White power skinheads, also known as racist skinheads and neo-Nazi skinheads, are members of a
neo-Nazi
Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
,
white supremacist
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other Race (human classification), races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any Power (social and polit ...
and
antisemitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
offshoot of the
skinhead subculture
A skinhead is a member of a subculture which originated among working class youths in London, England, in the 1960s and soon spread to other parts of the United Kingdom, with a second working class skinhead movement emerging worldwide in th ...
. Many of them are affiliated with
white nationalist
White nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a raceHeidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks. "Chapter 7: White nationalism in America". In Perry, Barbara. ''Hate Crimes''. Greenwoo ...
organizations and some of them are members of
prison gang
A prison gang is an inmate organization that operates within a prison system. It has a corporate entity and exists into perpetuity. Its membership is restrictive, mutually exclusive, and often requires a lifetime commitment. Prison officials and ot ...
s. The movement emerged in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
between the late 1960s and the late 1970s, before spreading across
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
and
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
in the 1980–1990s.
Definition
Skinheads
Scholar Timothy S. Brown defines the
skinhead
A skinhead is a member of a subculture which originated among working class youths in London, England, in the 1960s and soon spread to other parts of the United Kingdom, with a second working class skinhead movement emerging worldwide in th ...
s as a "style community", that is to say a "community in which the primary site of identity is personal style", which allows innovative configurations to be made in new geographical and cultural contexts, or around opposing political ideologies – as in the
dichotomy
A dichotomy is a partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets). In other words, this couple of parts must be
* jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and
* mutually exclusive: nothing can belong simulta ...
between
racist
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
and
anti-racist
Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate ...
skinheads. From a group perspective, John Clarke, a precursor of skinhead studies in the 1970s, has noted that the "skinhead style represents an attempt to recreate the traditional
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
community, as a substitution for the real decline of the latter which started in the 1960s."
White power skinheads
According to
Jean-Yves Camus
Jean-Yves Camus (born 1958) is a French political scientist who specializes on nationalist movements in Europe.
Life and career
Born in 1958 to a Catholic and Gaullist family, Camus is an observant Jew and describes himself as part of "the an ...
and
Nicolas Lebourg, the
white power
White pride and white power are expressions primarily used by white separatist, white nationalist, fascist, neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations in order to signal racist or racialist viewpoints. It is also a slogan used by the prominen ...
skinhead movement, which emerged within the skinhead subculture from the late 1970s onward, can be defined by "racism; proletarian consciousness; an aversion to organization, dismissed in favor of
gang
A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectivel ...
behavior; and an ideological training that began with or is based on
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
." They have mostly emerged from working-class backgrounds, except in Russia, where they have mostly emerged from the educated, urban middle class.
History
Origins in England
The original
skinhead subculture
A skinhead is a member of a subculture which originated among working class youths in London, England, in the 1960s and soon spread to other parts of the United Kingdom, with a second working class skinhead movement emerging worldwide in th ...
began in the United Kingdom in 1968–1969, probably in London and Southeast England, more specifically in the
East End of London
The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...
according to Clarke. It had heavy
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
mod
Mod, MOD or mods may refer to:
Places
* Modesto City–County Airport, Stanislaus County, California, US
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Mods (band), a Norwegian rock band
* M.O.D. (Method of Destruction), a band from New York City, US ...
and
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
n
rude boy
Rude boy, rudeboy, rudie, rudi, and rudy are slang terms that originated in 1960s Jamaican street culture, and that are still used today. In the late 1970s, there was a revival in England of the terms ''rude boy'' and ''rude girl'', among other ...
influences, including an appreciation for
black music
Black music is a sound created, produced, or inspired by black people, people of African descent, including African music traditions and African popular music as well as the music genres of the African diaspora, including Caribbean music, Lati ...
genres like
rocksteady,
ska
Ska (; ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walki ...
, and early
West Indian
A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). For more than 100 years the words ''West Indian'' specifically described natives of the West Indies, but by 1661 Europeans had begun to use it ...
reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
. The particular lifestyle and aggressive look of skinheads was a self-declared reaffirmation of the traditional working class puritanism and
gender roles
A gender role, also known as a sex role, is a social role encompassing a range of behaviors and attitudes that are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on that person's sex. Gender roles are usually cent ...
– in fact "a ''stylized'' re-recreation of an ''image'' of the working class", which seemed threatened in their views with contamination by the
permissive {{about, , the 1970 British film, Permissive (film), the grammatical mode, Permissive mood, the flavor of software license, permissive free software licence
A permissive cell or host is one that allows a virus to circumvent its defenses and replica ...
and
hedonistic
Hedonism refers to a family of theories, all of which have in common that pleasure plays a central role in them. ''Psychological'' or ''motivational hedonism'' claims that human behavior is determined by desires to increase pleasure and to decre ...
culture of the British middle-class in the 1960–1970s. For instance, the defining skinhead short haircut mostly emerged in reaction to the perceived shift in men's styles away from traditional
masculinity
Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors con ...
, which was embodied by the "middle-class, peace-loving, long-haired student" of the
hippie movement
The hippie subculture began its development as a youth movement in the United States during the early 1960s and then developed around the world.
Its origins may be traced to European social movements in the 19th and early 20th century such as B ...
.
The identity of the 1960s skinheads, however, was not based on
white power
White pride and white power are expressions primarily used by white separatist, white nationalist, fascist, neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations in order to signal racist or racialist viewpoints. It is also a slogan used by the prominen ...
,
neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
or
neo-fascism
Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration sen ...
, even though some skinheads had engaged in "
Paki-bashing
Paki is a term typically directed towards people of Pakistani descent mainly in British slang, and as an offensive slur is often used indiscriminately towards people of perceived South Asian descent in general. The slur is used primarily in th ...
", i.e.
violence
Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or Power (social and p ...
against
Pakistanis
Pakistanis ( ur, , translit=Pākistānī Qaum, ) are the citizens and nationals of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. According to the 2017 Pakistani national census, the population of Pakistan stood at over 213 million people, making it the w ...
and other
South Asian immigrants. Even so,
black West Indians ("Caribs") were also involved in skinhead gang attacks against South Asian immigrants, and the violence has been interpreted by
Alexander Tarasov
Alexander Nikolaevich Tarasov (russian: link=no, Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Тара́сов; born March 8, 1958) is a Soviet and Russian left-wing sociologist, politologist, culturologist, publicist, writer, and philosopher. ...
as a social conflict caused by the new presence of South Asian traders and shopkeepers within a community of white and West Indian poor factory workers. Clarke similarly notes that areas where skinheads became the most prominent were "typically either new
council housing
Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council estates, council housing, or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011 when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in so ...
estates or old estates being either developed or experiencing an afflux of outsiders", either Commonwealth immigrants or middle-class whites in search of affordable housing.
The leading politician
Enoch Powell
John Enoch Powell, (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, classical scholar, author, linguist, soldier, philologist, and poet. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (1950–1974) and was Minister of Health (1 ...
and his inflammatory 1968
"Rivers of Blood" speech gave a public voice to widespread anxieties concerning non-white immigration and the "threat" which was supposedly posed by South Asian immigrants. Although there is "little agreement
mong scholarson the extent to which Powell was responsible for racial attacks", the speech may have helped unleash "
Paki-bashing
Paki is a term typically directed towards people of Pakistani descent mainly in British slang, and as an offensive slur is often used indiscriminately towards people of perceived South Asian descent in general. The slur is used primarily in th ...
