Majorityrights Central > Category: European Nationalism

by Karl LaForce

Laundry, Intimidation, and Divine Retribution. Wednesday 28 March 2012

My extensive travelling experience has taught me that when it comes to hotel laundry service there are only two types of hotels; those that let you do your laundry yourself, and those which charge too much for laundry service. Our hotel was the latter. As my travelling partner and I are both working-class people, we stuffed our clothes into a laundry bag, got the address of a few laundry mats off the Internet, and took off in search of clean clothes.

Our car had a GPS with an English-accent female voice (“whom” we had taken to calling Penny).  Penny led us to a packed street market with no car traffic and many vendors selling vegetables, fish, small grocery items and flowers. We parked our car at the closest spot we could find, about 500 meters from our destination. As we walked through the crowded street market, our education continued.

Here we found an immigrant stronghold. Immigrant-run tables were two to one for every Greek-run table. The press of the crowd led us to cross the street, walking on the sidewalk or the street as required. My travelling partner had often come to this market as a child. Walking on the pavement, we squeezed between a small refrigerated truck and what looked like an Indian run barber shop, my travelling partner had no more breathed the thought “how did these people get here”, when one explanation, at least, presented itself.

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I’m not entirely sure what to make of Marine Le Pen’s healthy third place in today’s first round of the French presidential election.  It was good enough for the Telegraph website to run the main page headline One in five vote for Marine Le Pen.  The exact percentage was a little less, in fact:

Hollande: 9,172,959 votes (28.4%)
Sarkozy:  8,658,811 votes (26.8%)
—————————————————————————
Le Pen:  6,041,235 votes (18.7%)
Melenchon: 3,590,359 votes (11.1%)
Bayrou:  2,932,274 votes (9.1%%)
Joly:      709,644 votes (2.2%)
Dupont-Aignan: 594,364 votes (1.8%)
Poutou:  383,635 votes (1/2%)

... but it is clear that the economic difficulties that France faces within the Euro - weak growth, vast debts, and unemployment at over 10% - chiefly benefited the Socialist candidate Francois Hollande.  Marine had a clear anti-EU, anti-globalist policy.  But it was not what the majority of voters wanted to hear.  They are still willing to give the usual suspects the benefit of a no-doubt growing doubt.  And this despite the racial disaster that nobody now can dismiss with an insouciant, Gallic shrug.

The “worse is better” school of nationalist optimism is being tested to destruction in France, as in the southern Eurozone, and while Marine’s vote was better than some predicted, it does demonstrate that national crises alone are insufficient to impel nationalist parties very far electorally.  Not even the redoubtable Marine, a class act by any political standard, could break the mould with one blow (not that she ever said she would, of course).

There is always a “where next” in electoral politics.  FN activists will likely split their support more or less evenly in the second round vote between Hollande and Sarkozy.  Not that there is any love for the socialist, but there is a powerful desire to smash Sarkozy’s UMP.  Expect Hollande to triumph, and Sarkozy’s failure to present an inviting opportunity for a re-alignment of right-of-centre politics in France.

Beyond the presidential election FN will look for a spring-board effect from Marine’s six million votes in the legislative elections to be held on 10th and 17th June.  They are probably more important to the FN’s prospects of real, sustainable growth than the presidential election is.

by Karl LaForce

25th March 2012, Greek Independence Day.

The activities for day having been canceled, we met George at our hotel and walked to the base of the Acropolis for coffees and conversation. The neighborhood between the hotel and the Acropolis is noticeably rundown. George told us, “In this neighborhood there are only immigrants, homosexuals, and junkies”. No sooner was that said and two hand-holding homosexuals exited the door of a building directly in front of us and turn toward the Acropolis, like some unholy and cursed prophecy had just come true right before our eyes.

The name of that area of Athens is called Thesion, and was formerly an upscale area of the city, before the government’s refusal to protect the borders of Greece and Europe from the flood of “human refuse of the Third World kind”.

We came to a street that is blocked with concrete barriers at each end.  George said, “This is a synagogue and an Israeli consulate. No Greek institution in Athens is allowed to block a street like this, only Jews are permitted to do it.”

“It will make a good public restroom after GD takes control of parliament”, I replied.

