“So
you still think you can control them?”
We
present a text by Alexander Nym reflecting on alleged events at the Neofolk Rauhnacht
event
in Leipzig and their implications. The group at the centre of this
discussion is Triarii and some of its fans. It is the project of
Christian Erdmann who is supported live by members of Werkraum and
Wappenbund (Axel Frank and Volker Neumann).
Triarii
is actually a martial, rather than neofolk group, whose iconography
and references seem to point only in one direction: the first album
Ars Militaria
includes
the track Der
Verwundete (In Memoriam Arno Breker). As
this is largely instrumental music there are no explicit viewpoints
perpetrated but the aesthetic is clearly a militarist-imperialist one
that seems to contain few if any ambiguous, balancing or
contradictory elements.
This
is not to
say that we are attributing direct political intentions to the group
nor making any definitive political categorisation on a purely
aesthetic basis: great care and further research would be necessary
before doing so and we are well aware of the risks of making serious
political accusations based on insufficient evidence. However,
Triarii certainly does not seem to make any effort even to introduce
any ambiguity to its work or to steer clear of ideological branding.
If the reports from the gig discussed here are correct it would seem
that Erdmann gave a “Roman salute” from the stage and that some
audience members returned Nazi salutes. If correct, it's hard to see
this as anything other than cheap collaboration, naïve flirtation or
direct affirmation.
Even some brief research online
reveals Triarii tracks set to NS-propaganda footage:
In
this case the uploader, AveEuropa, has set the track Victoria
to
a video entitled Reinhard
Heydrich - The Blonde Beast,
dedicated to the notorious SS leader killed by the Czech resistance:
Comments
below this video include “HEIL OUR ARYAN LEADER
HEIL
HEYDRICH” and “If this man had suplanted Hitler, German would
have won the war. Heydrich's assassination
was
one of the most pivoted moments in our history.” Perhaps Triariii
are unware of these videos or enjoy maintaining a position of
transgressive tolerance but if they really object to them they could
surely get them removed or disown them.
To put it mildly, Triarii seem
to have a problematic fanbase, both online and in the concert halls.
Trairii's defenders might argue that theirs is a purely aestheticist
position, but the reports from Leipzig seem to suggest otherwise.
Even if they simply find it amusing to have such fans or use them to
subsidise their operations, they are playing a very dangerous game
that could jeopardise the scene that they are part of. Perhaps some
are hoping that should they be able to gain control of the scene they
can carry out an ideological Gleichschaltung (the Nazi euphemism for
the post-1933 purges), removing the decadent, Gothic, industrial and
neofolk elements of the audience and leaving a cleansed hard core
audience able to unambiguously and unapologetically enjoy an entirely
affirmative music and style in the service of a criminal ideology.
This is why Nym's “call to
arms” is important. Acknowledging that rightist infiltration is not
just a myth spread by those opposed in principle to all neofolk,
industrial and martial is necessary and important. As Nym points out,
“neofolk” as a name is one that begs for trouble and it has
surely found it: not just from the self-appointed censors from
left-wing splinter factions but, more ominously, from right-wing
factions who will be happy to turn it against itself, abusing its
counter-cultural, contrarian glamour for just long enough to assume a
hegemonic position, after which the cleansing can begin.
The intellectual, alienated,
non-affiliated Neofolk listeners Nym describes are at direct risk
from unambiguously rightist incomers whose real cultural values are
inimical to any kind of distance, qualification, ambiguity or irony,
all of which have been traditional aesthetic and conceptual qualities
of much of industrial and its uncanny, ambivalent successors, neofolk
and martial. The transgressive thrill of enjoying the proximity to
malice and danger undoubtedly have their attraction for many, often
only increased by simplistic “politically correct” criticism.
However, there is definitely a need for self-consciousness,
self-criticism and self-assertion from within the scene if its
protagonists don't wish it to fall into darkness far more permanent
and fatal than the average Death in June fan would like to imagine.
This should be done not to appease leftist critics or to clean up the
reputation of these styles and prevent repetitions of the Leipzig
acts, but (also) for aesthetic reasons to prevent the triumph of
one-dimensional, mindlessly affirmative music and the reactionary
forces that support it.
I.C.R.N., February 2012.
Two "procedural" points:
Firstly, as we have said, the
exact stance of Triarii in relation to these issues and events needs further
clarification and any further information on this question would be
welcome. The accounts here have been confirmed by several informants, all long-standing members of the scene.