" violence against South Asian immigrants, which was referred to as "skinhead terror" by ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
'' in April 1970, with the "Paki-bashers" simply being referred to as "skinheads" in many contemporary reports. By the early 1970s, the reggae scene had ceased to be simply a "party music" and, under the influence of
Rastafarism, got closer to community-oriented themes like black liberation and African mysticism, which participated in alienating some white proletarians from the community. In 1973 white skinheads launched a violent melee in a night club, chanting "young, gifted and white" and cutting the speakers as the West Indian disc jockey was playing ''
Young, Gifted and Black
''Young, Gifted and Black'' is the eighteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Aretha Franklin, released in early 1972, by Atlantic Records. The album climbed to #2 on ''Billboards R&B albums survey and peaked at #11 on the main ...
'' by
Bob and Marcia
Bob and Marcia were a Jamaican vocal duo, that consisted of Bob Andy and Marcia Griffiths.Larkin, Colin (1998) ''The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae'', Virgin Books, , p. 33 They had a #5 UK hit single in 1970 with "Young, Gifted and Black". The ...
.
Emergence of the white power skinheads
The skinhead scene had mostly died out by 1973. Around 1977, a second wave started to emerge from the disintegration of the
punk subculture
The punk subculture includes a diverse and widely known array of ideologies, fashion, and other forms of expression, visual art, dance, literature, and film. Largely characterised by anti-establishment views, the promotion of individual freedom ...
, which was radicalized as "
street punk" when some of its members accentuated its aggressive character. Although the punk movement emphasized
nihilistic
Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning of life, meaning. The term was pop ...
and narcissistic values instead of the working class heritage, their opposition to the middle and upper class, the adoption of Nazi imagery by some punks to maximize shock value, and the development of an underground network of punk
fanzines
A fanzine (blend word, blend of ''fan (person), fan'' and ''magazine'' or ''-zine'') is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by fan (person), enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) ...
, inspired and facilitated the parallel emergence of a racist skinhead subculture. The latent
right-wing
Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authorit ...
and
anti-immigrant
Opposition to immigration, also known as anti-immigration, has become a significant political ideology in many countries. In the modern sense, immigration refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory ...
leaning, present within the skinhead movement since the late 1960s, became progressively dominant in the United Kingdom, fuelled by the job crisis, the economic decline, and an increase in immigration during the late 1970s–early 1980s. By the early 1980s, the white power skinhead subculture had spread across most of Britain, largely "through face to face interaction among the fans at football matches." The cartoon character Black Rat, created in 1970 by French artist Jack Marchal, was adopted by young neo-Fascists in various European nations and became an essential marker of the fringe culture.
Music played a key symbolic role in the political polarization of the skinhead subculture. Marchal recorded a
French Hard Rock album named ''Science & Violence'' in 1979, and German students of the neo-Nazi party
NPD formed the first German nationalist rock group in 1977. A new
music genre
A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from ''musical form'' and musical style, although in practice these terms are some ...
,
Oi!
Oi! is a subgenre of punk rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The music and its associated subculture had the goal of bringing together punks, skinheads, and other disaffected working-class youth. The movement was ...
– a contraction of "Hey, you!" pronounced with a
Cockney accent
Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or b ...
– emerged as a skinhead version of
punk rock in the late 1970s, contrasting with the sometimes multiracial bands of the left-wing and unpolitical skinhead resurgence, which rather drew influence from the original Jamaican
Ska
Ska (; ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walki ...
roots of the late 1960s. Coined as a nickname for the new genre by British journalist
Gary Bushell
Garry Bushell (born 13 May 1955) is an English newspaper columnist, rock music journalist, television presenter, author, musician and political activist. Bushell also sings in the Cockney Oi! bands GBX and the Gonads. He managed the New York Ci ...
in 1980, "Oi!" soon became synonymous with "skinhead". Unlike many of their followers, however, early Oi! band members were generally not neo-Nazi or even affiliated with right-wing organizations, and they increasingly distanced themselves from some of their fans, who contributed to recurrent riots at concerts.
In July 1981, the "Southall riots" were sparked when hundreds of skinheads were welcomed at an Oi! gig which was performed in a predominantly-Asian suburb of London. Some skinheads began to attack the neighboring Asian stores, and 400 Asians later responded by burning the venue with paraffin bombs while the skinheads were fleeing with help from the police. The event led to a
moral panic
A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", usua ...
in Britain and the skinhead subculture was firmly associated with
right-wing politics
Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, author ...
and "
white power music
White power music is music that promotes white nationalism. It encompasses various music styles, including rock, country, experimental music and folk.Messner, Beth A., Art Jipson, Paul J. Becker and Bryan Byers. 2007. "The Hardest Hate: A Soc ...
" in the public's opinion by 1982. According to Brown, some lyrical themes of Oi!, such as social frustrations, political repression and working-class pride, were common to other genres such as
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
or blues, but others like violence ("Aggro", for 'aggressiveness') and
football hooliganism
Football hooliganism, also known as soccer hooliganism, football rioting or soccer rioting, constitutes violence and other destructive behaviours perpetrated by spectators at association football events. Football hooliganism normally involves ...
"could be easily interpreted in extreme right-wing terms." The phrase "
all cops are bastards" was popularized among some skinheads by the Oi! band
The 4-Skins
The 4-Skins are an English working-class Oi! band from the East End of London, England. Originally composed of Gary Hodges (vocals), 'Hoxton' Tom McCourt (guitar), Steve 'H' Hamer ( bass) and John Jacobs ( drums), the group was formed in 19 ...
' 1982 song "A.C.A.B."
Political links and radicalization
![Yorkshire NF](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Yorkshire_NF.jpg)
From the late 1970s the
National Front (NF), a British neo-fascist party which was losing ground in electoral politics, began to turn toward the skinhead movement to obtain
grassroots
A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...
supporters among the working class. The
Rock against Communism
Rock Against Communism (RAC) was the name of white power rock concerts in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and has since become the catch-all term for music with racist lyrics as well as a specific genre of rock music derived ...
(RAC) genre, relaunched in 1982 by
Skrewdriver
Skrewdriver were an English punk rock band formed by Ian Stuart Donaldson in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, in 1976. Originally a punk band, Skrewdriver changed into a white supremacist rock band after reuniting in the 1980s. Their original l ...
leader
Ian Stuart Donaldson
Ian Stuart Donaldson (11 August 1957 – 24 September 1993), also known as Ian Stuart, was an English neo-Nazi musician. He was best known as the front-man of Skrewdriver, a Punk band which, from 1982 onwards, he rebranded as a Rock Against ...
in association with the National Front, appeared in reaction to the
Rock against Fascism movement. To draw new adherents, the National Front attempted to use the white power music scene to re-frame its message from overt hate of foreigners and minorities to self-love and collective defence of white identity. Donaldson and the National Front founded a record label named White Noise Club, which released Skrewdriver's album ''White Power'' in 1983, the eponymous song becoming "the most recognizable neo-fascist skinhead song". In 1987, a music festival was organized by National Front member Phil Andrewon on
Nick Griffin
Nicholas John Griffin (born 1 March 1959) is a British politician and white supremacist who represented North West England as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2014. He served as chairman and then president of the far-righ ...
