Back in July, Rhyd Wildermuth and Ryan Smith brought Galina up before Heathens United Against Racism (notorious for booting out the majority of its LGBTQ members in an undemocratic coup, as detailed here) because she dared post a video critical of Muslim abuse of women and especially taharrush or the “rape game” on Facebook. (Warning: this is a pretty graphic and disturbing video, but if you watch it you’ll see why she posted it, consistent with the strong stances she’s taken against misogyny, transphobia and sexual assault in the past.)
Eager to get their condemnation out before Many Gods West, they dispensed with their normal procedure and called an emergency vote, which some members found questionable:
Rhyd Wildermuth She now writes for two hindu nationalist sites, one of which she got help from Edward Butler from. One of them was mentioned in my rebuttal to John Beckett’s piece–that same site has called for war against Muslims in India.
Ryan Smith Who will co-sponsor an emergency vote (meaning 48 hours for discussion, voting, etc before action is taken either way) on a statement calling this out? At least two co-sponsors are needed to put this to a vote.
Wendy Harding Do you mean, second your motion, sort of? If so, I agree with whay you’ve said, I second you.
Ryan Smith Basically yes. Two seconds are needed to move forward to a vote.
Fjothr Lokakvan Why an emergency vote rather than the week-long process?
They probably should have listened to those members, because all of the damning evidence they were able to come up with was the video, Galina’s support for Hindu polytheists defending their ancestral traditions from violent colonization, and that she linked to a couple bloggers (Bloch and Helsen) who have long been critical of Ryan Smith. (Granted, even if they had followed normal procedure they wouldn’t have come up with much more than that but it’s telling that they weren’t even willing to abide by their own rules in the furtherance of this pointless personal vendetta of theirs.) Response to their call out was decidedly underwhelming, especially among those who actually bothered to watch the video before rushing to judgment. Tellingly, The Wild Hunt refused to run a story on this nasty affair, deeming it un-newsworthy. (Funny how Rhyd stopped writing for them shortly thereafter, innit?)
Well, now they’re back and giving the old witch-hunt another shot.
For those who can’t read the screen-cap here’s a transcription:
Sooo when is the polytheist community going to do something about this festering mess on your front porch? She’s claiming to speak for y’all, is spitting out much of the same garbage that many of you denounce when McNallen or Trump say it, and is actively defending the AFA.
Heathenry is doing our part to confront bigotry within our community. I’d like to see those who call themselves our allies show similar moral consistency & fortitude by doing the same with theirs.
For those who choose to remain silent your quiet speaks loudly.
Couple of notable things about this.
- Where’s the evidence?
- Galina has been active in Theodism, Heathenry and the Northern Tradition for over two decades, but all that’s elided so they can present her as belonging to a separate community. If Galina isn’t a Heathen why is an organization with the goal of policing Heathenry going after her?
- Where has Galina ever claimed to speak on behalf of every single polytheist in the world? Not only does she carefully qualify her statements, but she’s often said she wants nothing to do with things like Kylo Ren and Dr. Who worshiping pop-culture polytheists, much to the chagrin of Tumblr.
- Apparently they don’t read her very carefully.
I mean, let’s actually look at some of the statements she’s made regarding folkishness, racism, and the AFA.
Such as here:
People in our communities are doing their damndest to distance themselves from this man’s [Frazier Glenn Cross] beliefs and actions and rightly so for they are utterly reprehensible. Not only is there no valor to be had in such actions but racial purity is a modern conception that played no part in the lives or worldview of our cultural ancestors. Ancient Germanic peoples had extensive trade and military relations with the populations of Europe, Asia and Africa and often happily and seamlessly intermingled with these local groups, as anyone with even a passing familiarity with history and archaeology can tell you. Moreover, the sacred stories of our Gods show the same multi-culturalism.
