MMA gym owners, coaches ID’d at secretive neo-Nazi event in B.C.

Some of the country’s most prominent white supremacist groups gathered in Vancouver this summer for a secretive neo-Nazi conference that also included martial arts gym owners, coaches and trainers.

Held at the Scottish Cultural Centre in the city’s south end, the event was organized by a group called Exiles of the Golden Age and discussed the formation of "Männerbunds." On the group's social media accounts, they describe these as “disciplined groups of men” who can rebuild our world “amidst the coming wreckage.”

CBC News’s visual investigations unit obtained video of attendees and organizers entering the event. The video was gathered by the non-profit Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN), which studies far-right extremism in Canada.

One conference speaker, a founding member of the white nationalist group Wolves of Vinland, talked of an ongoing “war” in society that is both cultural and physical. Another speaker said the Männerbund formations must be based on principles that are “ethnically exclusive.”

The CAHN video reveals the gathering included individuals with longstanding ties to the neo-Nazi movement and members of white supremacist nationalist group Second Sons Canada, an example of an "active club" previously reported on by CBC News. Active clubs are white supremacist groups that organize combat training, often in public parks and privately owned gyms.

“I find it extremely alarming that there would be any extremist group or, you know, fascist fight club, showing up in Vancouver,” city councillor Rebecca Bligh told CBC.

“Any group [whose] foundational premise is violence against others based on race or … ethnicity is not welcome in Vancouver."

Evan Balgord, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, said it was significant that Exiles was able to bring together so many different individuals and groups in a “unique” event that was heavy on philosophy.

“The white nationalist movement used to be very fragmented and had a lot of infighting,” Balgord said. “The reason that we've been warning about the size and the threat of the white nationalist movement in Canada right now is because they have managed to sort of figure out a unified and coherent strategy. And they are successfully recruiting large numbers of people doing it.”

Experts say Exiles of the Golden Age is an example of a “folkish” group, a philosophy that incorporates Germanic or Norse pagan traditions with white supremacist and neo-Nazi elements.

The “Exiles of the Golden Age” name appears in a passage from The Lightning and the Sun, a 1958 book by Savitri Devi, a notorious neo-Nazi writer who espoused a cyclical view of history where humanity will once again enter a “golden age” after going through a period of darkness and decay. 

The Lightning and the Sun is dedicated to Adolf Hitler, whom Devi describes as “the Man against time” and the “god-like Individual of our times.” An advertisement for another conference organized by Exiles last year invited “all men against time.”

The group’s Telegram channel also features pictures of a pagan ceremony to mark the changing of the seasons that included swastikas.

“If you see a swastika in the middle of a picture, at that point, that's Nazism,” said Catherine Tebaldi, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Luxembourg who specializes in modern white supremacist movements. “Many symbols have multiple meanings and different interpretations, but some of them just become very regimented, very fixed. And this is one of them.”