The following news story from Der Tagesspiegel sounds like the Westgate Mall massacre in Nairobi, only not as deadly. “What religion are you? Christian? Well, then, we’ll teach you a lesson!”
Many thanks to Nash Montana for the translation. A slightly different version of this article appeared previously at Vlad Tepes:
Muslims Beating on Christians
“I am Muslim. What are you?” After asking this question, Muslims beat up Christians at Berlin Mitte on the second day of Christmas, at Potsdam Platz.
At least five men were injured as the result of a fight on early Sunday evening in Berlin-Tiergarten. The police are still investigating, But what they know so far is that five men, after leaving the Club “Adagio” at 17:20 on the Marlene-Dietrich-Plaza, were accosted by a man and asked about their religion. The police report said that the unknown man said, “I am Muslim! What are you?” The question resulted in a verbal shouting match. Suddenly more people arrived on the scene and together with the unknown Muslim they started beating on the men aged 20, 24, and 25.
A 19-year-old man who tried to calm the men down was injured in the face. The perpetrators fled the scene just before the police arrived. The injured young men did not want medical treatment on the spot and said they were going to go to the clinic themselves. According to police, the young men that were attacked come from Serbia and Montenegro, and are Orthodox Christians. The office for political crimes within the police has taken over the investigation. The “Adagio” held a “Balkan Party” on December 25th.
The following anti-immigration demonstration took place recently in Vienna. The demonstrators simulated an execution by the Islamic State in which the victims of beheading were represented as “Refugees Welcome” activists.
Take note of the persistent attempts by Leftist counter-demonstrators to interfere with the protesters, and the equally persistent efforts by perimeter guards from the protest group to keep them out. The demonstrators seem to be familiar with the tactics of their progressive adversaries, and well-prepared to deal with them.
Many thanks to Nash Montana for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
This article below serves as an apposite follow-up to Thor von Waldstein’s speech and the discussion about “moderate” vs. “extremist”. It highlights the repeated attempts to force Björn Höcke, the popular German politician from the AfD party, to jump over the “distancing stick” held out for him by leftists and their cowed accomplices on the Right. JLH has simultaneously translated and fisked an MSM article that makes a blatant effort to marginalize Mr. Höcke, and with him the possibility of any real political alternative in Germany.
Anatomy of a Hit-Piece
Introduction by JLH
As a result of coverage by Gates of Vienna, Björn Höcke is already known to some here as an Ossi who is attempting to move the AfD toward an immigrant-critical position. However, other than some dramatic moments, we do not know that much about him, so when I came across an article in the FAZ with what appeared to be a neutral title and promise of a look behind the curtain of his facade, I decided to translate it.
How wrong I was about its intentions, as you will see. But nothing in politics goes to waste, so read along with me and we will learn a little about Höcke, and possibly even more about the Left — its presumptions, its bêtes noires and its techniques.
My comments are interpolated within the text in square brackets. The original piece was published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Björn Höcke — Propagator and Place-Holder
[At first, this seemed like a harmless title, but on reflection, what does it describe? First, the town-crier figure who is spreading the word, and disappears around the corner as the more important people show up. Then, somebody who is just important enough to hold a place open until the real hero arrives to take it. Just a loud guy with no substance who thinks a lot of himself.]
by Friederike Haupt December 22, 2015
Björn Höcke will have to be careful for a while now. This is clear from the way he talks about his party, the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland/Alternative for Germany). Last Thursday, when he wanted to describe what it is, he was still using some of the original Höcke turns of phrase: “For me, the AfD is the last evolutionary chance for this people. Our substance is being consumed in every area.” If the chance is missed, will that necessarily mean revolution? How else can you understand the sentence? Höcke has predicted that Germans will have to pass through a “ vale of tears” before the AfD will save the democratic nation of laws.
[“How else can you understand the sentence?” Perhaps as a reference to electing a more responsive government??]
On Friday, at Höcke’s behest, his spokeswoman authorized the quotation, with an emendation, which was as perfect as though it had been worn smooth and round by a river flowing over it for a thousand years: “The AfD is a modern liberal-conservative party. It fills the vacuum left by Merkel’s social-democratized Union. We want to win back those who have turned away from politics in recent years, because they missed the ideas of the AfD in the political offerings.”
