Police called to sort out a young wargamer.

[beccasParticipant 1146xp 2]

Hi guys.  I just wanted to share a story with you about a young wargamer in the UK.  His teachers linked his historical wargaming to right wing fascism and notified the police.  As a result he was interviewed by anti-terror police.  He sold all his historical stuff and stopped gaming.

Its really sad.   The young fella and his dad have made a vid about their experience and it probably serves as a warning to all of us about how lunatics view our hobby.

Keep wargaming.

[pinkfluffycloudsParticipant 195xp 1]

Sadly not surprised the UK has gone down a dark path  slowly eroding  personal freedoms.  Restricting free speech and increasing government control over its citizens lives trying to control how they speak think and act. I imagine the vets are pretty disgusted with how they fought against fascism  to only have it slowly creeping into their homeland.

 

[brennonKeymaster 31029xp 5]

The Police did say that this was stupid, so in reality, the authorities did just end up brushing it off.  I think this was just one teacher who didn’t bother doing their research.

 

 

[coxjul 13301xp 5]

@pinkfluffyclouds – watch the video.

The authorities quickly dismissed the referral and if anything it was probably done under the anti-extremism PREVENT scheme* over the young man’s interest in UK Fascist symbols of the 1930s.

Some over-cautious college staff over-reacted probably in fear over any repercusions from OFSTED at not meeting their legal duties.

*PREVENT is there to protect vulnerable people from being manipulated into extremist views and actions which pose a real threat to our society and is a real concern, but any issues need sensible risk-assessment, something lacking here.

[brucelea 7906xp 6]

Well I’ll expect a visit then, my youngest loves his history and during his GCSEs was given a copy of Mein Kampf to study. His teacher gave it to him at the end of the course and he has used it in his A Level history course to break down the foundations of fascist beliefs and discredit them in his essays.

However, his lecturer called him a budding fascist because he had a copy without even finding out why. That really concerns me, as to truly challenge something you must first understand how and why it came to be; and you would have hoped that a college lecturer would have known that. I’m sure if he’d had a copy on Marx that would have been fine though, cos Stalin was such a lovely person ??

[Anonymous 0xp 2]

@brennon not a comment on the video, and my experience comes from the legislation in place in Northern Ireland, which I assume to be similar to the rest of the UK, but as a teacher, it isn’t your job to do research – you have a legal duty to report any concerns you may have and that is it.  We only hear when the legislation, policies and procedures lead to false accusation and wrong conclusions being made, like here.  Unfortunately the way the legislation is written, and the culture of blame that exists,  there isn’t much room for common sense.

 

[brennonKeymaster 31029xp 3]

Aye very true, this just seems like a one-off weird situation; I imagine in most cases this wouldn’t have got very far. It’s unfortunate situations like this which can make things go sideways because suddenly those who truly are that way inclined find fuel for their hatred and rhetoric – turning more people against ideas of common sense. There have to be degrees in everything.

 

[flatbattery 8265xp 2]

Due to the PREVENT programme I imagine this could happen more often, as someone who works in education and been through the training I’m well aware of how easy it is for this to occur when you consider the high stress levels in the sector and the media’s penchant for scare mongering.

Even worse there’s an increasing number of students who graffiti a well known Nazi symbol because they know it winds up the establishment, thanks once again to the media for over-egging the pudding when it comes to demonising right wing politics.  It’s just sad that being interested in history can now get you reported to the police.

[voidifremovedParticipant 669xp 0]

I remember back in high school, I got a talk from the deputy principal because someone saw me reading something with the Warhammer 40,000 logo on it.

[damon 7525xp 1]

NHS staff have had ‘Prevent’ shoved in our faces as well.

We had to do an ‘ online study module’ to help identify patients at risk of radicalisation, no, really, we did…

[mecha82Participant 10037xp 0]

People need to be thought that there is nothing political about wargaming and playing one doesn’t make one part of any extreme.

