Conservatives, Neoconservatives, Paleoconservatives: What Next? door Paul Gottfried op V-Dare, april 2007.

Professor Gottfried delivered these remarks at a March 20 conference in honor to mark the publication of Shots Fired, a collection of the writings of the late Sam Francis.

Reviewing my summary for an advertisement of a book on the conservative movement soon to be published by Palgrave-Macmillan, [VDARE.COM note: You can pre-order it here] I was struck by how contemptuously I had described my subject. My work shows how the conservative movement has descended from any semblance of high moral purpose into a mishmash of think-tanks, media outlets and publications, which seem unrelated to anything that is historically recognizable as conservative.
This agglomeration of intersecting, heavily-funded operations was the eventual but not necessarily intended creation of a journalistic clique, one that in the years following World War Two cobbled together a movement that would be called "conservative." This "conservative" creation had then moved leftward; and it made alliances, into which eventually it would be swallowed up, with neoconservative ideologues and Republican operatives.
My book does make distinctions between the postwar conservative movement, which for several decades marched behind National Review, and the neoconservative colonization of the same movement, a process that was well underway by the 1980s. On a wide range of issues, the first was clearly more traditionalist than the second.
Postwar conservatism at least on occasion adhered to William F. Buckley’s stated plan for his new fortnightly in 1955 to stand "athwart history, yelling Stop," In addition to their persistent anti-Communism and their calls for dealing firmly with the Soviets, post-World War II conservatives took emphatically rightwing positions. They were critical of the civil rights movement and its leaders, and they did not welcome the political mobilization of American blacks, which they viewed as a force that would drive the federal and state governments toward the social Left.
These self-described conservatives also expressed some of the same skepticism about the welfare state characteristic of the interwar Right. In the 1950s and 1960s, before their publication began its long journey leftward, they attacked the belief in equality as contrary to both human nature and limited government.
By contrast, neoconservatives celebrate the democratic welfare state. They believe in democratic equality, what they describe as "moderate feminism," and the march of social progress.
They also believe that it is the mission of the American people, indeed its "national purpose" to bring their liberal, secular, and egalitarian values to other societies. Those who resist this vision are not only mean-spirited but are seen as "flirting with fascism."
Since the neocons’ foreign policy focus heavily on the geopolitical interests of the Israeli nationalist Right, those who oppose it, for whatever reason, were lumped together as "anti-Semites." This kind of negative judgment is basic to how neoconservatives view their critics on the Old Right. White Southern traditionalists are dismissed as racists, particularly if they refuse to condemn the Confederacy or fail to appreciate Martin Luther King sufficiently. Up until the mid-eighties when an alliance came about with the ultra-Zionist Religious Right, the leading neoconservative publication Commentary featured articles about how the New Testament had contributed to the Holocaust.
My book draws an extended comparison between today’s "movement conservatives" and those who had once joined the American Communist Party. On the whole, these would-be conservatives seem intellectually and even morally less appetizing than their Communist counterparts.
Unlike contemporary movement conservatives, who parrot party lines without giving much indication of cognitive life and who are ready to turn their backs on those who displeased their neoconservative masters, many old Communists had spent years painfully reconsidering their partisan engagement. They had balked at the about-faces in party policies they had seen take place; and the disenchanted had splintered into sects that exemplified their versions of an uncorrupted Marxism or of a pristine Marxist-Leninism. They also typically did not earn money by working for Communist think-tanks; nor would they have been able to appear on Communist news channels, an option that did not exist at that time. Most of these Commies accepted poverty as the price of their commitment; and those who bought Sunday suits looked far more dignified than the overweight popinjays, those whom Taki calls chicken-hawks smoking their fathers’ cigars, who continue to pop up on TV with disgusting regularity.
Even assuming that these former Communists had lunged rightward, it is unlikely that they would have declared Martin Luther King first, to be a womanizing Communist dupe and then in response to further instruction, have proclaimed him to be the quintessential conservative thinker or even a latter-day Thomas Aquinas.
People who do this are either abysmally stupid or egregiously unprincipled, but many American Communists were neither one nor the other. Communists back then also thought that they were rallying to an oppressed working class that was destined to triumph. Unlike our postwar conservative movement, they imagined that they spoke for a class that was the instrument of revolutionary change.
In contrast, today’s movement conservatives base their claim to lead on being Republican Party shills and on being able to offer constantly updated packages of "values," e.g. democracy for everyone, or some ready-to-wear human rights imperatives.
This claim to be for "values," which originated among postwar conservatives, has taken the place of standing for real historical groups, that is, for groups that a genuine Right might be interested in championing. Indeed it was the destiny of postwar conservatism to have supplanted such a Right, which had once prevailed among opponents of the New Deal and Wilsonian internationalism.
But the postwar movement had something supposedly better: anti-Communism, which it combined with windy affirmations about being for the "West." The long-term result was a situation in which the "values" that defined the movement moved steadily leftward. And this went on in accordance with, among other things, the building of useful friendships with media potentates and a vigilant eye toward jobs, salaries, and social acceptability.
The assertions by Ramesh Ponnuru, Jonah Goldberg and other Solomonic intelligences, that conservatism is not about one’s "nation" or "tribe" but about human rights, underscores the drifting and shifting of their employer, National Review. What is described as conservatism is precisely its opposite: namely, an unmistakably leftist posture invoking universal equality and competing with the political Left for who is further to the left ideologically.
The role of this postwar conservative flagship publication as a willing advocate of neoconservative politics speaks volumes about whither the movement has gone.
It also tells much, or so I would contend, about the shifting sands on which the movement was founded. It first usurped an older Right, which was built on the loyalties of a mostly small-town, Protestant America, and its choice of New York and later, Washington as the focal points for conservative activities was indicative of the alliances that this movement would build for itself.
Postwar conservatives then caved in during the 1980s, before a swaggering neocon occupation force; and this affected the entire movement, save for a principled remnant, part of which is still present in this room. Further, the aforesaid cave-in was truly massive—and, unlike what I suggest in the first edition of The Conservative Movement it involved a wholesale flight into the neoconservative camp.
At the time I could not believe what was taking place. It still staggers the mind that a relatively small sociological group, New York liberal Democrats who had come out of an Eastern European Jewish radical tradition and who carried all kinds of cultural baggage, would walk in and occupy the largely Christian, anti-New Deal Right. They would not only occupy but purge and reconstruct it, and the new masters of the house would be able to count on those who were there to do their bidding.
Note that the representation of this process, as the building of bridges, entirely belies what transpired. What I witnessed was a cave-in—and not the integration of marginal groups into a rightwing mainstream.
While it may be hard in this case to tell the chicken from the egg, the conspicuous ease with which the neocons took over may have enhanced their effectiveness as fundraisers. This seems as plausible as the alternate hypothesis, namely, that everyone and his cousin kissed up to them because they came with deep pockets. Those pockets could have been rendered deeper by the friendly neocon takeover of the conservative movement and its considerable assets, a fiefdom that fell into neoconservative hands or under neoconservative control in only a period of several years.
At this point I would note a distinction borrowed from my longtime friend Sam Francis, which I have subsequently tried to develop. It is between conservatism, which is an archaic and by now spent force belonging to the nineteenth century, and the Right, which is the home of everyone in this room.
Unlike conservatism, the Right is a continuing, creative reaction to the Left, a defiant response from an already weakened Christian bourgeois society that is in the process of being liquidated.
Sam was also on to something when he insisted that any attempt to combat the multicultural Left must begin as an explicitly reactionary endeavor. The Right, properly understood, does not seek to be the true interpreters of leftist shibboleths, in the manner of global egalitarians who are quibbling about some aspect of affirmative action or like those who are sympathetic to gay marriage but who want to introduce it slowly. Rightists oppose the Left as the source of social and moral confusion, and they seek to neutralize those political institutions that serve its purposes.
In The Conservative Movement, I labeled this tendency “paleoconservatism”. Because opposing the Left is not what the misnamed “conservative movement” has been doing, or what its would-be presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani would likely do, if the neocons and their hirelings manage to get him elected.
One noteworthy reason that the neoconservatives have ascended to power, a situation that even their incitement of an ill-fated foreign war cannot do much to weaken, is their association with the postwar conservative movement. Their success in occupying its heights has provided them with undeniable cachet. They have become the successors to the project which Bill Buckley had launched in the 1950s and had then handed over to his badly-chosen New York friends. Despite their scornful comments about the anti-Semitic, racist rightwing fanatics who had shaped that movement before they came on the scene, once the mass defection occurred, the neocons could point to their succession to conservative leadership.
They have prevailed, moreover, with loads of assistance from the liberal establishment. Whenever the neocons go after someone on the right as an "extremist," the New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, and other likeminded publications jump and fetch. The attack must be true since presumably it came from serious sources on the serious Right. Those who disagree with the neocons from the right, we are urged to believe, are not to be taken seriously, except as cranks whom responsible conservatives have had to marginalize.
In 2005, when William Buckley attained his eightieth year, leftist journalists, led by E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, slobbered all over him for having saved us from the "wing nuts." Dionne confessed to having had a longtime, presumably metaphorical, "illicit love" for Buckley, for having toned down a movement once animated by prejudice. [Buckley: The Right's Practical Intellectual by E. J. Dionne Jr. Tuesday, October 11, 2005; Page A17]
Such an effusion of gratitude goes back at least as far as a column published by Suzanne Garment in October, 1985 in Wall Street Journal, hailing Buckley as a champion against nativism and anti-Semitism. Although "you can still hear an echo of the Right’s more distasteful origins" in the pages of National Review, said Garment, Buckley and his successors had "pried conservatism loose from the fingers of its more demented followers." [There's Nothing Like a Libel Trial For an Education, By Suzanne Garment; The Wall Street Journal; Oct 11, 1985]
Please note Ms. Garment’s lingering concern about the rightwing extremism in a magazine that even then was in the hands of neoconservatives and of those who kowtowed to them. I suppose that one can’t be energetic enough about resisting rightwing bigotry.
This brings me to the most controversial part of my analysis of the neoconservatives’ empire, the role that the media establishment has played in promoting this expansionary endeavor. It is not by accident that left-of-center national newspapers feature neoconservative columnists or that TV channels present pasty-faced, neocon popinjays as esteemed analysts of current events. It is also far from a random occurrence that neocon TV and neocon publications and institutions readily invite liberals to jabber with them but keep us at a distance.
Everyone here might have perceived, just as I have, the refusal of the media Left to reach out to the antiwar Right, despite the fact that the Left claims to be ardently against the invasion of Iraq. One could not have guessed from either the NYT and WP or network TV that a large chunk of the Old Right was opposing the military engagement as vehemently as was the Left. One needed to be truly obtuse to miss this fact, given the ferocious rightist opposition that could be found in widely-visited websites and in widely distributed publications. But this was not the kind of fact that the Left wanted to publicize, not even after NR devoted a cover story to "Unpatriotic Conservatives."
The point to be made is that the neocons and the liberal establishment both wish to keep our side from entering the political discussion. And until now they have managed this well. The question is whether we can come up with a plan to break the cordon sanitaire; and if we can, what can be done.
The first thing to be done is to abandon the silly idea that we have pals on the left, who would embrace our side, if only they knew how we feel. For those who continue to nurture this infantile illusion, let me assure them the Left knows exactly what we’re about and they are delighted to talk to the neocons and to keep us off the radar. The Left can easily come to terms with the neocons on most social issues, as long as the neocons are permitted to push their global democratic mission.
In fact the liberals and the Left should adore the neocons if only for how thoroughly they have cannibalized our side. That could not possibly displease our leftist adversaries.
Why would the NYT’s editorial board feel anger that the neocons prevented old-time Southern states rightist, M.E. Bradford, from becoming Director of the NEH in 1981?
And why would the Left feel uncomfortable that Commentary rages against Pat Buchanan and Joe Sobran as “anti-Semites”. It engages in exactly the same smears itself.
As painful as the idea might seem to some, the left-of-center media community is overjoyed with their talking partners. And they’re not likely to exchange them for us, because of the relatively trivial fact that the neocons have pushed W into starting a Near Eastern war.
Imagine how great our pleasure would be if we were able to select our talking partners on the left! Wouldn’t that be preferable to having to face such opponents as raging feminists, inflamed advocates for Mexican illegals and hypersensitive gays?
The second proposal is that we start looking for megabucks and if we find them, we should buy our own newspapers and TV channels. But even if we achieve both goals, we should count on hostile name-calling from the other side. Neocons and liberals would work nonstop to keep us from crashing their party. They would do exactly to us what the conventional leftist and the leftist-by-another name parties have done in Belgium and France to such rightwing populists as the Vlaams Belang and Front National. They would scream we are fascists, and they would forbid their multitudinous dependents from associating with us. Nothing would change in this relation, even if we had the means for acquiring and running TV channels and newspapers.
Contrary to Irving Kristol’s empty boast in The Neoconservative Persuasion, Europe does not lack this “new kind of conservative politics”, which it would do well to adopt. Rather we and the Europeans have taken over the same faux conservatism, whose objective function is to make sure that a real Right never gets to challenge the current PC hegemony.
Our neoconservatives and Republicans at home, and the leftward-moving center-right in Western Europe, perform this critical role by waging mortal combat against our side and by embracing the Left’s social positions while pretending to have to yield to the inevitable on social and immigration questions.
Actually it is not the Europeans but we who must learn from our transatlantic counterparts. Rather than trying to connect to movements which treat us as non-persons, we must strive to mobilize our own structures and resources. This meeting today may be seen in the context of this renewal but obviously a lot more must be done to give us a chance to break through the wall of silence and the social ostracism that the two intertwined Lefts have used against us.
Like European rightwing populist movements, we must present ourselves not as the other conservatism but as the only residual opposition to the Left.
Note that the Front National and Vlaams Belang do not pretend to be part of the system that their adamant opposition has forged. They continue to insist that they stand outside of the "bande des partis" the "party gang" that has corrupted their country or region by encouraging multicultural invasions and radical cultural reconstruction.
This is the adversarial position that we too must take in our war against the combined forces of the Left. It naturally goes without saying that absent the necessary resources for crashing the political discussion, we shall not be able to succeed.
But not being captive to despair, I believe that in a country with the wealth of our own, it is still possible to open this desperately-needed front. And it is still possible to draw political personalities, who lean in our direction, into alliances. Such personalities can act as spoilers, particularly in the Republican Party, by making sure that candidates who take neoconservative phrases too seriously lose elections.
If we alone cannot build a party organization that will be in a position to win electoral races, particularly in view of accelerating, politically-abetted Third World immigration, we might still work to retard the further march of the Stupid Party leftward.
Even better, we might contribute to planting the seeds that could eventually lead to a party of the Right. Although unlike the Europeans, we cannot take advantage of a pluralistic system, in which an unmistakably rightist party can find parliamentary representation, we can still aim at putting pressure on the national parties.
For those who call for the decentralization of power, national borders that have ceased to be porous, and a true counterforce to the multicultural Left, their course of action must be directed toward the future. And this means an avoidance of the impulse to look back at now broken friendships.
Pace my delusional acquaintances, the Heritage Foundation and National Review are not panting to have us back. It is undignified as well as futile to nurse the hope that we can patch up our dispute, perhaps if we hire a conflict-resolution expert.
We must erect our own opposition, and this daunting task will have to be approached from outside of a closed establishment.
And as a very first step, we would do well to discard encumbering allegiances to a movement in which some of you grew up, but one that deserves to be consigned to the dustbin.
Its rushing into the arms of bizarre leftist invaders suggests its deplorably weak convictions. Its recent examples of timidity, venality, and the abandonment of traditionalist principle stand before us as something we should never in any circumstances allow ourselves to follow.