's Suffolk property, and was attended by hundreds of racist skinheads from across Europe who gave the
Nazi salute
The Nazi salute, also known as the Hitler salute (german: link=no, Hitlergruß, , Hitler greeting, ; also called by the Nazi Party , 'German greeting', ), or the ''Sieg Heil'' salute, is a gesture that was used as a greeting in Nazi Germany. Th ...
and sang along a chorus that demanded "white power for Britain".
A split within White Noise Club led to the establishment of
Blood & Honour
Blood & Honour is a Neo-Nazism, neo-Nazi music promotion network and right-wing extremist political group founded in the United Kingdom by Ian Stuart Donaldson and Nicky Crane in 1987. It is composed of White Nationalism, White Nationalists an ...
in 1987. Donaldson had become involved with the West German label
Rock-O-Rama
Rock-O-Rama was a German record label started in 1980 by Herbert Egoldt. The label folded in 1994 after a police raid.
History
Egoldt bootlegged 1950s rockabilly recordings in the early 1970s before starting the Rock-O-Rama mail order service, ...
and felt the need to create his own global neo-fascist skinhead movement without any political party affiliation. The music promotion network quickly turned into the "major reference point for young neo-fascists and neo-Nazis throughout Europe who came to Britain to attend the gigs of Skrewdriver and other bands." Even though skinhead violence helped damage the National Front's public image, the movement draw thousands of young people to neo-fascism and provided the party with a new medium to diffuse their message. In an effort to clean up both the
British National Party
The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and its leader is Adam Walker. A minor party, it has no elected representatives at any level of UK gover ...
's discourse and public image, Griffin publicly distanced the party from the skinhead subculture after he became its chairman in 1999. The party expelled skinhead members, although it has allowed white power band members to join and has accepted donations from neo-fascist skinhead concerts in the early 2000s.
In 1990 the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
's Committee of Inquiry into Racism and Xenophobia reported that the violent and racist skinhead subculture was "by far the most worrying development since the last Committee of Inquiry report
n 1985
N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''.
History
...
" The death of Donaldson in a car crash in September 1993, followed by that of
Nicky Crane
Nicola Vincenzo "Nicky" Crane (21 May 1958 – 7 December 1993) was an English neo-Nazi activist. He came out as gay before dying from an AIDS-related illness in 1993.
Neo-Nazism
Nicky Crane joined the British Movement (BM) in the late 1970s ...
who succumbed to
AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...
in December of the same year, led to the takeover of Blood & Honour by
Combat 18
Combat 18 (C18 or 318) is a neo-Nazi terrorist organisation that was founded in 1992. It originated in the United Kingdom, with ties to movements in Canada and the United States. Since then it has spread to other countries, including Germany ...
, "a more extreme, semi-terrorist neo-Nazi splinter group", and eventually to bloody internal feuds between Combat 18 supporters and Blood & Honour loyalists in the mid- and late 1990s. In 1985, a French worker at the
Brest Arsenal, Gaël Bodilis, created the label
Rebelles Européens
Rebelles Européens was a French independent record label that operated between 1987 and 1994, specialising in white power rock and Rock Against Communism. Based in the port city of Brest, the label was founded by Gaël Bodilis, a member of far-ri ...
, which had an allegiance to neo-Nazism. It was associated with the
FNJ, the youth wing of the
Front National
The National Rally (french: Rassemblement National, ; RN), until 2018 known as the National Front (french: link=no, Front National, ; FN), is a far-rightAbridged list of reliable sources that refer to National Rally as far-right:
Academic:
...
, the neo-fascist
Troisième Voie and later with the neo-Nazi organisation
PNFE
The French and European Nationalist Party (french: Parti nationaliste français et européen or PNFE) was a French nationalist militant organization active between 1987 and 1999. Led by Claude Cornilleau until 1996, its slogan was "France first, ...
. The label rapidly grew as the second-largest
white power music
White power music is music that promotes white nationalism. It encompasses various music styles, including rock, country, experimental music and folk.Messner, Beth A., Art Jipson, Paul J. Becker and Bryan Byers. 2007. "The Hardest Hate: A Soc ...
label in Europe, although the European white power rock scene only managed to enter the mainstream market in Sweden, where the band
Ultima Thule reached the top of the charts in 1993.
Internationalization
![Neonazi-skinheads-weiss-und-stolz crop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Neonazi-skinheads-weiss-und-stolz_crop.jpg)
Racist faction of the skinhead subculture began to appear in the first half of the 1980s in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, West Germany, Austria, the United States, Canada, and Australia; and by the mid-1980s in France, Belgium, Denmark, and Switzerland. During the 1990s, the movement rapidly grew in the West and began to spread more intensively towards Eastern Europe,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
in particular. Before the Internet came to be widely available after the mid-1990s, white power skinhead music played a key role in the international diffusion of white supremacist ideologies within a highly fragmented racist movement. In many European countries, merchandising – and sometimes illegal racist or Holocaust-denying material – was sold via mail-order or during the touring of bands.
Measuring the number of white power skinheads is made difficult by the lack of a formal and organized structure, the issue of overlapping memberships, and a tradition of silence set up to cultivate the mystique of their clandestine activities and to prevent the police from estimating the size of local groups. In 1995, around 70,000 of them were estimated to be present in 33 countries (half being "hard-core activists", the others friends and associates), including 5,000 in Germany, 4,000 in Czechia, 4,000 in Hungary, and 3,500 in the US. By 2002, 350 white power music bands were active the US and Western Europe, and
as of 2012, about 138 racist skinhead organizations operated worldwide.
Europe
In most European countries, the racist skinhead subculture became polarized on the far-right between 1983 and 1986, and shortly after the fall of the
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
in 1989 in Eastern Europe, where it has been particularly strong since the transition to capitalism. The white power music scene rapidly embraced the growth of the Internet, which allowed them to bypass local European
hate speech
Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...
laws and further develop their international networks. In 2013,
Hammerskin Nation
The Hammerskins (also known as Hammerskin Nation) are a white supremacist group formed in 1988 in Dallas, Texas. Their primary focus is the production and promotion of white power rock music, and many white power bands have been affiliated with ...
(HSN) managed to bring together over 1,000 skinheads from all over Europe at a Nazi rock gig organized in Milan.
In Germany, the hard rock band
Böhse Onkelz
Böhse Onkelz (), sensational spelling of ''böse Onkel'' (German for "evil uncles") is a German rock band formed in Frankfurt in 1980. The band reunited in 2014. Despite mass-media criticism concerning their past as skinheads, several of their ...
('Evil Uncles'), formed in 1980 in Frankfurt am Main, lay the ground for the radicalization of the skinhead movement by connecting the music scene with right-wing nationalism. Although they never openly embraced "
white power
White pride and white power are expressions primarily used by white separatist, white nationalist, fascist, neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations in order to signal racist or racialist viewpoints. It is also a slogan used by the prominen ...
