by Donald Winters
'We have to put bodies on the street, writing letters to the Times does not work...' - EDL member, quoted in The Guardian, 'English Defence League: new wave of extremists plotting summer of unrest', 28/05/2010)
'I have on some occasions had discussions with SIOE [Stop the Islamisation of Europe! group] and EDL and recommended them to use certain strategies. The tactics of the EDL are now to 'lure' an overreaction from the Jihad Youth/Extreme-Marxists, something they have succeeded in doing several times already' - Anders Breivik.
'They think the league is exploiting us, while it is really we who initiated the Jewish division. If anything, we are exploiting them (the EDL)' - Roberta Moore, Likudnik activist and member of the 'Jewish Division' of the English Defence League, quoted in Ha'aretz, 13/07/2010)
1. Introduction: anti-Islamism, pro-Israelism and the European Far Right
The Bush Jr. decade - the 2000s - was 'the Islam decade'. For the first time in history, the world's attention was focused on Islamic fundamentalism, or Islamism, and the beliefs and practices of Islam itself, and this attention was, of course, overwhelmingly negative. A loose collection of professional anti-Islamic scholars and publicists appeared - Robert Spencer, Aayan Hirsi, Bat Ye'Or, Bruce Bawer - among others, whose ideas segued in neatly with the agenda of anti-Islamist and pro-Israel Jews such as Michael Savage, Daniel Pipes, Mark Steyn and David Horowitz. 'Anti-Islamism' may have begun life as a secularist, humanist, and liberal anti-Islam movement, but, since 2001, has become subordinated to the Israeli ideology and political world-view - particularly that of the Israeli Right, e.g., Likud.
During the 2000s, the Western public - particularly in Europe - at last began to acknowledge that there were huge numbers of Muslim immigrants - around 17 million in the EU alone - in the West. By this point in time, that conclusion - that Muslims, in huge numbers, were living in the cities in Europe, and had more or less taken their neighbourhoods and formed Diaspora Muslim communities, with Muslim values, laws, customs, dress, and so forth - was inescapable. The West saw that what Francis Parker Yockey calls 'Culture Distortion' had taken place, on a massive scale, on the streets of Europe. Furthermore, the mass Muslim migration to the West had taken place with the acquiescence and even active encouragement of the élites of Europe - the politicians, academics, journalists, intellectuals, EU bureaucrats (and even economists and business lobbies, who demanded more immigration to deal with the problem of Europe's 'ageing population').
In reaction to this, Western European voters began voting, in increasingly large numbers, for Far Right, and often pro-Israel, populist political parties: the Party of Freedom in Holland, the Danish People's Party in Denmark, the Freedom Party in Austria, the Swiss People's Party in Switzerland, the Progress Party in Norway, the True Finns Party in Finland, the Front National in France, the Swedish Democrats in Sweden. Unfortunately, these parties are not run by political theorists and intellectuals - the politician is, by definition, a man of action - and so the platforms of these parties became inflected with the anti-Islamist and Likudnik ideology, culminating in the absurdity of a Dutch nationalist party led by Geert Wilders, a maniacal philo-Semite who declares Israel to be his second favourite country, and who should be regarded as the political representative of the anti-Islamist movement. Wilders insists that anti-Islamism has nothing to do with race, and that indeed the racialism and nationalism of the 'old' Far Right has to be rejected. Non-whites, such as Aayan Hirsi, should be embraced so long as they have a principled opposition to Islam (and, ideally, a love of Israel). In turn, true and lasting political success for the Far Right can be achieved only through the Far Right populist parties which have abandoned the old anti-Semitism, racialism and the traditional pro-fascist and pro-National Socialist sympathies of the old European Far Right.
Undoubtedly, the Far Right populists have been tremendously successful in Europe, and that success would appear, at first sight, to validate Wilders' argument. The only exceptions to the rule are Britain and Germany.
