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| Europe |
| The enemy of my enemy... |
| 2002-11-17 |
| A portrait of Adolf Hitler has long adorned the study of Ahmed Huber, a 74-year-old Swiss convert to Islam who lives outside this small capital city. After Sept. 11, he twinned the picture with one of Osama bin Laden. "A provocation," said Huber, the voluble proponent of a strange alliance, one apparently strengthened in the aftermath of Sept. 11: Muslim fundamentalists and neo-Nazis, who share a hatred of the United States, Israel and Jews. For years, Huber has been barnstorming the far-right circuit, speaking to a European congress of neo-Nazi youth organizations and Germany's far-right National Democratic Party. And then there's his other identity. Huber works frequently with militant Islamic groups. He acknowledges having met al Qaeda operatives, but denies any financial role in the organization. "The alliance has come," Huber said. "The 11th of September has brought together [the two sides] because the New Right has reacted positively in a big majority. They say, and I agree with them 100 percent, what happened on the 11th of September, if it is the Muslims who did it, it is not an act of terrorism but an act of counterterrorism." "But if it's the Jews, it only goes to prove they are the most evil and dispicable people of all time..." Other members of far-right groups and people who study the movements agree that the September attacks pushed some members of the groups together. "There is a sense of sympathy, [a sense] that there is common ground," Horst Mahler, a member of the National Democratic Party, said in an interview at his home outside Berlin. "There are contacts with political groups, in particular in the Arab world, also with Palestinians. That's a fact that is not being concealed." Certainly the events of Sept. 11 produced fits of joy among some members of the European far right, according to groups that monitor hate speech, Young supporters of the National Front in France drank champagne on the evening of Sept. 11, according to groups opposing neo-Nazis. A Czech far-rightist, Jan Kopul, proclaimed bin Laden "an example for our children." At a fascist youth rally in Switzerland, activists wore bin Laden badges. And just think about how great the world would be if they both 'won', we'd get to see the Jihad/race war to end all wars! Authorities in the United States and Europe are skeptical of an enduring alliance. "It's an unnatural bond," said an FBI official in Washington. A German official offered a similar assessment: "I don't see it. They both hate the Jews, but in the end, they also dislike each other." This seems like more of a rhetorical alliance cooked up by the 'intellectual' Nazis. I'm sure the average German skinhead will still keep on beating up all the brown skinned 'wogs' in their country regardless of what their leaders say. According to Huber, some Nazi veterans also feel common cause with Islamic militants. By his account, a group of aging SS officers and members of Hitler's personal guard who meet every few weeks in the German state of Bavaria for beer and conversation recently bestowed the title "honorary Prussian" on bin Laden. One of the members called Huber after the meeting to tell him that henceforth they had decided to call the al Qaeda leader "Herr von Laden," Huber said. This makes some sense, since the Muslim Brotherhood, the father of all modern fundo movements, was created in the 30s to emulate the Fascist movements of Europe. |
| Posted by:Paul |