Bron: V-Dare

France: Nationalists Have Won the Battle of Ideas door Michael O’Meara op Vanguard News Network, 17 april 2007.

After years of economic stagnation, labor unrest, and
increased international marginalization, French elites
had hoped the presidential campaign of 2007 would help
re-educate and thus help prepare the French for the
economic reforms needed to complete their country’s
transition to globalization. Instead, the campaign
has turned into a red, white, and blue debate on
national identity. All the leading candidates are
presenting themselves as critics of the established
System, highlighting their commitment to the national
heritage and their opposition to globalism’s
ultra-liberal assault on national institutions. As
one nationalist puts it: “Our ideas are everywhere.
Every candidate criticizes Europe, every candidate
talks about immigration and law and order, every
candidate suddenly sings ‘La Marseillaise’.” Jean
Marie le Pen claims that “all the candidates are
running after me.”

1. The “Lepénisation” of the Presidential Campaign
Though Nicolas Sarkozy of the “Cohnservative” UMP,
Ségolène Royal of the socialist PS, and François
Bayrou of the centrist UDF have taken up themes
borrowed from Le Pen’s National Front and now pay
lip-service to nationalism’s anti-globalist agenda,
they remain creatures of Parisian financial-media
interests, having spent their entire lives serving the
Judeo-liberal System that seeks the nation’s
destruction. That they have re-packaged themselves as
outsiders solicitous of native French concern and done
so in Le Pen’s populist anti-System rhetoric — what
the mainstream media (MSM) refers to as the
“lepénisation des esprits” — says, of course, less
about their conversion to the nationalist cause than
it does about the current malaise and what it takes in
this period to win the electorate.

Thus it is that Royal, who began the campaign as a
Blair-style modernizer, has recently taken to wrapping
herself in the tricolor, offering a more palpable
version of Sarkozy’s neocon nationalism, with its
counterfeit recuperation of Le Pen’s ideas, while
Bayrou talks of rejecting the “party pigsty” of
right-left divisions for the sake of national unity.
Issues relating to patriotism, national identity,
sovereignty, and other themes which globalists and
Eurocrats not so long ago relegated to the garbage
heap of history have also become major speaking points
in their campaigns. More shamelessly, each candidate,
after having prominently supported the EU Constitution
which went down to a stunning defeat in the referendum
of 2005 now pays homage to the “no” vote, promising
(with crossed fingers) to uphold it against German
efforts to surreptitiously impose it.

The campaign’s nationalist turn not only bucks current
European and North American trends, it reverses
decades of established politicking. Since the
National Front’s founding in 1972, Le Pen has been the
“Bête Immonde,” the filthy beast, of the political
class that has spawned Sarkozy, Royal, and Bayrou.
That this class’s unscrupulous representatives –
after ruining and plundering the French — now
addresses nationalist issues associated with the
National Front and opportunistically renounces much of
what they previously stood for, twisting and turning
their convictions for the sake of electoral advantage,
testifies to the fact that Le Pen’s nationalist ideas
speak, as no others do, to the burning questions of
the age, having been borne out by the course of
events.

If polls are any guide, two-thirds of all Frenchmen
identify globalization with outsourcing and job loss
– and thus with economic decline and popular misery.
With the acceleration of Europeanization, following
the signing of several treaties that augmented the
EU’s powers in the period immediately following the
Cold War’s end, France began restructuring her
economy. For the majority of the white population,
this has meant escalating unemployment rates,
pervasive job insecurity, a lowering of living
standards, and a feeling that it has been abandoned by
its elites. Whole sectors of the economy have, in
fact, been dismantled or abandoned. Unemployment is
officially at 10 percent (though actually higher) and
14 million workers are classified as impoverished,
while more than a million of the country’s recent
university graduates have emigrated to Britain,
Ireland, and Germany. At the same time, the state has
buried itself under a 2.5 trillion euro debt
(proportionally equivalent to the astronomical debt
accumulated by the Likudists in the White House) and
done nothing to extricate itself from its failed
policies. The social-economic devastation this has
wrought, combined with corruption and scandal at the
highest reaches of the state, has set off a general
anti-System revulsion in broad layers of the
population.

This revulsion comes, though, not just in reaction to
the System’s depressing social-economic effects, but
even more from the rising tide of color that is
sweeping through the European heartland. In a country
which criminalizes such thought, the degree of this
revulsion is reflected in the fact that a majority of
the population now views immigration as an unmitigated
disaster, a third openly labels itself “racist,” and
an equal number no longer sees the National Front as a
party of “extremists.” Le Pen argues that the
System’s loss of legitimacy is such that it has
shifted all responsibility to the EU — for the EU can
do whatever it wants without electoral consultation.

In promoting the mass population transfers of the last
thirty-five years, the System’s “ideology of
consummate meaningless” (that is, its Judeo-liberal
dismissal of the meaning inherent in Europe’s
genetic-spiritual heritage) has waged an unrelenting
war on the national aspect of the nation-state it
governs. In this spirit, the economic, media, and
bureaucratic elites the System serves (and are served
by) endeavor to demote everything native to the French
people, repress all perceived expressions of racism
(unless it’s anti-white racism), criminalize deviant
thought, encourage the emasculating forces of feminism
and homosexuality, establish preferences for
non-natives, leave the nation’s borders undefended,
and refuse to tame the violent, crime-ridden
communities of non-whites squatting outside France’s
ancient cities.

The consequence of all this is intruding more and more
into popular life, helping reshape political
sensibilities. The authorities have accordingly been
especially anxious to keep the lid on ethnic violence
(Le Figaro, 3-23), which is the nationalists’ greatest
recruiter. But the collective thuggery of France’s
Negro-Arab population refuses to subside. The recent
race riot at the Gare du Nord on March 27 — a riot in
which a black-brown horde rampaged through a key
transportation hub because one of its own was
apprehended for not paying his fare — again reminded
French France of the darkness into which it is
descending.

In itself there was nothing unusual about this latest
riot, except that it happened in the center of Paris,
was caught on camera, and broadcast on TV. In the
immigrant suburbs of metropolitan France, the
conquered territories, where the “Albanians” of
France’s Kosovo have settled, such violence is endemic
– though police and state officials there rarely
apply the same standard the native French are obliged
to uphold.

The petits blancs caught up in the nihilistic rampage
at the Gare du Nord, and those who later saw it on TV,
witnessed something they would probably have preferred
to not to have seen — something suggesting that they
were not only loosing their country (which, after all,
is an abstraction of sorts), but loosing the prospect
of living out their lives in the safe, trusting
environment native to peoples of European descent.

This riot, though, did more than revive the themes of
insecurity and immigration which Le Pen has worked for
decades, it intensified the resentment that comes with
the increasingly irrefutable recognition that the
newcomers have not just invaded their public spaces
and made them unsafe and inhospitable — but that they
are now openly asserting their domination over the
petits blancs powerless to resist them.

This has long been the case in the conquered
territories, where a simple identity check or a
transportation control has the potential to set off
violent clashes. The colored hordes of the great
housing estates, the “cités,” have, in fact, made it
virtually impossible for the state to apply its law in
them. Since January 2007 there have been at least
1,400 organized attacks on the police by the ethnic
gangs controlling the cités. One police union likens
the situation to the West Bank Intifada and has
requested armored cars to patrol the estates. The
rate of these attacks continues to increase in
frequency and in violence, often taking the form of
armed ambushes on police or emergency workers entering
the cités. Such incidents, in another sign of the
times, are generally treated as un-newsworthy, given
the MSM’s unwillingness to bring grist to the
nationalists’ mill.

