Counter-Currents
Interview with George Burdi: Man Against the Modern World
Ondrej Mann
George Burdi
2,079 words
George Burdi is the warhorse of the white nationalist scene. He first became famous with his symphonic metal band Rahowa through the unique album Cult Of The Holy War, and later he founded his own label, Resistance Records. From 1993 to 1997, Resistance sold approximately 100,000 CDs combined from all bands. But Burdi saw no perspective in the white nationalist skinhead movement, and sold Resistance Records to William Luther Pierce.
Now George Burdi is interested in the spiritual path, supports identitarian ideas, and admires France’s band Les Brigandes. According to him, they have great songs, entertaining music videos, and most importantly a true and honest cultural revival surrounding the group. Burdi also started a new audiovisual art project, Revolt Against the Modern World, featuring music and visualizations inspired by and reading from the well-known book.
In this interview, we discuss Evola’s books, poetry, dreams, magic, metapolitics, and music.
Ondrej Mann: What do you think about mixing art and violence? Medieval troubadours like Bertran de Born mixed fighting weapons with the practice of poetry.
George Burdi: All physical action begins in the mind. Unless one is madly just thrashing out at the world — kicking against circumstance in desperation — the origin of all acts of violence is the intellectual premise it is built upon. That having been said, violence as a tool for political change is totally counter-productive. If you have a standing army, then violence can be a justified means of protecting sovereignty, but it is a trap for dissident movements.
OM: Do you know any poetry by Rudyard Kipling, like “A Song of the White Men,” “The Stranger,” “The Burden of Jerusalem?” What kind of poetry do you like? Tomáš Fabian from Buldok made music for various poets on the album Creed of Iron. Have you ever planned to do something similar?
GB: I am familiar with these poems by Kipling. I have previously written an anthem around “A Song of the White Men” and an electronic song around “The Stranger.” The former was recorded a cappella by ten men in the studio, but unfortunately, I have no copy of that recording now. The latter was a techno-style song that didn’t really work so great in my opinion and I didn’t release it. Previously, I have adapted the poems “Might is Right” and “When America Goes Down” (Vik Olivir) to song. So yes, I am very open to putting music to great verse. Tomáš is one of my favorite vocalists and he is still making music today. I almost got a chance to meet him a couple of years ago when I was in the Czech Republic, but unfortunately, we couldn’t make it work.
OM: You composed a song “When America Goes Down” (Lyric: Vik Olivir). Where is the USA now? What do you think about the future of America?
GB: America is undergoing a controlled demolition. . . it is being deliberately deconstructed from within as a stage in globalization as no strong sovereign nation-states can exist. The death of America is an inside job.
OM: Do you farm? Have you gained autarkia?
GB: I have been organic farming for the past ten years, and raising chickens for eggs. In a climate this cold, achieving autarkia isn’t realistic nor my exact goal. But having a greater degree of food security, and knowing how to care for vegetable plants and chickens, is knowledge that takes time to develop, and is best embarked upon early in life. Later on, I could scale up my production if I needed to.
OM: How do you view Might is Right today? Does it have something to do with the Revolt Against the Modern World? You used parts of this book for your old music. The book has an interesting story from Stirnerian anarchism, through Nietzschean Satanism, to white nationalism and tribalism. Did you know that this is the oldest (1896) book banned from sale on Amazon?
GB: Might is Right was an important book for me at the time, as I was going through a process of rejecting my Catholic education. The tone and language of the book were electrifying to me. I can only imagine how shocking it would have been to read it in 1896! I heard a rumor that it was penned under pseudonym by Jack London, but further research proved this unlikely. I did not know that it has the special designation as being the oldest book banned by Amazon. That is quite the remarkable fact! Today, I do not view the thesis of the book as being correct. I understand from a materialistic, Darwinist viewpoint, that might makes right, but from a spiritual standpoint, I disagree with this premise. Total falsehoods can be imposed under a jackboot, and that might make them assert themselves as “right” by this authority, but it does not make them truth. Truth is part of Dharma and it is eternal and beyond the mistakes of fallen ages.
