little weather information here for people who are listening. We'll talk more with our guest Nick

Ryan in just a moment I do want people to know though that the storm prediction center has issued a tornado watch for parts of northern and central Illinois that will be in effect until 5 o'clock today and that includes the possibility of tornadoes of hail thunderstorm winds over 80 miles an hour and dangerous lightning that's all possible in the area that's what the watch means that the possibility of those storms. And in our immediate AM 580 severe weather coverage area they tornado watch includes these counties in Illinois champagne forward vermilion To wit and Pyatt so do keep in mind that a tornado watch means conditions are favorable for tornadoes and severe storms and in close to the watch area now is the time to think about what you would do if a door NATO or severe thunderstorm was headed your way. Keep aware of the changing weather. And stay tuned here to AM 580 for the latest weather information again the tornado watch in effect for parts of northern and central Illinois until 5 o'clock this afternoon and we will keep you informed as we move through the day here of the weather. Our

next opportunity to tell you about that will be as part of the afternoon magazine that should be at twelve thirty five. And also I'd like to introduce Again our guest We're talking with writer Nick Ryan. He's written for a number of different public. Patients New York Times Magazine The Guardian wired others in 1999 he received a special commendation from the International Federation of Journalists for his investigative reporting and he is author of a book that's title into a world of hate a journey among the extreme right. It's published by Routledge. Questions are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. I did mention a little bit earlier that you were you served as a consultant for a drama that was produced by the BBC that dealt with some of these same themes a program and I think that it aired fairly recently. England expects. And I'm just a little curious about what the reaction to the film was. Yeah that's a long time project that was it started in August of 2000.

And it's funny people like the BBC really that try and tackle these divisive issues in fairly gritty socially realistic terms. So I was already in the midst of my journeys for my book. I got called in by the by the producer eventual producer the program and we discussed lots of different storylines and ideas and eventually I worked with a script writer he's Scottish. Story of an Irish guy who's done a lot of work actually in Hollywood as well. We went together we actually met people people in Combat 18 people in this British National Party. We observed east London where the drama was set and East London is at the East End. Basically the fascinating area is actually going to be the subject of my second book but I won't go into that at the moment but but that has a huge history of immigration the last 500 years it's been a. An area where immigrant communities come they settle eventually they make their money and move on out so

it was it a very famous Jewish area for a long time. Now it's a center of Islam in the U.K. and also in Europe it has won a lot. Europe's largest Muslim Center has a mosque literally only about a mile away from the heart of the city of London. So it's a place where worlds collide. What we did was we set to the story of a guy called Wright knights who was a security guard working in the heart of the city for a for a city bank. And what what happened to him is he saw his world de-construct around him. And by doing that we were showing how the extreme right the political movements of extremists how they attract people in how they seek to. Offer simplistic answers to complex problems just as it did in the 20s and 30s and you know it was a very powerful drama a two hour long film and we did get a lot of hostile reaction as well as a lot of posts of reaction.

Well we have some other folks here to talk with. Let's go to Urbana line number one. I love yellow. Yes. How are you. First of all I wanted to tell the guest that I think it's work is this really valuable really interesting and I have two questions one is a follow up on the last caller. I was curious in the city might I want to talk about it but it seems like it would be really difficult to come face to face with people who have so much hate over and over again and I wonder how maybe you negotiated that if you were working and you mean just to be with people who are so angry and hateful. And the other question I had was What do you feel like the can like the conditions our reach bring people can you use it as a problem a solution for problems. And if you think that the people who do that if they understand that their their own situation

you know what I'm saying. To answer the the first part. Then again as I mentioned this is a personal journey. There are times when I've tried to share with the reader what I was feeling. It certainly is the journeys progressed and big events seem to speed up life seem to speed up around me was quite hard. So maintaining a semblance of sanity and or spending a long time away from home with people have very different views to myself and I only really noticed some of those changes when I was with when I was with the writer and factor that the drama we were just talking about England expects. I took him with me to a festival of extreme art festival that was taking place in them in Wales in the rural depths of wilds and I was just listening and watching the events. And to me it was all par for the course I don't have the language of the sort of stuff about where the white man must go this kind of thing.

I didn't react to it was my colleague was silent Leopold couldn't believe what he was hearing and I realised that in some ways become hardened to it I guess I just hadn't questioned it. And also you do end up relating to people on a one to one basis. You've got to spend time with him and talk with him on some level you find it. You know everyone by genuine psychopath. You know we talk and empathize to a certain degree and I still even know one or two people from those movements who will still talk to me despite knowing what I've written. It's kind of strange. You end up questioning where your own beliefs lie and also actually criticizing some of the liberal beliefs that I've been brought up with the conditions to bring hate to presume you're talking there about them. Well you've got different reasons why people want simple answers. But I think that you've got a whole bunch of things going on where people I spoke to they feel that the pace of life is increasing. They feel lost. They feel they've got