" ideas, their 1981 song ''Türken Raus'' ('Turks Out') earned them a reputation as a racist band. In the 1980s, the German neo-Nazi skinheads were known for their violence, sometimes murderous. In 1985, a 76-year-old Jew who had survived the Holocaust was trampled to death during a fight between skinheads and anti-fascist demonstrators. In 1987, skinheads attacked Christians during a festival in
Lindau
Lindau (german: Lindau (Bodensee), ''Lindau am Bodensee''; ; Low Alemannic German, Low Alemannic: ''Lindou'') is a major Town#Germany, town and Lindau (island), island on the eastern side of Lake Constance (''Bodensee'' in German) in Bavaria, Ge ...
because of the town council's refusal to allow the neo-Nazi Alliance of the German People to hold a meeting in the town hall. In August 1992, racist skinheads participated in the
Rostock-Lichtenhagen riots
From August 22 to August 24, 1992 violent xenophobic riots took place in the Lichtenhagen district of Rostock, Germany; these were the worst mob attacks against migrants in postwar Germany. Stones and petrol bombs were thrown at an apartment block ...
, lynching immigrants with the help of ordinary citizens as passersby cheered. During the 1990s, the number of Neo-Nazi groups in
reunified Germany
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
skyrocket, with numerous unemployed young East Germans joining the white power skinhead movement.
In France, the white power skinhead movement was structured around Jeunesses Nationalistes-Révolutionnaires (JNR), founded in 1987 by
Serge Ayoub
Serge Élie Ayoub (born 29 October 1964), also known under the alias ''Batskin'', is a French political activist associated with the far-right and formerly the hooligan movement.
Biography
Ayoub was born in Bagnolet. His French mother was ...
. It was linked to the label
Rebelles Européens
Rebelles Européens was a French independent record label that operated between 1987 and 1994, specialising in white power rock and Rock Against Communism. Based in the port city of Brest, the label was founded by Gaël Bodilis, a member of far-ri ...
and to the neo-fascist organization
Troisième Voie, then to the
French Nationalist Party
The French Nationalist Party (french: Parti Nationaliste Français; PNF), is a far-right neo-fascist political movement established in 1983 by former National Front (FN) and Waffen-SS members around the magazine ''Militant.'' Inactive after the ...
. The JNR initially performed policing functions for the French
Front National
The National Rally (french: Rassemblement National, ; RN), until 2018 known as the National Front (french: link=no, Front National, ; FN), is a far-rightAbridged list of reliable sources that refer to National Rally as far-right:
Academic:
...
, but the latter eventually distanced itself from Ayoub and the JNR after mass skinhead attacks on immigrants in Rouen and Brest.
Russia
The Russian white power skinhead subculture takes its roots in the
Glasnost
''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...
during the 1980s, a period of relative liberalization led by the Soviet regime which allowed for fascist discourses to emerge among young Russian punks, primarily as a reaction against the ideology and history of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
.
Football hooliganism
Football hooliganism, also known as soccer hooliganism, football rioting or soccer rioting, constitutes violence and other destructive behaviours perpetrated by spectators at association football events. Football hooliganism normally involves ...
also played a role in the diffusion of neo-fascist rhetoric in the 1980s. The subculture, known in Russian as ''skinhedy'', appeared in 1992 in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
with a dozen of skinheads. Their size became noticeable by 1994, in the atmosphere of chaos that followed the
dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
and
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
's attempts at liberal reforms and rapid economic
privatization
Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
. Their number skyrocketed throughout the 1990s, fuelled by economic disorder, the collapse of the education system, and the legitimization of violence against political opponents and minorities by the newly established liberal state, illustrated by
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
's attack on the Russian parliament during the
1993 Russian constitutional crisis
The 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, also known as the 1993 October Coup, Black October, the Shooting of the White House or Ukaz 1400, was a political stand-off and a constitutional crisis between the Russian president Boris Yeltsin and t ...
, and the introduction of a state of emergency the same year to police and deport
Caucasians in preparation for the
. Sensationalized coverage of the skinhead movement by Russian state-owned media until the early 2000s has also participated in the large-scale diffusion of the movement. By the end of 1999 there were 3,500 to 3,800 skinheads in Moscow, up to 2,700 in
St Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, and at least 2,000 in
Nizhnii Novgorod.
The movement remained unnoticed in the general public until the early 2000s, when acts of violence began to multiply. Skinheads attacked a Vietnamese hostel in October 2000, an Armenian school in March 2001, led a pogrom at the
Yasenevo Market on Hitler's birthday in April 2001, then a second pogrom in the Moscow underground transit system in November 2001, which resulted in 4 deaths. Despite some common grounds with
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
's nationalist agenda, skinheads remain opposed to vestiges of authority in the country. The skinhead subculture presents itself, in the words of scholar Peter Worger, as an "ultra-nationalist alternative to Putin’s state-sanctioned patriotism." The neo-Nazi
Russian National Unity
Russian National Unity (RNU; transcribed Russkoe natsionalnoe edinstvo RNE) or All-Russian civic patriotic movement "Russian National Unity" (russian: Всероссийское общественное патриотическое движен ...
group, in contrast, as known to have enrolled young members from skinhead gangs. The Federal Law on Counteracting Extremist Activity, adopted in 2002 after the skinhead pogroms, was rarely enforced by the police and skinheads are rather prosecuted for murders associated with hooliganism and everyday-life conflicts than for hate speech and racist violence.
Some of the skinhead groups are autonomous, while others are linked to the US-based organizations Blood & Honour and Hammerskin Nation. Contrary to most other countries, the Russian skinhead subculture has attracted members from all income levels, and they have tended to come from the educated middle class in the urban centres. In 2004, there were about 50,000 self-identified skinheads in the country, with groups active in approximately 85 cities. Up to 2,000 rioters linked to the Russian skinhead movement have participated in an anti-Chechen pogrom in 2006.
Under serious police pressure, the number of racist acts and Neo-Nazis started to significantly decline in Russia from 2009.
United States
![Skinhead88 graffiti in Turin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Skinhead88_graffiti_in_Turin.jpg)
In the 1980s and 1990s, many young American neo-Nazis and white supremacists, often associated with the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
, joined the growing US white power skinhead movement. By 1988, there were ~2,000 neo-Nazi skinheads in the United States.
The first identifiable neo-Nazi skinhead group was the short-lived Chicago's Romantic Violence, established in 1984 by 25-year-old
Clark Martell
Clark Reid Martell (born December 23, 1959) is an American white supremacist and the former leader of Chicago Area SkinHeads (CASH), which was founded in 1985 by six skinheads under his leadership. This was the first organized neo-Nazi white powe ...
. The group collapsed when Martell was imprisoned for assault. Shortly thereafter in 1985, the
American Front
American Front (AF) is a white supremacist organization founded in San Francisco, California by Bob Heick in 1984. It began as a loose organization modeled after the British National Front. Heick began working with Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resi ...
emerged in San Francisco. As other groups like the
Hammerskins
The Hammerskins (also known as Hammerskin Nation) are a white supremacist group formed in 1988 in Dallas, Texas. Their primary focus is the production and promotion of white power rock music, and many white power bands have been affiliated with ...