Secondly, despite what some may
wish to believe, there is no permanent I.C.R.N. secretariat with
limitless time to dedicate to moderating blog discussions. We hope
that this text will provoke discussion in a range of other forums and
contexts, but I.C.R.N. is only the starting point for and not the
platform for this debate.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A
CALL TO ARMS
If the neofolk scene wants to survive, it has to
take up resistance against Fascist entryism – and reclaim its sense
of humour while doing so.
By Alexander Nym
DISCLAIMER:
This
text may contain much (background) information and terminology
familiar to neofolkers, which may be unfamiliar to those less
involved in the scene. So please, bear with me through the
necessarily lengthy and dreary introduction. All cited instances of
aggression, discrimination and closed-mindedness during the event
described were reported to me first-hand by those who experienced
them. Though I attended, I was unaware of most of them until
afterwards. As
I was unable to counteract or challenge them there and I'm now
writing this text, which I hope will be a useful contribution to this
ongoing debate.
1)
Emergence
First, allow me to discuss briefly the extent and
history of my involvement with the so-called neofolk-scene in order
to prevent misreadings of what I'll say here. Despite the fact that a
good deal (though certainly not all) of my friends are fans of and/or
musicians within the field termed neofolk, those personal connections
largely date back to when that particular strand of underground music
was considered a part of (Dark) Wave, post-punk/industrial, and the
term “apocalyptic folk” was in use (a term I found to be a more
precise description than the more general neofolk meme), and I
readily admit to having been what I'd call a post-goth, for what it's
worth. For when I changed garment colours from simple black to
hippie/psychedelic camouflage colours and patterns at the start of
1993, it was first and foremost due to personal dissatisfaction with
the contemporary Goth scene in Germany, which I perceived as becoming
increasingly “trendy” and conformist (coinciding with the rapid
revival of Goth in Germany during the early 90s), and while the
solemn, and by comparison extreme expression of fundamental
disagreement with and resistance to mainstream “pop“ culture was
becoming a mere reproduction (if dressed all in black) of
intrinsically hierarchical and conservative patterns of wider
society, I found the transition from dark and withdrawn to militant
uniform garb a natural one.
If
a scene priding itself on individualist freedom of expression and
critically minded distance from the rest of society was turning into
a self-referential mockery of the wider pop-culture of which it had
always been a part anyway (if, perhaps in the role of devil's
advocate), why not mirror the subtle process of that erosion by
taking the logical step and, instead of using the banishing charm of
Black, use the very signifier of uniformity by its deconstructive
abuse into a militant signal of disagreement with what everyone else
was doing unconsciously (or, even willingly) regarding submission to
style- and dress-codes which had erected clear “ideological”
boundaries between youth subcultures like punks, goths,
psychobillies, teds, mods, skinheads, metalheads, etc. By the
mid-90s, the all-absorbing sweep of techno had made such boundaries
superfluous and instead spawned a new array of more or less utopian
countercultural patterns such as FOPI (Family of Psychick
Individuals), goa raves, dreadlocked neo-hippie grunge rockers,
medievalists, dawning cyberculture, urban shamanism, in short: the
Awakening of the Tribes in
line with the “Archaic Revival” celebrated by people like
Terrence McKenna, RU Sirius, Hakim Bey and Douglas Rushkoff. Among
the last remaining aesthetic fronts not engaged in technophilia,
neo-futurism and a generally optimistic vision of the future,
“neofolk” emerged as their evil twin brother: a neo-primitivist,
mythologically inclined and by its very nature irrational
DIY-movement for disenfranchised youth who had exchanged the suddenly
ubiquituous sequencers and samplers for acoustic guitars and kettle
drums, protesting against the sellout of their hard-earned
individualist ideas and an unclear idea of pan-European identity to
the spectre of all-pervading consumerism and corporatism (both of
which, it must be stressed, are strong vectors in the hyper-marketing
of youth-/counter-cultural codes and styles resulting in their
commodification and neutralisation; a poison which the neofolk scene
has shown a resolute immunity against).
