AFA UPDATE

A PROJECT OF THE ASATRU FOLK ASSEMBLY

Issue 154

March 8, 2012

Contact email: afa@runestone.org

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The AFA mission statement: "to practice, promote, and further evolve
the religion of Asatru, thus forging it into a powerful and effective
tool for building a better world."

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AFA NEWS

The last few weeks have seen tremendous activity in the AFA. Memberships
are rolling in, former members are returning, and capable volunteers are
stepping forward to shoulder the challenges that lie before us. As the
approaching springtime brings its sense of renewal, we have some
announcements regarding some changes in the AFA Leadership.

Firstly, we are thankful for the tireless work of Terry Armstrong, who
is retiring from his position as AFA Chief of Operations. Terry has been
a member of the Board of Directors, our past webmaster and tech-guru,
forum moderator, and has served on the Clergy Board. On the Board of
Directors of the AFA he was well known for his thoughtful responses to
the many tasks that fell across his desk. Terry determined that on his
65th Birthday he would retire from his official positions in the AFA.
That day has come and we on the Board wish him the greatest of success
and fulfillment in his retirement. Terry is still an AFA member and I am
sure we will be hearing more from him.

Terry's post will be filled by Brad Taylor-Hicks, who served as
Assistant Folkbuilder Coordinator before he became the Folkbuilder
Coordinator two years ago. Brad has traveled from his home in Florida to
Georgia, California and Oklahoma to attend AFA moots, and will continue
to serve as Folkbuilder for the AFA Deep South region. He is a member of
the AFA Clergy and Gothi of the Hraefn Wudu Kindred.

The position of Folkbuilder Coordinator will be taken over by Thorbert
Linley of Virginia. Thorbert has been serving as Assistant Folkbuilder
Coordinator and has a long history of involvement in the wider Asatru
Community. His fresh ideas and extensive knowledge have been a great aid
in restructuring the AFA in terms of regions, and his promotion to
Folkbuilder Coordinator is a natural one. We welcome Thorbert to the
Board of Directors, where his enthusiasm will be well met! Thorbert is
currently enrolled in the Clergy Program.

The Assistant Folkbuilder Coordinator position has been given to Matt
Flavel of Alaska. Matt has been an enthusiastic Folkbuilder in an
arguably difficult and isolated part of the country. Matt has traveled
for the last two midsummers to California and his loyalty to the mission
of the AFA is nothing less than inspirational. Matt is also enrolled in
the Clergy Program.

Rebecca Radcliffe of Pennsylvania has joined the AFA Clergy Board. Most
of you will recognize Rebecca's name from her outstanding work on our
youth publication, Runepebble. She leads an Asatru discussion group as
well as running The Fox's Glove, a business selling herbs, teas, soaps
and more (www.thefoxsglove.com ).

Bryan Wilton of Oklahoma has joined the Folkbuilding team. His exciting
presentation on the Heavener Runestone at last year's AFA Ostara moot in
Oklahoma was a real treat, and he will be supporting the Tharps in the
AFA Central Corridor region.

Please join me in thanking these members for their efforts and
congratulating them on their promotions into higher leadership within
the AFA community.

FROM STEVE

Asatru and the Most Heroic Age of All

When we first revived Asatru in the United States, back in the early
1970's, our focus was entirely on the Vikings. And no wonder - people
are enthralled with the vivid image of these swashbuckling pirates and
adventurers. They certainly appealed to me, as a young man in my early 20's!

Our movement has matured a lot since then, and we realize that the
Viking Age was maybe ten percent of Germanic history. It's not just
about the Norsemen; it's about Germanic tribes everywhere, and it's
about us, today, as Germanic people. Many of us, though, still long for
salt spray and cold steel in our hands, the ropes of our rigging
strumming in the Baltic breeze...and that's okay. One of the best things
about the Viking image is that it appeals to those instincts for
adventure, hardiness and courage. These values never go out of style,
and are as good today as they were a thousand years ago.

