Oh dear. First Kyle ‘The Pieman’ Chapman‘s plan to “take over New Zealand” with a few, sloppily-camouflaged, Airsoft rifle sporting dickheads known as the ‘Phantom Recon Militia’ went pear-shaped; now Colin King-Ansell‘s attempt to involve himself in the Legitimate Businessman’s Association of Hawera has been brought into question by the press and, presumably, the general public: that of King-Ansell’s stomping ground, Taranaki, in particular.
Poor Colin. Why are people so unkind?
Well, there’s a few reasons: the three articles from the Taranaki Daily News Fightdemback have re-published on the subject of King-Ansell’s 50 years of political militancy in the service of fascism are both amusing and revealing, especially the interview in which King-Ansell attempts to distance himself from this history.
“No but yeah but yeah but yeah no but yeah no but yeah…”
To begin with, King-Ansell confesses to having been an admirer of Adolf Hitler since secondary school: “I admired what Hitler tried to do but I’m critical of what he did. He came up with a damn good idea and stuffed it up completely. Mussolini did the same in Italy”.
I see… Hitler good; Mussolini good; anti-fascism bad.
The basis of King-Ansell’s critique of Nazism and Fascism?
They lost.
Were you anti-Jewish?
Not really, I don’t think so.
Hmmm. Here’s a bloke who admits to admiring Hitler, Mussolini, Nazism and Fascism, whose chief criticism of Nazism and Fascism is that they ultimately failed… but who doesn’t think that his views are/were ‘anti-Jewish’. In which case, Wikipedia must be incorrect when it states that the National Socialist Party of New Zealand — the Party King-Ansell founded — “promulgated the same basic views as Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party in Germany, and had a particular focus on Jews”. Or, King-Ansell could be lying.
Were you a white supremacist?
I believed in all the propaganda that was put out by overseas groups and, yes, we published it in our publications.
I believe that’s another ‘Yes’; both to gullibility and to ‘White supremacy’.
Did you believe in the master race?
No, I believe the European people were gifted to bring civilisation [sick] to the world, which we have done. We haven’t made a good job of it in some areas, but we have dragged a lot of countries kicking and screaming into the 20th century.
But to be a national socialist and to believe in Hitler, you must have supported those beliefs?
It’s hard to define. The way I saw national socialism is you had to do what you saw was best for your country. I believed in my interpretation of national socialism. I’m still a nationalist. This is my country and God help anybody who tries to take it off me. The party was a gathering point for all sorts of extremists.
Nazism “hard to define”? No, not really.
A history of involvement in neo-Nazism ‘easy to deny’? No, not really.
‘New Zealand / Aotearoa belongs to Colin King-Ansell’? Er, no.
When did you sever your links with Nazism?
The party ceased to exist about 1980. It just faded away. We got older. Once the Cold War was over it faded world wide. Other groups like the National Front came into existence. There was a brief attempt in the 90s to resurrect the party, but it never got anywhere.
It reared its head when I took a group of young kids under my wing and the media beat it up into white supremacy…
So, according to King-Ansell, from 1969 to 1980 he was a member of an openly neo-Nazi organisation. When it disintegrated, the National Front stepped in (an organisation to which King-Ansell presumably lent his support).
The young kids King-Ansell kkkindly took under his wing were treated to a rather odd form of ‘supervision’:
It was called Unit 88. It stands for the 8th letter of the alphabet, which is H for Heil Hitler. I was involved but I didn’t run it. I gave them a place to stay, I had the lease on a big building; they had a gym, pool tables, they could bring their girlfriends, listen to their [bonehead muzak]. It was harmless, it wasn’t an attempt to mould young malleable minds and turn them into stormtroopers. That was a joke.
Or to put it another way:
Ansell shared some resources and helped finance a building leased by the young [boneheads] of Unit 88. Set in a rundown industrial area in west Auckland, the building has barbed wire around its entrance and boards blocking all the windows. When Unit 88 received negative exposure in the national press, Ansell dissociated himself from the group and warned “they are going to start a war if they keep doing what they are doing.” Unit 88 members have allegedly sought revenge by destroying printing presses at Ansell’s home.
Ansell is now [1998, that is, only eight years ago] seeking to establish his New Zealand Fascist Union, founded in March last year and said to count several white supremacist groups among its membership. Advertisements were placed recently in Wellington papers seeking further adherents to its brand of fascism, which an anonymous spokesman described as more akin to that of Mussolini of Italy and Peron of Argentina than to Nazism. “There’s more of an economic and social emphasis in our ideology. Neo-Nazis don’t give much consideration to economics,” he explained.
