M21 2010. Nazis fail to show, Calgarians win.

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.