Evolution of your beliefs?

[la bombe]

When someone questioned my beliefs and supposed hypocrisy on here earlier, it got me thinking. Obviously most things in life aren't static and are changing all the time, so naturally most of us have some sort of evolution as far as our beliefs go.

So how did everyone here come to think the way they do about race, culture, nationalism, etc? Have you always felt the same way, or has it changed with time and with new life experiences? If it has changed, why did it, and how has that changed effected your life, if at all? And it doesn't have to just be about race, I'm curious to know about how peoples' political views may have evolved, especially for those who have had some sort of radical shift in orientation.


(prepare for a too long, didn't read kind of post )

For me it's interesting because growing up, I always felt that I was boring and uninteresting because of my skin tone and my "whiteness". Throughout most of my childhood and probably up until my early teens, I had quite an exoticism fetish going on. I desperately wanted to look "exotic" myself (and by exotic I mean dark skin, dark hair, things like that). I hated being pale and I always found darker skin and features to be more appealing. And it wasn't just looks, I always thought there was nothing remotely unique or interesting about white American or Anglo culture.

I should note that I grew up around a lot of minorities (black, Hispanic, Amerindian and later Asians), and I myself was a minority as a white person. In high school I moved to a school that was majority white, and I definitely started to feel more normal. At some point I realized, hello, as a ginger I am "exotic" by most of the world's standards lol. It was also at that point I realized how far removed I was from so many different cultures. I was raised around a lot of black people, but I never fit in completely and always felt somehow separate and segregated. My friends may have been Asian, but there's no way I would ever completely assimilate into their culture. I would always be an outsider no matter what I did and that was made perfectly clear to me by their parents and by their community. I myself never had a stable family unit, so I suppose I was constantly looking for something else to call my own.

Once I came to terms with the fact that I could never magically change myself into something I'm not, I started looking more inward and exploring my own background and at this point I think I've reached a certain level of stability. I definitely still waver back and forth on some things, maybe from old habit, but generally, I'm comfortable with the fundamentals of who I am.

[The Ripper]

In my childhood I had a fairly typical upbringing. I suppose Finnish patriotism breathed a little easier after the collapse of the Evil Empire in the east, although I wasn't really reared into patriotism or nationalism.

But I had veterans in the family, and my maternal grandfather was fiercely patriotic and anti-communist, an attitude which my mother inherited, even if in a somewhat diluted form. The first clear memory I have of the Finnish Independence day is when I was watching The Unknown Soldier on tv. It is something of a tradition in our family, as it is shown every independence day, and Finnish independence day, unlike the American one complete with fireworks and parties, is a rather solemn occassion that is spent at home and at grave yards, placing candles. So it was one such morning, when I was watching this B/W movie that seemed pre-historic to me, with men cursing, screaming and dying, when my father, who had slept late, walked by. I think I asked him something about the wars and the events occurring on screen, which at that age were only a very vague concept to me, but I remember his reply exactly when he stopped, looked at the movie playing on the screen and said:

"Your grandfather was there. He and men like him are real heroes of the highest order, you should never forget that."

This silent, prevailing attitude coupled with elementary school history that still at that time largely followed the old, nationalist narrative, complete with songs and hymns, made patriotism a natural outlook for me. When I moved abroad at a young age, my patriotism intensified manyfold, due to homesickness and initial difficulty in fitting in. It also made me realize how much variation there can be in the world and between humans, and it made me realize how dear a country called Finland and its people really are to me, I understood what "home" means fully, for the first time. I think many people never realize this. However, my patriotism was never racist. I despised people who called the Somali kids names when the first ones came. I even had a couple of Somali friends. However, at some point in my early teens, I began to notice how the multiculturalist, anti-national attitudes that quickly became official policy were diametrically opposed to my own ideas of nationhood. I'd say I was a convinced nationalist by the age of 16. After that I have simply been elaborating and constructing a firm base for my outlook, explored the different nationalist thinkers, making myself thoroughly acquainted with political nationalism and international politics in general, in an effort to understand the world as well as compiling a consequent and strong ideological foundation.

[Enya]

I was born a National Socialist, even though I didn't understand it until I became a bit older. I've never really been a part of this new world order and I was always the one being called racist in school and got beat up because of my beliefs and opinions, I was the odd one. I was even forced to visit a school psychiatrist every now and then to speak about "my problems". They found out that I wasn't going to change and gave up trying to "save me".

They said that I became a National Socialist for feeling like an outcast and for being bullied, that I just wanted to fit in with a group of people to feel friendship. What they didn't think about was the fact that I stood all alone in this - there were no other National Socialists or even racists in my area at the time and I had no contact with other nationalists at all, so which was this group I wanted to fit in with? I still haven't figured.