Yet
another twist in the complicated history of youthful revolt: in an
era when (in both absolute and relative terms) far more people were
ingesting psychedelic entheogens and realising their dyonysian
potential at large-scale raves, the counterpoint to this
counterculture invested itself in outdated aesthetics, controversial
imagery and anything but progressive philosophies, taking further the
conservative twist post-punk had taken with the Goth scene after its
formative phase. From this perspective, it might not seem too
incidental that the surge of neofolk's popularity in the burgeoning
Goth scene of the early 90s originated in the traditionally
conservative minded Bavaria in Southern Germany, and was taken to new
heights by youths in the Eastern part of the country who had little
to no historical identity models at their disposal, be it the failed
GDR or the Federal Republic of (Western) Germany, which had simply
taken over what was left after the GDR's demise. No surprise then,
that those kids developed an interest in what had been before,
spanning the German experience from pagan times to the infamous Third
Reich, and the more provoking the references were to the new
reunified bourgeoisie, the better. In a country run by the veterans
of the 1968 student revolts, what better oppositional stance was
there to adopt than to display interest in the dark era of German
history, the one which had spawned the uneasy post-war truce their
parents had rebelled against 25 years before?
However, while
there were undoubtedly very unconventional notions of conservatism
around (one need only look at the topics covered by the scene's most
infamous zine, “Sigill”), in my experience, this milieu
nevertheless managed to attract particularly the disenfranchised, the
alienated, the introverted individualists, regardless of whether they
shared a solid upper-middle class upbringing (as sociological
observations indicate), or how they positioned themselves in relation
to their household's intrinsic conservatism, the church etc., it is
in my experience safe to say that higher education, intelligence and
cultural awareness, together with a certain sarcastic, sometimes
cynical sense of humour (not lacking a dark streak) are shared traits
of that particular subculture.
2)
Fascist Entryism is not a myth
During the 1990s, the emerging
neofolk-controversy revealed both the actually existing
neo-fascist/third positionist entryism (aimed at the whole spectrum
of youth subcultures, not limited to neofolk, but certainly attracted
by it) and the sometimes hysterical reactions to it, usually
articulated by outsiders, or presented in ridiculously generalistic
ways, thus alienating a good percentage of those at whom such
reactions were directed. Those concerned certainly debated the same
issues among themselves, but agreeing on a few givens (DIJ are not
Nazi, don't judge a book by its cover, enjoyment of
“controversial/transgressive” art; the sweet taste of “forbidden
fruit” – especially when growing up in Germany!) meant that
further discussion with hysterical and ideologically dogmatic
activists of any sort was utterly useless, resulting in accusations
that the scene was holding back from discussing the initial charges
(which had focussed on individual musicians or groups, not their
audience), and was failing to address the Nazi-problem which, for
many, seemed to be blown out of proportion.
By applying ideological
pressure and coercive tactics, the antifascist protesters would only
succeed in creating more aversion towards their arguments and thus
ease access for right wing entryism, enabling and nurturing an
informal alliance along the lines of “my enemy's enemy is my
friend” with people whose agenda, if allowed to prevail, would
systematically destroy the very same tolerance, open mindedness and
peacefulness which are characteristics of both goth and neofolk, just
as antifa-activists tried to push their own ideas of “valid” art
& entertainment onto what they perceive as an anti-modernist,
crypto-fascist elitist bunch of would-be-Übermenschen, despite (or
because of) the fact that many of the latter have roots in the
anarchist/antifa-spectrum themselves. The few cases of
structural/financial neonazi-/fascist dabblings in the scene are well
known and, thankfully, isolated incidents, but nevertheless they did
take place. But back to those most concerned, the fans of the music
itself.
A good deal of the pleasure those people get out of
openly reactionary ideas is the abhorrence they create in their
uninitiated peers. Add to this brew the youthful confusion of
fascinated newcomers, some from (NS-)Black Metal, some from the
neopagan scene, but still mostly from (ex-)goth and industrial
circles, which entails an almost natural interest in fringe ideas,
“extreme” art and gloomy aesthetics like dark romanticism,
occultism/mysticism, satanism, social darwinism, chaos magick,
eco-terrorism etc. All this can easily lapse into dabbling in
völkisch runic cults, Black-Sun-mythopoiesis, and the immersion in
Heinrich Himmler's rather childish esoteric fantasies. This creates a
field of references so broad and open to interpretation that
tolerating other's readings of the same sources becomes a necessary
tool of survival. Yet, this is also the key to opening the gates of
entryism.
3) If you don't give a shit, why should
I?
Tolerance is being abused and turned against itself when
simple-minded ideological types, be they from the left or right,
appear at neofolk/industrial gatherings, which enable a community of
people of the most diverse interests to get together to enjoy the
textual poaching of their own controversial narrative, rather than
the tiresome political game that so many on the scene have discarded
and dropped out of anyway. However, while transcending mundane party
politics to celebrate tolerance and diversity might be an admirable
social practice, it is exactly that tolerance that begins to enable
its abusers to infiltrate and promote/show open support for ignorant
and bigoted belief systems from a century that's past for many good
reasons. Then the scene starts to endanger its own subcultural niche
of existence. That's the point when it stops being funny, witty,
provocative, playful, irresponsible, you name it, and becomes a
danger to itself.
