A reader responded to “The Shape of Things to Come in Europe“ with this note:
The Front National should not be listed among the resistance. Le Pen is more concerned with hating Jews than preserving France. [Link]
(Galliawatch reported on this months ago)
Le Pen’s party can certainly be described as “nationalistic”. But I agree with the reader — Jew-hating nationalism is unlikely to be helpful in the coming struggle.
In fact, many of the most virulent neo-Nazi groups are likely to switch sides and join up with the imams. This has already happened with at least one group in Britain.
Neo nazis and radical (?) muslims even believe the same conspiracy theories. I know this from discussions I’ve had with members of both camps. It’s quite tragic but still pretty funny. I fully agree on Front National, I felt bad when it was mentioned together with some of the other parties. Most right wing parties attract a fair share of racist loosers but they are usually weeded out before they gain influence in the party. In FN’s case it seems like the worst looser is actually it’s leader.
The real problem is that the issue of orthodox islam vs. free societies is a partisan matter at all. If more parties took the challenge seriously one wouldn’t have to weigh your interests in economic or social policy against immigration policy. Because let’s face it, many of these far-right parties are actually pretty far-left when it comes to economic policy.
They’re not much further right on social policy either, most of the time. THe label “far right” or “right wing” is, these days, used as a codeword for “nationalist”. The BNP is called “fir right” when, in reality, every policy it proposes is to the left of Labour, and often to the left of the BBC. The mere fact that it’s a nationalist party is all the excuse certain people need to refer to it as right-wing.
Far-left, center-left, far-right, Islamist — in Europe, in all boils down to three words
“Kill the Jews”.
(My monomaniacal post of the day….)
My God, I actually find myself agreeing with zerosumgame.
I have never understood why otherwise perfectly sane people find it easier to blame the (usually harmless) Jews for the ills of the world, when the mindless rabble of islam are tearing at the gates.
Its the main thing that prevents me (a confirmed hanger and flogger) from voting BNP.
Where did this crap come from anyway?
Dont ever believe this is only Europe though, niether the Klan nor the Aryan Nation are putting on Kippas anytime soon.
Perhaps what we need is a sort of Pan-Anglophile party that is anti-islamic, but based on the inimical and anti-western/anti-progressive nature of islam.
Robert, the BNP is officially a suporter of Israel’s right to exist, possibly the only party to make it their official policy. It’s one of those ironies of modern British politics when the nazis support the jews… I still wouldn’t vote for them though. They’re more socialist than the socialist party.
I’ll tell you this: people on the left are a hell of a lot more likely to hate jews than those on the right. People turn on the jews because, in short, they’re jealous. They reckon the jews have something they want and aren’t sharing (and to be fair, some of the weirder elements of the Talmud make it clear that more than a few jews are of the same opinion vis-a-vis sharing stuff with gentiles). Socialism is predicated on jealousy and greed, so that your typical leftist will be whipping up a frenzy whenever someone is successful. On the right, meanwhile,s uccess is something that’s usually celebrated, and any jealousy that comes in to play becomes a driving force to try and succeeed more than the other guy rather than an excuse to take all their cash. And Jews are often very successful…
Of course, depending on your beliefs there are also some spiritual drivers behind it too, but even without those it’s very easy to see that it’s socialistic thought that drives jew hatred. Zero, therefore, does his argument little justice by simply assuming that all europeans are going to hate jews, just because.
Zero, my friend, it gets old. Try and pick something else for a while, eh?
Archonix,
In deference to the hosts of this blog, I will respond over on yours — later.
Far-right, far-left, centre, centre-right, etc. These are just labels which hep us not one jot to fight the enemy we face. Islam is a threat to our way of life, a threat to our liberal democracy, a threat to Western civilization. This isn’t a new phenomenon. This, as it so wisely states on the top of this blog, is “a new phase in a very old war”.
It actually shouldn’t matter whether a person is left- or right-wing. We ALL stand to lose if Islam wins this war. For goodness’ sake, let us all UNITE to defeat this insidious enemy!
Archonix,
“I’ll tell you this: people on the left are a hell of a lot more likely to hate jews than those on the right.”
Exactly. The mantle of anti-Semitism has passed nearly wholly to the Left in our times. It appears there under the cover of anti-Zionism.
Mark,
“It actually shouldn’t matter whether a person is left- or right-wing. We ALL stand to lose if Islam wins this war. For goodness’ sake, let us all UNITE to defeat this insidious enemy!”
That would indeed be the wisest thing to do. However, the greater part of the Left (in fact, possibly excepting only the FDR-heritage-loyalists such as the signatories of the Euston Manifesto) are on the enemy side because of rejecting the “Non-Muslims vs. Islamic imperialism” narrative in favor of the “Non-Westerners vs. Western imperialism” one. We say Islamic aggression is the fault of Islam and should be resisted; they say Islamic resistance is the fault of Western aggression and should be appeased. This battle of narratives is the first and greatest stumbling-block before we could even think of uniting to achieve victory.
