M21 2010 -- Anti-racists celebrate diversity. Nazis fail to show.

On March 21, 200 anti-racist Calgarians gathered with Anti-Racist Action Calgary to celebrate the international day for the elimination of racism. Traditionally, this day has been a call to action for Calgarians to confront the small but vocal neo-Nazi presence in our city. For the last two years, Calgarians with ARA have shown the world that out city does not tolerate racist gangs like the Aryan Guard by shutting down their white power counter march.

The "increase the peace" posse

By the time M21 activities got underway this year, however, it was pretty much obvious to everyone that neither the haggard remnants of the Aryan Guard nor the four-strong membership of the Western European Bloodlines (W.E.B.) were going to even attempt to put on a march.

Last year they failed to complete their parade. This year they failed to even start it.

All that was left to do, then, was to celebrate diversity, multicultrualism and have fun on one of the warmest and sunniest days of the spring. There were some speeches, there was some kicking of the hacky sack, there was a lot of mutual complementing on the quality of various disguises and masks. The cops did some wheelies on their moutain bikes on the steps of City Hall (warning: do not try this if you are a non-cop citizen or you'll find yourself quickly on the wrong side of the double standard!)

Of course we anti-racists didn't go completely unopposed. A couple of neo-Nazi did stagger down to City Hall to "represent" in a wholly disorganized way. Lets look at who this cream-of-the-crop of modern fascism was.

"Willis" (William Mettingen)
If you're 13 and hang out at the skate park you may recognize "Willis" as that creepy older guy who likes to buy cigarettes for underagers and "teach" them how to bare knuckle box. If you were at M21, you'll recognize him as the shirtless wonder who tried to assault a photographer with his skateboard...while 60 cops looked on. Needless to say, Willis got his point across on M21 -- and that point was that he's both violent and dumb. He's been charged with assault with a weapon and released on a $500 no-cash bail. At his hearing on Monday morning, Willis pitched a sob story about how he's not really a Nazi or racist and it's all just been one big mistake. Someone should tell Willis that if you cover yourself with racist tattoos, throw around the "seig heil" salute and assault people at an anti-racist demo while yelling white power slogans, no one is going to believe you when you say you're not a Nazi.

Layton Bertsch
It's a sad day when the best-spoken representative of your movement is Layton! Some in the media were lulled by his preppy sweater and soothing words, but ARA would like to remind everyone that at the October 14, 2007 anti-racist demo, Layton Bertsch assaulted an anti-racist activst with a bottle. Not very preppy!

Kat Hibler
Kat is a tragic case. A former girlfriend of Robert Reitmeier, the Calgary Nazi recently voted "most likely to inform on his comrades" by the local fascist crew, she travelled all the way to Calgary from Ontario to be part of the "glorious" white pride march. Seems she didn't get the memo from her pals that their event had been cancelled. Or maybe that was deliberate? Seems Kat isn't too popular with the local racists because she's Albanian... and that puts her "white credentials" in jeapordy.

But with opposition like that, it's pretty apparent that Fascism in Calgary is all but dead. M21 belongs again to us, the Calgarians who say 'no' to hate.

We call this one a win.

On Sunday March 21, come out and show the violent thugs of the Aryan Guard and White European Bloodlines that we will not stand for racism or any other kind of oppression in our community.

What: Calgarians standing up and saying racism is not welcome
Where: The steps of City Hall
When: Sunday, March 21 11:00 am

Over the last several years, racist, neo-Nazi gangs such as the Aryan Guard and White European Bloodlines have tried to make Calgary their home. On March 21, Calgarians will be gathering to show these thugs that hatred is not welcome in this city.

The day will start with a celebration of our community's cultural diversity in recognition of the International Day for the Elimination of Racism. Should the Aryan Guard or W.E.B. choose to stage a counter-march in the afternoon, we encourage all who are willing to confront them.

This event is open to all and is intended to be confrontational but non-violent.

The Aryan Guard and W.E.B. are nothing more than violent, racist gangs. Their members include:

Kyle McKee (Aryan Guard founder): Currently in jail facing charges of attempted murder for a bomb attack. Previous convictions for assault.