(1987) or
Volksfront
Volksfront, also known as Volksfront International, was an American White separatism, white separatist organization founded on October 20, 1994, in Portland, Oregon. According to Volksfront's now defunct website, the group described itself as an ...
(1994) were growing in the country, racist skinheads gained acceptance among existing and organized US white power organizations like the
Church of the Creator,
White Aryan Resistance
White Aryan Resistance (WAR) is a White supremacy, white supremacist and Neo-Nazism, neo-Nazi organization in the United States which was founded and formerly led by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Tom Metzger. It is based in Warsaw, Indiana, ...
,
National Alliance or KKK, which perceived the popularity of the subculture as an opportunity to expand their audience.
At the time of his death in 2002, National Alliance leader
William Luther Pierce
William Luther Pierce III (September 11, 1933 – July 23, 2002) was an American neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and far-right political activist. For more than 30 years, he was one of the highest-profile individuals of the white nationalist movemen ...
, who regarded music as an opportunity to reach a young audience and counteract mainstream cultural productions, had become the world's largest
white power music
White power music is music that promotes white nationalism. It encompasses various music styles, including rock, country, experimental music and folk.Messner, Beth A., Art Jipson, Paul J. Becker and Bryan Byers. 2007. "The Hardest Hate: A Soc ...
producer thanks to his label
Resistance Records
Resistance Records was a Canadian record label owned by Resistance LLC which was closely connected to the organization National Alliance. It produced and sold music by neo-Nazi and white separatist musicians, primarily through its website. Adver ...
. In 2004, the white power label
Panzerfaust Records
Panzerfaust Records was a Minnesota-based white power record label founded in September 1998. Named after a German anti-tank rocket, the record label distributed the music of white power bands and organized concerts across the United States. At t ...
launched a "Project Schoolyard USA" to distribute sample CDs to middle and high students across the United States.
In the United States, most white power skinhead groups are organized at either the state, county, city or neighborhood level; the Hammerskin Nation is one of the few exceptions, due to its international presence. A 2007 report by the
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...
says groups such as white power skinheads, neo-Nazis, and the KKK have been growing more active in the United States, with a particular focus on
opposition to illegal immigration.
The
Aryan Brotherhood
The Aryan Brotherhood, also known as the Brand or the AB, is a neo-Nazi prison gang and an organized crime syndicate which is based in the United States and has an estimated 15,000–20,000 members both inside and outside prisons. The Southern P ...
has grown in some parts of the United States by swallowing whole skinhead gangs.
The
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white su ...
(SPLC) noted in 2020 that the skinhead movement had "almost no young recruits" in the United States. The SPLC writes, "Image-conscious white nationalist groups and militant neo-Nazi groups are attracting the younger generation, while new racist skinhead groups are emerging only from the fragments of existing groups. No group is recruiting in significant numbers."
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. The college models its approach to education after the Supervision system, Oxford/Cambridge system of one-on-one student-faculty tutorials. Sara ...
journalist Chelsea Liu identified their fashion style as one possible reason for the decline, seeing it as "increasingly obsolete" and noting the
alt-right
The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a far-right, white nationalist movement. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late 2000s before increasing in popularity during the mid-2 ...
's preference for casual clothing.
Anti-racist skinhead opposition
Since the emergence of white power skinheads in the late 1970s, anti-racist forces within the skinhead subculture, sometimes called "
Red Skins" when associated with
left-wing politics
Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political%20ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically in ...
, have sought to resist the white power skinheads, who they often deride as "boneheads".
Anti-racist skinheads generally emphasize the multicultural roots of the original skinhead subculture, and the authenticity of the skinhead style, which developed outside of the political realm. They oppose the views of white power skinheads, for whom the skinhead subculture emerged from a "pure white", working-class cultural and social context, emphasizing the "
Paki-bashing
Paki is a term typically directed towards people of Pakistani descent mainly in British slang, and as an offensive slur is often used indiscriminately towards people of perceived South Asian descent in general. The slur is used primarily in th ...
" of the late 1960s to allege that the original skinheads as "white separatists".
The
Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice
Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) are anti-racist skinheads who oppose white power skinheads, neo-fascists and other political racists, particularly if they identify themselves as skinheads. SHARPs aim to reclaim the original multicultura ...
(SHARP), founded in 1986 in New York City, stress the importance of the Jamaican influence in the original British skinhead subculture. The next largest antiracist skinhead organizations are SLO (Skinheads Liberation Organization) and RASH (
Red and Anarchist Skinheads
Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) are anti-racist skinheads who oppose white power skinheads, neo-fascists and other political racists, particularly if they identify themselves as skinheads. SHARPs aim to reclaim the original multicultur ...
).
Style and clothing
Early
skinhead
A skinhead is a member of a subculture which originated among working class youths in London, England, in the 1960s and soon spread to other parts of the United Kingdom, with a second working class skinhead movement emerging worldwide in th ...
s typically wore steel-toed combat boots or
Doc Martens
Dr. Martens, also commonly known as Doc Martens, Docs or DMs, is a German-founded British footwear and clothing brand, headquartered in Wollaston in the Wellingborough district of Northamptonshire, England. Although famous for its footwear, D ...
, thin red
suspenders
Suspenders (American English, Canadian English), or braces (British English, Australian English) are fabric or leather straps worn over the shoulders to hold up skirts or trousers. The straps may be elasticated, either entirely or only at attach ...
,
Crombie coats, sheepskin bomber jackets, blue jeans, mohair suits, in addition to a shaved head or very closely-cropped hair.The
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...
writes that although steel-toed workboots are typical of both racist and anti-racist skinheads, white power skinheads commonly fit their boots with white- or red-coloured laces to signify their affiliation to the subculture. These laces are usually done in a "ladder" style: laces are done horizontally instead of crossed. In a few gangs, these laces must be "earned" through acts of racist violence against a "perceived enemy of the white race".
In the early 2000s, the
Lonsdale clothing brand became popular among some
neo-Nazi
Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
skinheads in Europe, partly due to the association of the four middle letters of Lonsdale – NSDA, the only visible part if worn under open jackets – with NSDAP, the
acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
of
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
's
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
.
However, the brand has also been popular since the 1980s among non-Nazi skinheads. Lonsdale has publicly denounced the trend and sponsored various
anti-racist
Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate ...
events and campaigns.
White power skinheads also tend to bear
tattoo
A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several Process of tatt ...
s displaying their affiliation to the white power movement, although some leaders have encouraged members to abstain from receiving tattoos. Frequent depictions include
Viking
Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden),
who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
warriors or
Berserkers, World War II German soldiers (especially
Waffen-SS
The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both occup ...
), and skinheads themselves – often all three together. Tattoos portraying a "crucified skinhead" are also extremely popular among white power skinheads.
Ideology
The central themes of white power skinheads revolve around "the
ethnic war
An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more contending ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's positio ...
which will be waged in the future and the denunciation of a
global Jewish conspiracy to promote
miscegenation
Miscegenation ( ) is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms ''miscere'' ("to mix") and ''genus'' ("race") ...
" (see
White genocide conspiracy theory
The white genocide, white extinction, or white replacement conspiracy theory is a white supremacist conspiracy theory which states that there is a deliberate plot, often blamed on Jews, to promote miscegenation, interracial marriage, mass non ...
