Every movement has its music˳ for liberals and socialists of decades ago, it was the socially aware folk music of Pete Seeger and others like him˳ For the antiwar counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, it was the rebellious lyrics of the Rolling Stones and a score of other groups˳
Today, for the revolutionary right in the United States and Europe, the soundtrack of choice is white power music — and more specifically, the bands of “national socialist black metal,” or NSBM˳
Perhaps more than any others, the NSBM bands — most of which are Scandinavian or German, but which include a handful of American groups — have taken racist music to new extremes˳
Many are not content to merely sing songs of violence and hatred˳ Like the protagonist in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, they have engaged in murders and other crimes as a way of defying society˳
All that is attractive to William Pierce, the leader of America’s leading neo-Nazi group, the National Alliance, and a man who last year acquired Resistance Records, the nation’s largest white power music label˳ Despite his obvious distaste for rock music, Pierce clearly sees the opportunities offered by NSBM˳
Making Hate Pay As Pierce knows, intelligent, rebellious youths who have crossed some very serious societal lines make good revolutionaries˳ The music they create, which is often technically quite expert, has proven to be a highly effective recruiting tool for other disaffected youths˳
And what’s more, the music sold by all white power bands is remarkably lucrative — so much so, that the entire milieu has increasingly been overtaken by violence˳ What was once a subculture of angry young racists is more and more the province of organized criminals˳
Consider the case of Hendrik Möbus, which is detailed in this Intelligence Report’s cover story˳
Arrested outside Pierce’s West Virginia headquarters last summer, Möbus is a German neo-Nazi, a convicted murderer of a 14-year-old boy and a key player on the international NSBM scene˳ He faces deportation back to Germany on charges that he violated his parole in the murder˳
But his importance to Pierce is something more mundane: Möbus apparently brought Pierce contracts or other arrangements that will help him market some of the most popular NSBM bands — Möbus’ Absurd is one of them — found in the world today˳
Thanks largely to the fact that neo-Nazi propaganda is illegal in much of Europe, the music of bands like Absurd is extremely lucrative˳
By banning it and therefore relegating its distribution to criminals, the European authorities have virtually guaranteed that the profit margins for underground sales are enormous — much as those for illegal liquor sales during Prohibition were˳ In fact, these profits are now probably financing much of the European neo-Nazi movement˳
At the same time, there is high interest in NSBM bands among American racists˳
Music Without Borders The Pierce-Möbus connection demonstrates another important aspect of the radical right as well — its rapidly increasing internationalization˳ More and more, extremists speak of a “pan-Aryan” revolution that will stretch across continents˳
What were once sporadic contacts between American and European racists have become sustained links between the neofascists of the Western hemisphere˳
For many years, Pierce has visited with leaders of the radical right in Europe˳ In late 1998, for instance, he was the keynote speaker at a secret meeting in Greece of 150 neofascists from 10 countries˳ But Pierce is not alone˳
A Pierce friend, the Briton Mark Cotterill, took the lead in recent years in creating the American Friends of the British National Party — an outfit designed to provide financial support to the British neofascist organization˳
Racist Skinheads, especially the notoriously violent Hammerskins, travel more and more frequently to meet their compatriots abroad˳
And former Klansman David Duke returned in October from three months visiting with neofascist leaders in Russia and Eastern Europe˳ In a typical speech in a downtown Moscow museum, he decried “world Zionism” and called for dark-skinned people to be ejected from the city˳
These cases all illustrate a key point˳ The radical right, like the corporate multinationals it despises, has gone global˳ Extremist fugitives often find refuge in countries other than their own˳
Americans, protected by the First Amendment, are providing propaganda over the Internet and in other ways to Europeans who would go to jail for doing the same in their own countries˳
And the lucrative business of producing racist music has become a transnational enterprise˳