A little link-whoring here but I recommend an editorial in the Washinton Times today, Gallic intifada. I wonder that the Left in all Western nations hates its “homeland” so much as to unite against it. It seems as though the Left will and has thrown its own children under the train to seem “soft” on Islamic Imperialism. I am always intrigued that the Left doesn’t seem to know who is defending its very right to be. Oh, well, must continue to get my Gates of Vienna fix. Have been away too long.
Alas, with over 10% of its population Islamic, is France doomed? Is England far behind? With all of us being so tolerant who will get our fat out of the fire?
But in America, how does the Jewish population in places such as NYC remain so far-Left?
Right, Left — how about “crazy/nutso?”
The ideological spectrum is usually thought of as a line with two extremes at its ends. This is wrong. Someone came close by describing it as a “horseshoe.” Close, but not quite. It is a circle that joins the extremes at the bottom.
A truly superb and graphic distillation of that fact can be seen here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bolshevik_Party
Recognize the flag? Remember which symbol used to occupy the white circle before the hammer and sickle? Do you rercall when Bolsheviks and Nazis were mortal enemies?
Zionist Youngster:
We say Islamic aggression is the fault of Islam and should be resisted; they say Islamic resistance is the fault of Western aggression and should be appeased. This battle of narratives is the first and greatest stumbling-block before we could even think of uniting to achieve victory.
Very well put! It’s so succinct. But if only these dorks would stop and think about how much they’ve got to lose.
The so called far right gains support only because it the leaders of the political left alienate their core supporters. In this sense, the rise of extreme Right is almost always caused by the failure of the Left.
The traditional core supporters of the Left come from people who have worked in blue collar jobs and have a Trade Union background. When mass immigration starts to affect working class neighborhoods these people are the first ones to suffer.
The Left also has an academic and more ideologically oriented wing, which is keen on social engineering, third-worldism, welfarism and all kinds of utopian ideas.
The political interests of these two parts of Left may sometimes contradict with one another and in the case of immigration and multiculturalism they definitely do.
So whatever gains the Left makes from immigrant voters, they lose more in their traditional powerbase if the reality in the immigrant-populated neighborhoods no longer corresponds the utopian multiculturalist propaganda.
There was evidence of this, when Le Pen made it to the second round in the last French presidential election.
I have borrowed some of the ideas from the following Swedish blog article:
http://www.erixon.com/2/blogg060924.htm#38
(In Swedish)
and added some of my own.
In this article Dick Erixon describes the reasons behind the rise of Swedish Democrats.
“It actually shouldn’t matter whether a person is left- or right-wing…For goodness’ sake, let us all UNITE to defeat this insidious enemy!”
Not quite. I refuse to have anything to do with the Left, in any form. In fact, I see the coming clash with Islam as a perfect opportunity to take out the Left, to marginalise it, to effect a death blow.
“Most right wing parties attract a fair share of racist loosers but they are usually weeded out before they gain influence in the party. “
That’s quite correct and these racist nutcases are then used in propaganda aimed at marginalizing the right wing parties from public debate. I think the reason why the racist loonies pick up these parties is because they have no other choice.
A few months back I read an article from BNP website praising Israel as a model for Nation State. So it seems like some of the right wing parties have begun the distance themselves from anti-semitism.
Far right parties have generally found it hard to attract supporters of Conservative right. That is mainly because far right parties usually have a fairly imbecile economic policy and Conservative voters tend to put more value to lower taxes. Besides, the negative effects of large scale muslim immigration don’t usually exist in neighbourhoods populated by traditional Conservative voters.
I have heard stray reports to the effect that the FN is getting chummy with the ‘salamis. What’s that about?
Left/Right are probably useless terms; they carry too much baggage. We’ll need to devise new ones that will attract all who have stomach for the coming fight. Deal with Islam, and argue over economics later.
Back when M. LePen was running for President, FrontPage Magazine had piece on the question of whether or not LePen is a fascist. They observed:
He is a nationalist of the anti-semitic type, though most of his voters did not buy that full package they were just disgusted at the immigration policies and the crime problem.
Almost all his other policies were the same as the French Socialist Party. And much of his voters were being drawn from the left leaning parties.
They concluded that if he is a both Nationalist and a Socialist there is good reason to believe he is a fascist.
An overly simplistic argument for sure, but I think the main thing to be observed is that the conventional political categories are shifting and the old labels do not mean much. Better ask WHAT are they doing and WHAT do they support.
In fact, many of the most virulent neo-Nazi groups are likely to switch sides and join up with the imams. This has already happened with at least one group in Britain.
And in the Netherlands. The Netherlands Volks Union (NVU), a fringe nazi party has said that regarding ‘…international relations these [islamic regimes and jihad groups] are our partners in the fight against zionism’.
The NVU is also said to be receiving funds from Iran, together with a number of other Euro nazi parties.