). The white power skinhead movement is generally associated with
neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
, in part, this is due to its origins in the
National Front and the
British Movement, along with the presence of former
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
(especially former members of the
SS) who mentored members of nascent German racist skinhead groups in the 1980s–1990s. Historian
John F. Pollard contends that "the racist skinhead ideology is fundamentally
neo-Nazi
Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
in inspiration." Camus and Lebourg also argue that although not all racist skinheads can be classified as 'neo-Nazi', neo-Nazism remains hegemonic in the far-right skinhead movement. Scholars concede at the same time the difficulty of separating the public use of the provocative and subversive
aesthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...
surrounding Nazi symbols from actual belief in, and commitment to, Nazi ideology.
The early-20th century
Judeo-Bolshevik
Jewish Bolshevism, also Judeo–Bolshevism, is an anti-communist and antisemitic canard, which alleges that the Jews were the originators of the Russian Revolution in 1917, and that they held primary power among the Bolsheviks who led the revo ...
and
Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theories
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
*
*
* The term has a nega ...
have since evolved into the idea of a
Zionist Occupied Government
The Zionist occupation government, Zionist occupational government or Zionist-occupied government (ZOG), sometimes also referred to as the Jewish occupational government (JOG), is an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming Jews secretly contr ...
(ZOG), which claims that
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
secretly
control the governments of
Western states
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania. . Their attitude toward the Holocaust ranges from outright
denial
Denial, in ordinary English usage, has at least three meanings: asserting that any particular statement or allegation is not true (which might be accurate or inaccurate); the refusal of a request; and asserting that a true statement is not true. ...
to minimization of the death toll, and even to glorifying the event in the lyrics of white power bands such as
No Remorse or Warhammer. Nazi theories of Slavs as ''
Untermensch
''Untermensch'' (, ; plural: ''Untermenschen'') is a Nazi term for non- Aryan "inferior people" who were often referred to as "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Serbs, and later also Russians). The ...
en'' ('sub-humans') have been largely abandoned in favor of a more "inclusive" concept of
white supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
. American neo-Nazism and white supremacism largely helped "crystallize" the Nazi imagery and have had a powerful influence on the worldwide movement, as evidenced by the popularity of
David Lane's
Fourteen Words
Fourteen Words (also abbreviated 14 or 14/ 88) is a reference to two slogans originated by David Eden Lane, one of nine founding members of the defunct white separatist insurrectionary terrorist organization The Order. The slogans have served ...
and
William Luther Pierce
William Luther Pierce III (September 11, 1933 – July 23, 2002) was an American neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and far-right political activist. For more than 30 years, he was one of the highest-profile individuals of the white nationalist movemen ...
's ''
The Turner Diaries
''The Turner Diaries'' is a 1978 novel by William Luther Pierce, published under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald. It depicts a violent revolution in the United States which leads to the overthrow of the federal government, a nuclear war, and, ...
'', which some
Combat 18
Combat 18 (C18 or 318) is a neo-Nazi terrorist organisation that was founded in 1992. It originated in the United Kingdom, with ties to movements in Canada and the United States. Since then it has spread to other countries, including Germany ...
leaders regard as their "Bible".
According to Camus and Lebourg, the Nazifying imagery of white power skinheads was "at first largely provocative", and sometimes a way for the proletarian youth "of responding to the sacralization of the memory of World War II". Pollard also notes that "adolescent rebellion", involving a desire to be different by rejecting prevailing societal norms by using shocking imagery (like the wearing of Nazi regalia by motorcycle gangs in the 1960s and punk rockers in the 1970s), probably plays some part in the decision to wear neo-Nazi or racist symbols, or even to adopt the ideas they embody. References to Nazism have also been less significant in countries like Italy or Hungary, where fascist figures like
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
and
Ferenc Szálasi
Ferenc Szálasi (; 6 January 1897 – 12 March 1946), the leader of the Arrow Cross Party – Hungarist Movement, became the "Leader of the Nation" (''Nemzetvezető'') as head of state and simultaneously prime minister of the Kingdom of Hungary' ...
still exert a strong cultural influence on the local far-right.
Lifestyle
Puritanism
White power skinheads see both the
permissive society
A permissive society, also referred to as permissive culture, is a society in which some social norms become increasingly liberal, especially with regard to sexual freedom. This usually accompanies a change in what is considered deviant. While ty ...
and the
sexual revolution
The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and the developed world from the 1 ...
as "perversions", and they generally promote an image of "clean-living, drug-free, heterosexual, working-class males". Homophobia and rejection of any form of drug-taking (except tobacco and alcohol) are common traits found across skinhead groups. According to historian
John F. Pollard, this "
puritanical
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...
" stance takes its roots in the anti-permissive way of life of the original skinheads who rejected the
mod
Mod, MOD or mods may refer to:
Places
* Modesto City–County Airport, Stanislaus County, California, US
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Mods (band), a Norwegian rock band
* M.O.D. (Method of Destruction), a band from New York City, US ...
and
hippie
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
subcultures.
A central element of this puritanism is the skinhead idea of "naturalness"; their aim is to "eliminate all abnormalities like, homosexuals, lesbians and other kinds of 'sick' and 'deviant' people". Skinheads'
opposition to abortion partly results from a backlash against feminism and the sexual revolution, and from a
paranoid anxiety Paranoid anxiety is a term used in object relations theory, particularity in discussions about the Paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions. The term was frequently used by Melanie Klein, especially to refer to a pre-depressive and persecutory sen ...
about the demographic decline of the white race embodied in the widespread slogan "9 per cent", meaning that only 9 per cent of the world's population is white by their own calculations.
Women are a minority among the white power skinhead movement. In Britain, France and Germany, they rarely attend events. Female presence at gigs is however more frequent in Italy, and entire families have been seen attending the Aryan and Nordic Fest in the United States. Despite a widespread misogynistic culture and a general absence of commitment to female equality, some skinhead women have rejected the traditional gender roles and can act as aggressively as their male counterparts.
Marginality
Skinheads present themselves as an excluded or martyr group repressed by the "
police state
A police state describes a state where its government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the exe ...
" of liberal democracies. Blood & Honour and Combat18 have promoted conspiracy theories about the death of
Ian Stuart Donaldson
Ian Stuart Donaldson (11 August 1957 – 24 September 1993), also known as Ian Stuart, was an English neo-Nazi musician. He was best known as the front-man of Skrewdriver, a Punk band which, from 1982 onwards, he rebranded as a Rock Against ...
, suggesting that he was the victim of a political "assassination". The common skinhead motto "hated but proud" expresses the closed, excluded, but feared lifestyle of white power skinheads.
Odinism
Odinism
Heathenry, also termed Heathenism, contemporary Germanic Paganism, or Germanic Neopaganism, is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religious studies classify it as a new religious movement. Developed in Europe during the early 20th cent ...
, the
modern pagan
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Afric ...
religion reconstructed on the beliefs of
Norse and
Ancient Germans
The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and ear ...
, is particularly popular among skinheads due to its warrior
ethos
Ethos ( or ) is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology; and the balance between caution, and passion. The Greeks also used this word to refer to ...