As we walked, the number of non-white faces (we encountered) was disturbingly high. Afghans, Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, Turks, Arabs, Gypsies and more, all the Third World seemed to have washed up here. The favoured immigrant status was the “asylum seeker”.  But it would be far more appropriate to call them invaders.  As far as we could see, they were involved in all manner of low-grade economic activity, including begging and selling second hand-clothing, some of which was quite probably acquired from home invasions and street robberies.  They were standing around arguing, shouting, and generally degrading the area by their presence.

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by Karl LaForce

My intrepid traveling companion and I touched down at Eleftherios Venizelos airport in Athens on the day before the Independence Day holiday, which is March 25th of every year. It was a bright warm day, typical of the entire week we were there, but change is in the air, like a cleansing storm on the horizon that will bring a new day.

We took a 35 Euro taxi ride to our hotel just a few blocks from the Acropolis. After a brief rest we were met by our contact with ΧΡΥΣΗ ΑΥΓΗ (known in English as Golden Dawn, hereafter GD for short).  George, which was his name, took us straight to the GD headquarters in Athens.

At this location GD occupies two floors of a mixed residential and commercial building. It is one of many around the country. Some of GD’s Women’s Front members, about six in all, were busily cleaning the offices in anticipation of the weekly Saturday meeting. I later learned that some of the women cleaning had college degrees and were employed in professional positions, and that they demanded that the GD Women’s Front be responsible for the work of cleaning the offices.

The 2nd floor has a type of coffee bar/hang-out lounge, so we got ourselves two iced Greek style frappes and sat down to speak in greater detail with George. He told us of the protests in January 2012 in Athens in which as many as 20,000 Athenians had marched in opposition to the government monetary and immigration policy. He told us that Greece currently consisted of 10 million Greeks and 3 million immigrants. He told us of poverty levels that had not been seen since WWII. Yet, as he spoke, I detected an underlining optimism.  He felt that the enemies of Greece and Hellenism had pushed too far, and that Greece was on the verge of an epic change.

“The public is ready to embrace nationalism by electing GD parliament candidates”, he told us.  GD will have 118 candidates on the ballot in May. “The immigrants, the crime, the Euro, the never-ending austerity measures, the inability of the current government to protect the treasures of Greek antiquities either from immigrant vandals [referring to the February 2012 looting of the museum treasures in ancient Olympia] or from German banks ... all have played a part”.

As the time for the regular Saturday meeting neared, the number of people swelled to over a hundred. The energy was palpable, even over-flowing. Because of very real safety threats the security was heavy; in 2010 the GD Athens offices were bombed and, in a separate incident, there was also an attack against the Chairman at his home.

We met an organization lawyer, the official spokesman, and several of the brothers who were running for parliament.  The chairman arrived about an hour before the meeting, preceded by bodyguards.  One of them announced his arrival with a command that everyone stand.  Nikolaos G. Michaloliakos entered the room to a volley of Roman salutes; it was a thrilling moment!  Though he had never met my traveling companion or me, he walked straight up to us and offered us a warm welcome.  He said that after he had attended some pressing business we would be invited into his office for an informal chat.  After a few minutes, as promised, his bodyguards came for us.  I offered to leave my large folding pocket knife with them, but they allowed me to carry it in.  They understood that I had not come to harm their chairman, and they understood that their chairman was well protected by several big guys stationed inside the office.

After the few minutes in the Chairman’s office the regular meeting was ready to start. The party official spokesman gave a quick talk, and introduced the other speakers.  One of the speakers was a historian, dressed in 1821 period military garb.  He gave a speech on one of the fiercest battles during the war for independence from the Ottoman Empire.

At the end of the meeting a GD party official announced that contrary to previous plans, GD would not participate in any Independence Day parades the following day, due to the expectation of excessive police misconduct toward members.  The government had brought about 5000 riot policemen from around the country to guard the politicians, and there were even sharp shooters positioned on top of government buildings, for fear of insurrection.  This was somewhat of a disappointment for my traveling companion and I, as we had chosen our travel dates to coincide with the now canceled parade, however we were confident that the GD leadership had good reason to cancel the parade.

