Blundering Nazis Pwned!

We've all been enjoying schadenfreude over the BNP's membership list ending up online (Love Music Hate Racism: Fascist public servants exposed as BNP chickens come home to roost). And LOLing as the BNP's reactions are hilariously hypocritical - bleating about their members being placed in danger (one word: Redwatch!) and wanting to use the Human Rights Act (which the BNP wants to repeal) against those who posted the list online.

Having said that, I would not like to see a witch-hunt against those on the list for a number of reasons. Firstly, it may give false creedence to the pernicious myth that anti-fascists are "as bad as the fascists". Yes, this myth ignores the fact that, unlike the fascists, we do not target people on the basis of unchangeable characteristics such as colour or disability, in fact we only target their poisoned ideology. What's more, UAF has welcomed former National Front and BNP members who have seen the error of their ways, ie it is perfectly possible for people to stop being fascists. Whereas I've never seen a black man become white (with the possible exception of Michael Jackson, LOL). Nevertheless, the "as bad as they are" myth continues, and has been parroted by the less aware in the wake of the BNP list leak. So we should not encourage it.

Even more importantly, there are questions about the accuracy of the list. Even if names haven't been deliberately added (let's fact it, we've only got the BNP's "highly trustworthy" word for that), there are people on the list who naively joined the BNP briefly and who now condemn what the BNP actually stands for - such as the Reverend John Stanton (Searchlight: Church leader withdraws support for the BNP). Others may never have actually been members at all, like a worker at Windsor Castle (BBC News: BNP members 'targeted by threats'). Even in the case of the Merseyside policeman, maybe the Police need more accurate evidence than the online membership list before sacking him ... perhaps they could obtain such evidence by raiding the office of the local BNP branch where he is apparently a member :D

Where the list will come in useful, however, is for locating areas where there is a cluster of BNP members, or areas near a BNP organiser, and leafleting these areas with anti-fascist literature and building a movement in said areas against the BNP and its toxic ideology.

BTW The laughs at the BNP's expense don't stop here ... check out the LOLGRIFFIN blog :-)