On September 30th the left-wing Croatian daily Novi List ran a feature on the European New Right, concentrating in large measure on the figure of Tomislav Sunic.  Tom has translated the page for me, and I’m pleased to publish it below.

Fair treatment by and regular exposure in the mainstream media is still a distant goal for most thinkers and activists on the radical right.  Here is one only too rare example of it.

NEW RIGHT-WINGERS DO NOT TOLERATE TALES ABOUT EQUALITY

The basic attitude of New Right-wingers is anti-egalitarian, i.e. the contention that all people cannot be the same, which is the main differential political and cultural point between the Left and the Right.  They are hostile to Marxism, Liberalism, and on their list of enemies are also the Church, the USA and Israel …

by Neven Santic

When two weeks ago the media made public that David Duke, the former chief of the infamous KKK, visited Croatia in order to conduct an interview with Dr Tomislav Sunic, whose book Homo americanus: Child of the Postmodern Age was recently published in the USA, many became intrigued by Sunic himself, and by the ideas he advocates.  This was especially so when the word spread that Sunic’s house-guest for a few days was sociobiologist Richard Lynn, known for his research of IQ among different nations.

Prof Richard Lynn (left) with Dr Sunic

Tomislav Sunic obtained his doctorate in the USA, and his doctoral theme was framed in his book “Against Democracy”,  in which he criticized American democracy.  For some time he was a professor in that country, and after his return to Croatia he devoted his time to writing and publishing.  In Zagreb he published the book “Ameri?ka ideologija,” in which he attempted to lay bare the American way of life.  Over the last 15 years he has written numerous articles for specialized journals promoting conservative ideas.

“Jesus the first Bolshevik of Antiquity”

In fact, Sunic belongs to that current of the European New Right whose founder is the French philosopher Alain de Benoist who, for his part, emphasizes inequality of people, elitism, and the return to the Greco-Roman roots of Europeanism.  But the New Right also has adherents in those American intellectual circles which contest neo-liberalism, multiculturalism and consumer society.

When the name David Duke is mentioned, Sunic waves his hand.  He replies that Duke was a former US Congressional candidate, primarily a politician and an effective “media man” with a large circle of acquaintances, and who no longer belongs to KKK.  “He says in public what the majority of Americans and European public people think in private,” adds Sunic.

The main attitude of the New Right is anti-egalitarian, i.e. the assertion that people are not and cannot be the same - which is, by the way, the main differential point between the cultural Right and the cultural Left and Liberalism.  Sunic adds: “In its earlier transcendental form, the belief in equality came from Christianity.”  Alain de Benoist, a writer and theoretician of the so-called European New Right, asserts in his books that the belief in equality is a secular continuation of the Christian dogma of egalitarianism, which is completely alien to the Indo-European hierarchical spirit.  “After all, of Jesus Christ we can say, if you allow me to quote Alain de Benoist, that he was the first Bolshevik of Antiquity”.

Egalitarianism and New Illusions

The liberal-communist dogmas, including Christianity, especially after the Second Vatican Council, lead today to decadence and create new illusions: the belief that every individual can and must have everything that his heart desires.  But it is precisely the dynamics of the egalitarian dogma that, by its nature, creates disappointments, mutual envy and tension – and lead to civil wars.  The dogma of egalitarianism excludes diversity; be it racial diversity, diversity of IQ and ethnic diversity.  As a result of this, it is logical that liberalism and communism reject nationalism by declaring their opponents “retarded” or “fascists”, contends Sunic.

Today, such views for many who grew up in liberal democracy and accustomed to enjoy the fruits of political equality of citizens living in a democratic society, sound dated.  Yet, the negative implications of globalism, the American hegemony in the world, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the problems in European multicultural societies, as well as fostering of the thesis of the “clash of civilizations,” and many other things, keep alive the ideas of the New Right.

This explains the success of Tomislav Sunics ‘s book in certain intellectual circles both in the USA and Europe.  With its foreword by a well-known sociobiologist Kevin MacDonald, it freely discusses the “religions of egalitarianism and economism”,  the “dictatorship of well-being” and “neo-Biblical fundamentalism”, how they are forced through multiculturalism and globalism, and their consequences.  The other side of the story is that, by contrast, today’s Left, not only in Europe, has as yet found no adequate solutions to those problems which oppress our planet.

Bioethics, multiculturalism and modern society - an interview with Dr Tomislav Sunic

“Why, out of 500 Nobel Prize winners, are more than 90 per cent white?”

NL: You devote much attention to biogenetics, bioethics and sociobiology, but some do not share your exuberance as they consider this a scientifically slippery terrain?

Sunic:  Today, genome research has empirically shown that there are bioethical differences between people – but also between peoples and races.  Long time ago this was something known to Romans and Greeks.  By someone’s face they could tell his personality (in facie legitur homo).  For instance, despite the fact that Western countries, and especially the United States of America, starting with the mid- 60’s have invested hundreds of billions of dollars for the betterment of American Blacks, Blacks still continue to show great difficulties in education; they have difficulties with the judiciary and with their low economic standard of living.  According to official statistics, percentage-wise, the majority of crimes are committed by Blacks, that is by Americans of non-European origin.  How do you explain the fact that out of 2 million inmates in American prisons more then 70 per cent are Americans of non-European origin?  How do you explain the fact that in Belgian, French, German prisons, that is in prisons of the European Union, close to 50% people of non –European origin are doing time?