In the interval between the two quotations, the AfD had conferred about Höcke. Or rather, argued fiercely. Frauke Petry, the federal chairwoman, was in favor of disciplinary measures against Höcke, in fact, because of a claim he had made shortly before in a speech: that Europeans and Africans had different reproductive strategies.
To Africans, he attributed what the biologists called the r-strategy. According to Höcke, Europeans followed the K strategy. In the English-language Wikipedia, this “r/K selection theory” is illustrated by two photos, according to which the r strategy is represented by rats and the K strategy by whales. Höcke’s comment was widely perceived as biological racism.
[What Höcke said is not that different from what others have said. Other Europeans have remarked on the likelihood that they will become a minority because of the drastic difference in birth rate. Muslim immigrants themselves have bragged about the same phenomenon. So what makes this so dramatic?
The graphic pictures. Rats — those companions of cockroaches in all the worst places to be, biting babies in their cradles. Versus the noble and endangered giant mammals of the sea.
But wait. Didn’t Friederike take her pictures from the English language Wikipedia? And the same reference exists in German. With one difference — the German page, typically, has no dramatic pictures — just graphs and formulas and explications.
So what if we alter the illustration a bit. How would you react to hundreds of tiny, newly hatched turtles toddling toward the safety of the sea, as most are gobbled up by the predators that have been salivating for this moment? Or a very large litter of cute little kittens? And imagine the opposite for the K strategy — a ferocious wolf staring balefully at a terrified lamb. This may be the alpha male who is the only one in the pack who mates, and has as few as 2-4 cubs a year. May not even do that, if food is short and it will be hard for the pack to keep itself fed. Think of it as responsible parenting. Does it change the theory, or just the emotional impact?]
Petry’s plan failed with the majority. The party leadership managed only to produce a sterile press release. Höcke should examine “to what extent his positions were still in accord with those of the AfD.” But why should Höcke be concerned about his agreement with the AfD, instead of the other way around?
The following MEMRI video shows excerpts from an address given last week by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to an audience at Al-Azhar University in Cairo on the occasion of Mohammed’s birthday. Gen. el-Sisi takes the opportunity to send Christmas greetings to Christians among his fellow countrymen. He calls for true religious freedom in Egypt, where citizens should be free to choose their religion without fear of physical or social coercion. He tells the clerics in his audience that this is the message they should preach from the pulpits of their mosques.
Watch as the camera pans across the audience, and you’ll see a lot of hats that look like truncated Santa Claus caps. These are badges of office worn by scholars who have been certified in their Islamic studies by Al-Azhar University, the most prestigious academic institution in Islam. What President el-Sisi is telling them is contrary to the “consensus of the scholars”, that is, to more than a thousand years of universally accepted Islamic principle and praxis.
What he is calling for is, in effect, the rewriting of the basis of Islamic law. And his words are being spoken in the heart of Islamic scholarship and jurisprudence. It’s a remarkable moment:
The video below shows the Christmas address broadcast by Czech President Miloš Zeman to his fellow countrymen. Mr. Zeman is unusual among Western leaders, not just for the absence of bland platitudes in his brief message, but also because of his frank words about the current “refugee” crisis. The President is willing to tell the truth to the Czech Republic in a nationwide television broadcast: What Europe is currently experiencing is not migration, but a deliberate invasion.
Many thanks to Xanthippa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
At least seven people were killed by tornadoes as violent weather struck the Dallas area. Five of those killed in Garland were thought to have been blown off the interstate in their vehicle. Meanwhile, wildfires are ravaging California and Australia, with more than 100 homes destroyed along the coastline in Victoria.
In other news, Afghan, Eritrean, and Syrian migrants housed in a hotel above the Arctic Circle in Swedish Lapland are unhappy with the extremely cold weather and the lack of sunlight. In those latitudes the sun disappeared six weeks ago and will not return until February.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Dean, Fjordman, Jerry Gordon, Seneca III, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
In prehistoric Celtic mythology the ovum anguinum, or “serpent’s egg”, was a mythical stone that had magical powers. Most of the information we have about it comes from the Roman historian Pliny the Elder, who reported that he had actually handled such a stone. He acquired his information from the Gauls, but similar stones appear in Welsh, Irish, and Scottish legends.
The ovum anguinum was created by snakes who coiled together and generated it from their saliva and secretions and then lofted it into the air with their hissing breath. If a Druid adept leapt over the conclave of snakes, he could catch the stone in a cloth without allowing it to touch the ground. The snakes in their fury would pursue him, but if he succeeded in crossing a river that the snakes were unable to pass, he could return with the magic stone.
