Far-right groups across Europe and North America are using mixed martial arts to swell to swell their numbers, spread their ideology and fight their enemies
“You will not replace us.”
This was one of the slogans chanted during a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on the night of 11 August 2017. Approximately 100 young white men – most of whom brandished tiki torches to intimidate watchers and light up their path – marched through the streets in scenes reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan rallies that once blighted the southern Unites States. By 10pm that evening, the group of white supremacists — now chanting “Jews will not replace us” along with the Nazi phrase “blood and soil” – had reached the University of Virginia campus, where counter-protesters awaited them with banners and slogans of their own. By the end of the weekend one of the counter-protestors would be killed, struck by a car.