The petits blancs — white workers, small shopkeepers,
retirees — who are on the frontlines of multicultural
France are consequently becoming more and more
alienated from the reigning powers. And this
alienation threatens to take political form. Even the
mainstream media grudgingly acknowledges its depth.
A recent story in Le Monde (4-4), for example, reports
that the white inhabitants of Creil, a small town 30
miles north of Paris, now live as if they are under
constant siege by the Maghrebians and Sub-Saharan
Africans housed in the nearby cités. Many complain
that they can’t even take public transport without
fear of being assaulted. Every public experience thus
poses a threat to their safety. Relatedly, few of
these petits blancs have any respect for the leading
presidential candidates, realizing as they do that the
System these candidates represent has reduced the
native French to pariahs in their own land. But in
addition to the pervasive threat of violence, the
petits blancs are daily humiliated, forced to bow
their heads and change their behavior at the approach
of the black-brown gangs in baggy pants and hooded
sweatshirts, who swagger down French streets as if
they own them. The System in their view indulges the
“poor immigrant,” utterly indifferent to their own
plight. Le Pen, Le Monde alarmingly notes, is the
receptacle of their resentment.

The electoral weight of white alienation has yet to be
measured at the polls, but it’s already making itself
felt in the nationalist ideas dominating the
presidential campaign. The System is obviously
worried. For as Marine Le Pen says, “The ideological
victory always precedes the political victory.”

2. The Lepénisation of the Nationalist Movement
The prominent nationalist Bruno Mégret argues that
three conditions are necessary for a political
upheaval favorable to the nationalist cause: 1) the
general situation in the country has to be critical,
2) the political class has to be impotent,
incompetent, and divided, and 3) nationalist ideas
have to achieve currency in response to the crisis.

To one degree or another, all three conditions now
exist in France.

Le Pen’s growing support in the polls, especially in
the popular milieu, has to be seen, though, from two
perspectives. At the mass level of the electorate,
where image prevails, voters are attracted to the
National Front as an anti-System party that resists
invaders. However, at the militant level, where
program, action, and analysis count, there is in
nationalist ranks a spreading discontent with Le Pen.

Le Pen, in other words, is gaining at the mass level,
but retreating on the second. Indeed, the political
propitiousness of the current situation comes at a
very unpropitious time in the history of the National
Front. For nationalists may have won the battle of
ideas, but they now risk losing their movement.

On numerous occasions (at this site and elsewhere), I
have emphasized not only what is remarkable about the
National Front, but what’s unacceptable from a
(racial) nationalist perspective. Given that
practical politics follows a logic different than that
of political theory, my tendency has been to emphasize
the positive — except in cases when the negative
betrays the movement’s core principles. The National
Front, I believe, is rapidly approaching this
unacceptable point.

Unlike the largely computer-generated “movement” in
the United States, France’s nationalist movement has a
long history, with several tens of thousands of
militants, fifteen distinct political parties, and
hundreds of associations and networks. Indeed, the
very diversity of the movement poses many of its most
intractable problems. This is especially problematic
given that the French are a highly individualistic
people (Spengler uses the term “anarchistic”)
resistant to collective organization.

Historically, one of the National Front’s most
remarkable achievements was its earlier success in
keeping revolutionary nationalists, Catholic
traditionalists, racial identitarians, national
libertarians, regionalists, neo-fascists, and others
within a single political formation. Combined with Le
Pen’s charisma and the successful social-populist
strategy of the party’s greatest organizer,
Jean-Pierre Stirbois, this broad front of diverse
nationalist tendencies imbued the party with an
exceptional reach. It also imbued it with a
propensity for scission.

The worse of these occurred in 1998 (a decade after
Stirbois’ mysterious death), when a large part of the
party, discontent with Le Pen’s autocratic management
style and his strategic failings, split to form the
Mouvement National Républicain of Bruno Mégret. In
many respects the NF has never recovered from this
split, which saw the loss of 60 percent of its
membership, 70 percent of its cadre, 60 percent of its
elected officials, and two of its four municipalities.
As a result, it is no longer a mass organization of
militants.

Marine Le Pen has since entered the story. Le Pen’s
youngest daughter was trained as a lawyer, but for
most of her twenties (she’s now 39) she was less known
for her contributions to the nationalist cause than
for her night clubbing and her defense of illegal
immigrants. Then, in late 2003, in a blatant act of
nepotism, Le Pen appointed her to several prominent
party positions. She has subsequently become a NF
member of the European Parliament, a party
vice-president, personal adviser to her father, and
his campaign director — with all the amenities,
perks, and power that comes with such positions. In
effect, she’s being groomed to succeed her father.

Given that the children of great men rarely inherit
their father’s genius, Marine’s performance in her
entrusted roles has been something of a
disappointment, even though the old man, the “Menhir”
as he is called, continues to promote her as his
successor. Worse, Marine views the National Front in
ways that are not only unlike that of the movement’s
old guard, but unlike that of her father.

Le Pen is essentially an old-fashioned nationalist,
whose 19th-century references are remote to those of
racial nationalists. Historic nationalism and white
nationalism are nevertheless kindred movements,
sharing many of the same concerns. His career as the
foremost champion of the nationalist cause in postwar
Europe has thus been one that has attracted much
sympathy from white nationalist ranks — in France and
worldwide.

Le Pen, moreover, is a remarkable individual. He rose
from humble beginnings to become a larger than life
public figure. He possesses great physical and moral
courage in a world alien to these ancient Aryan
traits. He’s a charismatic personality, the greatest
French orator since Degrelle, and arguably the
greatest European nationalist of the last half
century.

Whatever his political failings, it’s impossible not
to admire this man who has repeatedly and publicly
belittled the mightiest of the System’s scoundrels;
who has described the alleged “gas chambers” as “a
detail in the history of the Second World War” and the
German occupation of Vichy France as “relatively
benign;” who alone among European politicians opposed
both the First and Second American Wars on Iraq; who
once advocated quarantining HIV carriers; who called
Jacques Chirac, the president, a hireling of the Jews;
who leans toward Russia, favoring a “Europe of
nations” stretching from Brest to Vladivostok; who
resists the one-worldism of American elites and the
Atlantism of the European ruling class; and who has no
hesitation pointing out that Sarkozy, the son of a
French Jewess and a Hungarian father, is not really
French.

By contrast, Marine Le Pen did not grow up in a poor
Breton fishing village, where house floors were made
of dirt and there was no indoor plumbing or
electricity. She is the daughter of a famous public
figure bequeathed a fortune. As a consequence, her
social references are more those of High Society than
of the pre-Semitized people who were her father’s role
models. She may therefore share many of her father’s
criticisms of the System, but to her it’s still not
the alien imposition that Le Pen instinctively feels
it to be.

Like Nick Griffin of the British National Party and
Gianfranco Fini of the Alleanza Nazionale, Marine also
realizes that the established parties have so
discredited themselves that a “modernized” National
Front — minus its “racist, xenophobic, and
anti-Semitic” trappings and minus its ideological
debts to the revolutionary nationalism of the interwar
years — has a real possibility of becoming a
governing party (nevermind that these trappings are a
large part of what has made the NF a nationalist
party). In this spirit, she’s shown a greater
interest in achieving power within the System than of
destroying it.

Under her direction, the National Front has gotten a
major face-lift, which, admittedly, has not been
entirely negative. For instance, she’s done a good
deal to transform the NF’s image from that of a mere
protest party into that of a governing party. In this
spirit, early in the campaign, she had her father
deliver a comprehensive series of policy talks that
outlined the party’s position on the various issue
likely to face a prospective Le Pen government,
thereby enhancing the party’s standing as a viable
alternative to the established parties. She also
altered the Menhir’s style, curbing his propensity for
improvised street-fighting rhetoric and substituting
the measured prose of the prepared public statement.

As a consequence of her various softening activities,
Le Pen has gained unprecedented access to TV and the
print media — and thus to the electorate. Although
now 78, with his powers beginning to fail, his
grandfatherly appearance on the electronic jew has had
a reassuring effect on voters, just as his obvious
superiority (in intellect, language, and character)
over all the other candidates has mollified the sting
of his numerous detractors. All this has made it
increasingly difficult for the System to marginalize
his candidacy.

Marine’s innovations, however, have come at the cost
of diminishing (perhaps abandoning) the NF’s
nationalism. Let me mention just two of the most
important areas of changes. The first relates to the
burning question of our age: Race. For the left, Le
Pen is “le vieux facho.” Its mantra is: “‘N’ as in
‘Nazi’, ‘F’ as in ‘Fascist’.” In the MSM’s less
politicized discourse, he’s a “racist, a xenophobe,
and an anti-Semite.” In actuality, though, he’s
neither a fascist, a racist, a xenophobe, nor an
anti-Semite — but simply, as said above, an
old-fashion nationalist. A major part of Marine’s
effort to modernize the party has thus aimed at
dissociating it from its image as an explicitly
racial-national formation, putting greater emphasis on
the social-economic implications of its anti-globalist
critique and less on its core national values.

This effort got underway last September at Valmy, when
Le Pen formally announced his candidacy. A
much-discussed section of his Valmy discourse focused
on “French people of foreign origin” — i.e., on
non-whites. True to the spirit of Marine’s
modernization, the Valmy discourse proposed a creedal
notion of the nation in which colored immigrants
willing to learn French and adopt French ways (that
is, willing to assimilate) would be considered
“French.”

Though the NF has always been reluctant to define the
nation in specifically racial terms, the party’s
thirty-five year opposition to Third World immigration
and its insistence on “national preference” (whereby
native French are given priority in employment,
housing, and social services) usually implied an
ethnic-racial definition. But now, in step with his
daughter’s modernization, Le Pen (who was once fined
10,000 francs for acknowledging “the inequality of
human races”) leans backward to prove that he’s not a
racist and that his vision of the nation welcomes the
black-brown hordes legally residing in the European
heartland.

Just last week Le Pen made an unannounced visit to the
Paris banlieue — the “abandoned territories” — where
the racial skirmishes of November 2005 originated. In
an obvious appeal to the immigrant vote and in direct
opposition to everything the NF historically
represented, he characterized the black and beur
(Arab) youth of the cités (who white nationalists, if
ever they were to achieve power, would immediately
ship back to their godforsaken homelands) as “part of
the nation” — a part which a NF government would help
assimilate — making no mention of the destructive
impact they have had on French life or the fact that
they are responsible for making the banlieues the
dangerous, wretched places they’ve become. He also
had not a word to say about the banlieue’s
Islamization, which is making large parts of France
more like the Middle East than Europe.

Though Le Pen continues to criticize the System’s
failings and its criminal immigration policies, the
assimilationist, anti-racist principles of Marine’s
modernization have had the cumulative effect of
repudiating the ethno-racial concept of the nation,
redefining it in terms compatible with the creedal
conception of liberals, Jews, and other race-mixers.
In this spirit, Le Pen joins our enemies in denouncing
identitarians as “racist extremist;” he’s taken to
cavorting with black and beur celebrities willing to
indulge his Jacobin fantasies; he talks of zero
immigration but neglects all mention of repatriation;
he concentrates his attacks on the System’s social and
economic failings, while ignoring Islam and the
civilizational clash presently dividing French
society; finally he’s refused to rally what Saint-Loup
called “le patrie charnelle” — the nation that lives
in the blood and breathe of its people and is the
heart of every true nationalism.

But there’s another, equally disputable aspect to
Marine’s modernization. Prior to the devastating
split of 1998, the National Front was still largely a
party of militants — not simply an electoral
connivance. Under Marine this too is changing.
Instead of using the presidential campaign to rebuild
the party she’s opted for a strategy centered almost
exclusively on the System’s media. This, of course,
has given Le Pen greater access, but at the cost of
suffocating the life of the nationalist movement. At
the same, the party’s veteran leaders have been
marginalized, as Marine and her creatures monopolize
almost all the party’s public functions, hoping thus
to ensure her succession to the party’s presidency
after the election. There have also been no mass
demonstrations, no street mobilizations, and no effort
to circumvent the System’s established media. Most
grievous of all, Marine and her modernizers have
refused to form a united front with other nationalists
and thus to use the campaign to rally them in a
movement that will survive the election. In fact,
she’s done a great deal to scatter and disperse the
nationalist movement.