job insecurity that they feel is this sense. Being swamped and leant over here this is the language of the newspapers often people are being swamped by I thought I'm seekers refugees immigrants and this they mixed these terms up to get at these vague things like Islam and al-Qaida and often I think they want simple answers. Perhaps what they really need to be dealing with these other issues like that is you know the housing all the jobs with the demagogic figures are coming along and promising them simple answers and you know it's a time when the theory of blaming the other with a big something else in the past it was the Jews. I mean ironically I found members of the extreme right. Different groups I've met dealing with Muslim extremists against sharing an interest against Jews so they'll often share an opinion that the events of 9/11 were caused by some kind of Zionist conspiracy. Then on the flip side you've got Islamophobia rising where people are

lashing out against Muslims or against Pakistani Bangladeshi Arabic neighbors presuming they're linked. Without quite a third incredibly confusing time and because the Chinese proverb goes May you live in interesting times it sounds like you could have probably but I think people are looking for simplistic answers. Maybe it's a natural human reaction. They don't want to deal with the complex gray world we really live in. Magine that it might have something to do with what's available for people. I mean he said they did demagogue figures show up I mean and if maybe there was a different kind of education you know so people could maybe have more of a subtle opinion of what's going on. Yeah I mean it's an age old question in that what why you know I don't know what the figures are now and in the US but is it less than off the eligible population I'll vote.

Or why do people not vote water in order engage what's going wrong in politics. That's a puzzle that's one big issue. And as I said before I think you've got the rise of single issue protest movements. You certainly have over here if you like the anti capitalist strain which sucks in a myriad of different groups from from left to rights and religious organizations to the demonstrations about the war in Iraq in London where you've got you know fairly woolly minded liberals along with Muslim militants sharing the same podium. That's the world we live in at the moment. But I think that Coelus go to another band of color this would be going to Hello good morning. Besides the hatreds that these people in our group have for you know other races. Are there other religious. Beliefs that tie them together. I'm thinking particularly you know there are new

age religions that actually may not profess faith but sometimes they're kind of aligned you know by the far right but I'm wondering did you see much in the way of religion also playing a role in these groups. Yes to a certain extent. I mean it's quite well-known in that he and his coterie had all sorts of interests in pagan and a cult think police and for example I met guys in gangs like Combat 18 who had pagan beliefs in ist. But he says they seem very popular the three of us but you're going to need a north revival and he took on the far right websites if you look on their website selling music for example why pop music seems to be quite an association with the image of the suave warrior. Lightning for this kind of stuff. Having sent that as a mention certainly in the US

there is this sort of heretical Christian cult called Christian Identity which I understand has somewhere in the region of 50000 members. There's a very good civil rights group based in Chicago called the Center for New Community which studies that kind of thing. So they may have some more figures on that kind of stuff and it makes a lot of work combating the militia issue in the Midwest than the Sunni militias in the past seem to have quite a strong tie to the Christian Identity movement. You've got a myriad of different police to the East Peoria based or former East Peoria based Well transfer the Creator. You may have covered this issue on your station but Matt Hale who self-styled Pontifex Maximus of that neo-Nazi colp. We was recently jailed for trying to have a federal judge killed. I visited a hale house that's in one of the chapters with somebody helping me from the Center for New Community

and I all had this hail in his his adherents had this belief in something called the White Man's Bible. The cut down version simply states that your race is your religion. The little copilot and pseudo religions cropping up who means of justifying an end. I think often people start with with their belief whether it's right the religious right whatever it might be and then seek other forms of justification choked up so the religious aspect really kind of helps hold these groups together. Yeah I mean just as there are many of these groups we weave different kinds of of paganistic beliefs for example. There are others who believe nothing literally nothing that some of the neo-Nazi groups in particular are quiet and typical to do any form of religious belief. So one of the biggest groups in the States has been the. The National Alliance and it was run by a guy called William Pierce who

was a former physics professor Peirce's now that that group the National Alliance had tentacles right across the state and back into Europe. Through many different means and he has invented something called Cosmo theism. Again another pseudo religion but he was very anti Christianity. But yes it can be part of the glue. I mean the ideology in have to include something about right in it and in many ways these groups like nothing better than when dealing with extremists in other groups who have so many of them it dealt with the Nation of Islam for example because they like to see that African-Americans or blacks in Europe will belong to a kind of a bloc a separate block that they can they can separate fountain and then the white men can sit somewhere else and these guys can be and another place you know. Thank you thank you let's go to Chicago for a line for next. Hello. Yes good morning as are interested in the relationship between violence and

alcohol and you mention that this started out with sports. Well look it is some and I think you mentioned it once before about the drinking and just wondering how much is Akhil Hall used as both a tool and no way to promote their group then to cement their group and also to have a group that's fairly be fuddled so that they're willing to accept simple answers. That goes. I mean I would only carry the argument so far. When you're at the brutal tribal subcultural to the male end of it yes it's there. I mean is there in pub culture anyway in Britain which already has quite a large drinking binge drinking culture. And it's there in Germany I was on the streets of East Germany at the end of the book probably one of the scariest places I've been and there are right wing extreme right wing social clubs called comradeship which are often linked at a basic level by just meeting up in a big car and drinking beer but often. So that's part of the

