Photo Credit: Jeff McIntosh, CP
I have to feel for the good people of the city of Calgary. I wake up this morning and go to CBC News to find this story about 50 members of the Aryan Guard who gathered to disrupt an anti-racism march on the International Day to Eliminate Racial Discrimination.
The real concern here is that this group is growing. According to the always reliable wikipedia, there were 20 members in August 2007, 40 at a protest in October 2008, and now 50 this March. And, to top it off, Calgary Police claim to need to protect the Charter Rights of these neo-nazis who celebrate Hitler’s birthday. Apparently, the Calgary Police have not heard of Section 319 of the Criminal Code prohibiting the promotion of hate.
Calgary needs to seriously consider its image. They are the first international stop for George Bush, the home of a growing neo-Nazi group, and the 5-time electors of MP Rob Anders who called Nelson Mandela a terrorist. Yes, the Nobel Prize winner and the man who brought in the Truth and Reconciliation instead of Zimbabwe-style revenge.
I doubt very much that Calgary is a bad place or full of bad people. But, the leaders of the city need to step up and actively work against the extremist elements on their far right. In particular, I would suggest that it is the moderate right-wing – the reasonable, level-headed majority – that needs to put these nuts in their rightful places.
Don Street Blog 
“Aryan Guard who gathered to disrupt an anti-racism march” False.
The communists and anarchists were the ones who sought out the White Pride World Wide Day march and attempted to disrupt it using violence and intimidation.
“Apparently, the Calgary Police have not heard of Section 319 of the Criminal Code prohibiting the promotion of hate.”
Apparently you’ve never read Section 319. Celebrating White Pride day by walking down the street with white pride flags is not the promotion of genocide and it’s not even disparaging to other groups. If you think Pride marches are hate maybe the people in city hall should be arrested for funding Gay Pride Day events.
Hi James,
It would appear that White Pride World Wide Day coincides with International Day to Eliminate Racial Discrimination. Just a coincidence?
As for whether or not the Aryan Guard gathered to disrupt the march, I will have to trust CBC on it. Send me a link if you have any other news source that doesn’t show the Aryan Guard waiting for the anti-racism group at the intersection of 7th Avenue and 6th Street SW.
I stopped by the Aryan Guard website to check and see if it is a hate group and found the following lyrics:
“The spirit of Hitler will rise again
And help us take back our lands
He’ll inspire us to win the fight
Because National-Socialism is always right”
This is from one of the songs on the White Pride Worldwide CD from your group. If the Aryan Guard wants to present its “White Pride Day” as something that has nothing to do with hate, you might want to acutally mean it.
And, if that perfect demonstration that Aryan Guard is scum is not enough, here is from the page dealing with White Pride:
“(Question:) I’m interested to know, what are the ‘signs’ or ‘signals’ mentioned as being indicators of a person being white or non-white?
(Answer:) There’s physical appearance; most of us know what a White person looks like. Jews are about the only non-Whites who can easily pass for White. The more you know about the differences, the easier they are to spot, but due to race-mixing with Whites, some are almost perfect imitations of Whites.
There’s behavioral patterns. Jews love money but hate hard work; they’d rather be salesmen or bankers than construction-workers, typically. This is, however, a generalization, and there are plenty of exceptions to the rule; there are many Jewish doctors, for example, and being a doctor is certainly hard work.
When it comes to mixed-race persons who exhibit strong White characteristics, but don’t quite pass as White, there are usually strong non-White characteristics evident; excessive duskiness of skin, flat-black eyes, the palms of the hands and soles of the feet being markedly lighter than the backs of the hands and feet, the shape and size of the nose. Such characteristics can often be subtle enough to fly under the radar until coming to someone’s attention.
The girl I mentioned earlier was Brazilian. It is well-known that many South American Whites are of the Mediterranean strain, Whites whom often have dark eyes and dusky skin. But, there’s dark eyes and there’s dark eyes… hers were flat-black to the point of being animalistic in appearance. There were odd exotic highlights to her cheekbones and facial structure as well. Some of the elders conferred briefly and concluded that she was not satisfactorily White in physical appearance. A bit disappointing for her no doubt, but we also frequently encounter full-blown Native Americans who for some reason want to be White Power skinheads for who knows what reasons, and quite frankly, we have to draw the line somewhere sensible!
With regards to the aforementioned Natives… for the life of me, I can’t understand why they wouldn’t be satisfied to be Trad skins.”
The Aryan Guard are dangerous racists who spread hate. The White Pride Day has nothing to do with celebrating the so-called white-race. It has everything to do with spreading hate.
All this fighting and hate over different levels of melanin in the skin.
Hi Evan,
Agreed on melanin. What a stupid reason to divide people. And the notion of a white race….seriously? No wonder those idiots need to develop inane tests (as cited above) for whether someone is white or not. What a load of shit.
Anti Racist Action
http://anti-racistcanada.blogspot.com/
ARA Admit to that they were the ones who crashed the White Pride World Wide march by Aryan Guard in almost all of their stories.
CBC and other media outlets also reported there was white power and swastika nazi flags, and out of the hundreds of pictures taken that day there is none that show flags with swastikas on them or flags that say “white power”.
CBC is not a reliable source.
That’s a straw-man, James.
The ultimate claim is that this group is a hate group. The lyrics celebrating Hitler give that away. Thus, they should not be allowed to march and promote hate and violence – no matter how they want to disguise their rediculous views.
The irony is that if it wasn’t for the ARA and their counter protest the Aryan Guard would have had no soapbox to stand on.
The ARA shows up and the media follows. Now you have the Aryan Guard on every news channel, in every newspaper and on countless Flickr and Facebook pages.
Barbara Streisand Effect in all its glory.
Had the Aryan Guard simply been ignored they would have been wandering the empty streets of downtown on a Saturday looking like even bigger idiots.
Someone should also remind the ARA that throwing rocks, signs and soup cans (wtf) isn’t exactly a good way to promote yourself as a peaceful organization.
If the group is a committing blatant “hate” violations they would have been shut down already for violating Section 319 of the criminal code, or Section 13.1 of the CHA. Neither have occured because they choose their words carefully.
Not all the people marching were from aryan guard you know. What you are suggesting is restricting a persons right to assemble and their right to liberty because their opinions contradict yours. You don’t want people walking down the street with non violent, non hateful signs, simply because they think different then you. Who’se the bigot?
Having White Pride flags and going down the street does not violating the human rights act or the criminal code regarding hate. What you want is complete submission of peoples right to assembly because of their internal views.
I walk down the street and wittness natives with native pride hats and shirts and you always here “black power” hype,yet as soon as some white folks start celebrating there heritage everyone get’s in a up roar. On a global scale we(whites) are the minority and we need to think about that. I have been exsposed to hatered for simply being white. We need to start to thinking and sticking togeather. I wish no harm to anyone but I am proud to be White and am proud that others feel the same way.
I’m from Calgary and, again tonight as we welcome Ann Coulter, I feel humiliation.
Everything you said is true. Calgary isn’t full of bad people but it’s full of dumb people, which may be worse.