Newsgroups: alt.skinheads,alt.politics.white-power,alt.politics.nationalism.white,soc.culture.spain
Subject: ADL: Skinhead International; Spain
Summary: The ADL's "Skinhead International: A Worldwide Survey
         of Neo-Nazi Skinheads"
Followup-To: alt.skinheads

Archive/File: pub/orgs/american/adl/skinhead-international/skins-spain
Last-Modified: 1995/09/09

                          Spain

One Spanish Skinhead identifies the enemy: "I just attack
scum, such as punks, anarchists, drug addicts... We must kick
them out of Europe. They stink. We don't want them. Let's get
them."

This Skinhead, named Oscar, was interviewed by the Spanish
journal _El Pais_ in December 1993. He continued:
"Dark-skinned people repel me. I love Spain, and I don't like
people who don't belong to the white race to come here ....
The white race is the one that must rule. We whites know that
we are superior ....Spain needs a dictatorship."

Oscar, 19 years old, had just returned to Madrid from a bash
in another city. On the train he and other Skins had beaten
and kicked a man for being black.

                  "Decidedly Dangerous"

Skinheads were first seen in Spain in 1984 among the Ultra Sur
fans of the Real Madrid Soccer Club. According to studies made
by Spain's new Police Citizen Relations Operative Office,
there were some 2,0000 Skinheads in the country in late 1993 -
half of them in Barcelona, one third in Madrid, the rest
mainly in Valencia. (These are predominantly industrial cities
with high population densities and large numbers of
immigrants.) Of the 2,000 Skinheads, some 600 were radical
right-wing extremists considered "decidely dangerous." The
rest appeared to assume the Skinhead "look" without the
radical ideology. The radical Skins are of the middle and
lower classes and range in age from 15 to 22. (At 23, many
seem to "retire" from the active bully life.) The _El Pais_
interviewer suggested a profile of Spain's Nazi Skinheads:
fairly obedient children, but poor students, who behave
normally until the weekend, when they go out in packs of eight
or 10 to attack their foes - blacks, immigrants, addicts. "The
night, the big city, the nicknames - protect their anonymity."

Spanish Skinheads have cooperative links with other organized
extremist groups. Among these groups are Juntas Espanolas
(Spanish Councils), a far-right nationalist party that opposes
immigration, and Las Bases Autonomas, a network of far-right
groups that has claimed responsibility for the same kind of
street thuggery typical of Skinheads.

A notorious case was the November 1992 murder of a female
Dominican immigrant by a Skinhead member of the police force
9known as the Civil Guard). He and his three teenage
accompices (who had ties to Las Bases Autonomas) all received
heavy sentences. In addition to attacking immigrants, Spanish
Skins have repeatedly targeted homosexuals for beatings and -
in at least one case - murder.

                         Go Team!

Skinheads continue to plague Spanish soccer. Although members
of the aforementioned Ultra Sur gang have been denied
admission to a number of stadiums, Skinheads are still seen
brandishing Nazi symbols at matches of the major clubs in
Madrid and Barcelona.

The proliferation of violent incidents (more than 40 per year
in Madrid alone) spurred the creation in 1993 of the 30-member
Special Police Group designed to centralize information and
coordinate activity against organized youth violence. All
information on Skin groups and individuals, until then
uncoordinated, has been centralized, along with the arrest and
booking process.

One initial Skinhead reaction to this development was to
"camouflage" themselves in normal appearance, casting away the
Doc Martens boots and letting their hair grow. Late in 1993,
however, it seemed to be Skinhead business as usual, when the
British skinzine, _Last Chance_ (1) announced the appearnace
of _Crew Zine_, a new Skinhead publication emanating from
Madrid; (2) carried an advertisement for a second publication,
_Skinhead del Sur de Europa_, from Barcelona; (3) announced
that there were several Skinhead shops in Spain ("the best"
being the Coyote Shop in Valencia); and (4) reviewed new
recordings by Spain's "Division 250" Skin band.

                   "Heil! We are Nazis!"

Music has been an important element of Skinhead life in Spain
for at least a decade. In the 1980's the Skin band Gabinete
Caligari opened its performances with a cry of "Heil! We are
Nazis!" Another, Los Illegales, had a song titled "Heil
Hitler."

On the 14th of March 1992, the Skin band Division 250
organized an international festival in Valencia, hosting
invited guests from England, France, Italy, Belgium and
Portugul - to hear the popular British bands Violent Storm, No
Remorse, and Battle Zone, along with Division 250. (Violent
Storm could not appear; only one of its members survived an
auto crash on the way to Heathrow Airport for their flight to
Spain.) No Remorse thrilled the international assemblage with
a hit song lamenting that

   	... in 1933 the fight for race was won,
	But sadly those days of hope are gone ...
	We are all fighting tougher odds
	We look for guidance from the white man's gods.  
        (Anti-Defamation League, 65-67)

                        Work Cited

Anti-Defamation League. The Skinhead International: A Worldwide
Survey of Neo-Nazi Skinheads. New York: Anti-Defamation League,
1995. Anti-Defamation League, 823 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY
10017.

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