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Followingthe first part of this series, where the historical origins of modern white supremacy were explored in depth, and asubsequent essaythatexamined the ways white supremacy has influenced mainstream American politics, here are three of the nations foremost scholars on white supremacy, discussing similar issues at length.

Jeffrey Kaplanis associate professor of religion at the University of WisconsinOshkosh. His books include Radical Religion in America: MillenarianMovements From the Far Right to theChildren of Noah; Nation and Race: The Developing Euro-American Racist Subculture(co-edited with Tore Bjrgo);and The Emergence of a Euro-American Radical Right(with Leonard Weinberg).

George J. Michaelis associate professor in the criminal justice faculty at Westfield State University in Massachusetts. He is the author of Confronting Right-Wing Extremism and Terrorism in the USA; The Enemy of My Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right; Willis Carto and the American Far Right; and Theology of Hate: A History of the World Church of the Creator.

Michael Barkunis professor emeritus of political science in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. His books include A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America; Religion and the Racist Right:The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement; and Chasing Phantoms: Reality, Imagination, and Homeland Security Since 9/11.

1. What is thealt-right?

Is the contemporary alt-right a continuation of late 20th-century American white supremacist movements, or are there new components? Besides the new use of technology, are there ideological elements to the alt-right that we should take notice of? What happened to some of the exotic ideas floating around in the 1980s and 90s, such as occult Nazism and pagan religions? Did they become assimilated into the alt-right, or did those more esoteric veins fade out?

Jeffrey Kaplan:The so-called alt-right seemed to descend from the ether in the fading twilight of the Obama administration. The alt-right quickly seized the stage as the acceptable face of the radical right, which since the violence of the 1980s had been demonized and banished from the American public square. The process is common enough in American extremism. In 1963 the racist fringe was banished from the anti-communist fervor of theJohn Birch Society,just as the 19th-century Know Nothings came to be excluded from the politer society of American nativism. America, after all, is a vast smorgasbord in which individuals, religions and political movements may pick and choose among the tropes on offer.

The alt-right follows this pattern to a T. Picking and choosing from a variety of established conspiratorial, racist and outright paranoid ideas, leavened with a catchy jargon like deep state which is far more PC thanZOGor Zionist Occupation Government, which held primacy in the American radical right since the 1970s the alt-right was tailor-made for the discontented and dispossessed faithful of the far right.

Following British sociologist Colin Campbell in the 1960s, scholars have borrowed the term cultic milieu to describe the process by which oppositional individuals sample ideas, theories and wild suppositions that are the stuff of which movements are born, flourish and, most often, perish in anonymity, completely unknown to the dominant culture. This is the origin of the alt-right, and will most likely be its fate as well.

The occult and esoteric racist movements from the fringes of National Socialism to elements of explicit Satanism still exist in the wilderness of the cultic milieu, but their numbers are much diminished. The peregrinations ofDavid Myattare a case in point. Myatt, who drifted from Buddhist beliefs to National Socialism under the spell ofColin Jordanin Britain, went on to found theOrder of Nine Angles, the most successful racist esoteric organization combining Satanism and National Socialism in the 1980s and 90s. Tiring of the scene and despairing of the quality of the recruits, he took his shahadaand converted to radical Islam in the shadow of 9/11 and 7/7. In this he moved from the most distant fringes of the cultic milieu to a more potent global system of belief. Lately, however, he has taken on the cross, converting to Orthodox Christianity and embracing a message of universal love and reconciliation. Myatt is the cultic milieu personified and living proof that the esoteric white supremacist ideas of the 1980s live on, albeit on life support.

The alt-right is, however, different in significant ways from its predecessors. For one, it is not simply an American made-for-export idea, as was the racialism that American intellectuals marketed internationally in the 19th century as racist anthropology or that which the anti-communist zealots spread with much less success in the 1950s.

Rather, it mixed American nativist tropes with the growing fears of immigration and Islamization that have become acute in the European Union. More remarkable still, it fell easily under the spell of Vladimir Putins Russia, whose hybrid warfare campaign against the West and the world is simply a 21st-century update of the Soviet disinformation campaigns that were calledActive Measuresin the Cold War. Putins Russia now caters to the far right globally, and as the Trump scandals now unfolding in Washington indicate, found in the alt-right perfect rubes who, for a few dollars and a grand delusion of power and global glory, would gladly ignore logic and history in pursuit of a dream of an America relatively untroubled by such putative enemies as Black Lives Matter; immigrants bent on rape, rapine and terrorism; and the dread legions of the politically correct.

George J. Michael:There is some continuity between the alt-right and extreme-right groups from the late 20th century. David Duke, for example, has long been a prominent spokesman of the white nationalist movement. In fact, he in some ways spearheaded a change in the ideological direction away from a supremacist/hate orientation to a more identitarian orientation.

The exotic ideas, including occult Nazism and pagan religions, continue to inform the movement. Mostly, their influence can be found in the forms of iconography informing white nationalist websites and assorted insignia. Norse neo-paganism is often seen as a more suitable religion for white nationalists, insofar as contemporary Christianity is seen as philo-Semitic and pro-multiculturalism.

Michael Barkun:The sudden public emergence of the alt-right during the 2016 presidential campaign raises the question of whether it is simply the continuation of a long-standing white supremacist movement or constitutes a completely new development. That is not an easy question to answer, since the alt-right is not itself a cohesive movement. Rather, it is best understood as a set of groups and individuals that share a family resemblance, knit together by an intense hostility to immigration and a fear that the white population and what the alt-right conceives as Western culture will be submerged in a non-white sea. The alt-right is dominated by white nationalists and contains anti-Semites as well as some neo-Nazis, but also others of a less reprehensible stripe.