John Marleau (Aryan Guard): Currently in jail for attacking a C-Train operator with a knife.

Robert Reitmeier (W.E.B.): Previously charged with attempted murder.

R.N. (Aryan Guard): Convicted of assault for attacking woman from behind. R.N. is not named as he was a minor at the time of the assault.

Tyler Sturrup (W.E.B.): Numerous convictions for theft.

For two years in a row Anti-Racist Action (ARA) has called on their friends and the broader community to join them on March 21 to celebrate anti-racism, to commemorate the day itself, and especially to protest and prevent the Aryan Guard (AG), and later AG and Western European Bloodlines (WEB) from freely marching down our streets.

We have seen great success from these actions, efforts, and support. The AG did not march freely in 2008: they were chased down the street and the police revealed their role as guardians of this neo-Nazi gang. In 2009, the AG & WEB, in spite of police protection and the violence of members of the police against anti-racist demonstrators, were utterly blocked and prevented from reaching City Hall.

On March 21 2008 the largest, explicit anti-racist rally and march in Calgary’s history was held. This was successfully repeated in 2009 with the numbers of those attending far surpassing the previous year, to over 600 people. Now, March 21 2010 approaches.

Many people did not think that the organised neo-Nazi movement in Calgary would last so long. ARA argued that because of a multiplicity of factors, the fight would be a long one. We have requested and received help in sending out the call for aid and solidarity in this struggle. While ARA has been and will continue to be in the forefront, we feel the need to deepen our work with other individuals and groups in the activist community: greater unity, greater solidarity, and greater co-ordination.

ARA has been and continues to be in dialogue with different individuals and groups in and outside Calgary. We have heard that there is still great support for a rally and march, but that people in and out of ARA would also like to branch beyond these two forms of organising. Many want to include other activities and ARA is in support of such sentiments.

ARA has argued that even when the AG & WEB finally fall apart, that it will continue to call for and organise towards holding a rally every March 21. We want to start and continue to make a tradition of making this a day to protest and call attention to organised and systemic racism and its links to war and poverty, i.e. capitalism.

Thus, in order to truly form a tradition of open and militant anti-racism in Calgary, we need to move to include as many people as possible on a critical basis and respect for a diversity of tactics. This will also increase the co-ordination and unity among those who want an end to racism.

To this end, ARA Calgary is calling for the formation of a March 21 Committee to plan, co-ordinate, and promote a multiplicity of activities for a grass-roots celebration of March 21 and protest against all forms of discrimination.

On Saturday, February 20, 2010 from 2:00pm to 4:00pm a meeting to form the March 21 Committee will be held in the Board Room at the Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Centre, 1320 5 Avenue NW.

For more info, please email at: antiracistcalgary@gmail.com

Recently Bill Noble, a leader of the Aryan Guard, has released an Open Letter informing the world that the Aryan Guard is no more. This is in light of the recent bomb attack on a member of the WEB (Western European Bloodlines) and another related individual and Kyle McKee’s flight from the authorities.

Anti-Racist Acton Calgary (ARA) takes Bill Noble’s letter and the recent events as a full vindication of its long-standing position: that the Aryan Guard (AG), and its splinter WEB, is a violent neo-Nazi gang and that such a group would not last forever.

It is with great joy that today we announce the passing of the Aryan Guard.

Although the Guard only lasted three years, in that short time they managed to rack up an impressive list of failures and acts of epic cowardice and gross incompetence.

In just three years we have seen the Guard exemplify the 'virtues' of the 'White Nationalist' movement by attacking a diminuitive japanese woman from behind; organizing poorly-attended rallies easily shut down by anti-racist Calgarians; beating an unarmed homeless man nearly to death; getting arrested, time and again, for drug offenses; fraudulently advertising a non-existant reloctation subsidy programme; and even failing to keep up with the payments on their post-office boxes. It has been a legacy of incompetence mixed with violence as yet unparalleled in this city.