And here:
As far as race is concerned I think that’s a red herring in this discussion. “Race” is an artificial construct. “Race” as a taxonomy by which we classify and diminish human beings is a child of colonialism. It’s the outgrowth of a monotheistic culture devoid of its ancestral connections. Every person, white, black or otherwise has indigenous traditions. It’s about time we *all* start reclaiming them.
And here:
When one engages in ancestor work, at a certain level there are two ancestral wounds those of us from {in my case Northern] European heritage will eventually encounter: the first is that our indigenous traditions, our ancestral ways were destroyed by the spread of monotheism. The second is this: after we were forcibly converted, our ancestors drank the poison of our conquerors and became monsters. We became the people that crossed the ocean and did unto others what had been done to us. We became the destroyer of nations. I do not believe we will ever be right either with our ancestors or with humanity and the world as a whole until we acknowledge and address this damage. THIS lies at the root of the terrible imbalances our dead are calling upon us to redress. […] It may not be comfortable. What was done to so many peoples by our damaged dead wasn’t comfortable for those people either. It’s not as if the consequences of conquest aren’t with us daily. This isn’t something that happened long ago that can be swept under the rug and forgotten. We live with the results of our ancestors’actions every single day. It’s the ramparts upon which our current society revolves. Those ramparts need to come down. We need to pay homage to our dead. We need to look at the harm those dead who were raised in a culture poisoned by their own ancestors’ conquest perpetrated, the results of which have defined our existence.“I didn’t personally do it” is not an excuse. This isn’t a white problem. It isn’t a black problem. It isn’t a native problem. This is a human problem. It’s a human problem that demands to be addressed.
And here:
If we start accusing everyone of being racist (or fascist, or sexist, or any other –ist) every time they disagree with our positions on other matters, those words are going to lose their meaning. When that happens, we will be numb and blind to actual incidents of racism and violence that very much deserve our attention and action.
And here:
Part of me feels about Thanksgiving the same way I feel about Columbus Day: why are we celebrating the genocide of nations of indigenous peoples? Why on earth should any of the Native peoples give thanks for the arrival of the pilgrims and why on earth should we celebrate the atrocities committed by our ancestors? Especially as Pagans and Heathens, it seems to me that we have a greater obligation to be mindful of these things, because our religions were destroyed by the same type of religious and cultural imperialism, destroyed so thoroughly that the majority of people don’t realize that we who come from Northern European stock even had “indigenous ways” other than Christianity. We have a debt, a sacred obligation instead, to make this world better: to restore what our ancestors in the name of God (note the singular) and country severed so brutally. Part of our portion, I very strongly believe, is to restore our ancestral lines. That starts in small ways. We’re taught certain fallacies about Thanksgiving Day in school (at least in the States), including being presented with a glossed over view of the first Thanksgiving as a celebration of the cooperation between the first Pilgrims and the Native peoples without whose guidance the former would have perished. There is, of course, some truth in that. However, we’re rarely taught that whatever cooperation there was didn’t last because of our ancestors’ greed and shortsightedness. For instance, the first formal ‘Day of Thanksgiving” was declared in 1637….celebrating a massacre of Pequot men, women, and children. While it’s true, that Thanksgiving Day as we know it now, was established by Lincoln in the middle of the Civil War to give thanks for the Nation’s blessings, probably as a means of drawing people together, that doesn’t change the fact that its mythology and history are irrevocably linked with indigenous slaughter. We make nice little card-board cut-outs of the Native peoples: they become characters in one of our most enduring cultural fables. We’re rarely presented with the full scope of what European colonization meant: the destruction of cultures, languages, religions, communities to a crippling degree, and the continued marginalization of those whose ancestors had right of first relationship with this land.
And here:
Sure, they express ideas I don’t always agree with, or take things I do agree with to places I’m not particularly comfortable – but that makes them wrong, not racist. And if I think they’re wrong I’ll tell them that – just as I’m sure they’ll tell me when they think I’m wrong – I won’t try to drive them out of the community with pitchforks and torches.
