Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs argues that Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal should not associate himself with the Belgium's Vlaams Belang (Flemish Bloc) because it has racist roots and overtones and that therefore they should be completely shunned. (He's obsessed with it, almost!)
This is wrong-headed of Charles.
HERE'S WHY:
The USA under FDR was allied to Stalin to defeat Hitler. This was a practical and a wise strategy.
The mistake was in handing Stalin eastern Europe (a "mistake" designed by Stalin's master spy in the US State Department - Alger Hiss, who ran the Yalta Conference at which FDR "erred"). And another mistake was in not going after Stalin as soon as Hitler fell; as Patton argued: we should have toppled Stalin, too.
That being said, it was still right to use Stalin to defeat Hitler.
If that was okay, then it is okay for Belien and other pro-Western libertarians in Europe (who are fighting to keep Europe EUROPEAN and WESTERN!) to align themselves with parties like the Vlaams Belang.
Charles is also wrong to argue that we should all shun Vlaam's Belang because it has racist roots. So does the Demo0crat Party. SHOULD WE SHUN THEM, TOO?! It's ludicrous. Every Democrat is not a KKK racist - like Senator Byrd was once, and I'd guess that every Vlaams Belang is not a racist, either.
But even if they were, I'd argue that as long as WW4 is raging we have to fight alongside them - and not against them. Once WW4 is over, then we can fight them. FIRST THINGS FIRST.
AND ANOTHER THING: If folks like Pat Robertson can support Rudy because of WW4, then Charles can support Belien despite the fact that Belien won't shun the Vlaams Belang.
We should not demand uniformity; we should be a BIG TENT. We should NOT demand party purity and punish deviations from the PARTY-LINE. That's for Stalinists.
You know, I accept and respect and give gratitude for the alliance of many folks who are hawks on WW4, but with whom I deeply disagree with on issues other than WW4. For example, I support and read LGF and Pajamas Media and Instapundit despite the fact that Charles Johnson and Roger Simon and Glenn Reynolds are all pro-Choice, and I am pro-Life.
And in a real scale of real horrors, the somewhat racialistic policies which some people in Vlaams Belang may have at times supported PALES in comparison to the real horrors which have resulted from the policies the pro-Choice people support:
Vlaams Belang has killed no one since 9/11/2001;
Abortions in the USA have killed MILLIONS since 9/11/2001. It's genocide.
And don't give me any of that "It's the mother's body - keep the state out of it" CRAP!
From the moment of fertilization a new and unique human is CONCEIVED, with new and unique DNA. It is not a part of the mother; it is a new and unique human being. One with innate rights. With as many inalienable rights as you and me. And among these are the pursuit of happiness, liberty and LIFE. Life must come first. Of course.
But I don't mean to get sidetracked into an abortion debate.
I mean only to illustrate that there are very VERY big and important differences between hawks. Differences we can and should bridge until we defeat the real enemy.
OKAY!?
DEDICATED TO EXPOSING DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA AND TO PROMOTING UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS - WITH SHARP ANALYSIS AND BLUNT COMMENTARY. NO ADS. NO TIP-JAR. JUST THE TRUTH.
19 comments:
I believe this war is going to begin on the street level in Europe.
If I cam right in that belief then it follows that allying the counter-Jihad movement with parties which are Ethnic Nationalist in their foundation will likely cause many immigrants (Indians, Asians, Hispanics, Black African, etc.) who are not Muslim to get caught up in the violence as well.
We'll have quite the three-ring circus in that big tent of ours.
I seem to remember another such three-ring circus in Europe's history. It was called "the Spanish Inquistion." It happened concurrently with another little thing called "the Expulsion of the Moors."
Conincidence?
I think not.
THE PRINCIPLE TARGETS OF THE INQUISITION WERE CHRISTIANS WHO WERE DEEMED HERETICS BY THE RC CHURCH.
JEWS WERE EXPELLED IN 1492.
I SEE NO VALID COMPARISON.
IF YOU WANT A EUROPEAN EUROPE - ONE THAT IS WESTERN AND CHRISTIAN THEN YOU HAVE TO DEMAND ASSIMILATION. AND WHAT IS OFTEN CALLED ETHNOCENTRISM OR PATRIOTISM AND SOME NATIONALISM.
NONE OF WHICH ARE NECESSARILY BAD (UNLESS YOU ARE A POSTMODERNIST AND A LEFTIST!).
