The Aryan Guard is dead, thanks to two homemade bombs and a group of hateful white people who finally turned on each other.
Two days after police named a founder of the neo-Nazi group as the prime suspect in a weekend pipe-bomb attack, Calgary's Aryan Guard has announced it will disband, via a website statement.
"It's sad to see how a group founded on the hard work and good intentions of so many can be spoiled by the rash actions of so few," reads the statement.
It concludes, "The Aryan Guard is officially disbanded."
And so white power fizzles - or at least the city's largest clique dedicated to blond, blue-eyed superiority has fizzled, leaving former members to scratch their shaved heads and wonder what to do next.
It's a great day for Calgary, watching a small-minded group of hate-mongers collapse into a heap of confusion.
To be one of Calgary's few dozen hardcore neo-Nazis is to be in a state of disarray.
Founding Aryan Guard member Kyle Robert McKee is wanted for attempted murder and building bombs - his 17-year-old accused accomplice is in custody under the same charges, after police nabbed him in Manitoba.
Those who marched together under ‘White Pride' banners had splintered into bickering factions even before McKee and his sidekick allegedly planted the bombs, in an apparent bid to kill two fellow neo-Nazis.
McKee, a 24-year-old originally from Ontario, is accused of placing the bombs on the patio of a woman connected to the Aryan Guard - she claims she was targeted because she spurned the advances of another neo-Nazi, McKee's best friend.
Whether an ideological dispute or an angry Aryan trying to get back at his girlfriend, the pipe bombs shattered what remained of the three-year-old Aryan Guard.
"It's sad to say that in the final months the membership body dissolved, leaving only one founding member, one associate and a few new faces striving for membership in something that they could be proud of," reads the Aryan Guard statement.
And so, Calgary should be jubilant - especially those who turned out by the hundreds to oppose the racism, particularly during the Aryan Guard's annual white-power rally downtown.
Calgary's Anti-Racist Action deserves much of the credit for keeping Calgarians informed about who the guard was, and what they were up to.
ARA founder Jason Devine says he is cautiously celebrating.
"On one hand, I'm very happy, and everyone whose had a hand in exposing them should be proud, us, you in the media, everyone, and today we should celebrate," said Devine.
"But you have to know this isn't over for them - they're still out there, and they're going to try and reconnect and come up with a new group."
In other words, the battle is won, but so long as Swastika-tattooed cretins continue to call Calgary home, the war continues.
At least one fledging group, White European Brotherhood, or WEB, is said to exist in Calgary, made up of disgruntled ex-Aryan Guard members who felt the original group wasn't active enough.
It's possible there will be other groups formed as well - those who worshipped Hitler yesterday revere him today, Aryan Guard or no Aryan Guard.
The pipe bomb detonations over the weekend suggest the kind of activism some neo-Nazis support.
And a recent spate of anti-holocaust messages sprayed near Jewish homes and facilities shows the poisonous message some hope to spread.
And if the white power sect believes in one thing, it's that it's better to hate in numbers, for safety's sake - there are plenty of Calgarians who frown on racism and intolerance, and they know it.
Still, until the swastika and White Pride flag fly again, Calgary can claim a victory over the disease in our midst.
Whether the cancer is eradicated, or just in remission, remains to be seen.