process you're right. But it doesn't really answer certainly in Europe why you have the rise of the extreme right and xenophobic political movements you know which in some cases like in Austria's case they took up they took 27 percent of the vote of the party that called the Freedom Party. The the the beer drinking question doesn't really touch on that but he certainly does and the kind of gang that form of the very kind of male testosterone driven groups that I visited in my journeys Yeah you don't see some of that and also the violence of course. It sort of captures the foot soldier who's not used that that this group wasn't politically involved and I guess my question is once they graduate from that age group did they later on become part of the voting public. I mean what happened where you ever around iny long enough to know what happens once they pass beyond the age of you know the last type of drinking. Yeah I mean it was my surprise you but the gang members are visioning counted

were in their mid 30s. That's my age as well that they were in there and they were at that time in their mid 30s and that the leaders are obviously people who started off in teens and stayed. What happens is of course if people join a gang any kind of gang. And I've been hanging around with Bangladeshi gangs recently as part of a new project I'm doing. They're very focused on youth. Not many people stay the course for obvious reasons they go to prison they drop out whatever in the grow up. But then the people get involved the most serious and the politics. You know they will graduate if you like and they think to some extent have to leave some bad behavior behind. When the leader of the British National Party the far right political movement here he's a Cambridge graduate at the age of 15 he was introduced to a group called the National Front. He was much more extreme then than he is now. Now this guy is in his mid 40s wears a suit and tie. He talks a language of

moderation to some extent he he says we don't want to forcibly repatriating immigrants who will do it with our consent blah blah blah. So these guys have learned their lesson they've learned that if they stay hardcore they're never going to have power. Of course what they tell their followers is not going to get rid of the real message which is just the media writing our phrases for the general public so we can get votes. So that is the wolf in sheep's clothing idea. Now I have one more question if you could be quick. OK well you sort of talked about the fact what attracted people. To this end it seemed to be a lot of personal security. And I know in the United States as we focus on national security a lot of people are losing personal security the job security health insurance and all of that. So does that mean that there's a breeding ground to increase the popularity of these groups that people feel this lack of personal security are really use one word to answer that.

And that's fear fear propelled a lot of these groups not just in the extreme right but a lot of extremes. Single issue organizations or whatever kind of denomination. That's what worries me that in the 21st century and in a world that's more interconnected never before we've got such Polaroids ation of for example economic resources we've got destabilization that comes perhaps with people's job insecurity and you get nonsensical positions where. Perhaps in the States perhaps here in Britain you've got people who'll be blaming immigrants for taking their jobs at the same time claiming those immigrants living on welfare at the same time as those jobs may actually even be going overseas. So people I think are looking for a simple answer people are grasping and you know it's no surprise you hear in them in the former Soviet Union in Russia the tremendous problem Eskin that gangs there and racial violence you hear a lot of talk about the old days of being under communism big and in the Brezhnev era where pretty

Gorbachev things to many people seem certain they were great but they could rely. You know they can rely on their pensions their holidays their wages without worry so yeah I am concerned for the future I don't think anyone really knows where it's going to end up. Well we're at the point we're going to have to stop apologies we have some people we can't. Take for people who are listening if you would like to read more from our guest. Again the book is titled into a world of hate. The subtitle is a journey among the extreme right and the publisher is Routledge and our guest is Nick Ryan he's award winning writer and producer. And Nick I want to say thank you very much for talking with us today we really appreciate you giving us some of your time from my patients. If anyone wants to know by the way I've got a website that makes you wrong and don't know it. Very good read an e-mail. So that way they can find out more about you. Read some excerpts from the book and either write and go on. Well again thanks very much. Okay thank you. The broadcast today has made possible in part by a grant from Birkenstock concepts by

heel to toe in downtown Urbana for over 25 years offering all sizes and widths of Birkenstocks from cogs in sandals to work dress and sport shoes Birkenstock concepts office repair and modification services at a certified bador fist an orthopedist on the staff. And that's it for us here in focus but of course we want you to stay tuned here to AM 580 there is much more in the way of news and features and other things as coming up. As part of the afternoon magazine the host of the show Celeste Quinn. Hello thank you David. Coming up today in the 1:00 o'clock hour of the program we'll talk we'll talk about the story of the Pullman porter with journalist Larry Tye. He says if race is the story of America the Pullman porter represents one of its most resonant chapters We'll talk with Larry Tye following the one o'clock news this afternoon. Let's take a look at what's happening now on the Chicago Board of Trade and the mercantile exchange prices are lower July wheat 334 down 5 to September three forty one and a half down for July corn to forty one and a half

down three. September 244 in three quarters down three.