Neo-Nazi extremists need help getting out — I know.
Ispent years of my life as a leading member of a Canadian neo-Nazi organization. But then I became a husband and a father. The life I’d chosen to live was dangerous, and I wanted out. Escape wasn’t easy, but for me, it was vital. The cycle had to end. I didn’t want to be responsible for carrying this weight into another generation, for teaching my kids views that I no longer really believed, and exposing them to several more years of violence and hate.
There’s a moment when the fuse just gives out. You can sense it. I ran on hateful energy for over a decade. For 13 years, I was entrenched in the far-right movement in Canada. I spent six of those years as a leader within the Canadian branch of Volksfront, an Oregon-based neoNazi movement with separatist leanings and links to organized crime. It is a decade of my life I need to atone for, but one I would love to readily forget. World events are such, however, that we — former members — need to step up to the plate and speak out.
This weekend was the one year anniversary of the tragic events in Charlottesville, when we were again reminded of the pain and recoil of a nation seemingly in conflict with itself and its history. Some may say there are “fine people” on both sides, but I tend to disagree. One of the main things that sticks out to me when I reflect on my time in the neoNazi movement is the sheer exhaustion of hate, of constantly monitoring members of the movement to ensure that they were living up to some manufactured ideal, and of constantly monitoring others and their behaviour for evidence that our grievances were legitimate. After years of this, your spirit is left drained.
This exhaustion is not exclusive to me. There are many within these movements whose hate is weighing on their psyches. They need resources, and they need support to disengage. They may be disillusioned, but they also don’t have a family outside of the movement. We were utterly convinced that there was no life outside of the group, that we made a wrong turn somewhere in our past — we made our bed, as the saying goes. Any other life seems impossible.
Today, there are groups like the Against Violent Extremism Network, a community of former extremists and survivors of extremist attacks, and Life After Hate, with its cadre of former extremists who counsel and support individuals who want to disengage. This is a step in the right direction. But many of us stay so long in these movements that we get married and build families. For me, it was this very thing, the terrifying thought that I was bequeathing hate onto my children, that saved me. Living this double life — the happy home with my beautiful children and the slow realization that the tenets of the movement weren’t actually true versus the constant need to perform for the group — was utterly exhausting.
Since leaving the movement, I have become increasingly involved in community engagement. I’m trying my best to rebuild the resiliency I was once actively attempting to tear apart. I now educate mainstream communities about violent hate movements, I actively support and guide others out of the movements that have consumed their life, and I continue to mentor the newly disengaged about the struggles they are likely to experience. Involvement in these movements propels you into an isolated brotherhood — you may lose your job, you may bring shame to your family, you will lose your old friends, and as the illusory nature of group bonding becomes readily apparent, you are left alone navigating your way back to society. This is when these individuals need a helping hand.
Luckily, I’m not the only one — there has developed over time a network of “formers” worldwide, all worried about societal divisions they are continuing to witness, and guilt-ridden that they played a part in bringing it about. A year after Charlottesville, individuals who gave their lives to these movements, and managed to find their way back out, can and will play an active role in breaking the ongoing cycle of hate in our communities.
AFTER YEARS OF THIS, YOUR SPIRIT IS LEFT DRAINED.
— GALLOWAY