AND THOSE WHO WANT TO OVERTHROW EUROPE'S CULTURE ARE GUILTY OD SEDITION AND SHOULD BE EXPELLED IF THEY ARE NON-NATIVE AND TRIED AND CONVICTED AND SENTENCED IF THEY ARE NATIVE.
EUROPE MAY INDEED FALL INTO A MASSIVE CONTINENT WIDE INTIFADA.
IF THEY DO, THEN ALL THE EUROPEAN PEOPLE WILL BE HAPPY TO HAVE THE VLAAMS TYPE PEOPLE FIGHTING WITH THEM.
THE MOORS MUST BE DEFEATED AGAIN.
LET'S USE WHOMEVER WE HAVE TO TO DO THAT. FIRST.
When Spain expelled the Moors in 1492, they decided to kill a bunch of Jews while they were at it.
The comparison between the Spanish Inquisition (which ended in the death of a lot of Jews)/Expulsion of the Moors and the modern situation is that when Europe is under pressure they don't solve their problems with targeted killing, as America does.
Instead, Europe has traditionally freaked out and killed everyone who was not like them.
You think it was just a coincidence that Spain decided to kill
1) Christian heretics
2) Muslims
3) Jews
all at the same time?
Tell yourself some more stories.
YOUR CHARACTERIZATION OF SPAIN'S HISTORY IS WRONG.
THEY EXPELLED THE MOORS IT TOOK DECADES IF NOT CENTURIES.
THEY EXPELLED JEWS IN 1492.
CHRISTIANS WHO THEY THOUGHT WERE JEWS WERE KILLED.
MANY WERE JEWS.
XENOPHOBIA WAS A PART OF IT BUT NOT ALL.
EUROPE NEED NOT REPEAT THAT EPISODE.
WE CAN DEFEAT THE MOORS WITHOUT ENTERING AN ERA OF XENOPHOBIA.
IT TOOK SPAIN FROM 711 TO 1492 TO EXPEL THE MOORS.
MANY BATTLES.
OVER CENTURIES.
READ UP BEFORE YOU SPOUT OUT.
You are correct that the Reconquista lasted centuries, but many histories list the final and official Expulsion of the Moors as having taken place in 1492:
http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alhambra
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=expulsion+of+the+moors+1492
Europe did the same thing in the Crusades. The Crusades were begun to expel the Muslims from Jerusalem.
But, they ended up killing the Jews.
And, of course, in World War II, Hitler and the Germans believed it was their destiny to control a tremendous amount of European soil.
How to do it?
Kill the Jews (and the Gypsies, homosexuals, and retarded people, etc.)
My point?
I am concerned that we are feeing Europe's worst inclinations when we lend support to their Ethnic Nationalist parties.
Why can't Europe be expected to grow up? Why can you not expect them to start political parties which support governments which function as Democratic Republics and protect the rights of all citizens? Can a people truly be free if they are considered to be second-class citizens? And, if Europeans refuse to breed, and existing English people of Indian descent do breed, then it is inevitable that Indians will eventually be the majority. So, how will the Ethnic Nationalists take care of that problem?
THERE HAVE BEEN SEVERAL PARTIES IN SEVERAL NATIONS OF EUROPE CALLED THE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS.
IT NEVER BOTHERED ME.
ETHNIC PRIDE, PRIDE IN ONE'S FAITH AND NATION ARE NOT NECESSARILY BAD.
FLEMISH PEOPLE WANT A FLEMISH NATION.
KURDS WANT AND DESERVE A KURDISH ONE.
THERE'S NOTHING INTRINSICALLY WRONG WITH THIS.
ALL DEMS ARE NOT RACISTS BECAUSE THEIR PARTY'S HERITAGE WAS AND MANY OF THEIR OLDTIME LEADERS LIKE BYRD WERE.
DITTO VLAAMS.
As Reliapundit notes, the Inquisition conducted by ecclesiastical authorities (and not only in Spain) was intended to root out heresy, and was aimed at individuals who were at least nominally Catholic Christians. Open warfare between Christian and Muslim kingdoms and emirates in the Iberian peninsula had been ebbing and flowing for 7 centuries by the time the Houses of Aragon & Castile put all of Spain under the rule of a single monarch. Anti-Jewish pogroms had taken place periodically in Spain for several centuries when the remaining Jews were expelled in 1492.