OM: Have you ever met Michael Moynihan personally? Do you listen to his music or read his books? Among others, Michael Moynihan edited Introduction to Magic from Evola and published other books with Stephen Edred Thorsson under the brand Arcana Europa.
GB: Yes, I have met Mr. Moynihan a couple of times, and interviewed him for the old Resistance magazine back in the mid-90s. His musical efforts with Blood Axis are indescribable and have the distinction of being a genre of their own. I read and enjoyed Introduction to Magic and may have never read Julius Evola if not for his guidance. He implored me to order Revolt Against the Modern World in 1995 and it is a book that changed my life.
OM: I saw you share a link to a book from Black Front Press by Troy Southgate. Have you read any books from Black Front, like The World Through a Monocled Eye or Return to Evola: A Fresh Look at Revolt Against the Modern World?
GB: I have not read any titles from Black Front Press, but support all efforts to introduce Evola’s thinking to the modern world.
OM: What is your opinion on the avant-garde art of the 1920s and 1930s? Surrealism, Dadaism, Futurism, Expressionism, etc.?
GB: Julius Evola made Dadaist paintings in his early carrier. I found it surprising that this type of artwork was done by Evola himself, as one might imagine that he would express more classical imagery and motifs. But of course, the Dadaist artwork does express the modern age with appropriately shocking visualizations.
OM: Evola translated into Italian and wrote an introduction to a very interesting book, The Angel of the West Window from Gustav Meyrink. Did you read it? Do you have any experiences with novels of initiation, occult novels, or Bildungsromans?
GB: I have not read Gustav Meyrink, but I am aware of his very creative and multilayered works. My favorite Bildungsroman novel would be Siddharta by Herman Hesse. This book was a great introduction for me to the ideas of Hindu/Buddhist thought and was a great precursor to Evola’s Doctrine of Awakening, the text that had the greatest effect on me, akin to initiation. I have read it ten times and counting.
OM: What do you admire about the works of Hermann Hesse?
GB: Hermann Hesse was one of the first authors to bring the Eastern teachings alive in a novel form, weaving the wisdom into story, which makes it highly accessible to Westerners. I especially love his colorful, poetic prose in Siddartha.
OM: Did you ever consider suicide? In the cases of Meyrink and Evola, a deep human crisis is associated with mystical experiences. They both considered suicide and then went on a spiritual journey.
GB: I have not ever considered suicide or had suicidal ideation. Perhaps because I was lit afire by a life-affirming cause at the age of 16, rather than first wallowing in nihilism, I escaped this unfortunate experience that grips many young people. I have an old friend who lost one of his daughters to suicide, and I can’t imagine how terrible it was for him. The way I see it, death is waiting for us all, it cannot be avoided as our inevitable fate, so why not enjoy the stages of life as they present themselves? It is all going to be over before you realize, anyway. No need to hasten the day.
OM: Would you change anything in your life?
GB: If I could change anything in my life, I would have had children at a young age. Otherwise no, I can live with my mistakes as part of my learning process.
OM: Are you also interested in the occult or tantra? Do you also read Evola’s books on this topic, Eros and the Mysteries of Love: The Metaphysics of Sex or The Yoga of Power?
GB: I have read both Eros and the Mysteries of Love and The Yoga of Power, and both books had a big impact on me. There are unmistakable forces locked within us that can be freed if one knows the way. Tantric sex, as one example, is the means of mastering sexual energies that normally overwhelms man. It teaches the methods of transmuting abyssal, radical forces into strength of personality and spiritual growth. The so-called “left-hand path” is easily misused by modern adventurers who pursue it as a thinly veiled expression of hedonism, but for the man who has mastered himself, it can be a way of revealing occult forces in an age where many paths have been obscured.
OM: Do you have magical dreams, for example, dreams of gods, ancient songs, or anything else?
GB: Many of my song melodies come to me in dreams. I have also had several mystical experiences during lucid dreams. My most profound was a six-hour-long dream where I was sitting upright in meditation and my body was shining with golden light. When I woke, I was startled to find myself laying down in bed, as I thought I was sitting upright in meditation. That dream happened during a meditation course.