The serpent’s egg was said to give its owner protection from injury and defeat in battle. When held against one’s chest during a dispute or litigation, it guaranteed victory.
Ah, if only I could obtain one of those for use in the Blog Wars! No one would dare to contradict me…
Alas, the ovum anguinum is no more than a Celtic fantasy. As you can see from the 15th-century woodcut at the top of this post, the stone being snatched by the courageous Druid is a fossilized echinoderm, perhaps a sea urchin or something similar. 4,000-year old troves of fossilized sea urchins used as grave-goods have been discovered in Wales. Other examples of serpents’ eggs listed by skeptical scholars include seaworn shards of ancient glass from Roman bottles that had had holes drilled in them and were used as amulets among the Celts.
I recognize, however, that not everyone agrees with me.
The conversation about the “moderate Muslim” began last week with V.K. Chatterjee’s exposé of Maajid Nawaz. We could just as easily have been discussing Tariq Ramadan or Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, whose silver-but-forked tongues have done at least as much as Mr. Nawaz’ to obscure the problem of Islam. All of them have sent non-Muslims haring down a blind alley in a desperate search for Moderate Islam. Mr. Ramadan, however, has tarnished his once-pristine reputation by making certain imprudent remarks before Muslim audiences on videotape that made their way into the public record. And Imam Rauf is more familiar to Americans than to Europeans, so the focus was on Maajid Nawaz as a prototypical taqiyya-artist at his most unctuously persuasive.
A comment by Oren deepened the discussion by suggesting that we might be doing our movement a disservice with our hostility towards Maajid Nawaz. Oren’s follow-up comment the next day provided additional points that deserve consideration.
His entire comment is below. Certain sections that merit further discussion in depth have been marked in bold:
Now that you have turned my comment into a post, please allow me to respond.
First of all, let me begin by making clear that I am not a Muslim apologist, nor a “useful idiot” in the ranks of the left. I am an Israeli blogger and activist, who has been warning against the danger of the Islamization of the west for close to a decade now.
However, I quickly realized that in order to have any impact, the anti-Jihad movement must have clear objectives. What is it that we wish to achieve? Waking up the large public is an important mile stone, but certainly not the end game.
If your declared goal is simply to eradicate Jihad violence, and to prevent Sharia law from entering our legal system, then you have the potential to bring the public on board. As a part of this agenda you may advocate stopping further immigration to the west, but you will still have to suggest a reasonable solution for those Muslims already living in Europe and the US, one which the public opinion will be able to accept. The only such solution I can think of is integration. In other words, allowing them to stay, as long as they abide by western law and adopt western values.
On the other hand, if your stated goal is to kick each and every Muslim out of Europe and the US, then I’m afraid you will probably only alienate the moderate sections of society, and supply ammunition to the hard core left, which constantly tries to vilify the anti-Jihad movement as “racist”.
The leader of a powerful faction of Syrian “rebels” was killed today by a Russian airstrike in the suburbs of Damascus. Zahran Alloush was secretly meeting with other leaders of the group Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) when he was killed.
In other news, a federal judge has declined to dismiss a criminal case against a North Philadelphia woman who supported the jihad in Syria and attempted to travel there to join it. The judge says that it will be up to a jury to decide whether the woman’s attempted actions were protected by the First Amendment.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Caroline Glick, Dean, DV, Fjordman, JD, LP, MM, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Three hundred and thirty-two years ago today Kara Mustafa, the grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire, was executed in Belgrade on the orders of the Sultan. The following guest essay by Miltiades Varvounis describes the historical background to this grisly Christmas Day anniversary.
Kara Mustafa: The Greatest Threat the West Has Ever Faced
by Miltiades Varvounis
December 25th 1683: Across Christian Europe, church bells were ringing and priests were opening their church doors for those who had assembled to celebrate the anniversary of the Savior’s birth. However, in Ottoman Europe there was silence everywhere, since the ringing of church bells was prohibited by Islamic law. Occasionally, only screams mixed with howls of agony from crows and wolves could be heard throughout the Balkan region.