And here:
Now I’m going to tell you what I want to make of Heathenry. I want a religion where people burn for their Gods. I want a religion full of devotion, creativity, celebration, and joy, radical joy. I want a religion that’s fearless, wherein people take to heart Rumi’s maxim, “that there are thousands of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” i want a religion based on piety, respect, and adoration of the Powers. I want a religion where people understand that the lore is a map not the territory and that it’s an incomplete and corrupted map at that. I want a religion where honoring the ancestors and serving the Gods and spirits is the main purpose of life and practice and where people feel free to do that in the way those Gods and ancestors dictate, even if it’s not the way everyone else is doing things. i want a religion where the only thing that matters is how well you honor your dead and serve your Gods, because we know that blessings on the whole community flow from that devotion. I want a religion where the first thing people are encouraged to do is learn the basics of devotion and where they are supported in that and where talking to Gods is not viewed as crazy at all. i want a religion where people care more about the Gods than pandering to each other’s egos. I want a Heathenry that’s not based on fear and conformity and a paucity of spirit but on a glorious celebration of diversity of devotion, of all our Gods large and small, of all the spirits that make up our world and of the wisdom of our Ancestors. I want a religion where people pray and see it as a good and necessary thing. I want a religion where people prostrate themselves before their Gods and dead, as our ancestors did, and count it a good and joyous thing.
Hardly the words of a card-carrying Nazi.
Is it true that Galina came out in support of the AFA?
Well, she did say this:
I, for one, am glad to see neopagans standing united against white babies. They’re smelly and noisy, there are too damn many of them, and they don’t belong at concerts, movies, restaurants or on airplanes – especially on airplanes. Same thing with red babies, brown babies, black babies, yellow babies, purple babies, etc. The whole damn human race needs to go extinct so that super smart racoons can take our place. Why, just imagine the cool shit they’d invent like techno music you “listened” to with your little raccoon paws and food-washing robots! I seriously doubt they could do a worse job running this shit hole than we have. #nomorehumanbabies
But I’m not sure the AFA would really consider that “support.”
And she also said this:
Those attacking the AFA are doing so thinking that they are perfectly justified in doing so, and may even think they are doing a good thing. After all, these people think differently. They don’t tow the leftist party line. They don’t give a rat’s ass about what HUAR, Rhyd, G&R, tumblr or any other group of people might think. They have to be brought down. Well, it’s the AFA today but I think HUAR and co. are testing the waters, just as they were doing when they tried to brand me a racist for posting a video critical of rape gangs (really people, read my blog and make up your own mind there). They’re doing this to see A) how people react and B) if they can whip the communities up into a frenzy and take down this organization. What’s next? Are they going to go after John Michael Greer because he disagrees with Rhyd? Or will it be some poor group of Dianics who just want to be left to practice their tradition in peace? (I happen to think Dianics are ludicrous but you know what my response is to that? I don’t try to attend their gatherings). Whose livelihood are they going to destroy next? They’ve already managed to get a teacher at Cherry Hill to resign. It’s no longer enough to say “I disagree with their position on X and here’s why,” now the opposition has to be demonized (regardless of what their position actually is, mind you. Let’s call them far right, fascist, racist, homophobic, transphobic insert charged term du jour here). It’s no long enough to have one’s own space, now opposition must be silenced and brought to heel until they confirm ideologically.
Think about that. While you’re patting yourself on the back for protecting diversity, think really hard about that.
Think about who might be next. Think about your own gatherings disrupted because someone doesn’t find you ideologically pure enough. Think about the phone call to your boss outing you as Pagan, Heathen, pseudo fascist (even if you’re not). Rhyd is going around (most recently on John Beckett’s patheos column) talking about how there is no witch hunt from the anarcho-Marxist left. He’ll still be saying that I’m sure, when they come for you
But that’s more a defense of personal and religious liberty than a resounding endorsement of any particular group.
So I think we can consider this another disappointing failure and total strikeout on the part of Rhyd and Ryan.
Try again guys, maybe next time you’ll actually get something to stick.