I have also had a recurring dream of a sort of divine council of elders who were judging my life.
OM: Do you watch the neofolk scene? On your last Uberfolk album, you covered “Waiting for the Fall” from Changes.
GB: Yes, I do keep an eye on the neofolk scene, and have always especially enjoyed Death in June. Miel Noir has recently teamed up with Changes to record an excellent rendition of a new Changes song “Defiance” that is very worth checking out. I consider Robert N. Taylor and Nicholas Tesluk to be absolute artistic giants.
OM: You wrote a postface for a book about paganism, Aux Sources de la Mythologie Nordique. What is about?
GB: My essay on paganism discusses how the gods were originally channeled as heightened states of being for the adept. The idea that they were literal personalities came later, and represent man’s attempt to understand the concept when we had fallen from our primordial state.
OM: Have you ever planned to record a concept album? What would be the topic?
GB: I was previously developing a science fiction idea for a novel and concept album, but after some time passed, I became rather uninspired by it, although I may revisit it one day. Set thousands of years in the future, a spaceship full of humans that have been colonizing distant planets finally returns back “home” to Earth, to find that humanity has fallen into a state of degenerate entropy. Part biological, part machine, these future humans have lost the essence of being human, conquered nature, and are ruled over by a disgusting hedonistic oligarch class that dwells behind walls in vast city-states, while the rest of humanity lives in a primitive state outside the gates. Following their guidelines of when to colonize a planet, they conclude from observing the situation on Earth that the planet must be scorched and repopulated. This leads to a crisis of sorts for the visitors.
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15 comments
“humanity has fallen into a state of degenerate entropy. Part biological, part machine, these future humans have lost the essence of being human, conquered nature, and are ruled over by a disgusting hedonistic oligarch class that dwells behind walls in vast city-states, while the rest of humanity lives in a primitive state outside the gates“
That doesn’t sound like fiction to me…
What a load of complete gibberish from a man who disavowed and betrayed us.
Yes. Didn’t I read sometime back that he disavowed racial realities and marry a type of middle eastern woman? WTF? If he had kids with her there is no coming back…
If I remember correctly, she was a Indian. But indeed, there would be some questions about the whole complex, that have not been asked here.
George Burdi says for Veriyhteys: As for my East Indian, Brahmin caste, fair-skinned, “brown Aryan” ex-wife, she was the perfect companion for me during the years we were together. We spent this time reading books from the world of Tradition and exploring Aryan history. I am especially grateful to her and her family for the “missing Hindu wisdom” they imparted. Her father was a very unique spiritual teacher, but he died a couple of years ago. Ultimately both she and I outgrew each other as husband and wife, but as I said we remain good friends 12 years later.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190406060530/http://veriyhteys.tumblr.com/post/168814138660/part-2-of-george-burdi-interview-part-1-can-be
Frankly his facial features look typically Indian, he looks like a light-skinned Indian
Unusual surname for a white N American. Ethnicity?
Did they breed?
He hasn’t got any children.
Good interview. I think George Burdi is one of this movement’s most fascinating personalities. Resistance Records was a force to be reckoned with during the 1990s, and being able to move lots of pro-White music with the entire mainstream press working against you is no small feat.
It’s easy to see why someone of an intelligent disposition such as Mr. Burdi would want to abandon the Nationalist skinhead scene. As much as I like RAC and Nationalist Rock generally, that scene attracted a disturbingly large swath of degenerates, miscreants and sociopaths. His reasons for leaving the movement and his subsequent ideological variations are clearly too nuanced to be reflected in the mainstream media’s coverage, so they took his views greatly out of context and tried to fit them into a narrative that simply doesn’t fit. I think people took it for granted that he now had become an anti-racist activist even if he never explicitly did this.
Just because you’re friendly with Black people doesn’t mean you can’t be pro-White. Bear in mind Resistance Magazine under George featured a two-part interview with a Black Nationalist. From what I recall from a now-deleted interview with FSN, George appeared on a Black Nationalist radio program and hit it off quite well with the hosts.