During this time an execution was taking place in Belgrade, Serbia. The silken bowstring pulled by several janissaries on several sides pierced the throat of an Ottoman high-ranking official. The victim’s heartbeat grew weaker and weaker; the same heart which used to spread hate and fear across Europe. As he struggled to draw oxygen into his lungs, the trumpet sounds of Death became louder and more apparent. The executioners were amazed at how their victim continued to resist and breathe, as deep groans were heard from him. However, the unfortunate man was losing the struggle and finally let go. His body quivered back and forth, moving slightly, and then was motionless. The silken bowstring finally forced the life out of him and put an end to all the darkness he had spread. Death had taken his soul to the gates of Hell.
That soul belonged to nobody other than the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, Kara Mustafa. But who was this little-known but pivotal figure in the history of the world, ignored by the extreme majority of historians?
Kara Mustafa was just another ambitious figure from the East who tried to conquer the heart of Europe during the centuries-old clash of civilizations between the East and the West. The East had been desperately trying to subdue the West for at least 1,200 years before the rise of Islam. To give just a few examples: the arrogant Persians had invaded Europe in an attempt to conquer the Greeks in the 5th century B.C. After the beginning of Christianity, bloody conquests by the East continued through the attempts of nomadic tribes. Among these nomadic tribes were the Huns, the Bulgars, the Magyars, and the formidable Avars who besieged Constantinople in 626 A.D.
After Mohammed’s death in 632, the new Muslim caliph in the Arab world, Abu Bakr, directed Islam into many centuries of continual imperialist, merciless conquest and subjugation of unfortunate nations through invasion and war. The territories conquered by Muslim invaders stretched from Portugal to Indonesia, from Hungary to Nigeria, and from the depths of Asia to New Guinea. Arabs, Mongols and Ottomans — all of them tried to pass through the gates of the West. Pre-Islamic and Muslim generals such as Attila and Suleiman the Magnificent, among others, were so close to gaining a catastrophic victory onto the heart of Europe. Quite significantly, none of them was so close to achieve this goal as Kara Mustafa himself. Indeed, it was not the remarkably famous sultans, khans or warlords, but an unknown Ottoman official was the greatest danger the Western world has ever faced. So, who was that mysterious man who almost managed to succeed in conquering the very heart of Christendom?
Kara Mustafa’s early years are shrouded in mystery. He is generally referred to as Merzifonlu. The odds lie with his being born in 1634 near Merzifon (near Amasya) in the Black Sea region of Turkey. According to the Venetian Giambattista Donaldo, an ambassador to Istanbul, he was the son of a vegetable vendor, but in another account he is said to be the son of a sipahi — a soldier who was granted land from the sultan in return for military service. Whatever his true background, there is one undisputed fact about his life: he was taken into the household of the notable Koprulu family. This family of Albanian origin produced a string of effective grand viziers (prime ministers of the Ottoman Empire) and other worthy officials of the sultan.
The following interview with a Polish border guard about his recent deployment in Hungary was published earlier this months at the Polish website Nasz Dziennik. Many thanks to Green Infidel for the translation:
Immigrants in disguise
Thursday, 10 December 2015. Piotr Czartoryski-Sziller speaks with Staff Sergeant Marcin Jurewicz, from the Podlasie region regiment of the Polish Border Guard.
Q:
A few days ago, you returned from Hungary. You were securing the border with Serbia. What were your responsibilities?
A:
Our mission lasted a month; we were sent on 4 November, and returned on 3 December. At the beginning, from the Polish Border Guard 43 people were sent. Although after our superiors assessed whether we would need observation vehicles for our operation, additional personnel were sent. In total, until the end of the mission, there were 53 functionaries of the Border Guard. In accordance with what was agreed between ministers and the chief commandants of the subordinate forces, we were directed to assist our Hungarian colleagues right at the border. It was typical border duties — patrols, help during interdictions, identification of people, etc. We were protecting a sensitive 40km section of the border with Serbia.
Q:
What security measures did you encounter at the border?
A:
This is the section of the border where a special fence was erected. It looks like this — from the Serbian side, we firstly have 1.5-metre-high razor wire, followed by a 3.5 metre-high fence made out of a dense mesh. The whole arrangement is also joined using razor wire. Our Hungarian, Czech and Slovak colleagues told us, however, that since our arrival there had been a significant drop in the number of people crossing the border. Before that there were 200-300 crossings a day, and after our arrival, when the patrols became more numerous, this was reduced to three to five crossings a day, ten at the most.
Q:
In what ways do the immigrants cross the fence?