So, I became a National Socialist for being bullied, they said - never did they see it the other way around, that I was bullied for being a National Socialist. Of course not, I was clearly the problem.

I was never interested in hanging out with other people in my area, to me they had a weird way of looking at the society, and they didn't seem to care about anything but themselves. They were smoking, drinking, partying, doing drugs - you name it - which was probably one of the factors to why I was never interested in doing those things myself. To me it was repulsive. I guess they looked at me the same way, I was alien to them.

Finally I found other National Socialists which made my mind grew and I became very aware of why my life had been such a struggle, I became aware of a Germanics natural instincts - those feelings I had all along but couldn't explain or truly understand - everything started to make sense. I had found my people, I was home.

Life as a National Socialist in today's society isn't always that easy (not even amongst nationalists) but not once did I think about leaving my beliefs and opinions, never did I think about leaving myself behind in order to fit in. And here I am today, with a belief and natural instincts stronger than ever.

[Radojica]

Hehe, funny thing Bombera you decided to make this thread now when everything in which I was believed was destroyed last night, so let's just say that from now on I'll be different kind of person as I am not what I thought I was . I lost my identity, my hero, my symbolism of fight for righteousness, good and your own kin.

How weird that is when whole your world just become destroyed like a balloon in the blink of the eye.

[The Ripper]

Oh, and I forgot to mention, when I lived abroad as young lad, I attended an afternoon school for Finnish lessons to keep up my language skills, and the teacher was basically a Finnish neo-fascist, not a hitlerite, but an IKLite.

[Liffrea]

I think my only “radical shift” was a willingness to follow my self, regardless of what was lost, destroyed, created along the way, what it has cost me has been as great as what I gained, which makes the gaining all the sweeter. My evolution was......evolution.

It would be tedious to list the influences and thinkers who have shaped my beliefs but I'm constantly searching for ways to destroy, overcome and rebuild, destroy, overcome.....at present I have a slowly crystallising world view, it is ripe for a hammer, where the blow will come from.

[Don]

I've never been racist until recently, when I really met the invaders (as you know, 15 years ago, to find a moor, amerindian or negro in Spain was very difficult).

That is my most radical change.

So, my racism is strong, justified and defensive reaction.
They forced me.

[Grumpy Cat]

I never cared about race or anything when I was younger. Wasn't until my early 20s and then I drank a rather vile batch of Kool-Aid.

But as I mentioned in another thread, I went to an English language school for a year and was bullied very badly. Regardless of what happened, nothing was done, even after my parents went to the school.

Fast forward a few years later and I hook up with a racist and he pointed out to me that if someone of a different race were bullied the way I was, then the school would have done something, but because I was a white French-Canadian I was left to suffer in silence.

Of course I never believed I was of a superior race. I heard all that propaganda and dismissed it all as a bunch of hooey. My main reason for being a racist was that I was lead to believe all other races hated white people, so I might as well hate them.

I grew up in the 90s during the Acadian Revival so I was proud of my heritage. In university, too, I was given a healthy dose of French-Canadian nationalism and Anglophobia.

Anyways I can't explain how I got to where I am today, if it was age or whatever. But in 2007 I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, and when I got my treatment, the deep-seeded anger towards Anglos and non-whites that was inside me vanished, I mean suddenly when I woke up in the recovery room after my surgery, it was like a weight lifted off my chest, so I think it was Graves Rage.

Now I am strictly an Acadian preservationalist although I am interested also in the preservation of other cultures and of Western Civilization.

[la bombe]

I was born a National Socialist, even though I didn't understand it until I became a bit older. I've never really been a part of this new world order and I was always the one being called racist in school and got beat up because of my beliefs and opinions, I was the odd one. I was even forced to visit a school psychiatrist every now and then to speak about "my problems". They found out that I wasn't going to change and gave up trying to "save me".

I'm curious as to what your parents thought (and still think). Were they the ones trying to get you help for your racism?

[Grey]

I grew up in a very modernist family; economically conservative but socially liberal. When we moved to "the country" (I'm from New Orleans, originally), I was the "outsider," so to speak, because I spoke and looked differently from the others and didn't identify whatsoever with the pervading "redneck" (their word) culture. I was highly interested in Dada, which could be called the defining aspect of my younger teenage years. Then I spent a semester abroad in Paris, and was placed in an all-Asian school. It was a shocking thing to find that the French weren't French anymore, which just seemed wrong. I was introduced to black metal, and NSBM, etc. and after a few years got very much into that side of things. A few more years have passed, and now I'm more or less past the extreme racism. I hope that's brief enough. There's more to say, but I don't really want to get into it all.