The group is planning to run for Parliament and claims it has considerable support, including the 500 financial members necessary to register as an electoral party. Ansell claims regional leaders have been drafted to a national Senate of the union, which meets regularly and is controlled by [a] three-member council – Ansell and two others whom he refuses to name because “some of them have jobs.” It is a line he has used before, in earlier political incarnations.
Ansell, formerly known as Colin King-Ansell, was imprisoned in 1968 for maliciously damaging a synagogue. Upon his release the following year, he founded the National Socialist Party of New Zealand and advocated the establishment of a private army of stormtroopers. For a brief period during the early 1970s Ansell became involved in Australian neo-Nazi groups, notably the National Socialist Party of Australia, but soon returned to New Zealand where he was a candidate in successive elections.
By 1978, he was leading a National Socialist White People’s Party, which was affiliated to the US party of the same name founded by the infamous American, George Lincoln Rockwell. Shortly afterwards, Ansell was found to have breached the Race Relations Act by distributing a pamphlet with intent to incite ill-will against Jews, but his prison sentence was commuted to a substantial fine. During the 1980s he demonstrated in support of South African rugby tours and attempted to promote his views by seeking (unsuccessfully) the Presidency of the Auckland Printers Union.
Now Colin Ansell’s Fascist Union has garnered its own notoriety through a pamphlet distributed to Christchurch letterboxes. Featuring an illustration of a hooded paramilitary figure it calls for “young patriots” to form a fascist youth group. “If you love your race and nation and have the courage to defend your homeland… Join now!” Post Office boxes were given for regional branches in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. In the same week, Christchurch MP and former Prime Minister Mike Moore was delivered a leaflet showing him wearing a Jewish skull-cap and the Star of David, ripping the New Zealand flag in two with a hammer and sickle. It also sneered at his anti-racism stance and condemned homosexuals and communists. He then had his electorate office plastered with posters depicting immigrants as rapists and child molesters.
Making King-Ansell both a liar and a creepy anti-Semite. Now another Big Lie:
Since about 1980 I’ve had nothing more to do with national socialism except kept an eye on what’s going on. I’ve kept in touch with some of my older mates, the few who are left.
Well yeah, King-Ansell has indeed had “nothing… to do with national socialism” since about 1980 apart from keeping ‘an eye on things’ and staying ‘in touch with mates’. That is if you define “nothing” as ‘financing a neo-Nazi gang and establishing a fascist party”.
Have you formally renounced Nazism?
Yes, I have renounced it, although not formally. When the party ceased to exist I went into retirement. It was a gradual fading out. I concentrated on my business interests.
How does one “formally renounce Nazism”? In any case, King-Ansell didn’t “renounce” Nazism in 1980; rather, the Party merely “faded away”. Neither did he simply go “into retirement”.
In fact, I think King-Ansell is a liar, and his claims to have turned from national socialism in 1980 are fraudulent.
Do the people of South Taranaki have anything to fear from you living here?
Absolutely not. I’m not a threat to society any more. This Kyle Chapman in the Sunday Star Times last week and his Survivors’ Militia, he’s an absolute idiot. He’s the one who sort of took over from me and now someone else has taken over from him. They’ve all tried to get me to come back but I’m too old and too cynical.
I just want to live out what’s left of my life, I want to get on. I think I can make a good life here, it’s a nice town.
Good life. Nice town. Why not?
“BUSINESS CARD FASCISTS: A Maori man was attacked in the heart of Wellington’s nightlife area. His four attackers carried business cards identifying themselves as members of the “Southern Hammer Skinhead Gang.” The cards carried a post office box address registered in the name of the New Zealand Fascist Union. It is understood that handing out business cards is the gang’s way of recruiting members.”
[See also : Michael Shannon, ‘Ku Klux Kiwis’, Review 23.1, 1 February – 17 February, 1998; ‘Asia Watch: Business Card Fascists’, The Australia/Israel Review, 25 May – 15 June 1998.]
the world is riddled with maggots
the maggots are getting fat
they’re making a tasty meal
of all the bosses and bureaucrats
they’re taking over the board rooms
and they’re fat and full of pride
and they all came out of the woodwork
on the day the nazi died
so if you meet with these historians
i’ll tell you what to say
tell them that the nazis never really went away
they’re out there burning houses down
and peddling racist lies
and we’ll never rest again
until every nazi dies