“Just because you’re friendly with Black people doesn’t mean you can’t be pro-White.”
That is the beginning of identity destroying delusion. If you can be friends with blacks, why can’t you date them or marry them? Are you still pro-White then? Rebuilding and empowering our race, saving it, requires keeping all non-Whites as far from us as possible. While we can’t achieve complete separation in a multiracial cesspool like Amerikwa, we can secure the perimeter around our personal lives by simply not interacting with blacks and other non-Whites for any reason.
You have raised an interesting question. How extreme must racial separation be to preserve our race? I support a large number of separate (but militarily allied) white ethnostates. I don’t support “90% white nationalism” except provisionally. The ethnostates must be 100% pure, at least theoretically and officially. In practice, though, we will probably have to allow in some “mostly whites” (persons, say, no less than 7/8th white, or even merely 3/4 if the ‘taint’ were racially similar to white: Middle Eastern, some Hispanics, possibly some sub-continentals) who more or less look white and identify with and support white nationalism. I once knew a hardcore prowhite who had a Mexican grandmother; another with a Chinese great-grandmother; another who was 1/4 Jewish; and a Far Rightist whose father was a wealthy high caste Hindu who had married a very white European mother, and who himself also married a very white American girl. Sadly, a lot of miscegenation has been going on for the past century.
But must our societies be completely closed to nonwhites as tourists, exchange students, athletic competitors, visiting scholars, filmmakers, etc? I ask because I really don’t know. One can see both sides. Perhaps our survival is best achieved by making ourselves and our ethnostates as uninviting and hostile as possible. But is that really necessary, or even feasible? The problem is that the ethnostates will need to be attractive to the cognitively best among us. We don’t want to risk them emigrating to more interesting pastures, as we need their talents (as well as genes) to build up our own economies (which, recall, are the sources of national military power, which we will need in abundance), and our future racial quality. Some inevitably will, of course (and I hope they will be able to: we should not aspire to creating totalitarian closed societies like North Korea, where defectors are shot). But we want that number to be self-limited.
The problem is that overly strict regulations on contact with nonwhites could negatively ‘boomerang’ in our ever more connected world. It’s one thing to say that the ethnostate will have no nonwhite residents or citizens (including spouses). But forbidding contact altogether with nonwhites overseas involves a whole different level of social control, one many otherwise fine whites might find too limiting.
For Veriyhteys George Burdi says: Ethnic separatism for Europe is absolutely necessary, because without living space, a people and a culture cannot exist. There are hundreds of unique, centuries-old micro-cultures in Europe, with customs, language, and history. They cannot survive this new wave of humanity flooding its borders. In North America, however, only a complete breakdown of society could produce ethnic nationalism, which is never something you want to see because of mass upheaval and bloodshed, so it’s something that if it does ever happen will be a discussion if things fall apart. I am also not convinced that a white city-state in the U.S. would ultimately be a good thing for white people anyway. Take one look at the economic isolation in the South African white ghettos, and you’ll see that once you group up in one area, you become an easier target, because the system can surround and attack that entity from the outside, whilst maintaining normal life for everyone else. For these reasons, and others, I advocate civic nationalism outside of Europe and advise North American ethnic nationalists to make this compromise. Nothing can change the cultural undertone of America in the same way as people of all races coming together to recognize the common ground of anti-globalist, anti-Marxist positions. Most people from other races want to maintain their own ethnic/cultural identity too. This doesn’t mean that the ethnic nationalist can’t still promote their agenda and ideas, but it does mean that this romanticized idea is seen as an “in emergency, break glass” option.
I see no problem with a White ethnostate allowing non-White tourists, diplomats, merchants, or others with serious business to conduct to enter its borders (but no foreign exchange students or teachers), but I was speaking primarily of keeping your personal life as free as possible from contact with non-Whites. When you have to deal with them, be polite and non-hostile, but stay aloof and keep them at arm’s length.
Go outside.
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