I have spent most of my adult life in what I once called the political wilderness.

That was not an accident, nor do I regard it as something requiring an apology.

Over the decades, I have belonged to political parties, nationalist organizations and movements that have been described as radical, extremist, far-right and worse. I have associated with people whom respectable society tells us should never be spoken to. I have attended meetings, organized conferences, participated in demonstrations and exchanged ideas with nationalists, anarchists, conservatives, libertarians, populists and political dissidents of almost every description.

I do not intend to rewrite that history to make myself more acceptable today.

Those experiences made me who I am.

I have changed considerably since I first became politically active as a teenager, but changing one’s ideas does not require pretending that one’s previous life never happened. Quite the opposite.

Political maturity should come from examining where you have been, understanding what you learned there, keeping what remains valuable and rejecting what experience has shown to be wrong.

My political development has therefore not been some theatrical conversion from darkness into enlightenment.

It has been an evolution.

Where It Began

I became politically interested at a young age.

Growing up in Germany and later living in Iran during the Iranian Revolution exposed me early to questions that most teenagers fortunately never have to consider seriously.

What makes a government legitimate?

Why do people obey authority?

What happens when millions of people suddenly stop obeying?

How permanent are political systems that present themselves as permanent?

Iran demonstrated something I have never forgotten: an apparently powerful political establishment can become extraordinarily fragile when enough people withdraw their trust from it.

After returning to Germany, I became involved with the Junge Nationaldemokraten, the youth organization of the NPD. I became increasingly active and eventually served at the national level.

I make no attempt to conceal this.

Nor will I perform the fashionable ritual of condemning my younger self simply so contemporary political gatekeepers can declare me rehabilitated.

I believed what I believed at the time.

More importantly, I learned.

I encountered nationalism as something more profound than electoral slogans. It raised questions about identity, history, culture, belonging, community and the relationship between individuals and the societies into which they are born.

But I also encountered the weaknesses of organized nationalism.

Political movements can become intellectually stagnant. Loyalty to an organization can replace independent thought. Defending the movement can become more important than asking whether the movement is actually correct.

That lesson stayed with me.

Australia and Parliamentary Politics

When I settled in Australia, my political journey took another turn.

I became involved with the Australian Democrats, a party that contained a strong libertarian streak. Later I became involved with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and worked within its political structures.

Again, I do not regret those associations.

They taught me something that reading political philosophy never could.

They taught me how politics actually works.

Political parties begin with principles and eventually become consumed by elections, personalities, internal struggles, money, media attention and survival.

The fundamental question gradually changed for me.

Instead of asking:

How do we put the right people in power?

I began asking:

Why should so much power exist in the first place?

That question eventually led me away from conventional party politics.

The People We Are Told Not to Meet

During my political life I encountered organizations and individuals regarded as unacceptable by mainstream society.

Some were nationalists. Some belonged to the radical right. Some were racialists. Some were anarchists. Some were anti-capitalists. Some were libertarians.

Some held ideas I agreed with.

Others held ideas I rejected.

Sometimes both happened during the same conversation.

Critics have repeatedly used these associations against me.

That is their right.

But association is not submission.

I have always believed that intellectual development requires entering uncomfortable territory.

If I only speak with people who already agree with me, what exactly am I learning?

Nothing.

I have never believed that meeting somebody requires adopting everything that person believes. Nor do I believe that reading a controversial author magically transforms the reader into a disciple.

I encountered thinkers as different as Troy Southgate, Keith Preston, Bakunin, Julius Evola, Alain de Benoist and many others. I encountered nationalist movements, the New Right, the Third Position, anarchism and libertarianism.

Every encounter added something.

Sometimes it showed me what I believed.

Sometimes it showed me what I did not believe.

Both were valuable.

Discovering National-Anarchism

National-Anarchism eventually provided a framework in which many ideas I had been struggling with could meet.

From nationalism I retained the importance of identity, cultural continuity, community and self-determination.

From anarchism I learned to question hierarchy, centralized authority and the assumption that the state must organize every aspect of human existence.

From libertarianism came the importance of voluntary association.

From the New Right came the right to difference and the rejection of the idea that humanity must eventually converge into one universal culture.

But political theory was only part of that development.

Travel taught me just as much.

Perhaps more.

Travel, Culture and What Diversity Really Means

Over the course of my life, I have travelled through nearly 80 countries and all seven continents.

I have experienced wealthy societies and poor ones, democracies and authoritarian states, enormous cities and remote communities. I have met people whose cultures, religions, traditions, political beliefs and understanding of life were completely different from my own.

