Jonathan Bowden Explained

Jonathan Bowden
Birth Date:	1962 4, df=y
Birth Place:	Kent, England
Death Place:	Berkshire, England
Alma Mater:	Birkbeck College, University of London (B.A.)

Jonathan David Anthony Bowden (12 April 1962 – 29 March 2012)^[1] was an English far-right activist, orator, and writer. A member of the Conservative Party in the early 1990s, he later became involved in far-right^[2] organisations, including the British National Party (BNP). Bowden has been described as a "cult Internet figure" amongst the far-right movement, even several years after his death.^[3]

Life and career

Early life and education

Bowden was born in Kent, England, and attended Presentation College in Reading, Berkshire.^[4] His mother suffered from severe mental illness, and died when Bowden was 16 years old.

In 1984 he completed one year of a Bachelor of Arts history degree course at Birkbeck College, London University, as a mature student, but left without graduating. He subsequently enrolled at Wolfson College, Cambridge University, in autumn 1988, but left after a few months. He became a personal friend of Bill Hopkins during this time.^[5] Bowden was otherwise largely self-educated.^[6]

Conservative Party

Bowden began his political career as a member of the Conservative Party in the Bethnal Green and Stepney constituency. In 1990, he joined the Conservative Monday Club, and the following year made an unsuccessful bid to be elected onto its Executive Council. In 1991, he was appointed co-chairman with Stuart Millson of the club's media committee,^[7] and was also active in the Western Goals Institute.^[8] In 1992 Bowden was expelled from the Monday Club.^[9]

Revolutionary Conservative Caucus

Bowden and Stuart Millson co-founded the Revolutionary Conservative Caucus in November 1992^[10] with the aim of introducing "abstract thought into the nether reaches of the Conservative and Unionist party".^[8] The group published a quarterly journal entitled The Revolutionary Conservative Review. By the end of 1994, Millson and Bowden parted company and the group dissolved.

In 1993 Bowden published the book Right through the European Books Society. He was also reported to be a prominent figure in the creative milieu responsible for the emergence of Right Now! magazine.^[11]

Freedom Party

Bowden then joined the Freedom Party, for which he was treasurer for a short time,^[12] and subsequently was a member of the Bloomsbury Forum, alongside Adrian Davies.^[13]

British National Party

In 2003 Bowden joined the BNP. He was appointed Cultural Officer, a position that was created by Nick Griffin – the party's leader at the time – to give Bowden an official role. In July 2007 Bowden resigned both his position and his membership after a dispute between him, Griffin, and other individuals within the party. Although he gave speeches throughout England at local meetings for the BNP, he never re-joined the party, and cut all ties after the 2010 general election.^[14]

Many of his speeches were recorded and have been transcribed. Topics of his lectures included philosophers, politicians, and historical literary figures who were prominent in the far-right. In late 2011 and early 2012, Bowden made 14 appearances on Richard B. Spencer's Vanguard podcast.^[14]

New Right

New Right Committee
Formation:	16 January 2005
Website:	new-right.org (archive)
Founders:	Troy Southgate, Jonathan Bowden, and Jonothon Boulter
Status:	defunct

The New Right Committee, or simply "New Right", was a United Kingdom-based pan-European nationalist, far-right think tank founded by Bowden and Troy Southgate. The name was a reference to the French Nouvelle Droite and the group was otherwise unrelated to the wider British and American usage of the term "New Right". It was launched on 16 January 2005 at a meeting in central London.^[15]

In March 2005 the group described itself on its Yahoo! Groups page: "We are opposed to liberalism, democracy and egalitarianism and fight to restore the eternal values and principles that have become submerged beneath the corrosive tsunami of the modern world.^[16]

In June 2005 New Right announced that it would publish New Imperium, a quarterly magazine it described as an "intellectual journal".^[17] Bowden was the organisation's press officer.^[18]

Death

On 29 March 2012, Bowden died of heart failure or a heart attack at his home in Berkshire, 14 days before his 50th birthday. In 2011, he had been released from the psychiatric ward of a hospital, to which he was involuntarily committed earlier that year after suffering a mental breakdown.

Views

Bowden believed that some hierarchies are good for society, that "liberalism is moral syphilis" and that native Europeans are justified in asserting their cultural, ethnic, psychological and spiritual hegemony over Europe.

Bowden expressed pagan religious beliefs.

Bibliography

Works

• Mad (London: Avant-Garde Publishing, 1989); (Nine-Banded Books, 2009)
• Sade (London: Egotist, 1992); (Nine-Banded Books, 2013)
• Aryan (London: Egotist Press, 1992); (Nine-Banded Books, 2020)
• Brute (London: Egotist Press, 1992)
• Skin (London: Egotist Press, 1992)
• Axe (London: Egotist, 1993); (London: The Palingenesis Project, 2014).
• Craze (London: Egotist Press, 1993)
• Right (London: European Books Society 1994); (London: The Palingenesis Project, 2016)
• Collected Works, 6 vols. (London: Avant-guarde, 1995)
• Standardbearers – British Roots of the New Right, edited by Adrian Davies, Eddy Butler & Jonathan Bowden; Beckenham, Kent, 180pps, (April 1999)
• Apocalypse TV (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2007).
• The Art of Jonathan Bowden (1974–2007) (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2007).
• The Fanatical Pursuit of Purity (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2008).
• Al-Qa’eda Moth (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2008).
• Kratos (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2008).
• A Ballet of Wasps (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2008).
• Goodbye Homunculus! (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2009).
• The Art of Jonathan Bowden, Vol. 2 (1968–1974) (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2009).
• Lilith Before Eve (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2009).
• Louisiana Half-Face (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2010).
• The Art of Jonathan Bowden, Vol. 3 (1967–1974) (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2010).
• Our Name Is Legion (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2011).
• Colonel Sodom Goes to Gomorrah (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2011).
• Locusts Devour a Carcass (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2012).
• Spiders Are Not Insects (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2012).
• The Speeches (London: Black Front Press, 2012).
• Pulp Fascism (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2013).
• Western Civilization Bites Back (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2014).
• Demon (London: The Palingenesis Project, 2014).
• Blood (London: The Palingenesis Project, 2016).
• Heat (London: The Palingenesis Project, 2017).
• Deathlock (London: The Palingenesis Project, 2017).
• Extremists: Studies in Metapolitics (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2017).
• Why I Am Not a Liberal (Imperium Press, 2020).
• Reactionary Modernism (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2022).
• The Cultured Thug (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2023).