Germany is an anomaly, in that it does not have a functioning, nationwide Far Right populist party: it has, instead, a fringe political party - the NPD - which has no federal representation and which is firmly grounded in the 'old' European Far Right, and whose primary preoccupation seems to be rehabilitating the image of Germans in WWII (an admirable task, but obviously, one that is an uphill battle). Other than the skinhead and 'autonomous nationalist' groups, that is all there is of the nationalist scene in Germany. Nationalism there is doomed to remain a fringe movement, and nationalist parties cannot win seats in German federal elections. The reasons why are manifold, but the primary one is this: German politics, culture and society have moved on a great deal since the aftermath of WWII (despite the opinion of the German, and world, media, which says that Germany has not moved on from the time of WWII, the Holocaust, and the immediate post-war period of German punishment and atonement); the German Far Right has not recognised this fact, and has not adapted its ideology to suit immediate political realities, in the way that, for instance, Wilders (a canny operator who has divined the Dutch national mood) has. Presumably, an organised Far Right populist party, with a charismatic, photogenic leader, would do well in Germany (although how far such a party would have to go, down the 'Wilders path' - to anti-racialism and Jew-worship - is debatable).
Which brings us to Britain. The BNP was restructured, by Nick Griffin, along the lines of a Continental, Far Right, populist and pro-Israel party, but, after an initial strong showing, this approach bombed. One friend, who is quite familiar with the British nationalist scene, opines that non-white immigration, into British working-class areas (who traditionally support the BNP), has increased to such a dramatic extent under New Labour, that the BNP vote has declined for this reason. The number of immigrants voting for Labour in these areas has shot up, thereby 'swamping' the BNP votes. Labour may have deliberately relocated immigrants (by giving them public housing, etc.) into these BNP areas as a means of combating the BNP vote. I think that this is a good explanation as any other. (Possibly, the BNP has to focus its energies on the rural and regional areas of Britain which, unlike the urban areas, are still largely white - the only trouble is that these electoral districts vote, primarily, for the Tories).
The only real contender, for the title of Britain's most prominent Far Right organisation, is the English Defence League - a controversial and problematic group within the nationalist community. Here I shall be taking a double-edged approach: while I condemn the 'Gates of Vienna ' ideology of the EDL, I laud their tactics - in particular, their mobilisation of hundreds of young working-class British men to demonstrate in Muslim immigrant areas and confront Muslim, and radical leftist, counter-demonstrators. To me, the EDL is an amorphous, spontaneous mass-movement which has been penetrated, unfortunately, by anti-Islamists with a Likudnik agenda.
The EDL members are not intellectuals and political theorists, and seem to be mostly working-class men without a tertiary education; as a result, they are more vulnerable, than most, to anti-Islamist indoctrination. The situation in the EDL - of a promising Far Right, nationalist movement which is wide open to anti-Islamist, Jewish and Likudnik infiltration - mirrors that of the Western European nationalist scene as a whole.
At the same time, one cannot dispense with the nationalist activists who make up the EDL, and the other 'Defence Leagues' throughout Europe. And, of course, I agree with the professional anti-Islamics in their negative characterisation of Islamism. I will be suggesting, later on, that nationalists in Europe should direct most of their energy in fighting Islamism and stop expending their resources in combats with the militant Left. The purpose of this essay, then, is to sort the good from the bad.
2. The 'Gates of Vienna' ideology and liberal democracy
For those seeking a summary of the beliefs of the anti-Islamist/'Gates of Vienna' school of thought, the 1500-word manifesto of the Norwegian mass murderer Andrews Breivik is the best (for those who do not wish to read the whole thing, I recommend Kevin MacDonald's series, which analyses the document, at the Occidental Observer site). Not that I am suggesting, for a moment, that adherents of the 'Gates of Vienna' school are maniacs, who, after hearing the doctrine, will go on rampages, shooting and blowing up their white countrymen. The ideology of Breivik played a part in his selection of targets, as I will argue shortly; but the blame can probably laid on psychosis-inducing drugs, a common factor in these cases of 'mad gunmen'. As conservative Jewish columnist Peter Hitchens (brother of the notorious neoconservative Christopher) writes:
It's the drugs, stupid. In hundreds of square miles of supposed analysis of the Norway mass murder, almost nobody has noticed that the smirking Anders Breivik was taking large quantities of mind-altering chemicals.
In this case, the substances are an anabolic steroid called stanozolol, combined with an amphetamine-like drug called ephedrine, plus caffeine to make the mixture really fizz.
I found these facts in Breivik’s vast, drivelling manifesto simply because I was looking for them.