A:
It’s known that if money comes into play, nothing is impossible. The smugglers who participate in transferring the immigrants displace and cut the barbed wire, which must then be repaired later. But I can say with confidence that the border in that region is really watertight. Even if some immigrants were able to cross the border, they were intercepted by additional patrols stationed three to five km from the border.
Q:
How many people did you stop a month?
A:
In total, our four countries which took part in this operation stopped around 100 people. We’re specialists in such matters concerning border control. Other units which were assisting us, especially police units, were less experienced in this field. We took part in around 50% of apprehensions, so we can say with satisfaction that we did our job. The Hungarians themselves very much appreciated our efforts; they were happy that things became calmer on the border, and were worried what would happen after we left. The patrols themselves were mixed, consisting of two Polish Border Guard functionaries, along with a Hungarian policeman and soldier, or patrols consisting of one border guard from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
Q:
After returning to Poland, you mentioned that you would not like to meet some of the apprehended immigrants alone in a dark corner.
This is dedicated to the people in Austin. The right folks, not the Republic of Austin bluenoses. The latter wouldn’t be caught dead near this tune.
What happened was that on the way through You Tube to pick up Vera Lynn singing “Old Little Town of Bethlehem”, Robert Earl Keen and his kinfolk waylaid me with this song… again. Right: it’s not the first time I’ve put it on for my Christmas morning breakfast song. It probably won’t be the last one, either.
When you’re eating homemade biscuits with sausage gravy (I finally got the sausage recipe right) what else can you sing? Tomorrow we’ll return to righteous eating. Later this week, there will be Lessons and Carols at Morning Prayer. But just for the moment, pass the biscuits, please, and hit ‘repeat’ on that CD…
Yes, I really do know it’s tacky and trashy and as redneck as a Ford F-150 with a gun rack. But parts of it still make me cry.
These aren’t my people, but they’re part of my country and they deserve celebrating.
The lyrics are below the fold for those who don’t speak ’Mericun.
A long-time reader and commenter named doxRaven sent the original tip for and transcript of the speech below, which was given last June in Germany by Dr. Thor von Waldstein. JLH and Rembrandt Clancy collaborated on the translation of the German transcript, and Rembrandt Clancy subtitled the video and wrote the introduction to the video. The tip arrived in August, so this has been a four-month project. We owe a debt of gratitude to the three people who worked so hard on it for so long.
For readers who wish to understand the intellectual background to the pervasive political rot that is currently destroying Germany, Dr. Waldstein’s careful analysis provides invaluable assistance. He also touches upon the dissenting opinions that are now coming to the surface in the Federal Republic, as manifested in the AfD party and the PEGIDA movement. He is not sanguine about their chances of success, yet seems somehow to maintain a guarded optimism.
Metapolitics and Party Politics
“At the heart of the matter is cultural attraction, a new feeling of what it means to be alive beyond the false ways of our time…. At the heart of the matter is the re-establishment among Germans of something like a spiritual fellowship and a kinship rooted in the soul. Truly, this will be a painstaking labor given the life-alienating desolation which these ideologies have wrought, especially in our country. But it must be done.”
Thor von Waldstein
Metapolitik und Parteipolitik 2nd State Policy Congress of the Institut für Staatspolitik Schnellroda, 13 and 14 June 2015
Introduction by Rembrandt Clancy
Dr. Thor von Waldstein gave his talk on Metapolitics and Party Politics in June of 2015 in the village of Schnellroda, Saxony-Anhalt, the home of the Institut für Staatspolitik (Institute for State Policy — (IfS)). Present at the talk was Götz Kubitschek, a co-founder of the Institute in the year 2000 (Cf. Götz Kubitschek: “A Call to Civil Disobedience” on Gates of Vienna).
Thor von Waldstein (bn. 1959) has been active since 1989 as a solicitor in Mannheim. He is also a publicist. He studied history, philosophy, political science and sociology in Munich, Mannheim and Heidelberg. He has his PhD in social science and also has a doctorate in law. As a young student, what “especially convinced [him], was the French Nouvelle Droite, [New Right]… which offered a concise explanation for the failures of the Right in France and Germany during the 1960s and 1970s” (Metapolitics and Party Politics).
The Nouvelle Droite is “not a political movement, but a school of thought”, whose
“…activities over the last thirty years (publication of books and magazines, holding of colloquia and conferences, organisation of seminars and summer schools etc.) have been conducted from the outset from a metapolitical perspective” [emphasis added] (Manifeste du GRECE).
