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The `Patriot' Movement: Right-Wing Neo-Militia Groups in the USA - United States of America
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| 11 June 2001 |
The neo-militias in the USA are an armed, extremist component of the Patriot Movement, a diverse grouping of Christian right-wingers, white supremacists and anti-federal government protesters. There were several catalysts for the rise of the neo-militia movement during the 1990s:
Most notorious, and tragic, of the incidents now associated with militias was the April 1995 bombing of the Alfred P Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. One hundred and sixty eight people were killed and 500 injured in the worst incident of domestic terrorism experienced in the USA. The bombing took place on the anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolution and the second anniversary of the end of the Waco siege; much has been made of the links the now convicted Timothy McVeigh had with the Michigan Militia and Arizona Patriots. Most militia members shared in the national horror felt at the bombing, but the incident will doubtless be forever tied to militias in the public mind.
Militia involvement in the pipe bomb explosion at Centennial Park during the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996 has yet to be ruled out. There have also been `separatist revolts', including one in April 1997 in which the Republic of Texas militia group declared independence for land which the families involved in the militia owned. A siege lasted for several days before the militia members were forced to surrender. Other incidents which have received less international media attention have included racial attacks, stockpiling weapons, the targeting of tax offices and federal officials and attacks on abortion clinics, to name just a few.
Origins of the Movement
Whilst localised militia type groups have been a feature of the Ku Klux Klan since its creation, the origins of the neo-militias can be traced back to the Posse Comitatus of the 1970s. It developed as an anti-Semitic, anti-government, anti-taxation movement, its strongholds amongst the farming communities of the mid-west which were badly hit by the farm crisis of the mid-1980s.
Other groups, including The Order and the Arizona Patriots, continued this tradition throughout the 1980s, although they were mainly associated with a racial tension. Also of significance was the Aryan Nations, founded in 1974 by Richard Girnt Butler. It established its headquarters in Idaho at a protected compound of some 40 acres. The Aryan Nations acts as an umbrella organisation, promoting its white supremacist ideology and providing a forum for links between like-minded organisations.
Some commentators have compared the rise of the neo-militia movement in the 1990s with the period of reconstruction and the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan after the American Civil War. Now, as then, those attracted to the movement feel bewildered by social, political and economic change. Many, though by no means all militiamen and women, sympathise with groups and ideas associated with the Aryan Nations - and some are members of other extremist groups. The theories and literature favoured by these organisations - for example, `The Turner Diaries', by William Pierce (which includes an account of a bombing of a federal building by an armed group) - are also popular amongst the most extremist of the neo-militia groups.