„Heil Ahmadinejad, Foe of Imperialism“

In the June 23 issue of the anti-fascist magazine blick nach rechts (”A look to the right”), Anton Maegerle notes that European neo-Nazis have been expressing their solidarity with the Tehran regime…

by Karl Pfeifer, Z word blog, 25/06/09

Maegerle says that in contrast to the hundreds of thousands of Iranian citizens protesting the stolen election, neo-Nazis and extreme right-wingers have expressed their solidarity with the antisemitic and anti-Zionist President in Tehran. Among them is the fugitive Swiss Holocaust denier Jürgen Graf, who fled to Iran in 2000 seeking “political asylum” – Graf gives his address as “PO Box 19395/7161, Tehran,“

“Hearty congratulation to your reelection, Mr. President!“ rejoiced the Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) under its leader Matthias Faust after the alleged reelection of the Islamist despot.

The Iranian people, says the DVU, “has decided in favor of a man of the people.” Ahmadinejad is acclaimed by the DVU as an “uncompromising patriot” coming from “the people,” against whom “the self-proclaimed money-elite, the smart merchants and the western- oriented members of the Tehran upper class” has conspired.

Exhilarated NPD federal leader Udo Voigt said of the official election result: “As if by a miracle, they elected against what the western world and its Jewish lobby stands for.“

“Apparently,” Voigt continued, “the democracy there is more stable and less prone to blackmail than the Western countries“. Mass demonstrations against the Tehran regime are, according to Voigt, caused by incitement from abroad. Foreign countries have a “clear interest in a chaotic situation“.

Also the leader of NPD in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Claus Cremer, took a stand. He confirmed that Ahmadinejad is one of the “last strong leaders on this earth, who openly and forcefully stand up against the objectives of the USA, Israel and the ‘Western community’ of values and do not bend to political correctness.“ Cremer told Iranians living in Germany: “If you are not happy with what happened in Tehran, you should use the opportunity to protest as Iranians in Iran, instead of taking your problems into our cities. Go back to your homeland.”

The Osnabrück base of the NPD-youth Junge Nationaldemokraten (JN) glorified Ahmadinejad on their homepage as the “true Fuhrer of the people.” Ahmadinejad was praised for closing “the American-branded fast food restaurants” and for having “curbed the distribution of decadent products of the American music industry which are responsible for rotten subversion.“

The new blood of the NPD was moved by Ahmadinejad’s firm stance against “the capitalist world power USA and Zionist Israel. His staunch advocacy for the disenfranchised and oppressed Palestinians and for the liberty of research in recent history is what has caused the hatred of the Zionist rulers of Israel and the USA.“ As example of the ‘liberty of research in recent history,’ they name explicitly the Holocaust denial conference sponsored by Ahmadinejad in December 2006.

The extreme rightist Swiss Partei National Orientierter Schweizer (PNOS) also expressed solidarity with Ahmadinejad. “It must be hoped,” said their statement, “that he can defend himself successfully against foreign attacks and further denounce Zionism and the Holocaust Religion.”

Meanwhile, Vienna’s leftist anti-imperialists declared, on June 16: “From an anti-imperialist point of view, the overwhelming victory of Ahmadinejad in the elections is positive, because the incumbent and president-elect stands for confrontation with the U.S.-led new order for the ‘Near East.’”

On June 24, they published a letter by “Y.B., activist from within 48 Palestine“ (meaning Israel) under the headline: “In Palestine Ahmadinejad could win any election with much bigger margins.”

“I’m aware of the crazy defamation of Ahmadinejad in the west, where the hypocrisy of the left is converging with the self interest of the exploiters and the oppressors to pose ‘democratic’ racist Israel and the ‘moderate’ Saudi royal family and the Egyptian police state as natural allies for the western democracies. Here in Palestine, where people experience Western imperialism at its sharp edge, Ahmadinejad could win any election with much bigger margins without even campaigning…At last, Iran is one of the few states in the world where there are meaningful elections where people can make real choice. In this sense it is one of the most democratic states in the world. Of course, nothing is perfect, and we always aspire for the better, but in the Iranian election the Iranian people had to choose and they did choose the leadership that proved its readiness to serve their interest best, and not those of foreign imperialism or the local elites.“

Prof. Gerhard Oberkofler, an old Austrian Stalinist, defended Ahmadinjad’s views on the Holocaust on June 24, writing: “Such thoughts are dismissed as bizarre and antisemitic, but one can understand them historically.”

For Oberkofler, the convening of a conference of Holocaust deniers is neither bizarre nor antisemitic. So once again neo-Nazis, rightist extremists and “anti-imperialists” agree.