The Asatru-White Racialists?

It has come to my attention of late that Asatru, a pagan based modern religion based on the ancient worship of the old deities of the Norse and the Germans, may be made up in large partof racialist elements of the white Aryan community. Is this a bad thing? Well, I guess it all depends.

It has always been my contention that hatred based on race and culture is wrong, no matter which side exhibits it. It has also been my view that racial and cultural pride of ones ancestral heritage is good and appropriate, so long as it doesn't cross the line into bigotry and racial violence.

Racialism as exhibited from the white perspective is therefore no better, nor is it any worse, than Hispanic, Jewish, or black bigotry, and from a cultural perspective can be as valuable and admirable as that exhibited in it's more positive aspects from the peoples of other races, cultures, and religions.

As for the Asatru, I would like to believe the best. However, I have far too many times seen exhibitions of intolerance for, for eample, Wicca, as much so as I have seen misogynistic meanderings concerning those of other races and cultures. This gives me great pause.

At it's best, Asatru seems to be a remarkably well thought out revision of the old religion of the ancient Germans and Norse. However, there is a darker aspect to it. At it's worse, it seems to have taken over from the old Christian ultra conservative elements best illustrated by the beliefs of the old Ku Klux Klan. They would seem to be a perfect example of a religion made up of converts from Christianity who have failed to leave behind a good deal of their old ultra-conservative Christian baggage. You are either with them, or you are against them, it would seem. This is most unfortunate. There is much about Asatru, as in most religions, that seems to be admirable.

They seem, however, to have taken quite a few pages from the playbook of evangelical Christianity, and for that matter fundamentalist Islam, in the manner inwhich they proselityze new converts. A great many of these would seem to come from the American prison system. Now, I for one think it is fine to offer convicts, and parolees, hope in the form of a religous belief system. If this system is one that teaches pride in ones race, culture,and heritage, then this is all the better. But of course, caution is advised. There is a sub-cuture of violence inherent in any prison system that would not bode wel when translated into the outside world, as a good many have noted in connection with prison conversions to fundmentalist Islam. Conversion to a white supremacist organization would bode no better, long term, for society at large. But it is a fact that if the Asatru are not cautious, they might indeed find that a large perentage of their membership derives fromthese prison conversions, to a larger degree than with other religions. This, as well, may not bode well for the religion, for obvious reasons.

But it seems reasonable to assume that a great many of the Asatru prison covnerts would derive from the Whtie Supremacist, Aryan prison population, and this may well translate into the world outside. In fact, a common term of denigration whn referring to this branch of paganism is "Nazitru".

Is this fair? Does this fit? I would not be so harsh myself. However, when I read such comments as I have read concerning the "fluff bunny" Wiccans, and other branches of paganism, I can't help but realize that a good lot of this is a natural reaction, though perhaps an overreaction as well, to what is perceived as an overzealous and possiby even bigoted form of paganism.

Not that they are the only ones, to be sure. I consider myself a Hellenic Wiccan, and a practitioner of magic, though not truly an orthodox Wiccan, and certainly not a "Reconstructionist" Hellenismos. But I have had on-line encounters with "Recons" who have left me all but tearing my hair out. They come across as obstinate, arrogant, and every bit as fundamentalist in some cases as the most superstitous of Bible believing fundamentalist Christians.

The problem seems to stem from the fact that for the most part they have arrivd from a perspective of at least some degree of influence from an earlier Christian heritage, and have brought that baggage into their new faith. As such, they haven't truly converted, and maybe never will. And this will always cause problems when it comes to associations with those of different faiths and cultures.

In any religion, there is a great deal of mythology and symbolism. A lot of these old stories are not to be taken literaly, hey are instead beautiful allegorical stories that serve to impart a deeper spiritual or magical meaning. Taken literally, as way too many tend to do, these old mythologies actually lose their magic,their majesty, and become little more than the stuff of superstitous folk tales, told only for the amusements and/or the frightening of children, and believed only by the ignorant. But somewhere along the way, the leaders of a great many religions seem to have realized that literal interpretations are more conducive to keeping your adherents in line, enslaved to their beliefs, chained by them, as oppossed to deriving true freedom and enligtenment from them. That is how it began, far more years ago than can be counted perhaps. But the Middle Eastern religoions ratcheted up the distrust and hatreds by insisting in the belief in only one God, all others being wrong or evil.

When you believe in only one God, and only one way of woshipping that God, and that everything taught about that religion must be taken literally how can anything else be anything but evil?

Paganism, in my view, should not be that way, but there is always he danger of fundamentalism creeping in when you are dealing with the prospect of converts from fundamentalist religions. A lot fothem just can't adjust to thinking differently. Only with the Asatru, now there seems to be the danger of combining this danger with racialism, which again, can be hazardous, when taken to the extreme, to the health of any spiritual path.

By the way, if there are any White Racialists and/or white supremacists readingthis, I hope you take this in the spirit in which it was intended. I too am proud of my white European ancestry and heritage, and there is much in Asaru hat I find good and admirable. Nor do I mean to imply that you all are ignorant, superstitous, and violent fundamentalists.

However, just in case there are a few of you who do fit the profile of the violent racist and fundamentalist, or the ignorant-a word of caution: if you by chance one day happen to see a crippled blonde haired doctor striking his walking stick against a pavement in anger, sorry to dissapoint you, but he is probably not going to transform ino the Mighty Thor.