So this may well turn out to be a fight not between competing world views, but between order and chaos, thugs and civilians.
Who was it again that said: You will be known by the friends you keep?
My point seems to have got lost. The Nazis and the BNP have one thing in common: they are both socialist parties. Hitler hismelf stated that bolsheviks would be quite at home within the ranks of the nazi party and, indeed, many were. What set the nazis apart was nationalism. THe bolshies and the communists were internationalists who were trying to dissolve the nation state. The nazis agred with everything they said, except they liked the nation state as it was thank you very much…
What we call right wing today was nothing of the sort, and the continued distortion of the language of politics weaknes us as a result. The right was, and should still be, about small government, nationalism, the rule of law and individual freedom. If a left wing party adopts natioanlism that doesn’t make it right-wing, any mroe than putting wings on a pig would make it a turkey.
The terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ DO make sense when it comes to measuring the scope and scale of government power and activity, but groups such as Le Pen’s and the BNP–and the Nazis themselves–do not fit on this continuum. They are driven by a fanatical or extreme purpose, and typically want to use the power of government while using ‘conservative’ or ‘traditional’ rhetoric.
These groups are ‘extreme populists’: populists are people who generally believe that both Left and Right have betrayed them, and their political views are muddled and hightly emotional
What such parties have in common is the perception of an extreme danger. Because most people do not share such a view, these parties don’t get much support–unless you have a situation like Germany in 1930-32, and even then the Nazis only received a third of the vote.
And if things get worse in Europe in the next few years…..
vasarahammer writes “The traditional core supporters of the Left come from people who have worked in blue collar jobs and have a Trade Union background.”
Used to be. Look at who speaks for and supports the left now. Elites that know better how we should live than we could ever possibly decide for ourselves. Academics and lawyers that have never actually worked at anything that wasn’t paid by the public teat.
From yesterdays Washington Times:
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20061015-101426-7581r.htm
We can’t hope to win this with the impediments imposed by the left. Maybe when the fight starts in earnest some alliances may be formed ala the various partisans that helped defeat the Nazis but the current left in the U.S. are clearly not on the side of anything I want to be a part of.
I have just read the comment and it seems to me that most of the people commenting, are trying to define what is right wing and what is left wing in politics. This to me describes a break up of the political structure and people are trying to find the new definitions of right and left in politics, as the broken structures re coagulate. New parties are forming all the time, Een Nederland has just announced its formation out of the ashes of Pim fortune old party. SIAD which stands for Stop the Islamisation of Denmark, is emerging in Denmark. Europe’s political parties are fragmenting and repolarising at the same time as it begins to face up to the threat of Islamic hegemony and we have not yet been able to put our cosy stamp of approval on them either right or left to suit our prejudices . Things are changing very quickly over here in Europe, Jack Straw’s rating have gone up 15% since he started the debate over the veil. Other Labour Politician are following suit. The political climate could be completely different one year from now, as Harold Wilson said a week is a long time in politics.
I think the major political rivalries in future will be between, on the one hand 1) nationalists/particularists, and on the other 2) internationalists/transnational progressives.
Real neo-Nazis supported the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre and generally support the Islamic war on the West, since they share the same belief system (indeed they come from the same roots). Like the cultural Marxists, their desire to destroy western Enlightenment civilisation is the primary motivation, joined with hatred of all Jews. Reading Louis Theroux’s interviews with American neo-Nazis in “The Call of the Weird” was enlightening.
Re the British BNP, they now are offcially very much not anti-Jewish and have Jewish councillors. One might see this, and their hostility to Islamo-Nazism, as a return to Fascism’s non-Nazi roots (BNP claim not to be fascist, but are at least quasi-fascist IMO) – Italian fascism was not anti-Semitic in its conception and many Italian Jews were Fascists, including many intellectuals, until Mussolini allied with Hitler and came under the influence of Nazi ideology. Likewise, the Nazis were strongly allied with the Islamists in the ’30s and ’40s, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem recruited tends of thousands of Muslims to the SS and unlike other non-Germans they were treated as equals of the German SS.
OTOH the BNP do emphasise a “white nationalist” agenda, my understanding of Italian Fascism was that it was about the State and the Leader, with little racial component.
“The right was, and should still be, about small government, nationalism, the rule of law and individual freedom. If a left wing party adopts natioanlism that doesn’t make it right-wing, any mroe than putting wings on a pig would make it a turkey.”
I side with Archonix. I believe it is very dangerous for us to show the slightest sympathy or contact with Fascists or the like. We aim to defend and promote the best of Western values, especially Freedom, individual rights, and the others. And we do so against an ideology which enphasizes group-spirit, lack of individual rights, the “ummah” or Islamic nation, as opposed to our real nation; submission (=Islam) as opposed to freedom; etc.
If we associate ourselves with people who represent the sicknesses of the West, like the far left or the far right, then we are doomed. And more so if they side with Islam, as nazis tend to do.