Fighting facism: How an anti-racism activist took on the skinheads
Dalson Chen, The Ontarion

Racist. The very word conjures a mental menagerie of grotesque caricatures. The steel-toed skinhead. The sieg-heiling neo-Nazi. The Southern sheeted Klan member. Inhuman creatures on the periphery of civilisation.

But for University of Guelpth student Matthew Lauder, while racists are socially destructive, they are people too.

"I think the most important thing to understand about these individuals is that they are human beings, but they're human beings who are operating from inside a dramatically different world view," he says.

And Lauder should know. For two years, he did his best to see that world view.

From 1999 until early 2001, Lauder infiltrated the organised racist movement in Canada. In a project code-named Anschluss Kanada, he adopted the guise of a converted racist in order to examine the movement as an insider. As he became a comrade to racists, he gathered information on their numbers, membership, gatherings, funding, cross-border activities, and recruitment strategies. He associated with such leading figures in the movement as Paul Fromm and Wolfgang Droege. He developed and maintained movement Web sites. He wrote and posted articles written from an extreme right-wing perspective. He publicly defended and supported bigots. He drove with them, drank with them, shook their hands and smiled. All the while, he was working for a cause that was antithetical to theirs.

Lauder's interest in anti-racism began when he was a teenager. The environment in which he was raised taught him to value diverse cultural backgrounds. "My parents tried to give me an understanding of respect for others... My friends as well. We just grew up in a community where there were differences, but we understood and respected those differences." When he was in high school, Lauder became aware of the Heritage Front, which was one of the more prominent racialist organisations in Canada.

"I was just very concerned about the impact it would have on our community and society in general," he says. He realised that he could not sit idly by while racialist groups actively promoted their agenda. He became involved in anti-racist movement.

Lauder's involvement continued into the academic world. As a psychology undergrad, he studied deviant behaviour, first in relation to religious cults. The parallels he saw between cults and organised racism drew him back to studying the movement. For his Master's degree, he did much research on the subject, but it was purely text-based. By the time he began his doctorate, the focus of his research had shifted to participant observation: he engaged in personal contact and interviews with members of the movement. After about a year, he decided that even this form of investigation was inadequate.

"What was going on was that they were giving me information they wanted me to have," he says, "I don't think it was very reflective of the movement itself. They were too self-conscious. They were too practiced in dealing with the media, and that's how they were treating me, as a media representative."

Lauder reached what he describes in his own writings as a 'breaking point.' he became frustrated with the role of traditional researcher; He realised that as long as the movement saw him as an outsider, he would never really know how it worked, thus he would never know how to stop it. It was then that the idea of covert research occurred to him. If he could convince the racists that their arguments had won him over, then he would become privy to the truth about them. He would have access to information unavailable to any openly anti-racist activist. He would have the means to fight them more effectively. All he had to do was become one of them.

Such a task would not be easy. They already knew him as a researcher, as well as a left-leaning person with a socialist background. They didn't trust him. He would have to earn their trust.

"I had to allow the group to see me as a convert," he explains, "I had to get them to see I was buying their party line." He slowly built a rapport with key insiders, or 'entry points.' He solidified his reputation by also associating with fringe dwellers, 'cover points.' Lauder did not recruit anyone himself, but his 'cover points' made it appear as if he was bringing others into the movement.

It was not simply a matter of pretending to be someone else. Some of the racists Lauder associated with had been involved in the movement for over a decade. They would see through a superficial pretense. Lauder had to create a sort of mental costume. Whenever he associated with the racists, he had to adopt a premeditated thought structure, one that would reflect a sympathetic belief system. "In a covert operation," he advises, "you really have to have a certain mindset, and you have to keep it consistent." Preparation before entering their company was essential.

Such preparation served Lauder well when his commitment to the movement was inevitably challenged. After the first year of infiltration, Lauder was publicly confronted in front of eight other members by Marc Lemire, an influential and articulate racist. But Lauder was ready for Lemire's precise line of attack. "I knew that situation was going to come up," he says, "I was psychologically prepared for his exact question." Lauder successfully turned the tables upon his interrogator, and Lemire left the scene flustered.

For all the racists' latent violence, Lauder was never forced to defend himself physically during his infiltration. Nor was he asked to participate in violence. As the infiltration progressed, he was groomed as a movement writer. His role was to incorporate a 'progressive approach' into organised racism. He was commissioned to write articles and columns on acceptable political issues like free speech and immigration reform to promote the hidden agenda of racism, taking care with his language to avoid Canadian hate-speech laws. It was a part of his role not to be involved in violence or any other illegal activity.

Ironically, the one time Lauder almost got into a physical conflict was when he and a group of racists were confronted by angry anti-racist activists. Luckily, Lauder was able to deal with the situation without resorting to blows. In fact, the incident strengthened his position in the movement. "Violence helps the far right," he explains, "It creates a sense of solidarity within the movement. They enjoy playing the victim."

Incidents such as this may have helped Lauder with his infiltration, but they also had the potential to further confuse his identity. As he devoted hours to the movement, both in writing and through information technology, there were moments when Lauder questioned himself about which cause he was working for. Avoiding an identity crisis required strict separation of his role as racist and his true intentions as anti-racist activist. "You have to maintain that discipline or the project itself is jeopardised," he warns, "It is very difficult."

Fortunately, Lauder did not have to be around racists at every waking moment. For most of his day-to-day life, he could be himself. But there was always the danger that he would be caught in situations he could not easily explain. What would he do if someone involved with the far right saw him with his Korean housemate? Or with a Kenyan friend? "Always in the back of your head, you have to think 'What will happen if I run into so-and-so?' I always had to have contingency plans," he says.

By the end of the year 2000, the stress of the undercover operation was getting the better of Lauder. In his writing, he describes the entire project as "physically and psychologically draining."

While he was gaining valuable information on the movement as well as insights into the racist mind, he increasingly felt "contaminated by their sense of hatred and xenophobia." It was time to end the project, as much for his own well-being as in accordance to his original plan. And while all his family and close friends knew of his work and supported him, he still felt that as long as he was involved in the far right, he was betraying his community. "I have Jewish relatives," he states, "I have family members who are gay... These are individuals which the movement considers not to have a right to live."

Earlier this year the infiltration was fully exposed when a widely published article named him as director of the anti-racism program at the Guelph and District Multicultural Centre (GDMC).

The writer of the article had given him the choice of being named or remaining anonymous. Lauder chose the former to finally ensure the death of his racist persona.

For Lauder, the project was a success, but it was not without its costs. Lauder realises that the organised racist movement now identifies him as an enemy and a target. He has been threatened both in person and through messages. He also admits that his ability to collect more information about the movement has been somewhat compromised. Further infiltration on his part is impossible now that he is publicly known as an anti-racist activist. He currently continues to work at the GDMC, as well as pursue his graduate studies. However, he feels that infiltration remains an important tool in fighting the far right.

"I think it's the only way to gain quality information on the racialist movement, especially for non-profit organisations," he maintains, "It's important for us to do our own information-gathering projects, and then share that with other agencies, because everybody has to know what's going on."

Of all the things Lauder learned during his immersion, he feels the most important is not what makes racists monstrous, but what makes them human. After spending so much time in their presence, Lauder came to the conclusion that in order for racists to seriously rethink their beliefs, something has to occur in their lives. Public scorn does not have the power of a significant personal experience. Demonising racists will not encourage them to change. Turning them into comic book villains will not make them any easier to get rid of.

"We have to keep in mind that they're humans, that they're people. They have feelings... They have to change from inside. They have to understand that what they're doing is not productive, they're being socially destructive."

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