The more interesting and disturbing issue is the alt-rights rising visibility. Whatever people mean by the alt-right, it is an element of right-wing extremism that suddenly became a factor in Donald Trumps campaign. Its highly vocal support for Trump was widely covered by the media, the attitude of the campaign toward it was analyzed, and its possible electoral effect was discussed, even though its numbers appeared minuscule and no figure of any political stature was known to be associated with it. That so seemingly marginal a group of political actors should have attracted so much attention is itself odd indeed, in hindsight, now that the campaign is over, it seems stranger still.

Yet the public emergence of the alt-right is on reflection a manifestation of a larger transformation in American culture namely, the gradual penetration of the fringe into the mainstream. This is a development that transcends politics, although it has important political implications. It began in the early 1990s and has thus been underway for about a quarter of a century. Conspicuous examples have appeared in popular culture, includingDan Browns best-selling novels with occult and conspiracist themes, as well as The X-Filestelevision program, and it has been critically accelerated by the internet and such social media as Facebook and Twitter. Without the traditional barriers of editorial gatekeepers, fringe material could now access and command mass audiences. Just as fringe themes could penetrate popular culture, so fringe politics is no longer shut up in segregated subcultures.

We see this, too, in the avid popular consumption of conspiracy theories, and there has been no greater consumer of them than Donald Trump himself. Trump, after all, was the first high-visibility proponent of the Obama birther legend. During the campaign he gave a half-hour interview toAlex Jones, the countrys leading purveyor of conspiracy theories. Trumps constant campaign refrain of immigrant wrongdoing smacks of a plot by foreigners to destroy America.

It is scarcely surprising that against this background the alt-rights appearance acquired a certain quasi-legitimacy, despite its white supremacist credentials. It seemed to be simply a slightly more strident set of outsider anti-immigrant propagandists, in a campaign that already had an outsider candidate.

The role of the alt-right in the 2016 campaign, alongside the broader movement of fringe motifs into the mainstream, suggests a political future that once seemed inconceivable: the potential public re-emergence of a white supremacist organization, something not seen in America since the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. While still unlikely, the 2016 trajectory of the alt-right may prefigure more extreme open white supremacist political forays in the future.

2. The strength and leadership of the white supremacist movement

How strong is white supremacy in this country? Is it getting stronger, is it a declining movement or has it remained stable from when you first began your research? Was the 1990s Patriot movement the heyday of white supremacy? Are there things people label white supremacy that we should more properly put outside that framework? Which white supremacist group(s) do you find most intriguing today from a scholarly viewpoint?

Kaplan:White supremacy, like the poor, will be with us always. It is the nagging voice in even the most racially enlightened among us when they find themselves walking at night in Hyde Park in Chicago or contemplating a trip to Detroit. Once, it was a mainstream idea as many of the most idealistic young American men, fired by the racial threat depicted in D.W. Griffiths The Birth of a Nation, sent their money to the mail-order Klan in exchange for a newsletter, a bizarre lexicon and a copy of the Kloran. With the legislative victories of the civil rights movement and a concerted push from Hollywood, it faded from polite society and the movements that held true to the racist call were banished to the most distant fringes of the cultic milieu.

This is where I found them when I began my research among their number in the late 1980s. They were a battered and demoralized lot.Identity Christiansheld fast to their esoteric interpretations of the Bible; National Socialists treasured their SS-inspired regalia and propitiated the shade of Adolf Hitler as if the Second World War were merely on hiatus; andOdinistsdrank bloats, rode motorcycles and formed prison gangs. ThePatriot movementwas never really among their number. Like the Birch Society of the 1960s, race for them was a distraction from the more important work of decoding the manifold conspiracies which, in the words of the iconic (and African-American!)Last Poets, Keep the people asleep and the truth from being told.

Early in the new millennium, I left the world of participant/observer research into the radical right in search of new and more potent oppositional ideas. None of the white supremacist constellation were intriguing simply because no new ideas, fresh movements or visionary leaders were on the horizon. I would argue, perhaps alone in this forum, that white supremacy as we have known it remains for the moment moribund. What we see today, the red meat of the alt-right and the popular fears that led to the election of Donald Trump, speaks to broader dreads Islamophobia, immigration and the ever-present other rather than an appeal for White Power. Racism is a powerful ingredient in the stew, but it is no more the leitmotif of what we are seeing today than is traditional America First nativism.

Michael:That is really the $64,000 question. It is very difficult to quantify the size of the white nationalist movement in America. There is no viable political party that advocates for its interest, unlike far-right parties in Europe.

The movement seemed to have gone into decline during the 2000s. The movement suffered a number of casualties as several leaders died (e.g.,William L. Pierce,Sam Francis,Richard Girnt ButlerandWillis Carto) and a number of others were arrested and incarcerated (Matt Hale,Chester Doles,Kevin Alfred Strom).

The Patriot movement differed quite a bit from the white nationalist movement over ideology, to wit, on the issue of race. The Patriot movement began a steep decline not long after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (as measured by the number of groups compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center). However, in recent years, the movement seems to have reinvented itself under the label of preppers and once again is gaining momentum.

The late 1990s seemed to be the heyday for the white nationalist movement in America. The movement had not suffered any major repression from the federal government since theFort Smith sedition trial of 1988. During the 1990s, the movement took advantage of the fledging medium of the internet to get its message out to a larger audience. But after 9/11, the movement experienced quite a few prosecutions from the federal government. Moreover, after 9/11, the American public did not seem receptive to the white nationalist movements message of white racial solidarity. After 9/11, there was an upsurge of American patriotism. Conservative-leaning Americans were not amenable to white separatism; instead, a new form of patriotism gained currency that viewed the country as under attack from anti-democratic, religious extremists in the form of militant Islam. The extreme rights critique of the U.S. governments pro-Israel foreign policy seemed unpatriotic. As a result, the extreme right languished for quite some time during the 2000s.

