Indian Fascist groups to hold camp in Germany

international | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Wednesday April 07, 2004 12:34 by Vijay Prashad - FOIL sandeep at gofree dot indigo dot ie Dublin, Ireland 353 2 6727803

Please circulate this alert widely - especially to anti-fascist
groups and media in Germany.

We would like to bring your attention to the antecedents of the
right-wing groups that plan to hold a camp to promote religious
violence in India. The camp is organized by the Hindu Swayamsevak
Sangh, the international wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS).

It will be held at Haus-Veste-Nyestadt - Schullandheim, 51702
Bergneustadt, from April 9-12 of this year.

We are calling upon anti-fascist groups to actively oppose the camp.

Please circulate this alert widely - especially to anti-fascist
groups and media in Germany.

We would like to bring your attention to the antecedents of the
right-wing groups that plan to hold a camp to promote religious
violence in India. The camp is organized by the Hindu Swayamsevak
Sangh, the international wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS).

It will be held at Haus-Veste-Nyestadt - Schullandheim, 51702
Bergneustadt, from April 9-12 of this year.

We are calling upon anti-fascist groups to actively oppose the camp.

The RSS is currently a legal organization in India, but it has been
banned by the government periodically for such acts as its
participation in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. Human
Rights Watch in New York City has written extensively about its ties
to the people who conducted the violent pogroms in
the Indian state of Gujarat both in 1998 (the killing of Indian
Christians) and in 2002 (the killing of Indian Muslims). The RSS has
long admired Nazism, and its leaders have on occasion envied the
policies followed by Hitler, mainly of the extermination of Jews.

After evidence of the Holocaust had traveled to
India, the RSS'leader M. S. Golwalkar wrote, "German Race pride has
now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the Race
and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country
of the Semitic Races -- the Jews. Race pride at its highest has
been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh
impossible it is for Races and Cultures, having differences going to the root,
to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in
Hindustan to learn and profit by."

Post-war Germany has played a leading role in preventing the rise of
authoritarian movements such as Nazism. We urge you to send a message
against this camp (or Shibir) held by the RSS on German soil -- they
must not be allowed to do their hateful business without opposition.