3. The Movement Is Everything
The polls presently put Le Pen fourth in the campaign,
anywhere from 4 to 14 percentage points behind the
leading candidates. But the polls (whose veracity is
widely disputed) are almost certainly wrong — as they
have been in pass campaigns. Moreover, a large part
of the electorate, more than 40 percent, is still
undecided. The French remain highly skeptical about
almost all the candidates, though the election is
being closing followed, political programming has
drawn record TV audiences, and voter registration is
up 50 percent over 2002. Anything is possible on
April 22.

Yet even if the impossible should occur and the NF
wins, it’s doubtful if it would be allowed to take
power — for the postwar System has no intention of
re-enacting Weimar’s fate.

That said: The presidential election is still
important as a national forum to define and articulate
who we are and why it is important to defend our
unique genetic-spiritual heritage.

Elections, in other words, may be charades, but
they’re also ideal organizing opportunities –
opportunities which make it possible to awaken in a
people the political or ideological consciousness of
what it means to be a nation.

The overriding imperative for white survival in this
highly politicized and volatile period is thus to
prepare the nationalist movement to become a
counter-hegemony, in the Gramscian sense — to become
that conscious agent ready to rise from the ashes of
the present System, once the convergence of its
cascading catastrophes comes to a point and it
collapses of its own internal failings.

It is in not meeting the great rendezvous that the
presidential election was to be that the Le Pen
campaign has most failed us. For at a time when
nationalist ideas dominate the political debate and
increased numbers of Frenchmen are uncertain of what
lies ahead and are looking for leaders, it has
neglected the nationalist opposition, failing to
consolidate and energize it as a movement.

The big question now is not about who will win the
election: Le Pen might possibly come in first on the
first round of the balloting (no one can predict at
this point), but he hasn’t a prayer on the decisive
second round (where he’ll have to garner 50+ percent
of the vote). The big question for all who struggle
in defense of the white race is thus not the question
of who will win the presidency, but of who will win
the movement — for it alone can lead us to power.

Guillaume Faye Speaks in Moscow, The Civic Platform.com

Translator’s note: The following talk was given in Moscow on May 17, 2005 and recently posted, in French, on the Russian site Athenaeum.

For at least three reasons, I think it deserves the widest possible
circulation in White Nationalist circles. The first is one which
more and more English speaking nationalists are beginning to
realize: Guillaume Faye is today the most interesting, if not
pertinent spokesman for the genetic-cultural heritage associated
with the White Resistance. All that he says or writes on the subject
of who we are, what we are fighting for, and where the main battle
fronts will lie are worth thinking about. In France, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and now Russia, his ideas have
touched the leading debates (even, in some cases, descending to ad
hominem issues, which seem the least important of our concerns).

The second reason this article deserves attention is metapolitical.
Faye is a veteran of the first major effort to practice a “Gramscian
of the Right” — that is, to wage a cultural war against the
ethnocidal principles of the dominant liberal culture. Not
unrelatedly, he stands out among anti-liberal nationalists, creative
force that he is, in having developed a language and a discourse
that reaches beyond the narrow confines of our movement, yet at the
same time serves as a radical alternative to the anti-White language
and discourse of the existing System.

The third reason is that this talk is a succinct and eloquent
synthesis of the ideas — the vision — Faye has developed in the
seven books (and countless articles) he’s produced in the eight
years since the appearance of his path breaking “L’Archéofuturisme”
(1998). However provisionally sketched, these ideas aim at helping
us through what promises to be the worst storm of our collective
existence. At the same time, these ideas speak to something more
primordial. As an earlier student of our historical destiny
writes: “All that is great stands in the storm” (Plato). What is
coming will undoubtedly determine if we have any greatness left in
us. The Whitemen of the West, the men of the Evening Lands
(Abandländer) , having gone under before, have, though, a long
history of recognizing that it is only in resolutely opening
themselves to the dangers bearing down on them that they stand a
chance of weathering them and, in doing so, of rediscovering what is
still great within themselves. Faye, I believe, is one of the seers
calling us to return to ourselves and to the greatness inherent in
who we are. — Michael O’Meara

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* *****

Not since the fall of the Roman Empire has Europe experienced such a
dramatic situation. It faces a danger unparalleled in its history
and doesn’t even know it — or rather refuses to see it.

It’s been invaded, occupied, and colonized by peoples from the South
and by Islam. It’s dominated by the United States, which wages a
merciless economic war on it. It’s collapsing demographically, as
its population ages and it ceases to reproduce itself. It’s been
emasculated by decadent, nihilist ideologies cloaked in a facile
optimism, and it’s been subjected to an unprecedented regression of
culture and education, to primitivism and materialism. Europe is the
sick man of the world. And its political classes, along with its
intellectual elites, are actively collaborating in this race
suicide.

The argument I’m making is not, though, just about immigration, but
also about a colonization and an invasion that is transforming
Europe’s biological and ethno-cultural stock; it’s about not giving
way to despair; about seeing that the struggle is only just
beginning; and knowing that the closely related peoples of Europe
have no alternative but to unite in their common defense.

THE DESTRUCTION OF EUROPE’S ETHNO-BIOLOGICAL STOCK

The demographics of the non-White invasion of France and Europe is
terrifying. In a recent work, “France africaine” (African France), a
well known demographer predicts that if present trends continue,
more than 40 percent of the French population will be Black or Arab
by 2040. Twenty-five percent of school children in France and
Belgium today and more than 30 percent of infants are already of non-
European origin. Of France’s present population of 61 million, more
than 10 million are non-European and have a far higher birth rate
than Whites. Every year 100,000 non-Europeans are naturalized as
French citizens and another 300,000, most illegal, cross our
undefended borders. The situation is not much different in the rest
of Europe and signals the virtual end of our civilization, though
the political classes have apparently yet to notice it.

Worldwide, including the United States, the White race is in steep
numerical decline. It’s often said that our technological
superiority will compensate for this disparity, but I don’t think
so: The only meaningful forms of wealth and power are in human
beings. For a civilization is based primarily on what the Romans
called “germen,” that is, on the ethno-biological stock, the roots,
that nourish a civilization and culture.

The non-European invasion of Europe that began in the 1960s was
largely self-engendered, provoked: By left and right-wing
politicians contaminated with Marxist and Trotskyist ideas; by an
employer class greedy for cheap labor; by Jewish intellectuals
demanding a multiracial society; by the ideology of human rights
that had sprung from the secularization of certain Christian
principles.

In France and in Europe, the collaborators abetting the invasion
have established a system of preferences for the invaders that
native Whites are obliged to pay for. Illegal immigrants are thus
not only rarely repatriated when caught, they continue to receive
the lavish social welfare benefits handed out to them by the anti-
White forces in control of the state. At the same time, “anti-
racists” have introduced a host of discriminatory laws that protect
immigrants from normal social restraints, even though they are
largely responsible for the on-going explosion of criminality (more
than a thousand percent in the last 50 years).

The invasion is taking place as much in the maternity wards as it is
along our porous borders. Combined with the demographic decline of
the White population, immigration has become an economic disaster
for Western Europe. It’s estimated to cost $180 billion per year (if
the growing insecurity, as well as the innumerable forms of social
assistance benefiting immigrants, including illegals, is figured
in). This, in turn, creates new lures for the invaders: It is simply
far more interesting to be unemployed in Europe than to work in the
Third World. While the educated and creative segments of our
population are beginning to flee, mainly to the United States, they
are being replaced by Africa’s refuse, which has to be fed and
supported by us and hasn’t anything in the way of skills or
intelligence to offer.

All these facts suggest that the 21st-century European economy will
be a depressed, Third-World one.

ISLAM’S THIRD MAJOR OFFENSIVE

In addition to this mass, non-White invasion, Islam is again on the
offensive. With single-minded persistence, its totalitarian and
aggressive religion/ideology seeks the conquest of Europe. We’ve
already suffered three great assaults by Islam, which today
stretches from Gibraltar to Indonesia. The first of these offensives
was halted at Portiers in 732 by Charles Martel; the second in 1683,
during the Ottoman siege of Vienna; the third [in the form of the
present invasion and colonization] is now underway [and virtually
unopposed]. Islam has a long memory and its objective is to
establish on our continent what [the leader of Iran’s Islamic
Revolution, the ayattolla] Khomeiny called the “universal
Caliphate.”

The invasion of Europe has begun and the figures [testifying to its
extent] are alarming. The continent, including Russia, is now
occupied by 55 million Muslims, a number that increases at a 6
percent annual rate. In France, there are at least 6 million. Like
those in Belgium and Britain, these French Muslims are starting to
demand a share of political power. The government, for its part,
simply refuses to take seriously their objective of transforming
France into an Islamic Republic by the year 2020, when the
demographic weight of the Arab/Muslim population will have become
determinant. Meanwhile, it is financing the construction of Mosques
throughout the country in the hope of buying social peace; there are
already more than 2,000 in France, nearly double the number in
Morocco. Islam is at present the second largest religion in France,
behind Catholicism, but the largest in the numbers of practitioners.
[The republic’s president] Jacques Chirac has even declared
that “France is now an Islamic power.” Everywhere in the West there
prevails the unfounded belief that there’s a difference between
Islam and “Islamism,” and that a Western, secularized, that is,
moderate, Islam is possible. There’s no such thing. Every Muslim is
potentially a jihadist. For Islam is a theocracy that confuses the
spiritual with the temporal, faith with law, and seeks to impose its
Shari’a [Islamic law] on a Europe whose civilizational precepts are
absolutely incompatible with it.

THE ADVENT OF RACE WAR

The criminality and delinquency in Western Europe caused by mass
immigration and the collapse of civic values have reached
insupportable levels. In France in 2004, more than a 100,00 cars
were torched and 80 policemen killed. Every week race riots erupt in
the banlieues [the “suburbs” housing the immigrants masses]. In the
public schools, violence is endemic and educational levels have
almost collapsed. Among youth under 20, nearly 20 percent are
illiterate. While racist assaults on Whites are steadily rising,
they are routinely ignored in the name of the anti-racist vulgate,
which holds that only Whites can be racists. At the same time, an
arsenal of repressive legislation, worthy of Soviet communism, has
imposed “laws” whose purely ideological and subjective intent make
no pretence to fairness, let alone objectivity. All criticism of
immigration or Islam is prohibited. I myself have been tried several
times and levied with an enormous fine for having written “La
colonisation de l’Europe” [The Colonization of Europe].

A race war is foreseeable now in several European countries, a
subterranean war that will be far more destructive than “terrorism.”
The White population is being displaced, a sort of genocide is being
carried out against it with the complicity or the abstention of the
ruling class, the media, and the politicians, for the ideology these
collaborating elites uphold is infused with a pathological hatred of
their own people and a morbid passion for miscegenation.

The state’s utopian plan for “republican integration” has
nevertheless failed because it assumed peaceful coexistence between
foreigners and natives, non-Whites and Whites, was possible in a
single territory. Our rulers haven’t read Aristotle, who taught that
no city can possibly be democratic and orderly if it isn’t
ethnically homogenous.. . European societies today are devolving into
an unmanageable ethnic chaos.

I’m a native of Southwest France, of the area along the Atlantic
coast [a Gascon?], and speak not a word of Russian, but I feel
infinitely closer to a Russian than to a French-speaking Arab or
African, even if they happen to be “French” citizens.

THE MORAL CRISIS AND ARCHEOFUTURISM

The present situation can be explained, almost clinically, as a sort
of “mental AIDS.” Our present afflictions come from the virus of
nihilism, which Nietzsche foresaw, and which has weakened all our
natural defenses. Thus infected, Europeans have succumbed to a
feverish self-extinction. They have voluntarily opened the city
gates.