In recent years, however, issues involving race have gained great salience, including immigration, the ideology of multiculturalism and the prominence of language policing under the rubric of political correctness. The white nationalist movement was well-prepared to provide commentary on these issues. As a result, the movement seems to be gaining relevance once again.

Are there things people label white supremacy that we should more properly put outside that framework? Yes, for example, immigration. People who do not consider themselves to be white nationalists are nevertheless concerned about immigration because of its costs to taxpayers, as well as its impact on employment prospects for native-born Americans, the cost of health care, etc. Furthermore, many ordinary people are rejecting the restrictiveness of political correctness on the discourse in America.

Barkun:The present strength of the white supremacist movement has always been notoriously difficult to measure. The movement I use the word advisedly, as a term of art has always been riven by factionalism, and no group wants to divulge membership numbers except in the most grossly inflated forms. It is fair to say that right-wing extremism probably peaked in the early 1990s, when the Christian Identity movement was still vibrant and before paramilitary organizations had attracted the full attention of the federal government after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1993.

There are clearly still militia groups active, some with apparently aggressive agendas. TheHutaree Militiain the Midwest was one such case, although despite substantial evidence of an impending attack, its principal leaders were acquitted of the most serious charges in a 2012 trial. TheAryan Strikeforceleaders in the mid-Atlantic states were recently indicted before their plans could unfold. However, there is no evidence that these or other recent paramilitary activities have been linked or coordinated.

The conceptual difficulty lies in separating out the white supremacist element from other beliefs that are often associated with it. For example, virtually everyone on the extreme right is a conspiracist, buying into ideas about what is termed the New World Order the belief that there is an overarching conspiracy seeking to establish a global dictatorship. There are numerous variations on this theme: religious and secular, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-Masonic, anti-capitalist and so on. In some versions of the New World Order, there is also the claim that the aim of the conspirators is to enslave or destroy the white race. Some conspiracists, in other words, are racial supremacists, and some are not.

The same is true of another frequently overlapping theme, anti-immigration. As has been true during other periods when anti-immigrant sentiment has been strong the 1890s, for example, or the 1920s it can be more or less racist. Not everyone seeking to limit or even ban immigration is a white supremacist, although some are. The mere presence of opposition to immigration is not, without further inquiry, evidence of white supremacist beliefs.

In light of the increasing migration of fringe themes into the mainstream, mentioned above, the real danger is that forms of white supremacism will insinuate themselves into mainstream American culture. There have already been attempts to do this in the South in the form of the so-called neo-Confederate movement, with its disingenuous claim that it is simply celebrating history and heritage. Something similar may appear elsewhere using such labels as Western civilization, Christian civilization or even Judeo-Christian civilization. Thus white supremacy may begin using code words that seem on the surface to be innocuous or even positive but in the eyes of the knowing are read through a racist lens.

3. The leadership of the white supremacist movement

The founders of most of the leading white supremacist organizations have died in the last decade or two: William L. Pierce,Ben Klassen, Richard Girnt Butler, Willis Carto and others. Who are the new leaders we should know about? Is there a difference in leadership style between the deceased older generation and the newer generation? Is there a leadership vacuum? If leaderless resistance was the reigning philosophy in the 1990s, are we still operating under that or have we moved on to other forms of organization?

Kaplan:The leaders of the white supremacist organizations of the 1980s have passed from the scene. Their dysfunctional compounds likeAryan Nationsor theCovenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord(CSA) are gone too, victims of civil suits, government suppression or simple ennui. The mail-order faiths, KlassensCreativityor PiercesCosmotheism, are down to a small handful of true believers. Battle-scarred remnants of the time, such as National SocialistHarold Covington, struggle to adapt to new times with ideas like his idyllicNorthwest migration initiativeseeking a white homeland in America and really quite good apocalyptic literature in his Northwest Trilogy Hill of the Ravens(2003), A Distant Thunder(2004), A Mighty Fortress(2005) as well as The Brigade(2007).

What remains is more potent overseas than in the United States. White power music, pioneered in the late 1970s byIan Stuart DonaldsonsSkrewdriver, flourishes throughout the world, including such decidedly non-Aryan redoubts as Jakarta. The skinhead movement is perhaps stronger than ever, especially where it benefits from a measure of government support and protection in places like Russia.

Evolutionary change is most dynamic outside the confines of white supremacy. In Europe a new generation of leaders has emerged to mainstream formerly explicitly National Socialist, racist or primitively nativist political parties. Groups like theSweden Democrats, theTrue Finnsor the FrenchNational Fronthave gone from the wilderness to contenders for power, just as the alt-right has emerged in the U.S. But none are explicitly white supremacist, even as they borrow heavily from traditional white supremacist ideas.

Like the leaders of the far right, the humble leaderless resistance idea has given way to a more dynamic successor in lone-wolf attacks. Leaderless resistance as posited originally by Texas KlansmanLouis Beamwas an expression of helplessness and despair. It was the equivalent of tilting at windmills, which succeeded primarily in the incarceration of a generation of skinheads, would-bePhineas Priests, bikers and simple sociopaths. While William L. Pierce could lionize serial killerJoseph Paul Franklinfrom the safe remove of anom de guerrein his novel Hunter, the current generation of lone wolves serve terrorist groups who are more than the state of mind organizations of the white supremacist world, enjoying considerable material and other support in the process.

