Just as aggressively as the group barred the entrance to the police headquarters, waiting to expel angry and drunken rioters, so too their open hatred of immigrants, in particular the Chinese. “We hate the Chinese, Koreans and Vietnamese,” the current head of Dayar Mongol calmly states in an interview, “because they do a lot of illegal things such as human trafficking, selling drugs and prostitution […] We are against Chinese influence as it’s dangerous for Mongolia’s national security.” The Asian Gypsy website writes that Dayar Mongol “also sends a warning to Mongolians working with foreigners against national interest, promising the ‘traitors will be dealt with harshly.’” Rhetoric from the M.Y.A. echoes Dayar Mongol: “The Chinese are our main enemies as they contaminate Mongolian blood by getting married to Mongolian women, and intend to assimilate Mongolians to Chinese.”

To be ‘dealt with harshly’ by one of these groups means anything from being beaten, having your shop windows repetitively smashed, being publicly spat on, to the extremity of being killed. The leader of Blue Mongol (the third of these right-wing groups), B. Enkhbat, was on trial in June of 2008 for “the suspected murder/manslaughter of his daughter’s boyfriend […] whose patriotism was questioned.” He was later found guilty. The former head of Dayar Mongol was executed for a similar crime, a crime the current leader describes as “a passing away. He fought for security and the goodness of the Mongol nation and its people.” Ola Wong from the Far Eastern Economic Review in April of 2008 highlighted another of the trio’s racial intimidations. “[They] shave the heads of women caught sleeping with Chinese men.” G. Damdinsuren, a Dayar Mongol board member, justified the tactics. “It is for their own good […] A small nation can only survive by keeping its blood pure.’’

Racial hatred –and the perceived “need to keep a nation’s blood pure”- is the obvious backbone to all right-wing groups globally, and though they normally represent an extremity within society, in Mongolia, these right-wing organisations reflect the sentiment of a large percentage of the population. Ask Mongolians what they think of their southern neighbours and at best the response is one of reluctant acceptance. “To say that Mongolian’s feelings towards China borders on racism and hatred would not be an understatement,” writes a Mongolian on the Internet. In an article for the Sydney Morning Herald, John Garnaut discussed similar feelings of resentment. “Amarbayasgalan runs a small trading company that imports all manner of goods from China. He personally knows ‘some good Chinese, some bad,’ but this nuance is not widely shared among his friends.” The closely related rise of right-wing groups, he continues, “is fueling an already toxic concoction of racism, historical grievance, Chinese insensitivity and, above all, a pervading fear of economic annihilation.”

This nationalistic and anti-Chinese mindset is the reason why pro-Mongolian groups such as Dayar Mongol, Blue Mongolia and the M.Y.A. are beginning to swell in popularity. Membership is on a sharp rise, two of the groups profess, and so are public monetary donations. “We are many,” the head of Dayar Mongol proudly boasts. There is even international support, says Murgun-Erdene, head of the M.Y.A., supplied by other neo-Nazi organisations in Russia and Germany. While financial help for Dayar Mongol has yet to come from international neo-Nazis, the relationship they have formed with their cross-border counterparts is one of “an understanding in philosophy.” The M.Y.A, however, reveals that organizations both national and international “invest in us.”
Finding funding within the nation is not a farfetched concept, yet receiving funding and support from international bodies outside of Asia seems somewhat ironic. So too does the blatant use of logos and rhetoric from Hitler and the Third Reich’s regime: either a great irony or a huge lack of education on these Mongolian neo-Nazis’ part. The head of M.Y.A. refutes the idea. “We are nationalists,” he says “because we distribute views of nationalism. In other words, we can be called Nazis. Generally, people believe that Nazis are fierce, but this is wrong. In my opinion, every country and every nation has some nationalists.”
If this nationalism were purely Mongolian in form, it would make Murgun-Erdene’s statement a little easier to understand. As it is, the head of the M.Y.A. arrives at an interview wearing an Iron Cross, a hat with the SS Death’s Head pinned to its front and military fatigues; he has not donned anything that resembles traditional Mongolian attire, nor do the two ‘minders’ who accompany him.

It becomes clear during the interview that these right-wing groups have neither remorse, nor more importantly, any real idea why they use (even quasi-worship) Third Reich iconography and ideals. While the swastika, as numerous historians and authors note, has its origins in a Buddhist tradition and was bastardised by Germany’s National Socialists in the early twentieth century, the SS icons and the use of various pieces of Nazi uniform are not so easily excused.

One justification or explanation, states Murgun-Erdene when asked about the correlation between Mongolia and Hitler’s despotic Germany, is that he believes Hitler was, in many ways, a student of Chinggis Khaan. “Historically, when Hitler was reading the history of Chinggis Khaan in prison, he enjoyed the book and chose this sign as his symbol.” He also adds that the way Hitler conquered the world with his blitzkrieg was reminiscent of Chinggis Khaan’s art-of-war. Jack Weatherford, author of the best-selling history Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, does not agree. “The Secret History of the Mongols was not available in Germany until the 1940s, nearly two decades after Hitler’s imprisonment,” Weatherford said. On the similarity of ethos between the two rulers, he again disputes any similarity. “Chinggis Khaan believed in the unity of all people under heaven and in respect for all religions. In this regard I see no similarity between him and Hitler.”