The primary symptom of this disease is “xenophilia: ” a systematic
preference for the Other rather than for the Same. A second symptom
is “ethnomasochism, ” a hatred of one’s own civilization and origins.
A third is emasculation [dévirilisation] , or what might be called
the cult of weakness and a preference for male homosexuality.
Historically proven values associated with the use of force and a
people’s survival — values associated with honor, loyalty, family,
fertility, patriotism, the will to survive, etc. — are treated
today as ridiculous shortcomings. This sort of decadence owes a good
deal to the secularization of Christian charity and its egalitarian
offshoot, human rights.

Europeans may take inspiration from certain values still upheld in
Russia: For example, the consciousness of belonging to a superior
civilization and of maintaining a “right to distance” from other
peoples. We need to break with all forms of “ethnopluralism, ” which
is simply another kind of egalitarianism, and reclaim the right
to “ethnocentrism, ” the right to live in our own lands without the
Other. We also have to reclaim the principle: “To each his own.”
Besides, only Westerners believe race-mixing is a virtue or envisage
the future as a melting pot. They alone believe in cosmopolitanism.

But the 21st century will be dominated by a resurgence of ethno-
religious blocs, especially in the South and the East. Francis
Fukuyama’s “end of history” will never happen. Instead, we’re going
to experience an acceleration of history with the “clash of
civilizations. ” Europeans also need to break with the “presentism”
in which they are sunk and learn to see themselves again (as do
Muslims, Chinese, and Indians) as a “long-living people,” bearers of
a future. The mental revolution needed to bring about this change in
European attitudes is, though, only possible through a gigantic
crisis, a violent shock, which is already on its way and which I
will say a few words about below.

THE NEW AMERICAN IMPERIALISM

Europeans also have to come to terms with what I called in my last
book “the new American imperialism, ” an imperialism more heavy-
handed than that of the Cold War era, but one that is also more
blundering. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, American
administrations seem to have lost all sense of measure, becoming
even more hubristic, as they embark on a fantastic quest for world
domination, dressed up in the simulacre of a new Roman empire. Much
of this, of course, is explainable in terms of neoconservative
ideology, linked with Zionism, but it’s also driven by a messianic,
almost pathological, sense of having a “divine mission.”

What are the goals of this new American imperialism? To encircle and
neutralize Russia, preventing any meaningful alliance between her
and Europe (the Pentagon’s worse nightmare); to deflect Europe’s
challenge to its hegemony by making Islam and Muslim Turkey a part
of it; to subjugate the Eastern and Central European parts of the
former Soviet empire; to wage a relentless economic war on the
European Union and do so in such a way that the latter doesn’t dream
of resisting. Everywhere, the crusading spirit of this new American
imperialism endeavors to impose “democracy”, especially on Russia’s
periphery. “Democracy” has come to mean “pro-American regime.”

But we shouldn’t complain of these American ambitions, which accord
with the country’s geopolitical and thalassocratic desire for
domination. In history, everyone is responsible only for oneself.

That’s why I oppose the “obsessional and hysterical anti-
Americanism” so prevalent in France, for it is counter-productive,
self-victimizing, and irresponsible.

A people or nation must learn to distinguish between its “principal
adversary” and its “principal enemy.” The first tries to dominate
and undermine, the second to kill. We shouldn’t forget Carl
Schmitt’s formula: “It’s not only you who chooses your enemy, it’s
more often your enemy who chooses you.” America, specifically its
ruling class, is Europe’s and Russia’s “principal adversary” at the
level of geopolitics, economics, and culture.

Europe’s “principal enemy” is the peoples of the South, increasingly
assembled under the banner of Islam, whose invasion of the continent
is already well underway, facilitated by a political class and an
intelligentsia who have opened the gates (to Washington’s delight)
and who seek a miscegenated, non-European Europe.

Like Atlanticists, the hysterical anti-Americans overestimate the
United States, without understanding that it is only as strong as we
are weak. The Americans’ catastrophic and counter-productive
occupation of little Iraq, to which they have brought nothing but
chaos, makes this all indisputably evident. In the 21st century, the
U.S. will cease to be the premier world power. That will be China —
or, if we have the will, what I call “Euro-Siberia” — a federated
alliance between the peoples of the European peninsular and Russia.

THE CONVERGENCE OF CATASTROPHES

I’ve postulated the hypothesis that the present global system,
founded on a belief in miracles, a belief in the myth of indefinite
progress, is on the verge of collapse. For the first time in
history, humanity as a whole is threatened by a cataclysmic crisis
that is likely to occur sometime between 2010 and 2020 — a crisis
provoked by the on-going degradation of the ecosystem and climatic
disruptions, by the exhaustion of fossil fuel sources and food
producing capacity, by the increased fragility of an international
economic order based on speculation and massive indebtedness, by the
return of epidemics, by the rise of nationalism, terrorism, and
nuclear proliferation, by the growing aggressiveness of Islam’s
world offense, and by the dramatic aging of the West’s population.

We need to prepare for these converging catastrophes, which will
mark the transition from one era to another, as their cataclysmic
effects sweep away liberal modernity and bring about a New Middle
Age. With such a convergence, there will also come an opportunity
for rebirth, for every major historical regeneration emerges from
chaos. This is especially the case with a civilization like our own,
whose very nature is “metamorphic. ”

EUROSIBERIA

The Europe of the future must no longer be envisaged in the mushy,
ungovernable forms of the present European Union, which is a
powerless Medusa, unable to control its borders, dominated by the
mania of free-trade, and subject to American domination. We need to
imagine a federal, imperial Grande Europe, ethnically homogenous
(that is, European), based on a single autonomous area, and
inseparably linked to Russia. I call this enormous continental
bloc “Euro-Siberia. ” Having no need to be aggressive toward its
neighbors because it would be inattackable, such a bloc would become
the premier world power (in a world partitioned into large blocs),
self-centered, and opposed to all the dangerous dogmas now
associated with globalism. It would have the capacity to practice
the “autarky of great spaces,” whose principles have already been
worked out by the Noble Prize winning economist, Maurice Allais. The
destiny of the European peninsular cannot be separated from
continental Russia, for both ethno-cultural and geopolitical
reasons. It’s absolutely imperative for America’s mercantile
thalassocracy to prevent the birth of a Euro-Siberian federation.

This is not the place to speak of the Israeli state. Only a word:
For essentially demographic reasons, I believe the Zionist utopia
conceived by Hertzl and Buber and realized since 1948 will not
survive any longer than Soviet communism did; indeed, its end is
already in sight. I’m presently writing a book on “The New Jewish
Question,” which I hope will be translated into Russian.

CONCLUSION

Fatalism is never appropriate. History is always open-ended and
presents innumerable unexpected caprices and turns. Let’s not forget
the formula of William of Orange: “Where there’s a will, there’s a
way.” The period we are presently living through is a one of
resistance and of preparation for the even more threatening events
to come, such as might follow the juncture of a race war and a
massive economic downturn. We need to start thinking in post-chaos
terms and organize accordingly. In closing, let me leave you with a
favorite watchword of mine: “From Resistance to Reconquest, From
Reconquest to Renaissance. ”

Bron: The Civic Platform

Verlichting: redding of ondergang in Opinio, nr. 1, 20 januari 2007.

ANDREAS KINNEGING: De gedachte dat onze beschaving op de Verlichting is gebaseerd, is een gotspe. Met de Verlichting begint juist de óndergang van de westerse beschaving, een proces waar wij midden in staan. De Verlichting verwerpt namelijk de klassieke gedachte dat er universele en eeuwige maatstaven van goed en kwaad
bestaan en is daarmee het geboorteuur van het relativisme – de gedachte dat ‘goed’ niets anders betekent dan ’goed voor mij’ of ‘goed voor ons’. We kunnen met andere woorden het meest banale leven leiden, maar niemand kan ons voorhouden dat dit niet goed zou zijn. We kunnen de meest verschrikkelijke misdaden begaan, maar niemand kan zeggen dat datgene dat wij willen, slecht is. Met de verrotte erfenis van dit denken zitten we nog steeds.

PAUL CLITEUR: Maar van één notie van de Verlichting verwacht ik veel, zo niet alles, voor de toekomst: morele autonomie. Onze samenleving heeft dringend behoefte aan een universele morele taal. Universeel, dat wil zeggen: moraal losgekoppeld van de godsdiensten die het morele discours versplinteren. Alleen wanneer het ons in Europa gaat lukken moraal los te koppelen van godsdienst, zal de Europese cultuur kunnen overleven.

Morele autonomie betekent dat moraal niet gerechtvaardigd kan worden door te verwijzen naar een religieuze positie. In die zin begint met de Verlichting ook een regeneratie van de Europese cultuur.
Kinneging: De gedachte dat het goede niet afhankelijk is van Gods wil, stamt niet uit de Verlichting, maar uit de klassieke oudheid. Je kunt je dus beter op Plato beroepen dan op de Verlichting.

Cliteur: Zeker, de gedachte van morele autonomie is te vinden in Plato’s Euthy-phro, waarin Socrates de vraag stelt of iets goed is omdat de goden het willen, of dat de goden iets willen omdat het goed is. Volgens Socrates is het laatste het geval. Socrates koppelt de moraal zo los van de goddelijke wil. Daarom noemt de classicus J. V. Luce het Athene van de vijfde eeuw v. Chr. de periode van de ’Griekse Verlichting’. De verlichters van de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw hebben deze traditie hersteld en tegenover de godsdienstig gefundeerde moraal verdedigd.
Voor de toekomst van Europa is het van groot belang dat we die autonomie van de moraal kunnen revitaliseren, want Europa zal in de toekomst multicultureel en multireligieus zijn. Als religie dan nog steeds de basis van de moraal is, zullen we geen gedeelde moraal meer hebben. De autonomie van de moraal is ook de enige manier om het relativisme van de religieuze moralen te boven te komen. Een almachtige God schrijft ons via religiestichters en profeten de goddelijke wet voor. Wij mensen hebben slechts te gehoorzamen. Een autonome ethiek is uiteindelijk niet te verzoenen met een ethiek als deze, die het goede definieert als de wil van God. Daarom hebben grote denkers als Spinoza, Nicolai Hartmann en Sartre scherp aangegeven dat een (mono)theïstische ethiek onverenigbaar is met autonome moraal.

Kinneging: Volgens jou is de kloof tussen Athene en Jeruzalem, tussen rede en religie, onoverbrugbaar – waarbij je gemakshalve alle religies over één kam scheert. Volgens mij is dat niet juist. Augustinus en Thomas van Aquino wisten de christelijke godsdienst en de Griekse filosofie te combineren. Zij stelden dat het goede dat God wil, hetzelfde is als het universele en eeuwige goede waarover Plato en de andere Griekse filosofen het hadden. Maar hoe je hier ook over denkt, het verschil tussen de Grieks-Romeinse en de joods-christelijke traditie valt hoe dan ook in het niet bij het verschil tussen het denken vóór en het denken ná de Verlichting.
De Verlichting veroorzaakte een radicale breuk in ons denken over goed en kwaad. De Grieks-Romeinse filosofie en de joods-christelijke traditie hebben namelijk iets heel belangrijks gemeen: beide gaan er van uit dat er zoiets als objectieve maatstaven voor goed en kwaad bestaan. Maar volgens verlichtingsdenkers als Hobbes, Spinoza, Hume en Bentham bestaan deze maatstaven niet. De mens noemt volgens deze denkers simpelweg datgene ‘goed’ waarnaar zijn begeerte uitgaat. Datgene dat hij vreest, noemt de mens volgens de verlichtingsdenkers ‘slecht’. Dat is het begin van het relativisme waar we nu zo’n last van hebben.