It is a new day in the world of self-propelled violence. There are successes on occasion abroad.Anders Breivikcertainly comes to mind. But in America?

Michael:In my estimation, the most important leader isMatthew Heimbach, the leader of theTraditionalist Youth Network. He first gained notoriety in 2012, when he founded a White Student Union at Towson University in Maryland. Although he is only in his mid-20s, he is already an accomplished orator. He is also a very effective interlocutor when he gives interviews to the media. He evinces the hallmarks of what Eric Hoffer once called the True Believer. Heimbach does not flinch from street activism, despite the strident opposition he faces from various antifa counterprotesters. Furthermore, he advances a leftish white nationalist ideology which could potentially resonate with many disaffected young people. Finally, he has established ties with like-minded activists overseas includingAlexander Duginfrom Russia which gives his organization the semblance of an international movement. He reaches out to separatists from all racial and ethnic groups. At the present time, this might all seem inconsequential, but separatism seems to slowly be creeping into the national discourse, as evidenced by the push for Calexit.

Barkun:The first and even the second generation of white supremacist leadership has now virtually all died out, figures like William L. Pierce of the National Alliance and Richard Girnt Butler of the Aryan Nations. Not surprisingly, their organizations, small to begin with, collapsed shortly after their deaths. Neither they nor others in their cohort were succeeded by figures of comparable strength. OnlyDavid Dukeremains, a strange relic of the past. Even in white supremacys heyday, none of its leaders could command more than small followings. Like the extreme left, those at the other end of the ideological spectrum often spent as much time fighting one another as combating their supposed enemies. Small points of ideology and tactics counted heavily in these duels. Those who had dreams of uniting racialists under a single banner quickly learned that such ambitions were destined to founder.

At the moment, three figures seem of more than passing importance, although given the movements history, they may pass quickly into obscurity:Richard B. Spencerof theNational Policy Institute, prominent on the alt-right; Matthew Heimbach of the Traditionalist Youth Network; and Andrew Anglin of the onlineDaily Stormerwebsite. But there is no reason to believe that they will drive the white supremacist right over the longer term.

It is easy to concentrate on organizations, websites and the people associated with them, because they are visible and easy to identify. However, the danger of violence by individuals acting alone so-called lone wolf attacks remains and, in my view, is far more serious than the threat posed by organizations. The danger is high precisely because, absent unusually good intelligence, they normally become known only after the fact, as in the infamous 2011 attacks in Norway by Anders Breivik.

In that connection, attention needs to be paid to those known as sovereign citizens, who are potential lone wolves. Sovereign citizens do not constitute a movement. Rather, they represent a stream of anti-government thought and activity, built around the belief that traditional conceptions of American citizenship, law and institutions are invalid and that, consequently, no individual has any obligation to obey the law. This idea is based on a radically variant reading of the Constitution and the common law that makes each person, in effect, a law unto him- or herself. While the sovereign citizen idea is not in itself based on white supremacy, the two overlap. Some sovereign citizens have also been white supremacists, and the very nature of sovereign citizen thought deprives civil rights protections of any legitimacy. It follows, too, that the failure of sovereign citizens to accept any legal obligations inevitably involves them in conflicts with the government and, not infrequently, in violent and sometimes deadly incidents.

Next week: How do we deal with organized white supremacy? What do we get wrong about it?

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The Alt-Right Is the Modern, Hideous Face of White Supremacy - AlterNet

Inquistion in Egypt, image courtesy of Nader Sadek

"Satanist", to them, equals homosexuality; killing cats and drinking their blood "

"Suddenly, in front of me, hell broke loose. It was bad. So bad They are hitting you everywhere and they are pushing you in every direction and they had dogs People started to faint and I thought it to be wise to throw yourself under a pile of fainting people. Play dead! Play dead!"

'Omar', speaking to the writer Benjamin Harbert about his internment as a "Satanist" in 1998.

EGYPT 1996/1997

At 4am on 22 January 1997 armed Egyptian state police forcibly entered the homes of about 100 young people, including - according to one source - a 13-year-old girl, and arrested them. They were imprisoned for up to two weeks. According to one, who wishes to remain anonymous, they were beaten, sexually abused, attacked by dogs, and left isolated for extended periods. Their crime? They were accused of Satanism, of "dead cat blood drinking, sex orgies, insane drug use."

A group of Islamist extremists who were also being held were informed they would be sharing their quarters with the "Satanists". That caused a riot so severe that the "Satanists" were transferred to another jail. "We started to hear shouts from far away. Shouts, screams from a faraway place " one victim remembered, speaking under the pseudonym Omar to the writer Benjamin Harbert for his essay on the events, Noise And Its Formless Shadows, compiled in the book The Arab Avant-Garde. "We realised that the sounds of the screams of the night were because the Islamists of the same prison were told that the Satanists were in the same prison as them, and they decided to revolt they wanted to kill us."

Omar's real crime, and the crime of nearly 100 of his friends, was not Satanism. It was a love of heavy metal. Egypt's metal scene had been in rude health the previous year. Metal in Egypt had been no more than a cult in its infancy, sustained by bootleg culture until the advent of satellite TV. By 1996 metal had become a mainstream force in the nation's musical fabric, with all manner of satellite, experimental scenes. Young fans would congregate in bars like Khaled Madani's Doom Club, and at the Qsar al-Barun ("The Baron's Place"), an abandoned villa in Heliopolis.