. ''Blood & Honour'' magazine regularly points out that Odinism is a "religion of warriors", while
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
is a "religion of slaves". In the United States, racialist pagan groups like the
Odin Brotherhood or
Wotansvolk
Wotansvolk (English: "Odin's Volk, Folk") promulgates a White nationalism, white nationalist variant of modern paganism, Neo-Paganism—founded in the early 1990s by Ron McVan, Katja Lane and David Lane (white supremacist), David Lane (1938– ...
have found some followers in the skinhead movement, and skinhead groups have also tended to revive
Slavic paganism
Slavic mythology or Slavic religion is the Religion, religious beliefs, myths, and ritual practices of the Slavs before Christianisation of the Slavs, Christianisation, which occurred at various stages between the 8th and the 13th century. The So ...
. Pollard says, however, "the appropriation of Odinist/pagan imagery and iconography by racist skinheads seems to be largely symbolic, rather than a serious attempt to adopt an alternative religion to Christianity." Also, Odinism and neo-paganism have been less popular in countries like Italy or Spain, where skinhead groups have maintained a cultural attachment to
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
.
Notable organizations
*
Aryan Guard
The Aryan Guard was a neo-Nazi group based in Alberta, Canada, whose members are primarily located in the city of Calgary.
*
Blood & Honour
Blood & Honour is a Neo-Nazism, neo-Nazi music promotion network and right-wing extremist political group founded in the United Kingdom by Ian Stuart Donaldson and Nicky Crane in 1987. It is composed of White Nationalism, White Nationalists an ...
*
Boot Boys
The Boot Boys was a far-right Norwegian Neo-Nazi organization from Bøler, a suburban area of Oslo, with connections to individuals in Bergen and Kristiansand. Consisting of about 50 members, it was considered one of the most violent Neo-Naz ...
*
British Movement
*
Combat 18
Combat 18 (C18 or 318) is a neo-Nazi terrorist organisation that was founded in 1992. It originated in the United Kingdom, with ties to movements in Canada and the United States. Since then it has spread to other countries, including Germany ...
*
Format18
Format18 (russian: Формат18; F18) was a Russian neo-Nazi group based in the city of Moscow. It was led by Maxim Sergeyevich Martsinkevich (also known as ''Tesak''), and had close relations with the political party National Socialist Soci ...
*
Fourth Reich (New Zealand gang)
*
Hammerskins
The Hammerskins (also known as Hammerskin Nation) are a white supremacist group formed in 1988 in Dallas, Texas. Their primary focus is the production and promotion of white power rock music, and many white power bands have been affiliated with ...
*
National Front
*
Public Enemy No. 1 (gang)
*
Ryno-Skachevsky gang
The Ryno-Skachevsky gang was a Russian racist group of young men seven of which in 2008 were convicted of beating and murdering people of ethnicities originated from Caucasus and Middle Asia. The band was headed by Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky. ...
*
Volksfront
Volksfront, also known as Volksfront International, was an American White separatism, white separatist organization founded on October 20, 1994, in Portland, Oregon. According to Volksfront's now defunct website, the group described itself as an ...
*
White Aryan Resistance
White Aryan Resistance (WAR) is a White supremacy, white supremacist and Neo-Nazism, neo-Nazi organization in the United States which was founded and formerly led by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Tom Metzger. It is based in Warsaw, Indiana, ...
In popular culture
Music groups
*
Kolovrat
*
Landser
*
Macht und Ehre
*
No Remorse
*
Skrewdriver
Skrewdriver were an English punk rock band formed by Ian Stuart Donaldson in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, in 1976. Originally a punk band, Skrewdriver changed into a white supremacist rock band after reuniting in the 1980s. Their original l ...
(originally a non-racist
punk rock band)
*
Skullhead
Films
* ''
Adam's Apples
''Adam's Apples'' ( da, Adams Æbler) is a 2005 Danish black comedy-drama film directed and written by Anders Thomas Jensen. The film revolves around the theme of the Book of Job. The main roles are played by Ulrich Thomsen and Mads Mikkelsen ...
'' (2005)
* ''
American History X
''American History X'' is a 1998 American crime drama film directed by Tony Kaye and written by David McKenna. The film stars Edward Norton and Edward Furlong as two brothers from Los Angeles who are involved in the white power skinhead and ne ...
'' (1998)
* ''
The Believer'' (2001)
* ''
Dead Bang'' (1989)
* ''
Erasing Hate
''Erasing Hate'' is a 2011 American TV documentary chronicling the efforts of reformed white power skinhead Bryon Widner to remove his numerous racist facial tattoos. Written, produced, and directed by Bill Brummel, it first aired on June 6, 201 ...
'' (2011)
* ''
Green Room
In show business, the green room is the space in a theatre or similar venue that functions as a waiting room and lounge for performers before, during, and after a performance or show when they are not engaged on stage. Green rooms typically have ...
'' (2015)
* ''
Higher Learning
''Higher Learning'' is a 1995 American drama, drama film written and directed by John Singleton and starring an ensemble cast. The film follows the changing lives of three incoming freshmen at the fictional Columbus University: Malik Williams (Om ...
'' (1995)
* ''
I.D.'' (1995)
* ''
Ill Manors
''Ill Manors'' (stylised as ''ill Manors'') is a British crime drama film written, co-scored and directed by Ben Drew AKA musician Plan B. The film revolves around the lives of eight main characters, played by Riz Ahmed, Ed Skrein, Keef Cog ...
'' (2012)
* ''
Imperium
In ancient Rome, ''imperium'' was a form of authority held by a citizen to control a military or governmental entity. It is distinct from ''auctoritas'' and ''potestas'', different and generally inferior types of power in the Roman Republic an ...
'' (2016)
* ''
The Infiltrator'' (1995)
* ''
Made in Britain
''Made in Britain'' is a 1983 British television play written by David Leland and directed by Alan Clarke. It follows a 16-year-old racist skinhead and his constant confrontations with authority figures. It was broadcast on ITV on 10 July 198 ...
'' (1983)
* ''
Neo Ned
''Neo Ned'' is a 2005 film starring Jeremy Renner, Gabrielle Union, Sally Kirkland, Cary Elwes, Eddie Kaye Thomas, and Ethan Suplee. It was written by Tim Boughn and directed by Van Fischer.
Synopsis
The film stars Jeremy Renner as Ned Nelso ...
'' (2005)
* ''
Pariah'' (1998)
* ''
Orange Is the New Black
''Orange Is the New Black'' (sometimes abbreviated to ''OITNB'') is an American comedy-drama streaming television series created by Jenji Kohan for Netflix. The series is based on Piper Kerman's memoir '' Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Wo ...
'' (2016)
* ''
Romper Stomper
''Romper Stomper'' is a 1992 Australian drama film written and directed by Geoffrey Wright in his feature film directorial debut. The film stars Russell Crowe, Daniel Pollock, Jacqueline McKenzie, Tony Le-Nguyen and Colin Chin. The film tel ...
'' (1992)
* ''
Russia 88'' (2009)
* ''
Skinhead Attitude
''Skinhead Attitude'' is a 2003 Documentary film, documentary about the skinhead subculture, made by Daniel Schweizer (who also directed the films ''White Terror'' and ''Skin or Die'').
It outlined the history of 40 years of the skinhead subcultu ...