And I learned from them.

Perhaps the most important thing travel taught me was something very simple:

My way of life is not necessarily the right way of life.

It is simply my way.

What seems normal to a German may seem strange to a Brazilian. What appears obvious to an Australian may make little sense to someone in Iran.

Ideas about family, responsibility, hospitality, religion, authority, community, work, privacy and personal freedom can differ enormously between cultures.

Neither are these differences purely national.

Our expectations are shaped by social class, education, family, religion, geography and personal experience.

Two people living in the same city can inhabit completely different social worlds.

That realization fundamentally changed how I understand diversity.

Today the word diversity is often used as though it means placing people of different ethnic backgrounds together while expecting everyone ultimately to subscribe to roughly the same approved social and political values.

To me, that is a very shallow understanding of diversity.

Real diversity means accepting that different cultures can genuinely be different.

Not cosmetically different.

Not simply different food, music, clothing or festivals.

Different values.

Different priorities.

Different expectations.

Different traditions.

Different understandings of family and community.

Sometimes even fundamentally different ideas about what constitutes a good life.

If we genuinely believe in diversity, we must be prepared to accept that other people may choose ways of living that we would never choose for ourselves.

That does not mean accepting cruelty, coercion or violations of fundamental individual rights. Nor does cultural difference place every practice beyond criticism.

But tolerance loses its meaning if it applies only to people whose values already resemble our own.

For me, true tolerance begins when we encounter something we would not choose for ourselves and nevertheless recognize the right of others to choose it for themselves.

That is one of the greatest lessons travelling the world has taught me.

I do not need everyone to live like me.

I do not need everyone to think like me.

And I certainly do not want every culture in the world gradually transformed into some standardized global lifestyle.

The extraordinary thing about humanity is precisely that people have developed different ways of understanding life.

Those differences should not automatically make us enemies.

They should teach us humility.

National-Anarchism eventually gave me a political language for something travel had already taught me through experience:

People do not need to become the same in order to live peacefully beside one another.

Sometimes the greatest expression of tolerance is simply leaving people alone.

Respect their culture.

Respect their choices.

Expect the same respect in return.

Or, in much simpler language:

Live and let live.

From Nation-State to Community

The decisive break with conventional nationalism came when I began questioning the nation-state itself.

Traditional nationalists usually want control of the state.

National-Anarchism asks why everyone must fight for control of the same enormous political machine.

Why must millions of people with radically different values live according to one political formula?

Why not decentralize?

Why not allow communities considerably greater autonomy?

Why should a conservative Christian community, an ecological commune, an Indigenous community, a traditionalist settlement and a secular urban community necessarily live according to identical social rules?

Provided fundamental individual freedoms are protected, why should people not organize their lives voluntarily with others who share their values?

That became increasingly important to me.

Trust where trust can realistically exist.
Autonomy where differences cannot easily be reconciled.
Cooperation where interests overlap.
Mutual respect where values differ.

That is much closer to my understanding of National-Anarchism today than conventional nationalism ever was.

The Critics

Naturally, there are critics.

Some describe National-Anarchism as fascism disguised in anarchist clothing. Others describe it as racial separatism. My own political history and associations are regularly presented as evidence.

Those criticisms should be confronted rather than censored.

People are entitled to examine my history and reach conclusions I dislike.

But I am equally entitled to challenge their conclusions.

If somebody wishes to criticize something I actually believe, I welcome the argument.

What I reject is the increasingly common practice of avoiding the argument altogether by attaching a label to the person making it.

“Far-right.”

“Fascist.”

“Communist.”

“Extremist.”

“Racist.”

“Anarchist.”

Once the label has been attached, apparently nobody needs to read another sentence.

That is intellectual laziness masquerading as moral certainty.

The Chardonnay Socialist

There is another species of critic I have encountered repeatedly during my political life: what I call the Chardonnay Socialist.

I do not mean everyone on the political left.

I have met genuine socialists and anarchists who live according to their principles, and I respect intellectual consistency even when I disagree with the conclusion.

My criticism is directed at something very different.

The Chardonnay Socialist lives comfortably within capitalism while denouncing capitalism at dinner parties.

He enjoys private property while condemning those who defend it.

He demands redistribution but generally expects somebody else’s wealth to be redistributed.

He condemns consumerism while consuming enthusiastically.

He talks endlessly about workers while rarely sharing the workers’ lives.

He champions equality without showing much enthusiasm for personally surrendering the privileges that separate him from those less fortunate.

Socialism becomes less an economic conviction than a moral identity.

It allows someone to feel virtuous without requiring particularly uncomfortable personal sacrifice.

That hypocrisy matters because politics driven primarily by moral self-image can become dangerous.

Once someone becomes convinced that holding the correct opinions makes them morally superior, it becomes remarkably easy to justify controlling people who hold the wrong opinions.

The danger is not Chardonnay.

The danger is certainty without sacrifice.

I would rather debate an honest communist who genuinely lives according to communist principles than a wealthy fashionable socialist who demands sacrifices from everyone except himself.

At least I know where the communist stands.

I Do Not Want Ideological Purity

One of the most important lessons I have learned is that ideological purity is a trap.

No political philosophy contains every answer.

Nationalism taught me things.

Anarchism taught me things.

Libertarianism taught me things.

Conservatism taught me things.

Socialism even taught me things.

Travel taught me more than all of them.

And ordinary people taught me more than many political theorists.

The moment we become afraid to learn from someone because that person carries the wrong political label, we stop thinking.

That is why I refuse to apologize for my intellectual journey.

I would rather have walked through political territory that respectable society considers forbidden and emerged with my own conclusions than have spent my entire life repeating opinions approved by whichever political consensus happened to dominate at the time.

What Changed?

A great deal.

I no longer believe political salvation comes from capturing the state.

I have become considerably more suspicious of political movements demanding conformity.

I place greater importance on individual choice than I did when I was younger.

I increasingly believe that communities should be voluntary and that people must have meaningful opportunities to leave them.

I reject racial supremacy.

I reject the idea that one people possesses an inherent right to dominate another.

And I reject the idea that a centralized ideological state, whether nationalist, socialist, liberal or religious, should impose one way of life upon everyone.

But some things have not changed.

I still believe identity matters.

I still believe culture matters.

I still believe communities deserve self-determination.

I remain deeply suspicious of centralized political authority.

I oppose cultural homogenization.

And I continue to believe that a society without meaningful bonds between people eventually replaces trust with bureaucracy.

Trust

Perhaps this is where my political journey has ultimately taken me.

Not simply to nationalism.

Not simply to anarchism.

Not even to National-Anarchism as a label.

But to trust.

A functioning free society depends upon people accepting responsibility for themselves and obligations toward others.

When trust disappears, people demand protection.

Protection requires regulation.

Regulation requires institutions.

Institutions accumulate power.

And eventually people surrender freedoms because they no longer trust their neighbours enough to live without an authority standing above them.

The question therefore should not simply be:

How do we reduce government?

It should be:

How do we create societies capable of functioning with less government?

That requires rebuilding trust from below.

Families.

Friendships.

Associations.

Clubs.

Neighbourhoods.

Villages.

Voluntary communities.

These small human structures may ultimately matter more to liberty than another thousand pages of political theory.

I Am the Product of the Entire Journey

I cannot separate who I am today from the organizations I joined, the people I met, the countries I visited, the cultures I experienced, the books I read, the arguments I lost and the positions I eventually rejected.

Remove the Junge Nationaldemokraten from my history and you remove lessons I needed to learn.

Remove Australian parliamentary politics and I might never have developed my distrust of party politics.

Remove One Nation and another part of that education disappears.

Remove the radical nationalist milieu, the New Right, Anarchism, Libertarianism, National-Anarchism and the controversial people I encountered along the way, and you do not produce a morally purified version of me.

You produce somebody else.

I am not interested in becoming that imaginary person.

My past belongs to me.

I neither hide it nor allow my critics to define me exclusively by it.

Political development should mean exactly that:

development.

At seventeen I believed certain things.

At thirty I understood more.

At forty I questioned things I had previously accepted.

At sixty I questioned things again.

I hope that process never stops.

Because the alternative is intellectual stagnation.

I remain a National-Anarchist because the term still describes much of what I believe: decentralization, cultural self-determination, voluntary association, community, autonomy and opposition to unnecessary centralized authority.

But the label matters considerably less to me today than the principles behind it.

I have no perfect political system to offer.

Nobody does.

What I have is the conclusion of a lifetime spent wandering through political movements, nearly 80 countries, seven continents, different cultures and countless arguments:

Trust where trust can exist.
Autonomy where differences cannot easily be reconciled.
Cooperation where interests overlap.
Freedom to associate.
Freedom to disagree.
Freedom to leave.
Respect for genuine cultural difference.
And mutual respect where values differ.

Above all:

Live and let live.

My critics are free to examine my past.

I will not apologize for having one.

It made me what I am today.

And I would be far more disappointed in myself if, after all these decades, all those experiences, all those people and all those mistakes, I had learned absolutely nothing.