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Nobody wants to be Fuhrer?

Thu 20 Dec 2007 In: Comment View at Wayback

Unnoticed by observers of mainstream New Zealand politics, the New Zealand League of Rights, 'our' oldest neofascist group, has quietly slipped into oblivion. And yes, the League was as anti-gay as it was anti-Semitic, anti-Maori and anti-immigration. For many years, its "Ethics and Morality" bookstore section at "Conservative Books" provided the only local outlet where one could buy the antigay works of Paul Cameron and other homophobic US oddballs. During the eighties, it was nearly impossible to find a Christian Right pressure group that didn't have overlapping membership with this right-wing extremist group, as their conspiracist rhetoric proved attractive for credulous, paranoid and poorly educated conservative Christians. However, times changed in the nineties. Because Jim Bolger was pragmatic enough to promote capable centre-right social liberals within his National caucus, the League of Rights found itself out on a limb. In the mid-nineties, even the fundamentalist community cleaned up its act, and walked away from them. In recent years, it could still be found ruminating about binding citizens initiated referenda, but one whiff of their real political views, and most people backed away from that cause fast. The election and survival of the Clark administration has provided the death knell for the decrepit extremist Australian import, which mouldered on in its Auckland offices, even if it closed down its On Target newsletter and website several years ago. With the closure of the League, the "National Democrats" (the former National Front) are now New Zealand's comic opera 'leading' fascist sect, based in that thriving metropolitan centre...Waikanae??! Craig Young - 20th December 2007    

Credit: Craig Young

First published: Thursday, 20th December 2007 - 12:50am

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