In November 1996, however, the Egyptian tabloid Ruz al-Yusuf, received an anonymous fax, detailing supposed 'satanic rituals' on the outskirts of Cairo and Alexandria, sparking media outrage and prompting a hysterical fear of metal culture in Egypt. On 9 December, Ruz al-Yusufprinted a 'call to action' against metal, which led to the arrests a month later. As one fan tells tQ anonymously: "The stories - whether real or not - did shock society (and our mothers). Unlike South-East Asia and South America, Egypt had no rock history, so no one knew anything about rock & roll traditions and excesses. Facepaint, blood and Satan was quite shocking for society. The crackdown happened and that was what all the media spoke about for two weeks. I still think it was ridiculous, though I'm not denying how traumatising it must have been to whoever was arrested."

One particularly melodramatic newspaper account, cited in The Arab Avant-Garde read: "Children had swapped beer and whisky for the blood of cats and pigeons and been tattooed with skills and other symbols of the occult Hard rock was played as the fans dug through the graves in search of human bones that could be 'gifted' to the devil."

There were other, more sinister reasons for the crackdown. As Harbert explained: "It was a political strategy that had nothing to do with metal or even Satanism directly. The government needed a distraction from two issues: the rapid privatisation of the public sector (initiated by Mubarak's sweeping cabinet changes) and the intensifying criticism from exiled and imprisoned Islamic extremists accusing Egypt of being anti-Islam. Interior minister Hassan El Alfy became a national hero through his involvement with this crackdown on metal, though none of those arrested were ever convicted of a crime

"The government's brutal crackdown, informed by its high stakes wrangling with radical Islamic groups, was a calculated strategy that held up this group of 'practising Satanists' as a straw man against which to redefine its defence of Islam. It also provided a welcome distraction from the radical privatisation of the public sector. The practice of persecuting the metal communities then spread across the Arab world to Morocco, Bahrain and Jordan."

LEBANON BLAAKYUM

The leader of Lebanese thrash metal outliers Blaakyum, Bassem Deaibess, sees parallels between the events in Egypt and in his own career. His band have flown the flag for the nation's fertile metal scene for more than 20 years, during which he has twice been detained by the authorities, first in 1998 and again in 2002, caught in the wake of a similar anti-metal witch hunt. Just as in Egypt, metal fans were demonised by the authorities, and scapegoated to distract the population.

Speaking to tQ before participating in a discussion at Chatham House in London under the title 'Art As Defiance In The Middle East', he explains that the health of the metal scene in his home country has its peaks and troughs. "It goes up and down. Before 96 metal was huge; in the 80s during the civil war there were bands - I'd see the pictures, they had massive audiences, metal was just a regular thing you played in clubs. But then in 96 the first witch hunt happened, the whole Satanism and backward messaging stuff."

As in Egypt, these witch hunts coincided with political scandals that needed to be buried. "Every time there's something going on and you need to distract from what the institution is facing, you need to say 'oh look at these people'," Deaibess says. "The headlines were 'Hard rock music and backwards messaging is threatening the safety of our children', 'heavy metal and Satanism is infecting our society', such ridiculous stories. You'd turn on the TV and half of the news would be talking about metal and showing reports about how bad and horrible the music is. They incite mass hysteria and mass fear. When you're scared of your child being infected by this disease, you don't pay attention to what laws are being passed. Metal is a good scapegoat because it has all the elements that scare society. Politicians and religious institutions rule by striking fear. You need something that would scare people, and what's better than people who look strange, with long hair and earrings and headbanging and moshing? It's so alien in a conservative country like Lebanon. The people are extremely conservative, extremely religious, and extremely superstitious. The problem is not just the authorities, it's the mentality of the society, the prejudice and the discrimination against anyone that doesn't look like a regular Lebanese person."

'Alien' is certainly the word. When Deaibess was arrested in 1998, the questions he was asked would have seemed comical were it not for the gravity of what was at stake. "This guy with a big moustache sits down and says: 'So! What do you do when you see a black cat?' And I said: 'Well, I pet the cat.' They would say: 'But how do you pet the cat?' and then ask: 'Do you read The Koran upside down?' You could make a sitcom out of it." Deaibess got off relatively lightly; he says the band Kaoteon were beaten, stuffed in the boot of a car and faced nine days' imprisonment after their gig was raided because police believed their then name, Chaotaeon, translated into Arabic as "devils".

But what of the Lebanese metal scene in the years since? The years 2005 to 2010 saw a golden age of sorts, with 50 active metal bands selling out 2,000-capacity venues - not bad for a country with a population of around 4 million. In the years since, the scene has shrunk, but Deaibess says it remains stable, although prejudice still remains. "The worst thing is when you're walking the street, you see a mother who drags her child away from you and crosses the road - you're seen as this disgusting person."

That said, as a metal musician in Lebanon today, the scene is relatively fertile. "I like to think we have the best metal scene in the Middle East." There is still ignorance, of course - finding a sound person with the requisite knowledge of the genre to know that the distortion is in fact intentional can be a struggle when it comes to touring - but Deaibess says the metal community is as tolerant as can be in Lebanon's multi-faith, multi-ethnic society.

"It's very rare that anyone would ask your religion at a metal event. Of course it has its flaws, but the metal scene in Lebanon is the least sexist, the most tolerant when it comes to religion, it's one of the very few communities in Lebanon that's tolerant to atheists, any sexual orientation, no problem. No one would ever ask you. We did have at a certain point in time a segregation between communities, because areas in Lebanon are separated by religion, but not any more. Our community is very diverse, you have the really religious Christians and the really religious Muslims, the atheists, they're all together having fun, and arguing too."