Based on my knowledge of the neofolk scene
and the individuals that compose it to be, these people aren't
“Wolves”, they are rather the sensitive, the hurt, the
unconventional, the outcast and the ostracised, generally speaking
the more brainy/emotional types than your regular
testosterone-drenched rock audience. When repeatedly confronted with
openly aggressive behaviour patterns like those demonstrated at this
year's New Year's Eve “Neofolk Rauhnacht“ at Leipzig's
Theaterfabrik, where it is reported that there was repeated
Sieg-Heiling during TRIARII's performance. Austrian “Pan-Germanic”
thugs harrassed a concert-goer for not speaking German (not the only
incident of this kind) and some drank toasts for a “Jew-free new
year“ without the slightest hint of self-irony, political satire or
black humour (not that any of those would excuse such bad taste). If
such incidents were to become the norm rather than the exception (and
it should be emphasised that the troublemakers were NOT those
costumed in uniforms) the rather mild-mannered, friendly-minded
neofolker (who very often has above average education and income)
would probably rather avoid getting into potentially harmful
situations, and would not travel hundreds of kilometres and pay for a
hostel to see weird acts and meet like-minded friends from afar and
risk being harassed for *not being Nazi enough*. All this would thus,
let's face it, make events like the Neofolk Rauhnacht impossible in
the most mundane financial way. This scene is too small in numbers to
be able to survive without the frenetic long-distance audiences from
abroad. There were people from literally all over Europe present at
the event – evidence that the “Sons (and daughters) of Europe”
have indeed arisen and a united Europe has already manifested itself.
But without its character of exclusivity, its air of dark cabaret and
the thrill of participating in a controversial, potentially
“dangerous“ game while practicing its difference (and
indifference) to the cultural mainstream, the neofolk scene would
either dissolve, or fall into the hands of neonazi thugs, be they
rootless East-Germans looking for identity, völkisch pagan
radicalists or “racially aware“ NSBM-fans or coming from wherever
else such infiltrators have sprung from.
4) “I've seen
the future, brother...” – it's a dead end!
While neofolk
as a music genre and community and its perceived entry points for
backward thinking might not be the actual problem, for racism,
bigotry and ignorance tend to thrive among the simple-minded, the
uneducated and the socially disadvantaged, neither is it a solution.
Philosophically, its frame of reference increasingly limits itself to
referencing a “provocative“ (often more offending than offensive)
canon of figures from the conservative revolution, WW2 and the new
right, despite the abundant richness of European culture they could
easily draw from instead. Aesthetically, the last ship had already
sailed when the term “neofolk“ was first coined, and there's no
fresh blood in sight. When “Europa“ is invoked nowadays, it is
done in ways that appear remote and redundant rather than being
pertinent to the current overall situation in Europa and beyond. If
anyone should find a truly relevant social commentary to the world
THIS summer in any recent neofolk or martial/military outfit, please
drop me a line. To quote LAIBACH, “it's a burnt aesthetic“, and
musically its apex in the post-cold war, post-apocalyptic yet
millenarian 1990s has never been surpassed.
Counteracting
this artistic nullity, there were only few acoustic guitars at play
at the “Neofolk Rauhnacht“, and one of them came from TRIARII's
backing track. Pathetic and pitiful, to say the least. Why not have
the stiff affirmative “fans“ standing to attention with staring
but empty gaze throughout the show perform actual military service
and get their asses shot off in some dirty ditch? People voicing
support for the “re-militarisation“ of Europa's nations (a notion
that's sooo 19th century, but ah no we chose to call it
“anti-modernist critique“, wtf) should be held true to their
words and forced to join up. If they really get off on authoritarian
hierarchy, outmoded gender roles and clichéd ideas of glory and
heroism, they deserve nothing less than being confined to barracks –
for that authentic camp feeling!
The
main problem seems to me that both the grim humour and the
provocation of neofolk have disappeared. TRIARII's show only
succeeded in provoking the most earnest veterans of the scene to
leave the hall in open disgust for putting on an unabashedly
affirmative image, and being unnervingly boring and bland in doing
so. Which left them to play to an audience that didn't feel provoked
at all, nor did it perceive any of the contradictions neofolk prides
itself of. Perhaps because there had been no such contradictions?