The Inquisition was carried out by ecclesiastical authorities, and not royal authorities, although I think that the secular authorities always cooperated, at the peril of their lives, of course.
The history of Europe is NOT a history of eliminating "everybody who was not like them."
It is a history of successive waves of settlement, and from the Voelkerwanderuengen of the 6th century (think Goths, Vandals, and Huns) to the displacement of ethnic Germans in 1945, the history of Europe is of more continuous than intermittent warfare.
It is also, I think, mistaken to assert that the German Reich saw the eradication of Jews and Gypsies as a means towards the mastery of Europe. The eradication of these groups was in some ways the GOAL of the Nazi Herrschaft in Europe, not a means to attaining that Herrschaft. Moreover, the murder of "defective" German children (the mentally retarded, even the deaf) began in the 1930s, well before the Nazis began the ethnic cleansing of Europe (and was in fact more or less enthusiastically recommended to the Nazi Party by organized German doctors).
There is some confusion here between the categories of race, ethnic group, and nation.
Remember that the larger, perhaps grander, European nations (such as France and Germany) were only created or constructed in the 19th century; the linguistically and culturally distinct French provinces were cemented together and bureaucratically re-organized as a centralized nation by Bonaparte, and the 100s of German duchies, principalities, and bishoprics were not cemented together in a single nation-state until Bismarck. Note than both of these two large nation-states were associated with aggressive wars from the moment of their creation. The state-nationalism of the French and Germans was intended to supersede ethnic and regional identities, and in neither country has a national identity gone entirely unchallenged.
Perhaps the real European "nations" are Brittany, Occitania, Bavaria, Catalonia, etc, etc. Those regions, now provinces, have distinctive histories, languages, and populations. The question is, whether they still have national identities.
The case of Belgium is the most extreme. This is an entirely artificial state created by amalagamating 2 distinct linguistic, cultural, and ethnic polities (the francophone Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Flemings) who detest each other.
The growth of a Flemish national movement can only be understood in that context, and the fact that it has developed in opposition to the Jihad may be partially due to the fact that francophone politicians in Belgium have used the importation of French speaking Muslim immigrants as a means of bolstering their power against the Flemings.
Punditarian,
I did not say that the history of Europe was a history of killing "everybody who was not like them."
Instead, I said,
"... when Europe is under pressure they don't solve their problems with targeted killing, as America does.
Instead, Europe has traditionally freaked out and killed everyone who was not like them."
We go after our enemies. Europe does, indeed, have a habit of getting sloppy.
I brought up three examples. Do you really believe that it was just coincidence that the Spanish Inquisition, the Expulsion of the Moors, and the Expulsion of the Jews all took place, or should we say culminated, at the same time in Spain?
Wouldn't it be wiser to look at the coincidence and recognize that Spain was fed up, reached a level of intolerance, and threw the baby out with the bathwater?
Isn't that the same thing that was done by Europeans in the Crusades?
They were angry with Muslims. Why did they end up killing Jews?
And, for some reason, Hitler ascribed strange mystical powers to the very existence of Jews. He was quoted ( and I can not find the quote right now, so my paraphrase will have to do ) as saying that if he could only eliminate the Jews, then he would be able to solve all the problems of Europe. Somehow, the two goals were tied together in his mind.
You are correct, of course, that the modern nations of Europe were created in the 19th century. And, I agree that Belgium is a confused situation (not unlike what we have created in Iraq) but that does not really discount my point, as far as I can tell.
My point is, Ethnic Nationalism is racism at base. Those who follow the BNP want a white Britain. That is a racial statement. You may argue that it is not bad, but it is racist.
Racism:
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.
pasti - as punditarian points out, the nations-states of modern europe were patched together from other nations: the uk is scot,and england and wales. spain had more than a dozen. italy too.
nationalism and racism are not things which rule europeans in any hard and fast way. it's ,ore complex.
there are many many many more nations in europe than nation states.
only one of the nations within the nations of europe which is a threat: islam.
if muslims were aggressively policing the militant out of their midst then we would not have a problem.
but they are not.
they are seditious to the west. they must be assimilated to western values or expelled or tried for sedition.
you cannot advocate sharia in the west and be allowed to remain free there.
a focus on this issue doesn;t have to lead to widespread xenophobia or nazism.