SAUDI ARABIA AL NAMROOD

It is a different story in Saudi Arabia. Al Namrood, whose utterly uncompromising and utterly brilliant new album Enkar was released in May, are the country's only black metal band, one of the most intense musical forces in the world, let alone the Middle East, but must remain anonymous for their own safety. Their music takes a fearless stance against the country's authoritarian regime, and were they to be identified they would be stoned to death or beheaded for apostasy; CDs had to be smuggled into the country as contraband. When guitarsneed to be repaired, they have to be smuggled out.

A member of the band known only as 'Mephisto' spoke to tQ via email. "Metal is a good way of expression in this wretched world," he says, when asked just what keeps him motivated to continue despite the risks. He began playing guitar in 2006, having been directed to the genre online by "anger, hate and aggression" and a need for "intense, meaningful music with a strong vibe". Two years later, Al Namrood began.

"We look at the world as a free hub, where every human being is entitled to choose their way of life," Mephisto says, outlining the group's philosophy. "This is strongly defied in our society, [because they] fear that freedom is going to break religion. Most importantly, we do not tolerate any ideology to be forcefully shoved into our throat. The prospective is simple: just don't stay in our way and we won't stay in yours."

Yet the consequences of pursuing that ideology could be fatal. "Of course we worry, we can never guarantee that we will be safe," he says. They do not face day to day problems and prejudices as metal fans, simply because to give any indication of their allegiances would be a compromise of their life or death insistence on total anonymity. This extends to playing live. "We dont know if we ever will play [live] or just keep Al Namrood as studio project. We have to balance our wishes with the reality, if playing live will take us to execution, then we won't do it." It goes without saying that there is no visible metal 'scene' in the country. If there are any other bands in addition to Al Namrood, they remain utterly isolated from each other. "We keep hearing there are other black metal bands in the area, but we've seen none. When we started in the beginning we tried to get close to some various local bands but they rejected us due to our message and context of music."

Despite all of this, Al Namrood's music remains totally defiant. The video for 'Nabth' (which translates as 'Ostracised') is a ferocious case in point. The clip makes use of violent, difficult footage, of protests, riots and police brutality from across the Middle East, coupled with close-up shots of their own album artwork where Satanic, bearded figures wield knives and snakes under a sky painted an apocalyptic red, while a caged populace despairs.

Thanks to support from outside the country, Al Namrood have managed to reach a relatively wide audience globally, but to leave the country would be nearly impossible. "Immigration [is] very tight nowadays and the nationalists and conservative parties are becoming more lunatic toward immigrants. The political tension is this world is miserable and as a result, people became more xenophobic at some level. But say it loudly: this earth doesn't belong to anyone. Wherever we reside we will survive and do what we want, regardless of any obstacles."

ISRAEL MELECHESH

Melechesh come from Jerusalem, but they are now based in Germany. They are not Israeli or Palestinian, but from a "a small diaspora in Jerusalem of Armenians and Syrians, a very unique situation," as their formidable guitarist and frontman Ashmedi puts it. However with band members all over the world, and a high profile in the world of metal - they are signed to Nuclear Blast and play to crowds of tens of thousands they prefer to think of themselves as being from planet earth; Jerusalem is merely a point of origin.

That said, the region still bears its influence in his work. The mythology of Mesopotamia, in particular, though appropriated often by other bands, makes its presence felt - stories of the occult, the beginnings of man, and even pseudo-scientific conspiracy theories of ancient aliens revered in the region as gods, reinterpreted within the genre. "We are Armenians and Syrians," Ashmedi says. "A lot of the mythology from the region, the Sumerian, Babylonian, that is our mythology. A lot of bands around the world always toy with those kind of ideas or use a band names from a deity. We have our great, rich culture, and we might as well dive into it and represent it musically."

That's not to say that Melechesh want their background to be used as a mere promotional device. "We want to be responsible and make sure it's quality [music]. We don't want to be relying on it as a gimmick. We also want to have a credible approach to your music that is accessible to people: they don't know why they like it, it just sounds good, and not a one-trick pony. That's what we set about doing, and now we're an internationally recognised band with good sales, and insane concerts and festivals and tours, and I've made my living off it basically for the last 11 years."

The popularity of metal in Israel, and the fertile ground in which Melechesh made their name (they were the first non-Jewish group to get signed there) is also down in part to collapse of the Soviet Union, which saw a mass migration of around a million Russian Jews to the country as they were finally granted permission to leave Russia and the other former Soviet republics.

As for the modern politics of the region, there might be allusions and parallels drawn between the myths they delve into and the present day - 'Lost Tribes', for example, on the band's 2015 record Enki, can be read to have "a lot to do with Isis." However, Ashmedi is keen to point out: "Until [the West] find a new great villain away from the Middle East, it's going to still have negative connotations. Maybe 20-30 years it's going to be the nicest place for them to go make movies where they are the allies, not the villains.We don't play the game of politics, we transcend it. As a self-thinking person I have my opinions but I do not discuss them. The band Melechesh transcend that. We talk about the cosmic stuff, we show the beauty, the magic, the spice of the Middle East. All you see on TV is women's abuse, religion and war, and oil. Always negative stories, from the cradle of civilisation. There's so much more good than bad there, so I want to show that with the art."

On occasion, however, Ashmedi has been been caught up in the familiar cycle of sensationalised Satanism. In 1995, when they were still based in their home city, the demo release that saw them make waves in Israel's metal scene, As Jerusalem Burns (also the title of their debut album the following year), caught the eyes of the tabloid press. "We were approached by a big newspaper, and they used the headline 'A Satanic cult is existing is Jerusalem.' We were shocked. The authorities were suddenly interested in meeting me, but Ashmedi is my stage name so they couldn't find us. The newspaper at least did say 'They didn't kill anyone, we're not giving you their information.' However, the police then started arresting a lot of metalheads, so we kind of laid low. I left the country for a little bit, for two months. When I came back, they had much bigger problems - they forgot about us."

