ASATRU AND NATIVE PEOPLES

The Asatru Folk Assembly supports, as a matter of religious principle, the striving of native peoples for cultural preservation, freedom, and self-determination.

What does this have to do with our religion? Plenty. We consider Asatru to be inherently bound up with our existence as Northern European people. This awareness of our own identity increases our respect for the uniqueness of other peoples, because we can understand how they might want the same things for their groups that we want for ours - namely, to be ourselves in a world where that is more and more difficult.

In a broader perspective, we are all in this together. The Sami, the Sioux, the Frisians, the Celts, and the Tibetans are all trying to maintain their identity in the face of runaway globalism. The same forces would like to reduce us all to uniformity - to make us interchangeable units in the produce-and-consume monoculture. Our traditional cultures, to include our religions, would be forever lost. When we stand alongside any of these other native/ tribal/ indigenous groups, we stand in opposition to a common foe.

The AFA believes in true diversity, not in the politically-correct slogan that, carried to its logical conclusion, would actually tear down distinctions and destroy uniqueness. We respect all peoples as part of the human mosaic, and we want a world which reflects and honors our natural differences.

The founder of the Asatru Folk Assembly, Steve McNallen, has demonstrated his commitment to native peoples. He has taken part in activist campaigns for human rights in Nigeria, lived with Karen freedom fighters in the jungles of Burma, and worked with Tibetans in northern India.

To find out more about the AFA's interest in native peoples, visit the links below: