YAF Brings Anti-Semite Nick Griffin to Bash Muslims

Philip Rodney Moon

Friday night Young Americans for Freedom hosted Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party (BNP). Griffin and his party are controversial for its far right views and white supremacist ideology. The constitution of the BNP states that membership is only given to whites, particularly from Northern Europe and the British Isles.

Griffin has been criticized for his denial of the Holocaust and claim of Jewish media conspiracies against the white population of Britain.

Controversy also arose when a poster on Stormfront.org, a racist website popular with Neo-Nazis, skinheads, and the KKK, called for an “entourage” to come to the event.

In response to the event, several groups came together to protest Griffin.

Protesters met at the Rock at six PM to gather for a march to the Veterinary Medical Center where the speech was being held. Protesters walked down Farm Lane and onto Wilson, taking over the east bound lanes as they marched and chanted. A parked police car with a loudspeaker attempted to call them into one lane of the road, but the chants of the crowd made the police hard to be heard.

While the protesters marched a brown pickup truck with two white men drove by in the west bound lane. The driver and passenger both gave middle fingers to the anti-Griffin protesters.

They group held their big rally outside the entrance on the Veterinary Medical Center. Several speakers came up to speak on why they came to oppose Nick Griffin and Young Americans for Freedom.

“There comes a point where a people must be held accountable for their own passivism in the face of their own destruction,” said Joseph Harris. “There must come a point where a line is drawn in the sand.”

The protester brought out a piñata effigy of Nick Griffin. The piñata had two faces on two sides, used to represent the Nazi fascist side of Griffin, and a side in a suit used to represent the image he presented to the world. The protesters explained the piñata was supposed to represent the two-face nature of the party.

“Everybody this is purely symbolic,” said an organizer with the piñata. “These are not weapons. This is not anything like that.”

Gabriela Alcazar of Chicanos Y Latinos Unidos spoke about the protesters belief in YAF’s purpose for the event.

“It was organized to provoke violence. To provoke violence from us,” Alcazar said. “But we will not give it to them. We will not lower to their level. Because when you speak the truth, true truth becomes more powerful than hate.”

Inside the event, protesters were vocal in their protests of Griffin. Griffin’s planned one hour speech was forgone into what turned to a heated question and answer session. Preston Wiginton, a known white nationalist with ties to skinheads, David Duke, and MSU-YAF Chair Kyle Bristow, was at Griffin’s side throughout the night, serving as an MC and choosing people to ask questions.

Throughout the event, Griffin made several controversial statements. He addressed the group as secular democratic people, and homosexuals.

“Personally, I’d shove you back in the closet,” Griffin said.

Several protesters sought answers to the BNP’s association with David Copeland, a terrorist who placed nail bombs in gay and ethnic communities in order to start a race war. Griffin claimed that Copeland left the BNP because it was democratic and not for him.

Griffin went on to claim that women would lose rights in an Islamic era.
“You’d lose your right not to have your labia and clitoris hacked off and have you vagina sewn up,” Griffin said.

He addressed one female protester.

“The Young Lady over there with the big voice, she’s actually pretty enough to end up in an Islamic slave market. And that is what will happen in an Islamic era,” Griffin said.

On the Holocaust, Nick Griffin claimed that some of the smokestacks were built after the war. He then went on to go into the Holocaust controversy surrounding him.

“Let me explain my position on the Holocaust. I have, in the past, said some very rude things about the Holocaust, “Griffin explained, “Which doesn’t make me an anti-Semite.”

Griffin said that the Holocaust was used as a business and to justify oppression of the Holocaust. He claimed that 20 million people were killed by the Nazis as part of the Holocaust, a number he claimed came from the Neurumberg trials.

A protester yelled out that in 1997 on the Cook Report, a British news program, Griffin claimed only hundreds were killed. That was confirmed by a YouTube video of that report.

“There’s no doubt that hundreds, probably thousands of Jews were shot to death in Eastern Europe, rightly or wrongly, because they were seen as communists or partisan supporters. That was awful. But this nonsense about gas chambers is exposed as a total lie,” Griffin told journalist Roger Cook in 1997.

Griffin, in response to a question by Professor Austin Jackson, about Muslims being brought to America as slaves and black Muslims in America, claimed Islam supported slavery.

“Traditionally Islam is the great slaving religion of the world,” Griffin said.

Griffin went on to claim the black men raped white women more than any other interracial rape situation.
“The majority of interracial rapes in this country are by black men on white women,” Griffin said.

When a white female protested that statement, Griffin responded.

“I’ll tell you what, tomorrow night walk down the streets of Detroit,” he told her.

Griffin was asked about a report that found that, contrary to other places in the world he had referenced, Muslims in America were mainstream, moderate, and middle class and did not support the radical jihadist movement.

Griffin claimed that the first Muslims in Europe were moderate, and progressively got more radical. He claimed it was in the nature of Islam to aggressively take over when they had reached ten percent of the population.

“Until you get ten percent of the population, you can shorten the prayers, in other words you can play down how erratic you are,” Griffin claimed. “Once you get ten percent you have a religious duty to use aggression and force and violence, to help the spread of Islam.”

Later in the speech chants of “Anti-racists walk out” began and most of the protesters walked out of the building. Many left to go outside the building, and not listen to the rest of the speech.

At eight thirty, a while after the protesters has left, someone pulled a fire alarm. The event continued, and several of the remaining people moved forward to hear Griffin over the fire alarm.

After the event ended Terry Denbow, Vice President of University Relations, said the event worked.

“I think the event went off without disruption that would preclude two-way communication,” Denbow said. “I think there was dissent to be sure, protest to be sure.  I thought the behaviors were appropriate for a heated discussion. We’re learning about, maybe not the content, but we’re learning about the process.”

Denbow did not like that the fire alarm was pulled, but would not place blame on anyone.

After the interview with Denbow, there were heated arguments going on outside the Veterinary medical clinic. Several protesters and supporters of Griffin were arguing several points, from free speech, to one of the YAF members, Tyler Whitney, being a gay man supporting a group that denounced gay people.

 A short while later several YAF members were chased to a nearby parking ramp by a group of six to eight protesters. The protesters that launched the attack appeared to be from the group Anti-Racist Action, a student protest group from Wayne State. None of the protesters were identifiable as MSU students.

YAF claims of baseball bats and lumber being carried and size estimates of the group that chased them could not be confirmed. One protester was carrying a cane, and another held a sandal that one of the YAF members, Tyler Whitney, lost in running away.

“We scared them out of their shoes,” said one of the assailants.

Police were called when the incident occurred, but no arrests have been made.