Reliapundit,
I have been focusing on the Jihad since April of 2002. That's when I began CUANAS as an organization. First thing I did was write a position paper and begin to distribute it to Pastors in my local area.
Truth is, there are few people who are more hardcore anti-Jihadis than I. I am simply standing up and stating what I know to be the truth of the history of Europe.
The truth of the history of Europe is that Europeans have killed Jews for no good reason for centuries on end. Because I understand that, it is not hard for me to understand why European governments would single out Israel for condemnation when there are many more horrible atrocities being committed by many other nations around the world.
Another truth about the history of Europe is that when Europe gets grumpy they split down racial lines.
Once again, I will poiny out that the Ethnic Nationalism of the BNP means that the goal of the BNP is to ensure that there is a white England.
pasto: your version of the history of europe and the facts differ.
racial lines in europe have never been clear.
sure: demagogues try to exploit xenopphobia and ethnocentrism.
they have done this everywhere and for all time.
europe's history in this regard is not special.
the rwanndan genocide was tribal.
tribalism has led to genocide all over the world throughout history.
we must remain oin guard for it.
BUT ...
vlkamms belang is not the moral equivalent of the nazis.
charles is just way off base and very intellectually dishonest in this matter.
TAKE FOR EXAMPLE THIS:
the last quote he put up to attack brussels journal left out the key part which condemned racism.
chgarles did this on purpose to make brussels seem racist.
this is effed up.
charles is totally off base and beong the demagogue onn this,
belien and brussels journal are right.
here's the dishonets quote - for your convenience:
LGF/charles:"From the same Brussels Journal post:
In this society, everyone has grown up on lies that few are equipped to challenge. The older ones have grown up with plastic called leatherette, with cigarettes as symbols of sex appeal, and with Negroes in the front line in the Army but in the back line at the bus stop. And the younger ones have grown up in a world where a short coffee is “tall” and a medium one is “grande,” and one’s life is ruined for pointing out that the American blacks’ mean IQ of 85, and not racism, is the cause of their underepresentation in the upper echelons of government, business and the professions.' [brussels journal]
Oooh-kay."
HERE'S WHAT CHARLES DELIBERATELY LEFT OUT (the VERY NEXT sentence!!!!!):
"We have gone from lies at one end of the pendulum's arc to compensatory lies at the other end of the arc, as though reality does not exist and all we can do is to invent a -1 lie to make up for the previous +1 lie. Our "conservatives" are liberals with a Biblical garnish, and our "racists" are those who dare to be color-and-race blind. It's in light of this maudlin American fog of hypocrisy, lying, confusion, and self-strangulation that the arrows shot across the Atlantic at The Brussels Journal ought to be understood.
The diminishing future of ethnic Euros everywhere is at stake, as is the future of the highest, if flawed, civilization that the human species has ever produced. Let's not divert from that to start Transatlantic "Racism" squabbles, doing the harakirists' dirty work."
THIS IS ALL TRUE.
CHARLES DELIBERATELY CHERRY-PICKED IN PRDER TO MAKE BELEIEN LOOK WROSE THAN HE REALLY IS. DITTO VELAAMS.
DON'T FALL FOR IT.
PASTO:
IF YOU WANT AN ETHNICALLY EUROPEAN AND CULTURALLY WESTERN/JUDEO-CHRISTIAN EUROPE THEN YOU HAD BETTER BE PREPARED TO DEFEND ETHNIC EUROPEANS AND THEIR CULTURE FROM JIHAD, DHIMMITUDE AND DEMOGRAPHIC COLLAPSE.
THE ANSWER IS NOT POSTMODERNIST MORAL AND CULTURAL RELATIVISM.
THAT IS SURRENDER.
THE ANSWER IS IN EUROPEANS REDISCOVERING SOME ETHNIC AND CULTURAL PRIDE.
AND THEN USING THE PRIDE TO
FIGHT
BACK.
AS REAGAN SAID; IF YOU WANT PEACE YOU CAN HAVE IT ANY TIME YOU WANT: JUST SURRENDER.
BUT SOME THINGS ARE WORTH FIGHTING FOR.
FIGHTING MEANS FIGHTING.
Reliapundit,
I don't think your comments addressed the points I made in my comments.
I agree with you, however, that Charles points were very weak in the post you cited.
I am done arguing these issues on this site. I'll save my arguments for my site.
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