Thus the Nouvelle Droite shares some commonalities with the Frankfurt School, with which it is in counter-revolutionary opposition, if we understand with Dr. Waldstein that the French school is “a cultural revolution from the Right”. Dr. Waldstein attributes to the initiators of the Nouvelle Droite, which was founded in 1968, a call for “a long march through the metapolitical desert”, which of course is an adaptation of the New Left’s slogan of a “long march through the institutions”, which in turn is a pithy formula expressing the Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci’s concept of the establishment of a “cultural hegemony”.
Nouvelle Droite principles find direct expression in Germany’s Institute for State Policy (IfS), itself a school of the same type. The IfS “Internet portal” emphasises the necessity of a German national identity to counter the current “ideologically closed unity of state and society”, for without it “there is no future for Germany”. The building of a shared civil and ‘cultural’ nexus in the body politic is an expression of metapolitics, a theory which Antonio Gramsci formulated primarily in his Prison Notebooks while incarcerated under Mussolini.
Dr. Waldstein explains Metapolitics (Gk. meta, beyond, or behind) as the practice of establishing the cultural support behind contemporary party politics, or to “slightly Heideggerize” Gramsci, “metapolitics is the beyond of that which exists politically as an entity (das Jenseits des politisch Seiende)”. Examples of successful “metapolitical milestones” leading to Germany’s destruction range from the re-education of 1945 through the Frankfurt School to multiculturalism and gender ideology.
For Dr. Waldstein, if a “Rightist” political party is to “participate in the formation of the political will of the people” (Article 21 of Germany’s Basic Law) and seize the societal superstructure (the key social institutions) from the dominant Left Liberalism, the establishment of a metapolitical foundation is a precondition. In effect, this is to be done by using Gramsci against Gramsci, recalling that Gramsci’s thought bears a close affinity with the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School.
Metapolitics and Party Politics are therefore mutually interactive variables. Dr. Waldstein offers reasons why the almost three-year-old party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), is an example of metapolitical failure. But given the change in its leadership, it may be worth while to follow the trajectory of the AfD for signs that it is “drifting as a ship of the dead on a sea of insignificance”, or whether it is establishing a metapolitical foundation.
The reason for this uncertainty is that two months prior to Dr. Waldstein’s speech, Gates of Vienna posted two translations and an introduction by JLH, which at the time appeared to suggest that the AfD was a ‘case study’ with symptoms Dr. Waldstein says are pathognomonic of metapolitical failure (cf. And Never the Twain Shall Meet?). For the party had been founded solely in response to single issue, Merkel’s euro policy, and was in the midst of very public, internecine quarrelling and was on the verge of splitting. However, the same ‘case study’ reports what promised to be the beginning of a change in course for the AfD. In March of 2015, the predominantly East German branch of the party published what amounted to a mini-metapolitical manifesto called the Erfurt Resolution, with Björn Höcke, state party chairman of Thuringian AfD, as a co-initiator. Gates of Vienna has reported on three of Mr. Höcke’s speeches, (Asylum Catastrophe, Munich: 22 October 2015) and speeches from two of the now famous Erfurt demonstrations (Germany is Not Negotiable, 18 November 2015 and A Betrayal of our People, 23 September 2015).
Far from the AfD drifting like a “ship of the dead”, Mr. Höcke reported in a speech before an audience at the Institute for State Policy, at their Fall Congress which went under the name of “Onslaught on Europe (Ansturm auf Europa), that AfD is steering in the direction suggested in the mini-metapolitical Erfurt Resolution:
For me the AfD is the last peaceful chance for our country. With the Erfurt Resolution… the AfD, in my view, has received its second birth certificate. And it has truly retained the option to design the vision which this country needs and which it lacks; the option to design the antithesis, which gives strength and carries our Volk into a new unity on a common path into the future. (Speech to the Institute for State Policy in Schnellroda, 22 November 2015)
Unfortunately, whether the AfD will be issued a second birth certificate or a death certificate remains to be seen. The journal, Sezession im Netz, and therefore the Institute for State Policy, have apparently distanced themselves from Björn Höcke’s speech entitled “Asylum: A Political Stocktaking”. Sezession deleted the video of the speech from their Internet portal after widespread charges of racism against Björn Höcke were made in the established media. One media outlet, for example, emphatically characterised the speech as “racism stemming from National Socialism” (tagesschau.de).