Cliteur: Jodendom, christendom en islam hebben gemeen dat zij krachtens hun uitgangspunt moeilijk verenigbaar zijn met autonome moraal. Binnen een dergelijk denkkader heb je ook geen verweer tegen de religieuze terrorist die met een beroep op Gods wil geweld gaat plegen. Men ziet bijvoorbeeld het doden van ongelovigen (of andersgelovigen) als een religieuze plicht. Men doodt een abortusarts omdat men denkt dat de Bijbel dat voorschrijft. Men begint een oorlog omdat men op religieuze gronden een stuk land claimt.
Gelukkig heeft het overgrote deel van de gelovigen geen enkele affiniteit met religieus terrorisme. En gelukkig roepen heilige geschriften niet alleen op tot geweld, maar ook tot naastenliefde. Maar het probleem vormt die kleine minderheid van teksten die radicaal kan worden uitgelegd door een kleine minderheid van extremisten. ‘Terrorism requires only a few,’ zegt de arabist Bernard Lewis fijntjes. Het beste antwoord op dat probleem is naar mijn idee de erkenning dat moraal niet met een beroep op religie gerechtvaardigd kan worden.

Kinneging: Het opvallende is dat de afgelopen eeuw niet alleen de eeuw van het meeste ongeloof is geweest, maar ook van alle eeuwen de meest moorddadige. Dit komt juist door het wegvallen van het oude geloof in een transcendente God. Dit geloof legde de menselijke heersers aan banden. Als God bestaat, staat er immers altijd nog iemand boven de heerser. De wet van God staat boven de wet van de mens. De Verlichting heeft het geloof in een transcendente God vernietigd. Niet langer staat de wet van God boven de wet van de mens. In de totalitaire, moordzuchtige regimes die uit de Verlichting zijn voortgekomen, valt God samen met de wereldlijke heerser.

Cliteur: In de jaren dertig van de twintigste eeuw vormden seculiere ideologieën een groot gevaar, maar die situatie is drastisch veranderd. We hebben niet meer te maken met communisme, nationaal-socialisme en fascisme, maar met religieuze ideologieën. Het gevaar gaat ook niet zozeer uit van heersers van staten (zelfs niet van dictatoriale staten) die geen God meer boven zich weten, maar van religieus bevlogen groepen en individuen, zoals duidelijk is gebleken uit de aanslagen in New York en in Londen, en uit de moord op Theo van Gogh. De transcendente God houdt het geweld niet meer binnen de perken, zoals Voltaire dacht, en op grond waarvan hij God wilde ‘uitvinden’, maar hij verleent een bovennatuurlijke sanctionering aan de apocalyptische fantasieën van een Ahmadinejad of van informele terroristische netwerken.

Kinneging: Nazisme, fascisme, communisme en islamisme verschillen niet zo sterk van elkaar. Het zijn politieke religies die zich ten doel stellen om de hemel op aarde te realiseren, en dat is iets wat voortvloeit uit de Verlichting. Nadat de Verlichting de transcendente God om zeep had geholpen, kwam de Romantiek namelijk de hemel op aarde beloven. Om de hemel op aarde te realiseren, zijn alle middelen toegestaan. Maar het werkelijke probleem is niet dat er mensen zijn die dergelijke moorddadige ideologieën aanhangen. Het grote probleem is onze reactie hierop. Omdat we dankzij de Verlichting nergens meer in geloven, behalve in ons eigen kleine leventje, zijn we niet meer bereid om ergens voor te vechten, laat staan te sterven. Het relativisme dat de Verlichting heeft voortgebracht, maakt onze verdediging onmogelijk. Want als we niet kunnen bepalen wat goed is, dan is er niets waardevols om voor te strijden.

Cliteur: Over één ding zijn we het eens: dat het relativisme een groot probleem is in onze tijd. Het multiculturalisme komt eruit voort: de gedachte dat alle culturen evenveel waard zijn. Die gedachte verwerp ik, net als jij trouwens. Maar de enige manier om dat relativisme te boven te komen, is autonomie van de moraal en moreel universalisme. De religieuze moralen kunnen die functie eenvoudigweg niet meer vervullen.

Opinio

Europese rijksgedachte door Robert STEUCKERS in Synergon, december 2006.

Inleiding

Geopolitiek is een studie van geschiedenis en aardrijkskunde en dus van ruimte en tijd. Geopolitiek is een verzameling disciplines (niet één discipline) die een goed beheer van ruimte en tijd beoogt. Geen macht kan immers overleven zonder de noodzakelijke continuïteit van tijd en ruimte. Vanuit een niet-lineaire (cyclische of sferische) tijdsopvatting is het verleden nooit een afgesloten hoofdstuk. Zo is de rijksgedachte nog springlevend voor Hongaren en Serviërs. In de geopolitieke geschriften van de heer Steuckers speelt de Balkan bijgevolg een zeer belangrijke rol en zo ook in deze lezing. Als men spreekt over spirituele decadentie, dan betekent dat volgens hem evenzeer dat men zijn eigen aardrijkskundige milieu niet meer correct begrijpt. Julius Evola spreekt immers in Révolte contre le monde moderne van de numena[1], de krachten uit de natuur of uit de fysische gegevens, die de spirituele mens niet kan loochenen. Tot slot: een onontbeerlijk hulpmiddel in de geopolitiek van de rijksgedachte zijn historische atlassen, zoals die van Colin McEvedy. Zij behandelen de menselijke geschiedenis immers vanuit culturen en beschavingen, volkeren en rassen. Kortom, vanuit een organische zienswijze.

1. De oudste bronnen

Elke rijksgedachte heeft drie dimensies: een symbolische, een geografische en een praktische. Het gaat dan respectievelijk om een spirituele bron, een politieke ruimte en een communicatiemiddel. In de 19de eeuw hadden vooral Groot-Brittannië en Duitsland een belangrijke filologische traditie. Niettemin was het Frankrijk dat met betrekking tot het onderwerp van deze lezing een belangrijke filoloog voortbracht: Arthur de Gobineau. Filologen zochten de bronnen van de Indo-Europese beschaving in de vergelijkende taalwetenschap, meer bepaald die van het Grieks, het Latijn en het Sanskriet. Het was gemeengoed onder de humanisten van die tijd om de wortels van de Europese Beschaving in het Oude Griekenland te zoeken. Maar welk Griekenland? Ons moderne beeld van het Oude Griekenland is immers herleid tot iets intellectualistisch en sofistisch. De grote verdienste van Gobineau, oud-ambassadeur te Teheran, is dat hij als eerste Europeaan erop gewezen heeft dat de oudste bronnen van de Indo-Europese beschaving Iraans (Arisch) waren en niet Grieks. Zijn werk zou later een grote invloed hebben op dat van Léopold Sédar Senghor en Henri Corbin.

1.1 De Iraanse

De oorsprong van de rijksgedachte leidt ons naar de protohistorie. Er is in dezen geen strikt onderscheid tussen prehistorische, historische en metahistorische feiten. Elk rijk heeft vooreerst een stichter. In de Indo-Europese traditie (Indo-Iraanse) traditie is dat de mythische figuur van de zegevierende koning-held Rama (ook Yama of Yima genoemd). Hij moest in een ver verleden zijn noordse oerheimat verlaten na de komst van een “eeuwige winter” en zijn volk zuidwaarts leidden naar de Kaukasus, de Oeral en de Hindoekoesj. Met andere woorden: van Rusland naar Afghanistan, Europa, Iran en India[2]. Volgens Colin McEvedy mag de Indo-Europese bakermat niet worden herleid tot een klein gebied. Hetzelfde geldt eveneens voor de Afro-Aziatische en de Elamitisch-Dravidische bakermat. Er wordt te weinig rekening gehouden met de grote beweeglijkheid van die volkeren. De oerheimat van de Indo-Europeanen bestreek volgens McEvedy het hele gebied van de Noordzee tot de Kaspische Zee. Hij treedt aldus de Duitse archeoloog Lothar Kilian bij.

De Indo-Europeanen verwierven in het Midden Oosten naam en faam als ruitervolk. Zij leenden zelfs ruiters aan Semitische en Elamitisch-Dravidische volkeren. Omstreeks 1800 v. Chr. veroverden de ruitervolkeren de Elamitisch-Dravidische beschaving in Iran. Ze vormden er een ruiteraristocratie bij Dravidische volkeren (bijv. Kassieten) of bij Kaukasische (bijv. Hoerrieten). Die laatste werden militair georganiseerd door de Indo-Europese Mitanni. Tussen 1600-1400 v. Chr. vielen de Indo-Europese Tocharen China binnen en legden er de grondslagen voor de latere Chinese rijken. Omstreeks 1275 v. Chr. bezetten drie verschillende Indo-Europese (Indo-Iraanse) takken in het Midden Oosten[3]: de Cimmeriërs-Scythen, de Iraniërs en de Indiërs.

In 714 v. Chr. wierpen Cimmerische en Scythische legers het Hoerritische koninkrijk Oerartoe omver en ze vestigden zich in Anatolië. In 705 v. Chr. versloegen zij de Assyriërs. Tot de komst van de islam zouden er geen Semitische rijken meer in het Midden Oosten zijn, maar wel Scythische, Cimmerische, Medische, Perzische, Griekse, Macedonische, Parthische of Romeinse. De Perzen, een kleine stam uit Zuid-Iran, namen in 539 v. Chr. de leiding van het geheel over van de Meden. De leer van de religieuze hervormer Zoroaster of Zarathoestra kon zich aldus over het hele Midden Oosten verspreiden en een belangrijke Indo-Europese stempel drukken op de wereldgeschiedenis en de wereldgodsdiensten. Cyrus de Grote stond ook na de verovering van Babylon en Mesopotamië bekend als een edelmoedige veroveraar. De Romeinse keizers Trajanus en Julianus zagen het belang in van de Perzische Golf als een venster op de Indische Oceaan. Mesopotamië zou later nog dikwijls het strijdtoneel worden van Oost en West…

1.2 De Romeinse

Het einde van de Derde Punische Oorlog in 146 v. Chr. luidde het einde in van de Romeinse Republiek, zoals zij tot dan toe had bestaan. Het leger werd voortaan het instrument van een rijk dat het Iberische schiereiland, Noord-Afrika en Turkije omvatte. Die expansie vereiste een sterkere militaire organisatie van de onbestuurbaar geworden Republiek. Er brak een burgeroorlog uit tussen optimates[4] van de “conservatieve” Sulla en de populares[5] van de “progressieve” Marius. Marius voerde verschillende belangrijke hervormingen door. Zo werd het huurlingenleger bestaande uit boeren vervangen door een beroepsleger bestaande uit legionairs. Marius versloeg in 102 v. Chr. de Teutonen bij Aquae Sextiae (Aix-en-Provence) en in 101 v. Chr. de Kimbren bij Vercellae (Vercelli), nadat geen van de vorige consuls erin geslaagd was de Germaanse opmars naar Rome af te slaan. Marius werd zelfs beschouwd als “derde stichter van Rome” (Plutarchus) en zou uiteindelijk zeven keer consul worden. De figuur van de zegevierende generaal herinnerde onder anderen aan Rama, maar dat zou later evenzeer gelden voor Julius Caesar en Otto de Grote.