While the musicians themselves are known not to have sympathies for
the Nazi-dictatorship, their performance didn't offer any aesthetic
breaks or thought-provoking contradictions to confront, confuse and
confound those in plain appreciation of the empty simulation of
monumental heroism. One could argue that the total absence of such
breaks conforms to LAIBACH's presentation strategy in the late 80s,
when both left and right were seriously irritated at the Slovenes'
stage shows. However, this particular strategy operated precisely
with contradictions, juxtapositions and overidentification. With
TRIARII, only the (over-)identification remains. It would have been
far more interesting (and way funnier) if they had presented
themselves not as plainly affirmative, but contradictory artists, not
mere embodiments of their favourite aesthetic, and gave the audience
something to chew on and think about, instead of a stale
celebration.
5) So, this laughter kills
fascists?
Seriously people, it's essentially the ability to
laugh at oneself that sorts the illuminated, truly meta-political
people from those who need ideologies of strength and power to make
up for their own feelings of inadequacy, weakness and frustration.
Isn't it strange that social darwinism, if taken literally, would put
precisely those at evolutionary risk who are fondest of loudmouthing
it?
Yet, they don't get the joke, and if you were to tell
them, you'd be likely to get into trouble, but certainly not the kind
of noisy but abstract nuisance that the antifa occasionally likes to
stage, but a concrete and physical danger. Not merely on the personal
level, but for the scene as a whole. How would you react if someone
next to you at a neofolk/martial gig were to give the “Roman
salute“ or shout “Sieg Heil!“ at the stage?
Right, you
wouldn't care. Perhaps you'd shrug at such a misplaced sign of lack
of independent thinking, but you probably wouldn't dare confront such
behaviour, because it doesn't concern you, or worse, you might get
into an ugly situation.
How do we cope with such a threat,
most of my peers including myself being peaceful intellectuals who
can't remember the last time they got into a fight – and wouldn't
exactly love to repeat experiences made after the demise of real
existing socialism, when actually existing skinheads used to attack
unusual looking people and hunt them with baseball bats –
threatening, among others, THOSE FAGS FROM DEATH IN JUNE in Leipzig
in 1992, believe it or not. Ask Ossian Brown about it, if you run
into him (this, of course, is not mentioned in Aldo Chimenti's DIJ
biography).i
Frankly, I'm turned off by the way that people
like WMTN are trying to scrutinise, gauge and judge from the outside;
I'd much rather plead for clear consciousness within, and the courage
to take a strong and proud stand wherever racism, ignorance and
bigotry rear their ugly heads and threaten people, or the expression
of their ideas, even if they're as stale as TRIARII's. Instead, I
suggest a Discordian, chaos-magickal and fun approach.
What
were to happen if neofolk acts suddenly jumped the “crypto-communist“
train and acted out all kinds of Warsaw-pact-style rallies, seemingly
glorifying Stalin etc? The fans would certainly enjoy it, yet not the
stiff ones. And a whole good deal of the population of Leipzig, now
that I come to think of it. A goldmine of provocation waiting to be
harvested. Another strategy could be exaggeration ad extremum,
following LAIBACH's example of overidentification, to systematically
unveil the absurdity of supremacist ideologies – turn the wheel of
extremism too far for even the extremists. Next time when someone
makes a racist remark or gives a Nazi salute, why not recommend
killing *everyone* and be done with it (to give a really simple
example)? Challenge stupidity and close-mindedness to mock them by
uncovering the inherent absurdity of their mindset, instead of having
them spoil our fun.
What would happen if, as an ultra-true
neofolk-dinosaur friend of mine suggested, people started wearing
brown clown's noses at such events? Would that be enough of an
in-joke to put off the real fascists effectively enough to drive them
away for good? For, in my experience, it is exactly this ability to
laugh at oneself and not take oneself so seriously as to spoil the
fun of controversial attitudinising, which divides the ironic
connoisseurs of neofolk et al from those folks who simply take it in
as a reification of their supposed stance? Or have some of them even
become recognisable faces, distant friends of friends; is the enemy
already within? Where does the “coeur noir“ really beat?
I
for one choose not to retreat, nor to submit; even though I'm not
into most of this music, I have no intention of letting this
subcultural haven, this bizarre tribe, this unique community of truly
committed and colourful beings some of whom I'm proud to call my
friends fall into the dominion of the blind. And knowing the actual
personal politics of many of those who put on, perform at and visit
such events, neither will they.
AN 120112
i
– Aldo Chimenti: Verborgen Unter Runen/Nascosto Tra Le Rune,
Leipzig 2012 (German edition)/Milan 2010 (Italian edition)