Mr. Höcke had drawn attention to the fact that African migrants to Europe come from regions which have much higher reproductive rates than those in European countries, but without placing a value on these facts. However, he did suggest that “the discrepancy … is currently being exaggerated by the decadent Zeitgeist which has Europe tightly in its grip “. In short, he continued, “in the 21st century the life-affirming African expansion type meets the self-negating European placeholder type.” He applied the ecological model, known as r/K selection theory, to explain within-species differences; specifically, to account for differences between human populations. Presumably the accusations of racism arise primarily from the fact that this theory employs the Darwinian concept of natural selection, the mechanical driver of evolution, or evolutionism. But ironically enough, these same ideas are the cornerstone of progressivism. For the English language viewer’s evaluation, the pertinent four-minute portion of Mr. Höcke’s original hour-long speech is provided here with English subtitles and with its immediate context.
While the complete video has since surfaced again on another YouTube channel, the question arises as to whether those who removed the video jumped over the “little distancing stick” that was held out for them and are confirming, in the language of Dr. Waldstein, their “political inferiority to the one holding the stick”. And are they thereby acknowledging the politically correct “game rules” of the neo-Communist Zeitgeist to which they are opposed? Are we seeing Dr. Waldstein’s scenario of distancing, self-denunciation and failure to posit one’s own topics played out by some of the very people who attended Dr. Waldstein’s lecture? Here is a little of what Dr. Waldstein offers on the disease of distancing, or “distanceritis” as it pertains to this kind of event:
In a current analysis, Manfred Kleine-Hartlage rightly speaks of a culture of betrayal in the rightist camp: “The weakness of the Right has something to do with itself: most of its movements (PEGIDA), parties (AfD) and publications (Junge Freiheit) routinely distance themselves from ‘rightist’ and ‘racist’ ideational framework, without sparing a thought to the fact that concepts like ‘rightist’ or ‘racist’ are battle cries of their opponents intended to demonize the representation of the interests of one’s own people.”
Transcript
Metapolitics and Party Politics
Thor von Waldstein May 20, 2015 Original Source of Video: kanal schnellroda
Mr. Richard, Dr. Leonard, Mr. Kubitschek, Ladies and Gentlemen: May I extend my sincerest thanks for the invitation to deliver today’s keynote speech at the State Policy Congress.
I didn’t have time to do much of a news feed tonight — just a few items here.
The news doesn’t have much Yuletide cheer in it, anyway. Rather than read the news, you’d be better off lacing your eggnog with something strong and then decorating the tree.
Merry Christmas, everybody!
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A reader wrote to us today (via anonymized email) to take us to task for the exposé of Maajid Nawaz, my follow-up about “moderate” Muslims in response to Oren, and Dymphna’s comments. I’ll post his entire message, but first here is my emailed reply:
There’s a lot that could be said about your message, but it’s Christmas Eve and I don’t have much time. I find it ironic that you criticize me for “hid[ing] behind a fictitious name” when you yourself felt it necessary to anonymize your email to us. To lay the irony on even thicker, I am not anonymous. I have been public for five and a half years; that is, half the time I’ve been blogging. I retained my pseudonym because that was one of the two names under which Gates of Vienna had been “branded” since 2004. However, I used my real name (with the publicly acknowledged connection to the Baron) when publishing at Big Peace and FrontPage, and when speaking in public at the OSCE and the conference in Brussels in 2012.
I’m not “hiding”, and if you had actually read more than a superficial selection of what’s posted at Gates of Vienna, you would know that.
I’ll post your critique, and let readers judge it on the merits. All reasonable points of view deserve a public airing.
Ned May a.k.a. “Baron Bodissey” https://gatesofvienna.net
For the record, our critic is apparently unaware of the context of the scriptural reference I used when I wrote “Get thee hence, Satan”. It is a quote from Matthew 4:10 (in the King James Version):
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Jesus said these words when He was tempted by Satan, to indicate that He would not succumb to temptation. He repeated them later to Peter (Matthew 16:23) for a similar reason: Peter wanted to persuade Him that He did not have to follow the path laid out for Him that ended on the cross.
I used this reference because the idea of the “moderate” Muslim is very tempting to us as Westerners. It offers us hope that we might be able to get out of this mess without a civilizational war. But such hopes are illusory; we must put them aside.