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum makes interesting note of just where Mongolians stood in the eyes of the Third Reich. “The Germans carried out systematic mass killings of persons […] and systematically selected from among Soviet prisoners of war persons perceived to have ‘Asian’ or ‘Mongolian’ characteristics in order to shoot them.” In another great irony, Weatherford noted, “the Germans […] considered the Mongols as the opposite to the Germans. They taught that the existence of retarded children among the Germans was a result of the rape of pure German women by Mongols during the invasion of the thirteenth century.”

Statements such as these highlight a lack of insight into both Germany’s history and the expansion of the Mongol Empire by Mongolian right-wing groups. Propaganda such as: “We tell the young not to have close relationships with foreigners and to contaminate our Mongolian blood. We are also anti-companies and organizations which mediate between foreigners and Mongolians, and do not allow them to marry. Agitating the public is an essential way to gain people’s awareness of our activities,” does not reflect the unity and respect Chinggis Khaan is said to have extolled. “Seemingly, without a sense of what the Nazis actually did, this phenomenon is more about ‘tough guys’ viewing Hitler as a great conqueror, similar to Chinggis Khaan” a Mongolian citizen comments on their blog.

The skewed view of history voiced by groups such as the M.Y.A. is another of the naiveties that engulfs the nation. While under Soviet rule, Mongolians were taught that the Nazis were “bad” but were not schooled on the Holocaust. More recently, education in many schools has passed over the Second World War altogether. “In my opinion,” writes a man called Tuvshin after a survey he conducted suggested 90 percent of Mongolians believe in the politics of the Nazis, “this reflects the opinion of Mongolians who believe in a history transcribed by poor literature and ineffective secondary schooling. So it’s inevitable that we have racist attackers who call themselves neo-Nazis, yet who believe they support human rights and the nation.”

A lack of education and the amount of ‘poor historical literature’ also provides explanations for a Nazi themed pub which contains Nazi flags, Third Reich political posters, display cases of mannequins dressed in Nazi uniforms and photos of Goebbels, Himmler and the likes. It accounts for groups of motorcyclists partly dressed in SS uniform, taxis adorned in the red and black flag of the facists, and the abundance of photos of Hitler hanging beside portraits of other famous world leaders found in the nation’s capital. Unfortunately, the irony of believing the rhetoric of the Third Reich is not lost on those Mongolians caught in Russia’s current wave of nationalism. As reported in the RIA Novosti in 2006, “Two Mongolian students were beaten on Saturday in the St. Petersburg subway. Routine attacks by skinheads and youth gangs on foreigners with non-Slavic features have also been reported in other Russian cities.” More recently, Mongolians were victims of Neo-Nazi attacks in Prague and in southern Germany.

Back in Ulaanbaatar, news such as this does little to deter the enthusiasm of the M.Y.A. They even take on similarities in their aggressive methods to stamp out foreign interest and influence. “All members study the art of fighting including battle sambo and karate and we are in training […] Someone who protests our activity can’t overcome us.”

In a 2002 address to the United Nations by the Mongolian government’s former representative, P. Gansukh, a correlation between social issues and the rise in right-wing nationalism within his country was noted. “My delegation wishes to single out the fact that racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance are closely linked with the socio-economic factors. Inequitable economic and social conditions can breed and foster racism and racial discrimination, while reduction of poverty and unemployment, overcoming economic backwardness would affect the human rights protection positively.” In another ironic twist, according to Murgun-Erdene, it was on the government’s advice that he registered M.Y.A. as an NGO. The Ministry of Justice suggested a number of smaller parties “with the same goal in mind” unite to strengthen the organisation politically and economically.

Complicity with government offices and organisations is also evident in an article found on the Montsame news site. It reports that members of Dayar Mongol “joined with the Police Department of Sukhbaatar district” to check that Chinese and Korean shops and companies had removed any signs written in their native tongue and had them replaced with Cyrillic script. The ‘raid’ was initially instigated by Dayar Mongol after sending these companies a three-day written warning.

Working in close proximity with the government does not mean, for Murgun-Erdene, that the M.Y.A. allies itself to any political party, nor politics at large. “We don’t fiddle with politics. We want to purge and improve current society. Our main goals are to remain Mongolian and to keep Mongolian blood fresh and to establish good order.” While he believes both the ruling MPRP and their opposition, the DP, are “wrong in their ideals,” he does not outline why. Dayar Mongol are not so timid. They believe, the UB Post reported in 2007, that “high ranking officials are corrupt and are giving the land to foreigners.” To tackle the issue not only did they stage a number of protests in Sukhbaatar Square, but members of both Blue Mongolia and Dayar Mongol ran for parliament in the 2008 elections, both failing in their attempt. That was not due to a lack of public support, noted the Asian Gypsy blog, but a lack of campaign experience, a lack of publicity, and a lack of substantial finance.

“Oddly, most Mongolian neo-Nazis don’t want to promote the death of human beings, which they also think leads to them being able to implement Nazism correctly, which the Germans could not do. In my opinion, though they call themselves Nazis, they don’t understand the concept of being a Nazi,” writes a Mongolian citizen. Yet racial hatred -and a nation’s complicity- is not so far from implementing ‘Nazi concepts.’ Add to that an ignorance that comes with a lack of education, a yearning to better -in some degree- what other great leaders had previously tried, an increase in the divide between rich and poor, and an insidious pattern takes on a dimension reminiscent of 1920s Germany.