'' (2003)`
* ''
Skinning
Skinning is the act of skin removal. The process is done by humans to animals, mainly as a means to prepare the meat beneath for cooking and consumption, or to harvest the skin for making fur clothing or tanning it to make leather. The skin ...
'' (2010)
* ''
SLC Punk!
''SLCPunk!'' is a 1998 American comedy-drama film written and directed by James Merendino. The film centers around Steven "Stevo" Levy, a college graduate and punk living in Salt Lake City during the mid-1980s.
''SLCPunk!'' was chosen as the open ...
'' (1998)
* ''
Sökarna'' (1993)
* ''
Steel Toes
''Steel Toes'' is a 2007 film directed by David Gow and Mark Adam and starring David Strathairn. It was filmed in Montreal, Quebec, and was produced by Galafilm. The film was based on writer/director David Gow's play ''Cherry Docs''.
Plot
Danny ...
'' (2006)
* ''
This Is England
''This Is England'' is a 2006 British drama film written and directed by Shane Meadows. The story centres on young skinheads in England in 1983. The film illustrates how their subculture, which has its roots in 1960s West Indies culture, especi ...
'' (2006)
* ''
Tic Tac
Tic Tac (stylized as "tic tac") is a brand of small, hard mint manufactured by the Italian company Ferrero. They were first produced in 1969 and are now available in a variety of flavours in over 100 countries.
Tic Tacs are usually sold in smal ...
'' (1997)
Video games
* ''
Ethnic Cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
'' (2002)
* ''
Manhunt
Manhunt may refer to:
Search processes
* Manhunt (law enforcement), a search for a dangerous fugitive
* Manhunt (military), a search for a high-value target by special operations forces or intelligence agencies
Social organisations
* Manhun ...
'' (2003, known in-game as the Skinz)
* ''
RoadKill
Roadkill is an animal or animals that have been struck and killed by drivers of motor vehicles on highways. Wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC) have increasingly been the topic of academic research to understand the causes, and how it can be mi ...
'' (2003, known in-game as "Talons" and "Dreg Lords")
See also
*
Ian Stuart Donaldson
Ian Stuart Donaldson (11 August 1957 – 24 September 1993), also known as Ian Stuart, was an English neo-Nazi musician. He was best known as the front-man of Skrewdriver, a Punk band which, from 1982 onwards, he rebranded as a Rock Against ...
*
Far-right politics
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
*
Far-right subcultures
Far-right subcultures refers to the symbolism, ideology and traits that hold relevance to various politically extreme right-wing groups and organisations. There are three kinds of subcultures within far-right movements to distinguish: subcultural ...
*
Index of racism-related articles
This is a list of topics related to racism:
A
* Adolf Hitler
* Adultification bias
* Affirmative action
* Afrocentrism
* Afrophobia
* Alt-right
* Andrew Anglin
* Anti-Arabism
* Anti-Americanism
* Anti-Armenian sentiment
* Anti-Canadian sentiment ...
*
List of gangs in the United States
The Federal Bureau of Investigation website in 2014 stated that there were some 33,000 gangs in the United States which they classified as street gangs, motorcycle gangs or prison gangs. While some gangs are multi-ethnic, many criminal ent ...
*
List of Ku Klux Klan organizations
Since the late 1860s, there have been many organizations that have used the title "Ku Klux Klan" or have split off from KKK groups using different names.
Reconstruction Era paramilitaries
During Reconstruction, there were a number of white sup ...
*
List of neo-Nazi organizations
The following is a list of organizations, both active and defunct, whose ideological beliefs are categorized as neo-Nazism. This includes political parties, terrorist cells, street gangs, social clubs, criminal groups, websites, religious sects, ...
*
Organizations designated by the SPLC as hate groups
*
Symbols designated by the ADL as hate symbols
*
List of white nationalist organizations
The following is the list of well-known white nationalist organizations, groups and related media:
White nationalism is a political ideology which advocates a racial definition of national identity for white people; some white nationalists a ...
*
Racism by country
The article lists the state of race relations and racism in a number of countries.
Various forms of racism are practiced in most countries on Earth. In individual countries, the forms of racism which are practiced may be motivated by historic, cu ...
*
Racism in Europe
*
Racism in Germany
Racism in German history is inextricably linked to the Herero and Namaqua genocide in colonial times. Racism reached its peak during the Nazi regime which eventually led to a program of systematic state-sponsored murder known as The Holocaust. Acco ...
*
Racism in Russia
Racism in Russia appears mainly in the form of negative attitudes and actions by some Russians toward non-ethnic Russian citizens, immigrants or tourists. Traditionally Russian racism includes anti-Semitism, anti-Ukrainian sentiment, and Tatarop ...
*
Racism in the United Kingdom
Racism in the United Kingdom refers to negative attitudes and views on race or ethnicity held by various people and groups in the United Kingdom. The extent and the targets of racist attitudes in the United Kingdom have varied over time. It has ...
*
Racism in North America
This article describes the state of race relations and racism in North America. Racism manifests itself in different ways and severities throughout North America depending on the country. Colonial processes shaped the continent culturally, demogra ...
*
Racism in the United States
Racism in the United States comprises negative attitudes and views on race or ethnicity which are related to each other, are held by various people and groups in the United States, and have been reflected in discriminatory laws, practices and ...
*
Racism in Canada
Racism in Canada traces both historical and contemporary racist community attitudes, as well as governmental negligence and political non-compliance with United Nations human rights standards and incidents in Canada. Contemporary Canada is ...
*
Racism in Mexico
Racism in Mexico refers to the social phenomenon in which behaviors of discrimination, prejudice, and any form of antagonism are directed against people in that country due to their race, ethnicity, skin color, language, or physical complexion. It ...
*
Racism in South America
The article describes the state of race relations and racism in South America. Racism of various forms is found worldwide. Racism is widely condemned throughout the world, with 170 states signatories of the International Convention on the Elimina ...
*
National Socialist black metal
National Socialist black metal, also known as NSBM, Aryan black metal, and Neo-Nazi black metal, is a political movement and subgenre within the black metal music scene that promotes neo-Nazism, Fascism, and white supremacist ideologies. NSBM a ...
* Nazi punk
* Michael Kühnen
*
Nicky Crane
Nicola Vincenzo "Nicky" Crane (21 May 1958 – 7 December 1993) was an English neo-Nazi activist. He came out as gay before dying from an AIDS-related illness in 1993.
Neo-Nazism
Nicky Crane joined the British Movement (BM) in the late 1970s ...
* Right-wing terrorism
* Terrorism in the United States
* Domestic terrorism in the United States
* Tom Metzger
* White nationalism
* White power music
* White pride
* White separatism
* White supremacy
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
*
*
External links
Neo-fascists in RussiaNazi skinheads and racist rockNicky Crane: The secret double life of a gay neo-Nazi
{{DEFAULTSORT:White Power Skinhead
Neo-Nazi concepts
Anti-LGBT sentiment
Violence against gay men
Violence against LGBT people
Antisemitism in the United Kingdom
Antisemitism in the United States
Islamophobia in the United Kingdom
Islamophobia in the United States
Anti-black racism in the United Kingdom
Anti-black racism in the United States
Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States