Also for the record: I had no idea who “Oren” was when I wrote my first response; he was just another commenter. But even if I had known he was the Michael Oren, it would have made no difference. I judge arguments on their merits, not by the curriculum vitae of the person who formulates them.
Below is our reader’s rebuttal. You all may judge it on the merits, and are welcome take me to task if you agree with him:
Dear Gates of Vienna,
I never engage in writing comments on blogs nor participate in any form of social media. In fact I never even read the comments to articles. Yesterday I made an exception by reading the comments to the piece, “Maajid Nawaz: Stealth Jihadist Exposed.”
Baron Bodissey launched a vicious, ad hominem attack on one of your readers, Oren, who posed a question. If the Baron’s utterly unnecessary attempt at humiliating Oren was not sufficient, he then followed it up later with a piece in which he clearly could not resist re-posting his attack in the body of a regular post for all to see and read.
There are several annoying and pitiful ironies in his attack. First, the Baron uses Oren’s question to prove that Oren himself has been hypnotized by stealth jihad and as a consequence Oren is now himself part of the problem; an unwitting agent as it were of stealth jihad. The irony here is that the Baron’s attack argues much more strongly that the Baron himself has become the unwitting agent. The goal of stealth jihad and other subversions is to get the “enemy” to imprison himself and turn against himself, saving the aggressor the trouble of having to wage all out, overt war. The clear sign of success of this type of subversion is when we become so paranoid that we turn against those who are on our side. Oren is clearly on our side. It certainly may be the case that Oren is somewhat naive, or that he doesn’t possess the intellectual faculties capable of incisively analyzing an admittedly complex and subtle process (subversion) at the same level as the Baron. However it is clearly the Baron who, even with his superior knowledge, has fallen victim to this subversion. His paranoid, excoriating recrimination of Oren – calling him an agent of stealth jihad – is unequivocal evidence. He turned on an ally.
Not for nothing, but should someone have happened upon Gates of Vienna yesterday for the first time, he would have the impression from multiple examples that for you, no one other than yourselves is beyond reproach. I refer in this case to the aspersions made on Douglas Murray by Chatterjee and then further, the nauseatingly “holier-than-thou” schadenfreude-tinged sermon by Dymphna in her piece (or comment section) of “Enemy of State.” There, Douglas Murray is criticized for not being sufficiently “folkish;” Hirsi Ali, although personally injured, possesses inferior knowledge of Islam; Geert Wilders, well, he’s just a politician. Putting aside the utter arrogance, what are you doing? How can you deny that you are alienating allies at the very time when those allies are scarce and our enemies formidable?
Returning to the Baron, had he paused for just a moment to learn about Oren before pulling out his knife, with one click he would have been brought to Oren’s website. Although in Hebrew, Google translate would have done just fine. The Baron would have discovered several things. First that Oren – in his free time – populates his blog with thoughtful articles on a number of topics in which Oren tries to expose hypocrisy and darkness. Even a cursory review of his writings would have further proven that he is on our side. Second, on his “About” page, one learns that Oren is no is no lightweight in terms of intellect and integrity. He is a graduate of the Technion and then served in the IDF for six years – three years beyond his compulsory service precisely because of his desire to be a guardian at the Gates of Israel. He does not hide behind a fictitious name and he is clearly ready to sacrifice something far more precious. I do not know Oren – have never had any communication with him. However I call your attention to overwhelmingly convincing evidence that he is an ally and not a deserving target of humiliation and accusations.
The second tragic irony is to be found in the Baron’s patronizing plea to Oren: “Go thee hence, Satan.” I certainly hope you see the nasty, subversive insult. The Baron, using a dishonest device characteristic of subversive campaigns, is calling Oren, Satan. He so much as explicates this accusation in his comment. But the irony resides in the meaning of this sentence. Even as a Jew, I understand the wisdom here. From an empowered place, through unwavering conviction, one can “banish” evil. There is an obvious element in this statement concerning the adoption of a stance of indifference; in fact this indifferent stance is not only exigent to success in this regard, but also is a sign that one has achieved this elevated level of conviction.
At least seven people were killed by tornadoes as violent weather struck the Dallas area. Five of those killed in Garland were thought to have been blown off the interstate in their vehicle. Meanwhile, wildfires are ravaging California and Australia, with more than 100 homes destroyed along the coastline in Victoria.
