George Burdi
George Burdi (born 1970), also known as George Eric Hawthorne, is a former white supremacist (and leader of the white power music scene) who is now a Canadian musician.
Born to Armenian immigrants, Burdi came into contact with the white supremacist movement through the father of his then-girlfriend. He became an active white supremacist at 18 and was, by the age of 21, leader of the Canadian branch of the Church of the Creator. Using the pseudonym "Reverend George Eric Hawthorne" he formed the skinhead band RaHoWa in 1989. The band's name was derived from the phrase "Racial Holy War". RaHoWa was the single largest hate-rock band throughout the 1990s, and is still very well-regarded in white-power circles.
Burdi was the founder president of Resistance Records, which was the distributor for his band and other white supremacist bands. The company also operated a web site and a magazine. It was one of the pre-eminent white-power record producers, and sold nearly 100,000 records in its ten years of operation and published a quarterly Resistance Magazine which covered the white power music scene.
Burdi was convicted of assault causing bodily harm in 1995 for kicking an anti-Nazi activist in the face during a riot that followed a RaHoWa concert in Ottawa in 1993. He was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment.
In 1997, police raided his home and the Resistance Records offices. Burdi was charged with "willfully promoting hatred," he ended up pleading guilty to a lesser charge and spent no time in jail.
In 2001, Burdi sold Resistance Records to William Pierce of the National Alliance for $250,000 and left the white power movement due to disillusionment.
He claims to have renounced white supremacism, and is currently in a multiracial band called "Novacosm". He has a South Asian girlfriend, and is deeply into eastern spiritualism. However, he has been criticised by anti-racists who claim he has not clearly denounced the white supremacist movement or apologized to the communities and individuals he hurt in his career as a neo-nazi.
External Links
- The Defection of George Burdi: Lessons to be Learned - a view from the neo-nazi side
- A racist no longer: Ex-white rights fan just wants to be a rock star 2001 article from Toronto's Now Magazine.
- I am not my DNA recent interview from Acid Logic.
- Present at the Creation Interview with Burdi by the anti-racist Southern Poverty Law Center.
- Novacosm band website
- IFILM about George Burdi and Novacosm