This is a delicate and “politically incorrect” field of analysis which politicians do not like to talk about.  Everybody is afraid of being labeled a “racist” or a “fascist”.

NL:  Don’t you think that the problem lies in the relationship of the society towards these populations and not in those populations themselves?

Sunic:  I think that the educational system and economic growth, as purported remedies to all problems, is a shallow answer.  We have to accept the empirical data that there are individuals with high IQ, but that there are also masses of individuals who are stupid, or who demonstrate hereditary proclivity towards alcoholism, crime, or who possess “criminal chromosomes”.  Why, out of 500 Nobel Prize winners, are more than 90 per cent white?

We can not run away from the fact that modern Western societies are multicultural.  You however, do not see as the asset but rather the problem?

Multiculturalism, which in theory sounds very nice, in practice always leads to conflicts.  Take the case of ex-multicultural Yugoslavia and her mimicked brotherhood and unity – which ended up in catastrophe.  The problem with multiculturalism is that it presupposes integration, but not assimilation.  In practice, this means that each racial, or ethnic minority, as for instance in the USA, must have its own autonomy, its own victimology ... must have its own interpretation of history.  And this inevitably leads to social fragmentation and the possibility of civil wars.

Multiculturalism weakens the sense of democracy and civil society.  It enhances mutual racial and multi-ethnic phobias and racisms, instead of diminishing them.  In multicultural France, for instance, there are no more conflicts between French Jews and autochthon French citizens, but more tensions between Arab French and Jewish French.  A similar thing can be observed with multiracial tensions in the USA, where each racial or ethnic group looks after its own interests, and not after common good of the state in which it lives.

NL:  But is history not full of interwoven cultures borrowing the legacy from each other?

Sunic:  By all means.  But let us look at this thesis from the ironical side.

Leni Riefenstahl, the German actress and Hitler’s darling, traveled very much across Africa and was impressed by the Africans tribe Massai.  There is no doubt that each race and nation has its special qualities.  But the problem with multicultural and multi-ethnic societies – which are products of egalitarian dogma as well as the rapacious capitalist appetite for cheap labor – is that they destroy everybody’s identity: the identity of the host country as well as the identity of a foreigner from a different racial and cultural sphere.  Take, for instance, Israel, whose politicians often deliver lectures to central European politicians, including Croatia.  Yet Israel has very strict immigration laws and is now in the process of building up the wall on the West Bank - in order to separate itself, either for subjective or objective reasons, from Palestinians — and certainly not to search for some rapprochement with them.  Imagine Croatia building up a wall on the borders with Serbia and Bosnia!

ALAIN DE BENOIST - FATHER OF THE NEW RIGHT

The academician and philosopher Alain de Benoist, born in 1943, is the founder of the French New Right.  At the University of the Sorbonne he studied law, philosophy, sociology and history of religion.  By mid-1968 he launched the revue “Nouvelle Ecole” (The New School), which is considered the beginning of the organized activities of the European New Right.  In 1988 he became the editor of the journal KRISIS.  He considers himself a critic of liberalism, free market and egalitarianism. He is the undisputed authority among the New Right.

The European New Right - Let us separate in order not to spoil ourselves

Today, the European New Right, which advocates the organic conceptualization of society - i.e, authoritarianism and anti-rationalism - represents a cultural-political action in some intellectual circles in Western Europe at the beginning of the 70’s of the last century.  Its chief objective is to regenerate the fundamental principles of modern conservatism in order to “scientifically” overcome its shallowness and operational weaknesses.  It emerged simultaneously with neo-liberalism.  It differs from neo-liberalism and it aims at confronting it, as its sees in neo-liberalism the hegemony of the USA.  It is not as influential as neo-liberalism; nor is it organized as a political party.  First and foremost it is an intellectual movement aiming at the gradual restructuring of “egalitarian, mass, atomized, and decadent society into a new organic community with aristocratic leadership that would correspond to the spirit of European man.”  Its adherents consider themselves as spiritual elites.  They are opponents of racial and ethnic mixing; let everybody develop in its own way - so as to not mutually spoil their own cultures.

Nikola Viskovic:  They consider themselves democrats

Dr Nikola Viskovic, the professor of the theory of the state and law, was the first and the only academic in the late 80’s in ex-Yugoslavia to write about the phenomenon of New Right - also submitting this school of thought to criticism.

In recent years he has not been in touch with Alain de Benoist, whom he used to call and even interviewed in Paris (that was never published, though).

According to his writings, New Right journals are numerous in Western Europe.  But it is impossible to buy them at the newspaper stands. They are delivered to home addresses, or can be obtained in specialised bookstores.

The New Right, and especially Alain de Benoist, underestimate mass media, viewing it as “americanades,” designed solely for global society.  By contrast, the New Right aims to capture intellectual elites.

“With their anti-globalistic attitude,” says Viskovic, “they were the predecessors of modern movements.  In the 80’s of the preceding century, De Benoist argued in his books that the main enemy of Europe is the USA and not the USSR.  At that time there was no mention of globalism, but of imperial dominance on the part of the USA; yet they registered this phenomenon and submitted it to criticism from their point of view.  The New Right people consider themselves democrats, albeit in the old Greek tradition that ignored today’s plebeian democracy, which is being exported to Europe by the USA”.