Most notable, however, was the Aryan Guards' unwavering commitment to hypocrisy.

While they preached 'family values', the Guard itself was rife with teen pregnancies and abandoned mothers -- most notably expemlified by Guard co-founder Kyle McKee who made an amateur pornographic video of himself and a married woman while his teen girlfriend was at home, pregnant with his child. Despite their alleged committment to 'unity' amongst 'white nationalists', the Guard revelled in in-fighting and bickering. They fostered a near gang-war rift between themselves and the Volksfront and came to blows with each other over the most trite subjects: the theft of a coin collection, the borrowing of a car, and, of course, girls. The passing of the Guard, in fact, can be directly attributed to Kyle McKee's attempted murder of a former Aryan Guard member over an amarous misadventure.

Certainly, there are many in Calgary who love to be able to take the credit for the demise of the Aryan Guard. The sad fact, however, is that there is only one organization that can rightfully stake the claim as the group that ran the Guard out of town: the Guard itself. Yes, many of us in the anti-racist movement put a lot of effort into monitoring, confronting and containing the Guard -- you know who you are -- and that work has been valuable. The pressure applied to the Guard on multiple levels, overt and covert, stymied many of their recruiting efforts, refocused their actions on more hardened targets and served, often, to fan the flames of internal dissent in the Guard that led, ultimately, to it's implosion. The lesson we take from the death of the Guard is that Fascism is an unstable ideology and that, as anti-fascists, it is our job to contain, restrict and apply pressure to groups like the Guard until they do, eventually, crack.

And so, to the Guard: good riddance. With the anchor of that organization gone, we can only hope that the angry and hateful and spiteful people it attracted will drift away and maybe, even, grow up. But if for some reason they don't, the racists of this city would do well to remember one thing.

We're still watching.

here's the official press release for the june 27th demo...

Anti-Racists announce demonstration against neo-nazi violence ARA calls on community to send message police, city hall refuse to

Anti-Racist Action (ARA) Calgary is calling on residents of the Kensington, Sunnyside and Hillhurst neighborhoods and other concerned Calgarians to take a stand against racist violence in their community.

“We’ve seen a definite increase in violence and recruitment efforts by the Aryan Guard in the area, especially in and around Riley Park,” says Lev, a spokesperson for ARA.

ARA Calgary has recently announced a peaceful anti-racist rally to take place between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Saturday, June 27 at Riley Park to demonstrate that Calgarians won’t tolerate racism and violence of the neo-Nazi gang in their communities any longer.

The Aryan Guard have really been soft-peddling their image since March 21. They're not a violent, racist gang, they claim... they're just "pro-family values" and "proud of their European heritage".

Of course Bill Noble, Aryan Guard microfuhrer and ideological "brains" behind the operation doesn't have the discipline to maintain that facade for very long. It's only a matter of time before he starts spouting off violent rhetoric and calling on people (not himself, of course, just the foot soldiers who obey him) to do violence against the enemies of his new Reich.

Here's a great quote of his from yesterday's Stormfront.

"We are going to have to take our lands back and create a new government and new justice system. At that point we may hunt down and summarily execute the multiculturalists and their cohorts."

Wow. "summarily execute". Sure doesn't sound like family values or European heritage to us.

Remember: if anyone ever tries to tell you that the Aryan Guard are just "proud to be white" or a "white civil rights organization", they're lying. The Aryan Guard is a violent gang bent on bringing about and enforcing a racist dictatorship by force of arms. Bill Noble even says so himself.

There's a lot of questions that can be asked about the fight against racism, but it seems that at every ARA Calgary event, the most common one is "what the heck are those three arrows."

The short answer is that three parallel arrows on a downward angle is the universal symbol of anti-fascism, although it's much more popular in Europe than in North America. The longer answer is, well, longer... and requires delving into a little history.

Hitler didn't rise to power unopposed. In the early 1930's, when the Nazis were first starting to gain political traction, there was a significant anti-fascist resistance movement in Germany. Although the anti-fascists came from all walks of life, classes and political tendency, they unified under a common coalition group that was known as the "Iron Front".