Consul Gaius Julius Caesar – nog geen caesar of keizer – trad later met zijn veldtocht door Gallië in de voetsporen van Marius. Nu volgt de geopolitieke dimensie: Marius besefte dat het Italische schiereiland bij de Rhône moest worden verdedigd. Caesar ging nog verder en besefte dat de Rhône, de Sâone en de Doubs één geheel vormden met de Rijn. Het was die laatste die door de Sequanen te hulp werd geroepen tegen Germaanse invallers (Sueven of Zwaben). Caesar werd na zijn Gallische veldtocht “dictator voor het leven”. Hij werd door zijn tijdgenoten niet alleen gezien als een zegevierende generaal, maar eveneens als een heerser over de rivierbekkens. Rivierbekkens bepaalden de territoriale organisatie van het Romeinse Rijk, niet volk of taal. De latere keizers moesten door de verdere uitbreiding van het Rijk bovendien niet alleen de bekkens van de Rhône en de Rijn, maar ook die van de Donau beheersen. De beheersing van het Donau was niet alleen toen van groot strategisch belang voor Europa, maar is het nu nog steeds. De beheersing van de Donau is hét doel van de NAVO in de Balkan (cf. Edward Luttwak, Zbigniew Brzezinski).

In 105 n. Chr. voltooide keizer Trajanus Caesars geopolitieke strategie door Dacië – de enige Romeinse provincie ten noorden van de Donau – te veroveren. De controle over de Balkan verleende hem toegang tot de Zwarte Zee en zelfs Anatolië, Armenië en Mesopotamië (113-117 n. Chr.). Hij was de eerste Europese keizer die de Perzische Golf bereikt had. Zijn opvolger keizer Hadrianus achtte het wijselijk om zich strategisch terugtrekken achter de Eufraat (uit Assyrië en Mesopotamië). De frontlinie tegen de Parthen was immers te lang geworden. De duurzame vrede in het Romeinse Rijk die daarvan het gevolg was, liet een culturele en economische bloei toe.

De Ottomanen konden Mesopotamië slechts veroveren in de 16de eeuw, nadat ze eerst de controle over de Balkan hadden verworven. Zo was de Slag op het Merelveld of Kosovo Polje (1389) al het voorspel van de Val van Constantinopel (1453). Moskou zou na Constantinopel het Derde Rome worden. Wat ooit voor de Ottomanen gold, geldt nog steeds voor de Amerikanen. Zij brachten vanaf 1999 stelselmatig hun Brzezinski-strategie in de praktijk. Een eerste stap in die strategie was de inplanting van grote militaire bases in de Balkan, waarin ze pas echt geslaagd zijn na de bombardementen op Servië. Een tweede stap waren Afghanistan en Oezbekistan. Een derde stap was uiteindelijk Mesopotamië (Irak). De Amerikanen werpen zich ten aanzien van Europa (Rusland incluis) op als de verdediger van de Ottomaanse erfenis. De strategie van de Britse en later de Amerikaanse zeemachten is al oud en houdt onder andere in dat geen enkele Europese landmacht controle over de Perzische Golf – het venster op de Indische Oceaan – mag hebben. De organisatie van de economie of de infrastructuur in het Midden Oosten door Europeanen of allianties van Europeanen willen ze te allen prijze verhinderen.

Geopolitiek = Hydropolitiek

Het Romeinse Rijk had het Middellandse-Zeegebied als kerngebied, maar het Heilige Roomse Rijk der Duitse Natie kon nooit een gelijkaardig kerngebied vinden. De waterwegen van Midden Europa leiden naar de Noordzee, de Baltische Zee of de Zwarte Zee, maar zonder een onderlinge verbinding. Van de rivierbekkens van Frankrijk en Rusland gaat een middelpuntzoekende kracht uit: vanuit respectievelijk Parijs of Moskou kan men het hele land beheersen. Van de rivierbekkens in Duitsland gaat echter een middelpuntvliedende kracht uit: de rivieren lopen immers veelal evenwijdig met elkaar. De Karolingers dachten net zoals de Romeinen in hydropolitieke termen. Ze zagen al de noodzaak in om het vrije verkeer op de Donau te herstellen en om een continentale rivierverbinding te graven tussen Rijn en Donau (Fossa Carolina). De opdeling van het Frankische Rijk met het Verdrag van Verdun (843) gebeurde eveneens volgens de rivierbekkens.

De as Boedapest-Wenen-Belgrado was steeds de achilleshiel van de Romeinse verdediging. Er waren tien legioenen gestationeerd, omdat de Pannonische/Hongaarse vlakte (Poesta) een bres vormde in een natuurlijke bergachtige verdedigingslinie. De ruiterij bestond vooral uit huurlingen[6]. Na de inval van de Aziatische Hunnen verwierven die laatste de controle over het centrale Donau-bekken. De Hunnen konden echter niet ingeschakeld worden als ruiterij. Er ontstond aldus een machtsvacuüm voor een tijdsspanne van ongeveer 500 jaar. In Europa bestond ook vóór 814 (de dood van Karel de Grote) steeds een zeker heimwee naar het Romeinse Rijk. Niettemin moet het beleid van Karel de Grote als een geopolitieke mislukking worden beschouwd. Hij slaagde er immers niet in de controle over het Donau-bekken te heroveren. De Donau was en is van cruciaal en vitaal belang voor Europa’s eenheid (vrede, orde, bloei).

De NAVO-strategieën – zoals geformuleerd door onder anderen Brzezinski en Luttwak – beogen Europa’s opdeling tussen Old Europe en New Europe, respectievelijk moeilijke en gemakkelijke VS-vazallen. De strategen van het Pentagon beseffen beter het belang van de Balkan en de Donau dan hun Europese collega’s. Een anti-imperialistisch regime zoals het Servische van Milosevic paste dan ook niet in hun strategie. Wie echter zegt dat de Europeanen kort van geheugen zijn, dat de rijksgedachte dood is, vergeet de duizenden Serviërs die zich in 1999 op en rond de bruggen van Belgrado en Novi Sad verzamelden om een levend schild te vormen tegen de misdadige NAVO-bombardementen. Onder NAVO-vlag hebben Europeanen toen Europeanen gebombardeerd! Het maffieuze UCK kreeg zowel de steun van de NAVO als van Al Qaeda. De bombardementen op de bruggen over de Donau hadden – evenmin toevallig – economische gevolgen tot in Oostenrijk.

De Karolingers

In 800 herstelde Karel de Grote, koning der Franken en Longobarden, de orde in Rome, zodat de weggejaagde paus Leo III kon terugkeren. De paus verleende hem daarvoor de keizertitel. Noch Karel de Grote noch de Frankische adel namen echter die titel ernstig. (Hij wou liever zichzelf kronen.) Karel de Grote zag immers zichzelf in overeenstemming met de traditie als mainbour[7]. Een eerste gevolg was de ontluikende investituurstrijd, een tweede het tweekeizersprobleem. De paus verwachtte van Karel de Grote dat hij ten strijde zou trekken tegen de Byzantijnen, terwijl die laatste terecht alleen in de Saracenen een gevaar zag. Een toenadering tussen het Frankische en het Byzantijnse Rijk was mogelijk geweest door een gearrangeerd huwelijk, maar – hoe stom het ook moge klinken – Karel de Grote wilde zijn dochters liever bij zich in de buurt hebben. In 812 erkende het Byzantijnse Rijk dan toch het Frankische Rijk. De Duits-protestantse interpretatie van Karel de Grote als de eerste grote keizer is dus vals. Karel de Grote heerste slechts over de Rhône en de Rijn. Het Westen en de Atlantische Oceaan stelden toen nog niets voor. De Donau en de Middellandse Zee waren belangrijk. Als gevolg van die geopolitieke zwakte had het Frankische Rijk af te rekenen met invallen uit alle windrichtingen: o.a. Magyaren[8] uit het oosten, Saracenen[9] uit het zuiden, en Vikingen[10] uit het noorden. De opvolger van Karel de Grote, keizer Lodewijk de Vrome, was op zijn zachtst gezegd géén referentie voor de rijksgedachte.

De Ottonen

Hoewel imperium en imperialisme niet met elkaar mogen worden verward, heeft elk rijk een (geestelijke) natie als drager. Zo was er sprake van de Senatus Populusque Romanus[11] (SPQR) en het Heilige Rooms Rijk der Duitse Natie. De translatio imperii ad Germanos[12] bepaalde dat de keizer van Germaanse afkomst moest zijn. De eerste grote keizer was zoals gezegd niet de Frank Karel de Grote, maar wel de Saks Otto de Grote. Hij was de stichter van de Ottoonse dynastie en tevens van het Heilige Roomse Rijk der Duitse Natie. Otto de Grote dankte zijn keizertitel aan de belangrijke zege die hij behaalde tegen de Magyaren in de Slag bij Lechfeld (955). Als gevolg van die zege “bekeerden” de heidense Magyaren zich tot het christendom. Die bekering hield in dat de nieuwe Magyaarse khan Arpad I plechtig trouw zwoer aan de Christenheid, de Europese Beschaving. Arpad I schakelde zich anders dan de Hunnen wél in in de grensverdediging en liet geen nieuwe stammen toe in zijn land. De Magyaren moesten met andere woorden hun geopolitieke koers 180° draaien. De imperiale dynamiek die de overwinning van Otto de Grote teweegbracht, zorgde in heel Europa voor economische en demografische groei. Na de Val van Constantinopel (1453) deed paus Pius II[13], oud-kanselier van keizer Frederik III, de Ottomanen een gelijkaardig voorstel, maar hun sultan wees dat af. Het zou trouwens geen loze eed blijken voor de Magyaren (Hongaren), want tot 1945 kwamen er geen invallen meer uit het oosten. Tijdens de Hongaarse Opstand van 1956 herinnerden de nationalistische opstandelingen opnieuw aan de eed van Arpad I.

Het rijk werd geopolitiek hersteld, omdat Pannonië/Hongarije geen doorgangsweg meer was voor Aziatische nomadenvolkeren. Het hele Donau-bekken werd bijgevolg hetzij Rooms-Germaans, hetzij Grieks-Byzantijns. In 1919 vernielden de vijanden van Europa met het Verdrag van Versailles (voor Duitsland) en het Verdrag van Trianon (voor Oostenrijk-Hongarije) wat de rijksgedachte had beoogd in de Balkan en ze herstelden de oude vetes uit donkere tijden. Langs de Donau werden zoveel mogelijk kunstmatige en vijandige staatjes uitgetekend met sterke (Hongaarse) minderheden. De oorlogen in ex-Joegoslavië hebben aangetoond dat de Balkan een zone van permanente instabiliteit is. Alleen het lange heugen, de rijksgedachte, kan ons opnieuw tot subject – en niet object – van ons eigen lot maken. De lineaire of progressieve tijdsopvatting leidt tot geheugenverlies. Ze maakt van Europa een macht zonder wil.

De Kruistochten

De opvolgers van Otto de Grote waren zwakke figuren. Over de Ottoonse dynastie werd bijgevolg niet verder uitgeweid in de lezing. De volgende grote dynastie was de Koenradijnse. Het was de verdienste van Koenraad II dat hij Bourgondië en Provence (de rivierbekkens!) als Duitse provinciën organiseerde. Een ramp voor Europa was echter wel de investituurstrijd tussen het pausschap en het keizerschap, evenals de verschillende schismata tussen Oost en West (vanaf 1054). Onder paus Urbanus II kwam er verbetering, omdat hij de ridders en ridderorden nodig had voor de Kruistochten. Die onderneming vereiste een bundeling van de politieke, de militaire en de spirituele krachten. De scheiding van die krachten – of beter van macht (potestas) enerzijds en gezag (auctoritas) anderzijds – is een belangrijke oorzaak van het verval van de Europese Beschaving. De Europese ridderorden belichaamden als “gewapende priesters” een kortstondige heroïsche restauratie van de Europese Beschaving. In het Midden Oosten herontdekten zij bovendien de Indo-Europese (Indo-Iraanse) bron van de ridderlijke ethiek en spiritualiteit. Een spiritualiteit van de ridderlijke actie, tegenover een van de priesterlijke contemplatie. Een gevolg van die herbronning was dat de Tempeliers in 1314 na een schijnproces van “ketterij” werden beschuldigd en op de brandstapel gezet. De Franse koning en de Roomse paus spanden om uiteenlopende laag-bij-de-grondse motieven samen in dezen. De middeleeuwse kroniekschrijvers vertelden dat de laatste Grootmeester van de Tempeliers, Jacques de Molay, die gedurende zijn schijnproces had gezwegen, beiden vervloekt had van op de brandstapel. Alleszins zijn zowel de paus als de koning datzelfde jaar nog gestorven en stierf na één generatie de lijn van Filips de Schone uit (begin van de 100-jarige oorlog tussen Engeland en Frankrijk).

