| White Liberation Movement | |
|---|---|
| Blanke Bevrydingsbeweging | |
 TheOdal SS-rune, adopted by the BBB as its symbol.[1] | |
| Leader | Johan Schabort |
| Foundation | 1 June 1985 (1985-06-01) |
| Dissolved | November 1988 (1988-11) (banned) |
| Country | South Africa |
| Headquarters | Pretoria,South Africa |
| Ideology | White nationalism Afrikaner nationalism Neo-Nazism Antisemitism |
| Political position | Far-right |
TheWhite Liberation Movement (Afrikaans:Blanke Bevrydingsbeweging, abbreviatedBBB) was a South Africanneo-Nazi organisation which became infamous after being banned under theApartheid regime, the firstright-wing organisation to be banned as such. It regarded itself as the mostfar-right organisation in South Africa.[2]
The organisation was formed in June 1985 by Professor Johan Schabort.[3][4] It started as the support organisation for Schabort'sBlanke Party (White Party), which existed only in name.[5] In June 1987 the BBB went public and sought to recruit members,[6] aiming at both Afrikaners and British whites.
Its honorary leader was Theuns Stoffberg, a former member of theGreyshirts. Another notable member was Keith Conroy,[7] an Englishman who would later become Kommandant of the AWB's 'Iron Guard'.[8]
In August 1987 Schabort attended and spoke at a commemorative service forRudolf Hess organised by theAfrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB).[9] The BBB would organise inflammatory meeting and marches. The BBB sought to link with international right-wing organisations.[10]
The BBB ran a "blatantly racist"[10] bilingual magazineKommando: Stem van die Blankedom/Kommando: Voice of the White Race published by Alan Harvey. Harvey was deputy leader of the SouthNatal branch[7] (its leader was Peter Smith); Harvey had previously published and edited theSouth African Patriot magazine inDurban, under the "Patriotic Press" imprint.[7] This magazine carried advertisements of several far right organisations around the world, includingDavid Duke's theNational Association for the Advancement of White People,National Vanguard magazine issued by theNational Alliance,Instauration magazine, the British cultural magazineHeritage and Destiny, theNational Front'sNationalism Today (to which Harvey contributed both under his own name and under the pseudonym "John Humphries"), andNF News.[7] Harvey contributed to the BBB's publication under his own name.[11]
The BBB was banned, and restrictions were placed on the political activities of Schabort in November 1988, in reaction to the massacre of black people in Pretoria byBarend Strydom.[12] This was the first time such restrictions had been placed on a right wing organisation.[13] In banning the group,Adriaan Vlok, the Law and Order Minister, said that the group were "right-wing, fanatical extremists who favour violence to carry racism to its extreme".[14]
In December 1988, Schabort re-launched the BBB as theBlanke Nasionale Beweging (White National Movement) under the nominal leadership of Wynand de Beer; however, as its activities were clearly the same as the BBB, it was banned at the beginning of 1989.
The government lifted the ban on the BBB in February 1990.[15][16]
Schabort officially disbanded the BBB and theBlanke Party in 1990, and joined theConservative Party.[17] Some members of the BBB, like Keith Conroy, would go on to support theAfrikaner Volksfront.
A few members, led by Jean Pierre du Plessis, sought to continue the BBB, with the BBB as the political wing to which would be added an underground organisation called the National Socialist Partisans (NSP). Schabort chose not to become involved.[18] Du Plessis continued to form the NSP as acell; its flag was "basically white with a red cross and aswastika".[19] NSP members were arrested in 1991 for the murder of three black people atLouis Trichardt.
Following the bombing of ataxi rank inGermiston on 26 April 1994, which killed ten people, it was claimed in the press that the BBB were responsible; Schabort denied this.[20]
TheTruth and Reconciliation Commission described the BBB's ideology as "refinednazism".[21] Schabort himself described the organisation as "openly racist".[3] It waswhite supremacist and againstrace mixing. The BBB regarded blacks as 'mud people' or 'mud race'.[10] The BBB sought the 'repatriation' (expulsion) of blacks from South Africa, "by violence if necessary".[3] It was openlyantisemitic, regardingJews as existing between white and blacks, anddenied the Holocaust.[22] The BBB was againstdemocracy and sought a new economic order.
The AWB criticised the BBB for being anti-Christian and atheistic; the BBB's tendency was towards theChurch of the Creator. The BBB used the winged variant of theOdal SS-rune as its symbol.[23]
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