For their logo the Iron Front adopted the three arrows. The reason behind the design was mostly pragmatic. Before the Nazis took power, Hitler's goons would often intimidate opponents with massive graffiti campaigns, covering a neighbourhood with swastikas.

One of the Iron Front's earliest campaigns was to cover up this swastika graffiti, and it didn't take long before they realized the fastest way to do this was with three bold arrows.

Graffiti that looked like this...

Could be covered with this...

To look like this...

It didn't take long before the three arrows became recognized as the Iron Front's symbol and today the symbol itself is often called the "Iron Front".

Activists Successfully shut down Neo-Nazi March
More than 500 people prevent racist rally in downtown Calgary

More than 500 anti-racist activists converged on downtown Calgary this afternoon to successfully prevent local neo-Nazi hate group the Aryan Guard from holding a rally of their own.

"Going into the day, our best-case scenario was that we actually stop the Aryan Guard from reaching their planned destination: City Hall," says Lev, a member of Anti-Racist Action Calgary, one of the many groups who helped organize the event.

"In that respect, we think the rally today was a major success."

The anti-racist demonstrators staged their own peaceful rally at City Hall this morning to celebrate the UN's International Day for the Elimination of Racism and Discrimination.

However, when about 30 members of the Aryan Guard arrived at Mewata Armoury around 3:00 p.m. the anti-racists, their numbers bolstered by outraged passersby, set in motion their plan to prevent the Aryan Guard from reaching City Hall.

The two groups clashed several times as police attempted to block the progress of the ant-racists and move the Aryan Guard closer and closer to City Hall.

Anti-Racist Action has received several reliable reports of police brutality and preemptive arrests taking place against anti-racism protesters throughout the afternoon.

Anyone who feels they were the victim of excessive force at the hands of Calgary police are being urged to document the details of the assault as well as any injuries they sustained, and to contact Anti-Racist Action Calgary and antiracistcalgary@gmail.com.

"From the use of excessive force and preemptive arrests to the ignoring of blatant acts of violence committed by the Aryan Guard in front of their very eyes, the Calgary Police Service today damaged their reputation in the minds of many Calgarians," says Lev.

Ultimately, the Aryan Guard made it just three blocks for their drop-off point before being put aboard city buses by police and returned to their transportation.

On Saturday, March 21 come tell the Aryan Guard that they are NOT welcome in Calgary.

Every year on March 21, the white supremacist gang the Aryan Guard marches in Calgary to spread their message of hate. Anti-Racist Action is calling on Calgarians to come out and show their opposition to the Aryan Guard.

What: A demonstration against racism and the Aryan Guard
When: Saturday, March 21 10:00am onwards
Where: The steps of City Hall - 700 McLeod Tr SE
Why: To show the world Calgary does not tolerate racism and white supremacists

This demonstration is a community event called for and promoted by Anti-Racist Action. ARA encourages everyone to bring any signs,banners or flags they feel appropriate. We intend this to be a non-violent but confrontational rally.

Last year on March 21, over 200 anti-racism protesters confronted 40 Aryan Guard supporters in downtown Calgary.

For further information about this event or ARA please contact antiracistcalgary@gmail.com

About Anti-Racist Action
Anti-Racist Action or ARA, is a citizen group of anti-racist activists with over 200 affiliated chapters around the world. ARA was founded in Minneapolis in 1988 and ARA Calgary has been active since 1995.

About the Aryan Guard
The Aryan Guard are a white supremacist and neo-Nazi gang formed in Calgary in late 2006 by Kyle McKee and Dallas Price. Their official membership numbers around twenty, with a further twenty or thirty non-member associates. The Aryan Guard are officially affiliated with the National Socialist Party of Canada. Currently, one member of the Aryan Guard is charged with a racially-motivated assault for attacking a japanese woman from behind. For further information on the Aryan Guard, refer to the One People's Project page at one people's project

About March 21
March 21 is officially the International Day for the Elimination of Racism. In a cynical attempt to co-opt this day, the Aryan Guard have decided to choose it for their annual white power march.