Once or twice the band have found themselves caught in the edge of the region's conflicts. Ashmedi remembers a bus exploding above the band's basement studio. They were playing so loud that they didn't hear it, only to emerge four hours later to dark, empty streets and worried families. "It was the 90s, lots of buses had been blowing up," Ashmedi says. "It was 50 metres away from us that the bus blew up, and my mum had seen it on TV. All our parents were freaking out, because they closed the road, and there's no phone, nothing, we were busy playing music. We went out four hours later and it was dark. We just saw a couple of police cars and they're cleaning the street, as if nothing happened."

In 1998 Melechesh relocated to Europe, first to the Netherlands, and then to Germany, although Israel for the most part was not an intolerant place to be a metal fan. "Israel is quite liberal to the Israelis, and to the Westerners," Ashmedi says. "Tel Aviv is one of the most liberal places in the world, and in Jerusalem there's a liberals as well as the religious people. In West Jerusalem where the Israeli and Jewish communities are, if they see a headbanger they don't care about it. They see anyone who's not a Hasidic Jew as not a Hasidic Jew, they don't see it as headbanger or not headbanger. And the liberals, they don't give a shit. In East Jerusalem, in the Arabic side, [metal] was new because there wasn't any headbangers there, so when I walked there with long hair with spikes and stuff they looked at me weirdly. But then [also] they knew I'm the foreign guy, the Armenian-Turkish guy."

Things have improved further still, and an underground metal band can draw a healthy crowd of 100 or so depending on their network, which this in part is thanks to Melechesh's status as trailblazers of the genre. "People are now actually proud of us, and in a Palestinian Time Out magazine Melechesh was the first artist of the month to have been been black metal." That said, as Ashmedi points out, Israel is "a very controversial, unique place, and I'm not a spokesperson or an ambassador for Israel. There's multiple societies in one country, and it differs [from one society to another]. If you're in East Jerusalem there's a few rockers but not one CD in the shops or anyone playing any rock songs, it just doesn't exist. If you're in West Jerusalem, it's still a niche but there are one or two rock bars that occasionally play metal. In Tel Aviv there's a couple of international bands playing there."

It was the practical benefits of moving to Europe rather than any drawbacks in Israeli society that prompted their relocation. "It's more fun being in Israel, like in Tel Aviv or something, because people are more social and there's a buzz there, but also there's less facilities. In Germany it's the metal centre of the world, it's part of their DNA, you see metal music on commercials. In Germany it's part of the culture; in Israel it's just a unique subculture."

IRAN AKVAN

In Iran, a musician known as Vizaresa wants to alter unfair perceptions of his country through his singular project Akvan. His focus is on the pre-Islamic, Zoroastrian Iran, using traditional instruments as part of a claustrophobic, uncompromising breed of genuinely terrifying black metal, drawing on the rich landscapes and deep Persian mythology of the area. The name Akvan comes from the name of a demon in the Shahnameh, the national epic poem of Iran, the antagonist of the god of Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda.

Before the Islamic revolution of 1979, Vizaresa's parents left Iran for the United States, where he spent a childhood enraptured by the power of heavy metal. "It moves me in a way nothing else can. For me, listening to metal is a very visceral and emotional experience. I am inspired by other forms of music, but metal is something different altogether. In the same vein as classical Western or [traditional Iranian] Sonati music, it's just so much more epic and intense. It's difficult to express in words. The lyrical content often deals with confrontational topics that require and encourage individual thought."

For the last few years he has been based in Iran, "to gain a better understanding of my ancestral home", and he releases his music via Bandcamp, on a tremendous series of EPs that take on themes like the ancient Persian hero Cyrus the Great. Speaking via email, he expresses a deep love for his country. "I hope to inspire fans and curious passers-by to conduct their own research into the ancient and epic history of Iran. Hopefully, they will come away with a more positive outlook in regard to this beautiful country. They will probably find that the Iran they hear about on their television set is nothing like the real thing," he says. "I would like them to see Iran as it is - an ancient, captivating and ecologically diverse land filled with romance, adventure, amazing people, exquisite cuisine, gorgeous art, a lustrous history, and a culture that has influenced every corner of the globe. For some odd reason, we are taught to judge nations based on their leaders and governments, and we lose sight of the actual people who live there. It's a shame, really. We have so much to gain from embracing one another, and so much to lose when we reject the opportunity to do so. And I hope my music, a mix of East and West, will serve as a model of what can be achieved when two different and seemingly unrelated elements are joined as one."

However hearfelt his love for Iran, however, in his approach to the ancient past Vizaresa takes a direct stance against the current Iranian regime, and although the stakes are not quite as high as in Saudi Arabia, like Al Namrood he has chosen to remain largely anonymous for the sake of his art. "As any scholar of history would know, Islam is not the original religion of Iran. Just like Christianity in Norway, Islam was forced on the Zoroastrian population through conquest and war. And as a result, our original culture faded, sort of. Although Islam was adopted, the Iranian culture largely survived. Since the thematic and lyrical elements of Akvan promote a return to pre-Islamic Iran, many of my songs are intended as opposition anthems."