Filmography

Year	Title	Starring	Credits
2001 (production)2005 (release)	Venus Flytrap	Jonathan Bowden, Lisa Garner, Nicola Henry, Jane Robinson, Katie Willow, Nicole Wiseman and Claudia Minne Boyle	Directed by Andrea LioyProduced by Jonathan Bowden Screenplay by Jonathan Bowden and Andrea Lioy Based upon the short story by Jonathan Bowden
2007 (production/release)	Fenris Devours Odin		Written and narrated by Jonathan Bowden
2006 (production)2009 (release)	Grand Guignol	Jonathan Bowden, Nicola Henry, Katie Willow, Michael Woodbridge and Lucy Zara	Directed by Andrea LioyProduced by Jonathan Bowden Screenplay by Jonathan Bowden and Andrea Lioy Based upon the play by Jonathan Bowden^[19]

External links

• Official website on the Wayback Machine
• The Jonathan Bowden Archive
• BOWDEN! on Spreaker
• Jonathan Bowden Archive on YouTube, featuring all known recordings of Bowden's speeches and lectures

Further reading

• Graham D. Macklin, "Co-opting the counter culture: Troy Southgate and the National Revolutionary Faction", Patterns of Prejudice 39/3 (2005).

Notes and References

1. Web site: Jonathan Bowden 1962-2012 . 25 April 2012 . https://archive.today/20130624224638/http://efp.org.uk/jonathan-bowden-1962-2012/ . 24 June 2013 . dead .
2. Dickson . EJ . So, Uh, Why Is Richard Spencer Still on Twitter? . Rolling Stone . 29 July 2021 . 4 November 2019.
3. Hawley . George . Marcy . Richard T. . Zúquete . José Pedro . 2023-05-31 . Examining the performance and political influence of far right vanguard leaders: the case of Jonathan Bowden . Journal of Political Ideologies . 1–19 . 10.1080/13569317.2023.2219211 . 259036311 . 1356-9317.
4. Web site: Bowden . Jonathan . 23 May 2012 . Credo: A Nietzschean Testament . 2022-08-10 . Counter-Currents.
5. Web site: Bill Hopkins and the Angry Young Men . 6 July 2006 . 23 July 2023 .
6. Clements, Tom (4 September 2019) "I fell down the rabbit hole of alt-right propaganda and this is what I learned" The Independent
7. Monday Club News, July 1991 edition, p.2. – Monday Club Executive Council Minutes, 13 May 1991. This position did not, however, afford Bowden a seat on the Council
8. Web site: Interview with Bowden. https://web.archive.org/web/20090807084040/http://www.jonathanbowden.co.uk/interview.html. dead. 7 August 2009.
9. Sonia Gable and Adam Carter, "New Right chairman dies", Searchlight, 26 April 2012
10. The Revolutionary Conservative, issue no.2, 1993, p.16.
11. Right Now! A Forum for Eugenecists. Searchlight . July 1998 . Institute for the Study of Academic Racism . 22 October 2020 . 28 March 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220328064130/http://www.ferris-pages.org/ISAR/archives2/genewar/ritenow.htm. dead.
12. Web site: Freedom Party News . 30 September 2006 . Freedom Party.
13. Web site: UNITED KINGDOM 2005 . Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism . 17 April 2024 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090221154441/http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2005/uk.htm . 21 February 2009 .
14. George Hawley . Richard T. Marcy . . 2023 . Examining the performance and political influence of far right vanguard leaders: the case of Jonathan Bowden . Journal of Political Ideologies . 10.1080/13569317.2023.2219211.
15. Web site: Fascist meeting in London . Red Action Discussion Forum . https://web.archive.org/web/20110727204747/http://www.redaction.org/forum/printthread.php?s=07a897f0a4065f65647190e89364e43f&threadid=1941&perpage=15&pagenumber=1 . 27 July 2011 . 27 April 2012.
    - Web site: Introduction . New Right . 23 July 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070309170154/http://www.new-right.org/ . 9 March 2007.
16. Web site: Yahoo! Groups : new_right . 14 December 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20050331023829/http://groups.yahoo.com/group/new_right/ . 31 March 2005.
17. Web site: NEW IMPERIUM . Altermedia UK . 14 December 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120722003455/http://uk.altermedia.info/general/new-imperium_177.html . 22 July 2012.
18. Web site: New Right Committee . New Right . 31 July 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070307004034/http://www.new-right.org/?page_id=62 . 7 March 2007.
19. Web site: Films . The Jonathan Bowden Archive.