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  • Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism
  • Ann E. Burnette
Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism. By Mattias Gardell. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003; pp x + 446. $69.96 cloth; $23.95 paper.

In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, Tom Metzger, leader of the White Aryan Resistance, praised the planning and discipline exhibited by the terrorists who executed the plan and suggested that other Aryan "warriors" look to them as an example. Other white racists, such as David Duke, denounced the attack, with some expressing outrage that such carnage had been wrought on American soil by non-white aggressors. These diverse reactions from white supremacist groups illustrate Mattias Gardell's argument that the white power movement in the United States is more complex and generally less well understood than many observers assume.

In this rich and detailed book, Gardell argues that there has been a dramatic rise in the number of white racist heathen groups and that this rise has had a profound [End Page 434] impact on older white racist organizations. An anthropologist of religion, Gardell conducted extensive fieldwork and integrates this data into an extensive catalogue of white-racist and pagan groups with particular attention to the intersection of white power efforts with a rise in pagan beliefs and practices.

Gardell surveys the landscape of the white-racist counterculture and provides a detailed enumeration of the philosophy of groups including (but not limited to) the Ku Klux Klan, national socialists, skinheads, and the Christian Identity movement. Gardell traces the similarities as well as the differences in the ideologies of these groups, who contest the interpretation of issues that are basic to the worldview of white supremacy. For example, anti-Semitism is a common and powerful component of the rhetoric of these organizations. Yet some racist groups express their anti-Semitism by participating in a revisionist denial of the Holocaust, some acknowledge the Holocaust but fret that it casts its Jewish victims in a sympathetic light, and others argue that the Holocaust should be celebrated as an achievement consistent with white power goals. Similarly, the racist view claiming the inferiority of non-white people is a universal theme among these groups; however, in some cases white power ideologues express admiration for the agenda and achievements of African American separatist groups such as the Nation of Islam, and some white racist groups have formed seemingly productive working relationships with other black separatist groups.

The author also traces the various pagan groups that he argues constitute a pagan revival. These groups include, among many others, Wicca, Asatru/Odinism, and Satanism, each of which has been appropriated by various adherents of a white-racist belief system. Gardell argues that these religious groups provide many pagans with an enhanced sense of identity and notes that "[g]lobalization and American multiculturalism combine to raise the issue of identity anew, and folkish pagans are not the only Americans looking for an answer by exploring the past" (342).

For scholars of rhetoric, Gardell's study provides a wealth of information about the ideologies of these groups and generates questions about the function and power of white racists' discourse. Some of Gardell's claims cry out for further analysis of the rhetoric he is describing. In recounting how the changing context of twentieth-century American history has affected white racist activity, Gardell notes, "Rephrased racism was part of the electoral campaigns of Presidents Reagan and Bush," without any further explanation (46). Similarly, Gardell makes reference to white racists' metaphors that cast their racial enemies as "dehumanized vermin" and metaphors in which white racist leaders decry the majority of the white population as "mindless herds of sheep and cattle" (181). Gardell also notes that many Aryan groups adopt the rhetorical position of the underdog to advance their cause. Political scientists will also find useful concepts in this book, among them a three-dimensional model of political positions that seeks to map racist and pagan political beliefs with greater precision than more traditional models. Gardell also [End Page 435] considers sociological questions, such as where the leaders as well as the rank-and-file members...

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