Mongolian neo-Nazis are rebranding themselves as environmentalist campaigners fighting pollution by foreign-owned mines, seeking new legitimacy and credibility as Swastika-wearing party members head out to check mining permits.
Tsagaan Khass (meaning ‘White Swastika’), has only around 100 members, but, as foreign firms increasingly exploit the mineral wealth of the vast landlocked country, it is one of several groups with names like Dayar Mongol (‘Whole Mongolia’), Gal Undesten (‘Fire Nation’) and Khukh Mongol (‘Blue Mongolia’) riding a new wave of resource nationalism.
“Before we used to work in a harsh way, like breaking down doors, but now we have changed and we use other approaches, like demonstrations,” the group’s leader, Ariunbold Altankhuum, told the news agency Reuters.
“Today our main goal is to save nature. We are doing things to protect the environment,” he said. “The development of mining is growing and has become an issue.”
But despite the group’s environmental sensitivities, their continued reverence for Hitler and Nazi Germany has earned them little support from international observers.
“Mongolia’s neo-Nazis have been receiving too much attention from global media, and they’ve obviously been enjoying it,” said Tal Liron, a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago. “They do not, however, represent Mongolians as a whole, any more than neo-Nazis in Britain represent the Brits.
“Mongolians are cosmopolitan, savvy and perfectly capable of adapting many foreign ideologies and fashions to their context. For example, they have since 1990 thoroughly and vibrantly embraced representative democracy, just as they embraced socialism before 1990. I think that’s the real story here: Mongolians are not and perhaps never were a remote, isolated people.”
Altankhuum, however, remains committed to Tsagaan Khass’s ultra-right approach.
“The reason we chose this way is because what is happening here in Mongolia is like 1939, and Hitler’s movement transformed his country into a powerful country,” he said. Members wear black SS-style Nazi uniforms complete with lightning flashes and replica Iron Crosses.