De Staufers

De laatste grote dynastie was de Zwabische van Hohenstaufen. Naast Frederik I Barbarossa, is vooral Frederik II bekend. Frederik II was als keizer zijn tijd ver vooruit, in de positieve zin welteverstaan. Hij trachtte het Mare Nostrum te herstellen met Sicilië als kerngebied. Als Sicilië met in het verlengde Triëste en Boedapest strategisch verenigd waren, dan had Europa alle invallen van woestijn- en steppevolkeren kunnen trotseren.

Door de voortdurende investituurstrijd liep zijn poging uit op een tragische mislukking. Sinds de voltooiing van het Rijn-Main-Donau Kanaal in 1992 is pas een nieuwe rijksvorm mogelijk. Er is nu immers één waterweg tussen de Noordzee en de Zwarte Zee, die de commerciële en culturele krachten van Midden Europa toelaat de landen van de Zwarte Zee en de Kaukasus te bereiken. Degenen die een goed historisch geheugen hebben, herinneren zich de rol van de kusten van de Zwarte Zee in de geestelijke geschiedenis van Europa: op de Krim werden verschillende oude tradities – zij het Heidens of Byzantijns – in grotten bewaard door monniken. Zo kan Europa opnieuw aanknopen met zijn oudste wortels, met de waarden van de oudste ridderlijkheid uit de wereldgeschiedenis. Dat kan de ontwikkeling van gelijkaardige geestelijke krachten in Midden- en West-Europa gunstig beïnvloeden.

Frederik II had eveneens het Midden Oosten nauwkeurig geobserveerd en kwam tot het besluit dat de moslims grotendeels werden overheerst door Koerden en Perzen. Hij besefte – anders dan zijn tijdgenoten – terdege dat die laatste Indo-Europese volkeren waren en dat met hen wel te praten viel. Hij zette daarom een eigen keizerlijke diplomatie op, niet tegen de paus maar wel buiten diens medeweten. Frederik II bewonderde niet zozeer de islam, als wel de Arabisch-Perzische kunst om een duurzaam rijk op te bouwen. In 1229 leidde zijn diplomatieke en geopolitieke talent tot de Vrede van Jaffa en de vreedzame herovering van Jeruzalem. Frederik II was tevens voorstander van een eigen keizerlijk hospitalen- en scholennet en van een arme Kerk in overeenstemming met beginselen van Sint-Franciscus van Assisi. Hij joeg aldus weliswaar de Rooms-katholieke Kerk tegen zich in het harnas, maar hem daarom “verlicht” of “verdraagzaam” noemen is onzin. In 1240-’41 leidde de voortdurende investituurstrijd tot nieuwe Turks-Mongoolse invallen in Oost-Europa.

De Habsburgers

Het Heilige Roomse Rijk der Duitse Natie naderde zijn einde, het officieuze in 1648 (Vrede van Westfalen) en het officiële in 1806 (oprichting van de Rijnbond). Een laatste grote keizer was de Habsburger en Gentenaar Karel V. Opnieuw wordt zijn bewind gekenmerkt door een verstandshuwelijk tussen een Franse koning (Frans I) en een Roomse paus (Clemens VII). Eigenaardig genoeg was opnieuw de keizer en niet de paus in dezen de grote verdediger van het katholieke Europa. Door zich met de Fransen tegen de keizer te keren, kreeg de paus er immers een Ottomaanse “bondgenoot” bij. Karel V moest dus op meerdere fronten vechten, maar slaagde er niettemin telkens in het belegerde Wenen te ontzetten. Een Franse nationalist kan zich vandaag de dag onmogelijk tegelijk beroepen op Karel Martel – nota bene een man uit onze contreien – én op ronduit anti-Europese koningen als Filips de Schone, Frans I en Lodewijk XIV. De Rooms-katholieke Kerk keerde zich deels bezorgd om haar geestelijke gezag, deels om haar wereldlijke macht (de Pauselijke Staten) liever tegen de keizers. Een rampzalige geopolitieke stommiteit.

Onder paus Innocentius XI werden nieuwe kruistochten georganiseerd, maar dan in Europa. De Ottomanen rukten op door de Balkan in de richting van Wenen. Zij wilden eveneens de Donau veroveren, maar dan vanuit hun geopolitieke perspectief. De paus steunde met grote sommen geld de kruisvaarders, voornamelijk van Poolse afkomst (bijv. Jan van Sobieski). Tijdens het Tweede Beleg van Wenen (1683) waren het vrouwen en studenten (voorlopers van de Burschenschaften) gekleed in juten zakken die de kanonnen bedienden en de beroemde Janitsaren, de elite van het Turkse leger, tegenhielden. De ontzetting van Wenen door de Poolse koning Jan van Sobieski en diens Heilige Alliantie was het startschot voor de bevrijding van de Balkan en de Krim door prins Eugène van Savoye en diens gelijknamige alliantie. Die laatste verbeterde voorts onder andere de verdediging van de Pannonische/Hongaarse bres en nam een Donau-vloot in gebruik. De Europese geschiedenis dient véél meer te worden beschouwd in het licht van dergelijke continentale allianties.

In de 18de eeuw werden de Zuidelijke Nederlanden een deel van dat zegevierende Oostenrijkse Keizerrijk. In de Franse en Napoleontische tijd (1794-1815) waren onze contreien overwegend anti-Fransgezind, maar wel rijksgezind. Getuige daarvan de Boerenkrijg pro aris et focis[14]. Zo werden de brigands in Brabant geleid door een oud-officier van het Oostenrijkse leger, Charles-François Jacqmin alias “Charlepoeng”. De gilden die na de Napoleontische tijd opnieuw de aansluiting vroegen bij het Oostenrijkse Keizerrijk – maar met méér zelfstandigheid – vormen volgens de heer Steuckers het bewijs dat het rijk voldoende volkse legitimiteit bezat.

Organisatie en communicatie

De heer Steuckers haalde tot slot Tijl Uilenspiegel van Charles De Coster aan om het belangrijkste organisatiebeginsel toe te lichten, namelijk het subsidiariteitsbeginsel. Die volksheld van de Lage Landen die zich verzet tegen de Spaanse overheersing wijst ons op het verschil tussen enerzijds het traditionele koningschap en anderzijds het absolutistische koningschap en zijn moderne varianten. De rijksgedachte beoogt geen gelijkschakeling (naar beneden) maar een ordening (naar boven). De moderne ideologieën zijn in wezen totalitair, want ze vloeien voort uit de tabula rasa van het absolutisme en het jacobinisme. Dat absolutisme-jacobinisme wilde een organische eenheid (de edelen, gilden, standen, provincies, talen) vervangen door een abstracte mechanische eenheid (de ene en ondeelbare republiek).

Naast het subsidiariteitsbeginsel heeft elk rijk een communicatienetwerk nodig voor culturele en commerciële uitwisseling. Dat is een eerste voorwaarde voor een lange geschiedenis. Sommige traditionele rijken steunden op postboden (Iran), andere op waterwegen (Egypte, Mesopotamië, China) of op landwegen (Rome). Aangezien de geschiedenis niet stilstaat, mag men vandaag de dag de ontwikkeling van de vliegtuigbouw (cf. Boeing versus Airbus) en de satellietbouw (cf. Echelon versus Galileo) zeker niet uit het oog verliezen. Door het mislukken van het Galileo-project is er tot op heden echter géén onafhankelijk Europees communicatienetwerk. Het Amerikaanse communicatie- en spionagenetwerk Echelon heeft er een slaafse Europese “klant” bij.

Besluit van de censor

Ons nationalisme van de 21ste eeuw moet een opbouwende Europese kracht zijn. Oude vetes en broederoorlogen hebben Europa gedegradeerd tot de speelbal van buiten-Europese machten. We kunnen geen nationalisten zijn, zonder continentalisten te zijn. Laten we dus het voorbeeld van Europese Synergieën volgen en nieuwe banden smeden onder (jonge) Europeanen en Europese nationalisten. Ideologische bloedarmoede, geopolitieke en historische bijziendheid zijn slechts enkele katjes die het nationalistische kamp te geselen heeft.




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[1] “Gedurende praktisch twee eeuwen beeldden de Romeinen hun godheden niet af – hoogstens werden zij voorgesteld door een symbool. Het ‘animisme’ zelf – de idee van ‘ziel’ aan de basis van een algemene voorstelling van het goddelijke en de krachten van het universum – komt niet overeen met het oorspronkelijke stadium. Wat ermee overeenkomt, is eigenlijk de idee of de opvatting van zuivere krachten, waarvan de Romeinse opvatting van het numen een van de meest geschikte uitdrukkingen is. In tegenstelling tot de deus (zoals hij daarna werd begrepen) is het numen geen wezen of een persoon, maar een naakte kracht die zich definieert door zijn vermogen om effecten voort te brengen, te handelen, te verschijnen. Het gevoel van de werkelijke aanwezigheid van die krachten, van die numena, zoals iets transcendents en immanents, wondermooi en geducht tegelijk, vormde de kern van het oorspronkelijke ‘heilige’”.
Vertaald uit: EVOLA, J., Révolte contre le monde moderne. L'Age d'Homme, Lausanne, 1991, p. 84.
[2] Er splitste zich toen ook een groep af die naar Europa trok en later zou uiteenvallen in Germaanse, Keltische, Italische, Slavische en Baltische stammen.
[3] Meer bepaald de ruimte van de Zee van Azov tot aan China; van het Aral-meer tot Perzië (in het westen) en India (in het oosten).
[4] De “volkspartij” die onder andere streefde naar uitbreiding van het Romeinse burgerschap tot de provincies, kwijtschelding van schulden en landherverdeling.
[5] De “senaatspartij” die bestaande orde wilde bewaren en uitbreiden naar de provincies. Het stemgedrag werd bepaald door de fides (trouw) tussen patronus en cliens, waardoor “ideologie” van weinig belang was. Er woedde onder de verschillende adellijke families die de senatoren leverden wel een strijd om de patronus van nieuwe clientes (uit de provincies) te worden.
[6] O.a. Roxolanen en Jazygen. Ze waren eveneens van Indo-Europese (Indo-Iraanse) afstamming.
[7] De beschermheer van de Christenheid.
[8] Tot in Rijnland.
[9] Tot aan de Alpen.
[10] Door keizer Arnulf van Karinthië in Leuven.
[11] De Senaat en het Romeinse Volk.
[12] De rijksoverdracht van de Romeinen aan de Germanen.
[13] “In een vorig leven als Italiaanse humanist vertaalde hij De Germania van Tacitus en ontwierp hij een geopolitiek project: De Europa. Daarin argumenteerde de latere Paus Pius II dat Europa alleen kon overleven, als het Bohemen en Brabant stevig in handen had. Ergens kunnen we Pius II als een soort oervader van het Duitse en Vlaamse nationalisme beschouwen. Van Tacitus nam hij de idee van de ‘hogere kwaliteit’ van de Noordse volkeren over”. In: “Turkije behoort niet tot de EU!”.
In: CLAES, K., BRANCKAERT, J., 2004. Branding sprak met Robert Steuckers (Synergies Européennes, Vouloir): “Turkije behoort niet tot de EU!”. Branding. 27 (1). p 11.
[14] Voor outer en heerd.

Bron: Robert Steuckers