With that said, we need to avoid the mindset that pines for the lost
heroic age, whether that is seen as the era of the Vikings, the
centuries of the wandering Germanic tribes, or any other time in
history. "If only I lived back then...that was the real age for
heroism!" goes the lament. But was it? Sure, it was a dramatic time, a
period of conflict, when the historical stakes were high and bold men
and resourceful women could perform great deeds and live lives that
would resound through the centuries in the sagas...

...Just like today. These times, this crucial period of the early
twentieth century, is no less dramatic, no less a time of conflict. The
stakes on the gambling table of history today dwarf those of the Viking
Age or any other. How many of us understand the importance of these
decisive years? The gray power of the surveillance state looms large
throughout our ancient European homelands and the New World alike. We
European-descended folk are cut off from our spiritual heritage and
flounder, lost, in a swamp of alienation and apathy. Everywhere, our
numbers are dropping. Changes in the Earth's climate have produced a
world tottering on the edge of an environmental precipice leading to
mass extinctions - to include, perhaps, our own. This is the age that
demands heroism - not the Viking Age or the Migration Age. The heroes of
this epoch, this degenerate and desperate age, will redeem a future not
only for our own folk but for all humanity and all life on this planet.
This is the age for those who wish to overcome great odds and do great
deeds! Ragnar Lodbrok, Harald Hardrada, Sigurd the Volsung - they envy
those of us lucky enough to walk the earth at this time in history.

Will you be one to rise to the challenge? Or will you at least aid those
who do? This is the heroic age you always wanted: Seize this time!

Asatru - Why We Need to Support Indigenous Peoples

My role in the Asatru movement has, to a large extent, defined my life.
Anyone who knows me, however, knows I've done a lot of unusual things
besides Germanic religion. I went to northern India and interviewed
Tibetans who fought the Chinese. I lived with Karen guerrillas in the
jungles of Burma, fighting for their identity against a tyrannical
government. Less well known is my praise for Nigerian democracy activist
Ken Saro-Wiwa, and many other instances in which I have lent my voice to
the causes of indigenous peoples around the world.

Why should a man busily re-establishing our native Germanic faith go to
all this trouble? Why should I care what happens to Tibetans and Burmese
and Nigerians? Don't we Germanics have enough problems of our own?

As a man of European descent, and as a follower of the indigenous
European faith of Asatru, I have a spiritual obligation to care for and
defend my own heritage. Less obvious is another truth - that I should
also care about the fate of other peoples.

Ultimately, we European-descended folk are in the same boat as the
Tibetans, the Karen, and the Amazonian tribes. We're all trying to
preserve our peoples, cultures, and native religions in a world where
transnational corporations and intrusive governments work to destroy all
differences, to smooth out humanity into one featureless, deracinated
"norm-man" fit only to produce, consume, and obey. Where will our
vaunted Germanic freedom be then? What will happen to the Norse spirit,
the Faustian upward reach of the European soul, when we're all slaving
on the global plantation for the bankers and the corporate elite? Let me
tell you: These historic traits of ours will be dead. And the only way
to prevent this "death by homogenization" is to be who we are, to honor
that which makes us unique. We should do that for ourselves as
Northfolk, and we should encourage other groups to do likewise.

Someone once said of me that "Steve wants to help every ethnic group but
his own." That's not true; my own folk are closest to my heart and will
always have first claim to my loyalty and love. That is only natural and
good. But the world is not necessarily a zero-sum game, and there are
plenty of win-win solutions to our mutual problems. There will always be
competition between groups, yes. But all of us who want to preserve our
identity against the pressures of the global monoculture, regardless of
our race or culture, have a common enemy in those who would make us all
the same. If the transnationalists are to sell us Coca-Cola made in the
United States and toys made in China, they have to "modernize" us first.
Modernization is of course a two-edged sword; some aspects are
beneficial but others are designed make us abandon our ancestral ways,
pledge allegiance to the bank and the television set, and become a
"world citizen." This is as true of First-Worlders like Americans and
Germans as it is of tribal societies in the Third World, and nothing
could be more disastrous to groups who wish to retain their distinct
identity in the 21st century.