After the meeting there was a gathering at a local bar owned by a GD member. We were impressed by the closeness and camaraderie.  We saw tables at the bar where young love was at bloom, and we saw tables where young lions were plotting their next victories.  We would have stayed longer, but the travel weariness and jet lag dictated otherwise.  For a first day in a country new to me, the number and quality of new experiences had been overwhelming!  The good fortune of meeting Nationalist brothers and sisters, combined with being in the presence of the most impressive of all the ancient monuments built by our race - the majestic Acropolis – and to be walking the streets that had been walked by so many great men, had all made for something of a life changing experience.  It was one that would be deepened and expanded in the following days.

by Graham Lister

“Nationalism has no special relationship to political justice; but neither does it have a particular relationship to injustice. The most obvious thing about it is, after all, that it exists…and there are no objective criteria of what is a nation – but its subjective power is compelling. A nation, therefore, said Renan, is a great solidarity founded on a consciousness of sacrifice made in the past and on willingness to make further ones in the future”.

Bernard Crick from In Defence of Politics.

Nationalism has a rancid stench. It has been thought pivotal to some of the worse horrors of recent human history, yet it will not go away. If, as a character from Joyce’s Ulysses suggests, “History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake” then one of the most persistent phantoms haunting our nightly terrors is nationalism, particularly in the conditions of our freshly constructed ‘global’ village, built primarily through the medium of neoliberalism (the most successful ideology in history).

In the UK thinkers as wildly different as the ‘deep-blue’ conservative Roger Scruton and the Marxian theorist of nationalism (and Scottish nationalist) Tom Nairn both write with perceptive insights into the phenomena of nations and nationalism. Like any other ism, nationalism has its own internal spectrum. And due to its overall plasticity nationalism is hard to place within any conventional political axiality. It can take almost any political form and find support from anywhere in the ideological firmament – witness the radical-chic associated with various decolonization struggles – or indeed the burbling of the blessed Saint Michel (of Foucault) over the exciting new ‘political spirituality’ unleashed by the Iranian revolutionaries. However, some forms of nationalism are generally considered to have been radio-actively toxic.

Approximately eighty years ago, events occurred, which were obscure at the time, from whose dire consequences the world has not yet totally recovered. The location was Munich, capital of the historic Kingdom of Bavaria and second city of the recently formed all-German Reich. The time was five years after the end of World War I, when this new would-be imperial state had been defeated, and then both punished harshly and utterly humbled by the victors. What was to become the most extreme currency inflation in history had begun. By that autumn the Reichsbank would be issuing 100-trillion-mark notes; it took a pocketful of them to buy a US dollar.

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Robert Steuckers circulated me today with his Euro-Synergies URL to a short interview for Alternative Right with Gianluca Iannone of the Italian culturist organisation CasaPound.  The interviewer is the Tokyo-based Colin Liddell.  The two longest and most interesting answers given by Iannone are repeated here.

Founded in 2003, CasaPound is doing successfully what some in British nationalism consider to be essential at this time of nationalist disintegration.  Iannone explains:

CPI works on everything that concerns the life of our nation: from sport to solidarity, culture and of course politics. For sports, we have a soccer teams and academy, we do hockey, rugby, skydiving, boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, scuba diving, hiking groups, caving, climbing. For solidarity, we have first aid teams, we do fundraising activities for the Karen people, and we provide help to orphans and single-mums. A phone line called “Dillo to CasaPound” (tell it to CasaPound) is active 24/7 to give free advises on legal and tax issues. On the cultural ground, we host authors and organize book presentations; we have an artist club, a theater school, free guitar, bass guitar and drum lessons, we created an artistic trend called Turbodinamismo, we have a publishing company, dozens of bookshops and websites. Politically we propose various laws like the Mutuo sociale (social mortgage), Tempo di essere Madri (Time to be a mother) or against water privatisation and so many more. Speaking about CPI is never easy because all these things are CASAPOUND. All of these represent our challenges and projects for now and the millennium.

Obviously, Casapound Italia is a formula specific to the current evolution of race-loyal, anti-liberal politics in Italy.  It demonstrates, however, that in principle there are viable alternatives to party politics.  For his part, Iannone evidently regards politics as a wrong turn.