[lordsanes 6512xp 4]

You know this reminds me of the constant scapegoating of video games etc. A shooter plays a violent video game and the media cries out that it makes people killers. It has been the same throughout history (including at one point people railing against Opera)

 

Now with wargaming there is a swastika on those mins and that person owns those minis therefore this person must be a nazi. I believe in fighting extremist ideologies and trying to stop it when people are young and vulnerable but wargaming can be an exercise in socialising, empathy and history. I just watched Stalingrad the other day, it has swastikas and is even from the German perspective but it certainly isn’t pro Nazi.

 

Then again, right wing terrorism is on the rise and you can’t ignore things like this. It’s a complicated issue and as Robert says there are laws in place that kind of tie teacher’s hands. I can see both sides of this and its a damn shame its disheartened them and stopped them gaming.

 

Really what should have happened here is someone should have been a simple conversation to sort everything out. But this whole thing is food for thought. (sorry for the ramble this thread gave me thoughts)

[elessar2590 18207xp 0]

@coxjul the Police clearly thought it was serious enough to sit them both down though didn’t they? Cops don’t just respond to every tip off or referral they have a Filtering process just like a Hospital Emergency Room does. Otherwise you could just “SWAT” people you don’t like with the Counter Terror Task Force. Granted as they said once it was explained to them what was going on the Police did the right thing but it never should have got to that stage.

“Yeah we need the men with the guns that like stop the Terrorists and stuff ’cause we found a no-no book in the bag of a Student and he was like talking with his friends and stuff about like some bad people flags or something yeah Tuesday works”

One look at his social media would have shown them he was a wargamer they (Police and School) both CHOSE not to ask him politely what he was doing or to do any of their own research instead they get the Law Involved and Drag him in for an extremely intimidating meeting.

Word of advice for anyone going to sit down with a University is tape everything. Tape it all. If you take legal action (as I imagine these two are) then it’s good evidence and if you decide not to go down the legal route getting the tapes to the media can really help make sure it doesn’t happen to other people.

Anyone who thinks this kid isn’t now on a watch list (even a very minor one) and that his information/metadata wasn’t sourced by police is kidding themselves.

The University should take action against the Staff and although it should be done I highly doubt the Nation Union of Teachers will take any action against them even though they clearly violated the Union Agreement to boycott the scheme.

I can absolutely confirm things like those that happened to your son happened to me as well @brucelea
I’ve read “Mein Kampf” on a University Campus, I’ve also read “For My Legionaries” and “My Life” Mosley’s Biography all on Campus while studying Nationalism for an assignment and the idea that anyone would consider that something worthy of police action is extremely worrying. People give you looks, people contact you and ask a lot of weird questions acting like you’re some kind of lunatic for daring to read books.

People get so terrified of something and the first thing they do is assume you support it. People need to learn that it is completely possible for someone to despise Nazism and yet still research, collect, paint and game with SS miniatures. Perhaps if they did the same they could see that a lot of their issues about the SS have nothing to do with the SS you’re building (the Waffen SS) but the SS-TV (Camp Guards) and the Gestapo but instead of learning or even just asking they leap to conclusions that because you picked the bad guys (The Waffen SS were still despicable) you’re a bad person. Funny how the same thing isn’t done with people who collect LOTR Orc/Uruk Hai Armies or people who collect the forces of the USSR which killed far more people than the Nazi’s, those people are just having fun with the “Bad Guys” but if you even think about Fascists you’re bad.

Anyone who thinks it’s going to get better is delusional. Our Community is just too small to get noticed right now but just wait, we’ve already seen a little with 40K but it won’t stop there.

While writing this I popped over to my Universities Online Book Store and they’re selling work by Adolf Hitler, I’d love to know what School this guy went to because I guarantee you their book store would also sell “Fascist” Material.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 5]

Freedom isn’t taken away all at once, its eroded over time and usually with the consent of the people from whom it is being stripped.  The road to hell is, as they say, paved with good intentions and before you know it, you’re in the Orwellian Hell of 1984.  Living in GB, sadly this really doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, I don’t think our government realise that 1984 was fiction, not an instruction manual.

[soulman 2945xp 0]

Insane and i hope you can sue…In america somebody wearing a MAGA hat got $25,000 from the school. I see you are getting into 40K…. just hope killing orcs is not racist to them..!!! ( green lives matter ).

 

 

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