‘Our Community Could Start Our Own Traditions’: The Commingling of Religion, Politics and the Folkloresque in a Far-Right Groupuscule

This chapter draws together research in the social sciences on the neo-fascist resurgence with perspectives on the invention of tradition from folklore studies to consider the material and intangible resources drawn upon by transnational white supremacists to evoke a shared cultural tradition: a ‘white nation.’ The chapter will offer an account of the role of the sunwheel symbol in British Movement materials in print and online and will show how it is used in the production of a composite ‘nation’ from a bricolage of improvisational millennialism (pace Barkun) that combines historical traditions, mythic constructs composed of established traditions (i.e., Celtic myth) and hybrid fictional forms. The quoted text in the title is taken from a post about Samhain on the British Movement’s Women’s Blog which exemplifies this tendency. Drawing on the work of Emilio Gentile, the central idea that informs this chapter is that current neo-fascist formations depend upon a hybrid, religio-political conception of the nation. Through a combination of Gentile’s and Marion Gibson’s conceptualisations of ‘vernacular religion,’ it demonstrates that neo-fascism has developed an aggressively syncretic racial lore to feed and sustain its constructed notion of tradition.