The important thing is to generate counter information and to occupy the territory. It is fundamental to create a web of supporters other than focusing on elections. For election, you are in competition with heavily financed groups and with only one or two persons elected, you can’t change anything. Politics for us is a community. It is a challenge, it is an affirmation. For us, politics is to try to be better every day. That is why we say that if we don’t see you, it is because you are not there. That is why we are in the streets, on computers, in bookshops, in schools, in universities, in gymnasium, at the top of mountains or in the newsstands. That is why we are in culture, social work and sport. That is a constant work.

All that said, there is a caveat.  At best, Culturism is utilitarian.  It is not a revolutionary programme but a smoothing of the way for serious anti-liberal, anti-globalist activism.  It necessarily operates within the existing terms of public discourse.  It has no spine of its own.  It has to reach out.  It has to look and sound like its constituency.  Therefore, those who make their contribution through it must guard assiduously against accommodationism and the resultant loss of racial focus.

In a massively propagandised macro-environment like ours, Culturism only makes sense if there is a separate but complementary effort to redefine - and racialise - the terms of debate.  Then it has something to feed off, something to propagandise in return.

The Marine effect was in evidence in the first round of voting in France’s 2011 local elections, in which some 2,000 seats are being contested.  Historically, Front National, has performed poorly at this level and currently has no councillors.  But around 400 Front National candidates will go forward to the second-round run-offs, following a 15% vote share in the first.

Marine does not offer herself as the explanation for this success.  Speaking to the Guardian she says that there is an intimacy in her relationship with the French public, who recognise her as separate and distinct from “the self-proclaimed elite running France today”.

Le Pen’s verdict is that France is on the brink of a revolution to rival that of the Arab world. Social injustice, people who can’t make ends meet, a growing gap between rich and poor, and overwhelming disappointment with president Nicolas Sarkozy means France hasn’t been this angry since the storming of the Bastille. “There isn’t that much difference between the French people and the Tunisian people or Egyptian people,” she said. “The French want justice - political justice, democratic justice, social justice - they want an end to double standards and they want some ethics from their political class. The French are suffering. They are permanently being asked to make sacrifices and yet there’s a political-financial caste that is reaping all the benefits of the economic situation and awarding itself endless privileges.

“We’re in a pre-revolutionary situation here. What’s happening today resembles what was happening before the French revolution. I think the desire for a revolution like those on the other side of the Mediterranean exists here. Of course, I’m appealing for a democratic revolution – and that’s also perhaps the role of the Front National – for a peaceful revolution by the ballot box, a patriotic revolution.”

I like this line, not least because it has truth to it.  I would like it more if she developed globalisation and its elite interests as the source of the only true racism and intolerance in the West today, which is the racism against and intolerance of Europe’s native peoples.  But like the other broadly right-wing success stories around Europe, she seems focussed in this respect solely on the need to avoid the usual hard questions.  She insists that neither she nor her party is racist, xenophobic or, of course, anti-Semitic.  None of the Semites believe her.  As an appeal for votes in a polity where the discourse on racism and anti-Semitism is so profoundly hostile to nationalism this might be necessary.  But as a policy of a nationalist party in government it would lead absolutely nowhere.  Nonetheless, it seems to be the way forward for now for the right-wing in all the European polities where Moslem demographic dominance is a genuine threat - which it’s not in Britain, in my view.

A Harris interactive poll published today in Le Parisien today gives Marine Le Pen a two-point lead in first-round voting intentions for the April/May 2012 Presidential Election.

Le Parisien described it as a “thunderclap”.

“The beginning of the awakening of the French,” Marine called it.  “The French desire a different policy.  They want to be given a real choice for the second round: the choice between a national and a global project that can be represented either by Nicolas Sarkozy or Dominique Strauss-Kahn or by Martine Aubry,” she said.

As expected, Sarkozy has been toying with the little tough guy act over the last week or so, in response to the revolutions in Tunisia and Libya.  But now he knows that the French public might see not him but Marine and FN as the answer to any new large-scale North African migrations into France.  She certainly has star quality.  Here she is a week ago at the implicitly white Le Salon International de l’Agriculture.  The visit was described by Le Parisien as “opération séduction.”

Does that look like a class political act to you?  It certainly does to me.