He says he has to "play it safe", to avoid repercussions. Being a musician is not a crime in Iran, but "underground musicians, especially practitioners of metal, are automatically associated with devil-worship, blasphemy, apostasy, and expressing anti-regime sentiment. The punishment for these charges if found guilty: death." Working in his public life as a behavioural analyst, helping children and adults with autism, he says he looks like "the last person you'd suspect" of being a black metal musician. "I don't really talk about my music or personal beliefs outside of trusted circles and refrain from making a public spectacle of myself," Vizaresa continues. "I don't wear band T-shirts with overt themes of blasphemy and the occult in public. I think it also has a lot to do with my personality and my professional career. Regardless of where I am in the world, I have to maintain a professional appearance."

In Iran, social media websites are blocked. Circumnavigating that with a VPN slows internet speeds to the point where uploading a song onto YouTube becomes an ordeal. Meanwhile any "Western" music has to be acquired from underground bootleg shops, which mostly sell pop and rarely metal. As such, any developing Iranian metal scene is somewhat scattered and stilted. "No bands tour here, local or international. Merch? Forget about it. So yeah, not a real happening place for metal fans," says Vizaresa, who has never played or even attended a live show. The only option for gigs are taken at bands' own risks in secluded locations - a house party beyond the city limits, for example. "I've heard that in the past, certain venues allowed bands to perform without vocals for a few limited shows, although audience members were required to remain seated throughout the performance. This obviously didn't last long."

As a US citizen, Vizaresa has the option to return to the States and avail himself of regular shows, self-expression, and a chance to capitalise on the waves his work has made in the West. Given the metal scene in Iran is, as he puts it, so "scattered and isolated", it does raise the question of why exactly he remains. "I actually like it here," he says. "I mean, life here certainly has its issues and there are things I see everyday that I am completely opposed to, but the same could be said of the US and most anywhere in the world. The general population, the people of Iran, not the government, are very modern, sophisticated, and hospitable. The culture here is infinitely rich and the streets have a very vibrant feel to them. It also helps that the local cuisine is absolutely delicious. Almost everywhere you turn, there is some historical landmark accompanied by its own myths and legends."

Vizaresa's is a different Iran, a country defined not by the images of tyranny and repression we're often shown, but by its ordinary culture and rich history. "It's actually quite sad and frustrating, because here you have this amazing place, filled to the brim with breathtaking landscapes, culture, history, and a noble people, and on the other hand you have this stuff that completely ruins it. I guess that's why I do what I do. I try to invoke a sense of return to the majesty, to the Iran that was and still can be."

EGYPT TWENTY YEARS ON

Inquisition, live in Cairo, 2016

In Egypt today, though many remain wary because of the events of the past, for the most part the nation's metal scene has largely re-emerged. As an anonymous fan puts it: "I really think the state and authorities also have matured and on the contrary would rather have kids busy with riffs, Satan and drugs than politics, no?"

In 2015, however, one member of the scene, Nader Sadek, found himself facing trouble after booking the legendary American black metal band Inquisition for a show. "People watched with jaws on the floor," he tells tQ. "Four hundred people came to the show - it was amazing." He'd had successful shows in the past that had gone without a hitch, both as a performer and promoting bands such as Aborted and Alkaloid, but two days after the Inquisition show there were claims from the country's Musicians Syndicate about the gig that echoed the sensationalised events of 1997. "[It was claimed we were] all cloaked in stars of David, with a Qatari DJ performing, and together we were worshipping the devil. Of course it was all nonsense." The head of the Syndicate, Hany Shaker, said Satanic music was being brought to Egypt as part of a Western conspiracy to spread "chaos and immorality".

The Syndicate later claimed it was merely concerned that the bands playing did not have the correct permits, but Sadek scored a victory when he appeared with one of its representatives on Egyptian national television. "The hostess was educated and we basically exposed the Syndicate: uneducated, uncultured and inconsistent in their lies," he says. "In an attempt to salvage themselves they said it was a case of missing permits, which made them look worse, as they basically admitted to lying."

Yet in a key progression from the reaction that metal fans received 20 years ago, there was far less public hysteria. "Something quite amazing happened," he says. "The intellectual media came to my defence, and so did [high-profile Egyptian billionaire businessman] Naguib Sawiris. The Syndicate was ridiculed." His battle for what he sees as freedom of expression within heavy metal is far from over, however. Last year, his plans to bring Brazilian metal legends Sepultura to the country were shut down, and Sadek was arrested. He is currently involved in a legal battle with Hany Shaker, the head of the Musician's Union, whom he is suing for defamation and libel. Worrying, too, is the fact that in 2015 the Egyptian government granted the Syndicate powers of arrest, though some Egyptian musicians believe the practical effect of that is simply to make it easier for the Syndicate to extort bribes in order to let shows go ahead.

Heavy Metal in the Middle East

Fans enjoy Inquisition, live in Cairo, 2016

These interviews cover just five countries, and comprise just snapshots of Middle Eastern heavy metal. It would be impossible to surmise its place among host of nations, each with its own cultural, religious and geographical pecularities. There is no such single definition of a Middle Eastern metalhead some have endured torture and imprisonment, others risk their lives on a daily basis and must isolate themselves in the extreme for the love of their art, while others lead the way for diverse, accepting creative communities.

The common thread between them all, however, is of utter devotion to their craft, whatever the consequences. There is something about metal as a genre, so often the refuge of music's true outsiders, that has always bred an extra edge to the dedication of its fans. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Al-Namrood's insistence to keep risking death for their cause, in the persistence of a band like Blaakyum, for whom another witch hunt could begin at any moment, in Akvan and Melechesh's defiant promotion of the region's beauty, history, and above all, people.

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Witch Hunts, Resurgence and Defiance: Heavy Metal In The Middle East - The Quietus