The authorities and most of the media are more interested in his non-existent belief in fundamentalist Christianity.
I doubt if the drugs would ever have been known about if Breivik hadn’t himself revealed this.
I suspect that mind-bending drugs of some kind feature in almost all of the epidemic rampage killings that Western society is now suffering.
Anabolic steroids were also used heavily by David Bieber, who killed one policeman and tried to kill two more in Leeds in 2003, and by Raoul Moat, who last summer shot three people in Northumberland, killing one and blinding another.
Steroids are strongly associated with mood changes, uncontrollable anger and many other problems. In my view, this link remains formally unproven only because no great effort has yet been made to prove it.
A serious worldwide inquiry should be launched into the correlation between steroid use and violent incidents.
Likewise with so-called ‘antidepressants’, whose medical value has recently been seriously questioned in two devastating articles in The New York Review Of Books by the distinguished American doctor Marcia Angell. Her words ought to be reproduced and circulated to all doctors.
I pointed out some time ago how many shooting incidents involved people who had been taking these suspect pills. Patrick Purdy, culprit of the 1989 Cleveland school shooting, and Jeff Weise, culprit of the 2005 Red Lake High School shootings, had been taking ‘antidepressants’.
So had Michael McDermott, culprit of the 2000 Wakefield massacre in Massachusetts. So had Kip Kinkel, responsible for a 1998 murder spree in Oregon. So had John Hinckley, who tried to murder President Ronald Reagan in 1981. They were also found in the cabin of the ‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski, of whom more later.
[Peter Hitchens, 'One more mass killer, one more drug addled mind', Mail on Sunday, 30/072011].
Hitchens concludes:
Anyone can have unusual or unconventional ideas. Unkind conservative Americans used to play a game of guessing whether various alarmist statements about the environment had been written by the Unabomber – who lived in a forest hut and murdered people by sending them letter bombs – or by Vice President Al Gore, who lived in the Washington National Observatory with a Secret Service guard. It usually turned out that the wilder ones had been penned by Mr Gore.
And I have no doubt that the eloquence of writers can move people to action. William Butler Yeats feared that his patriotic poems might have set some Irishmen on the path to Easter Rising violence in 1916. But it is rational action.
Nobody but a madman – and steroids have in my view made Anders Breivik mad – could believe that mercilessly slaughtering the flower of Norway would advance any cause.
Sensible words, for sure. But, having said that, Breivik's choice of targets - mainly white, Norwegian anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian activists, and a center-left Norwegian government which had received scathing criticism from Israel for its support for the idea of a boycott and divestment campaign against Israel - flowed naturally from Breivik's 'Gates of Vienna' school ideology; even the day of the killings (the anniversary of the King David Hotel bombing) was significant.
One would think that a self-proclaimed Norwegian nationalist, obsessed by the idea of a 'crusade' against Islam, and by the preservation of the white Nordic racial type, would attack Muslims, of whom there are 166,000 in Norway; instead, he chose to attack his own kind. Why?
Because, in his drug-addled, insane mind, he heard one directive, over and over: 'Destroy the enemies of Israel and Jewry'. And anyone who criticises Israel, in any shape and form, and undertakes political activism against Israel, is, in the eyes of a Daniel Pipes or a David Horowitz, a threat to the Jews, and so, as a logical consequence, must be destroyed. It doesn't take much to earn a rabbinical fatwa from these self-proclaimed defenders of the Jewish people, State, nation, culture, identity, and the penalty for transgressions, is, in their ideology, death.
The bizarre thing is that Breivik's values are very much part of the Western mainstream. They are: support for Israel and the State of Israel; intense animosity of Islamic fundamentalists (including Hamas and Hezbollah) for their opposition to Israel; intense animosity towards white Europeans on the 'Left' who sympathise with the Palestinians and oppose Israel; anti-racialism (Breivik insists that he, and the rest of the 'Vienna School' are not racialists, or ethnocentrics, despite his comments, elsewhere in the manifesto, regarding the Nordic racial type) and opposition to the idea of the Western nation being considered as an ethnic and racial entity; intense animosity towards Hitler, German National Socialism, fascism (Breivik declares that he wants to go back in time to assassinate Hitler, to punish him for the Holocaust of six million Jews; Breivik shares this fantasy with a great many liberals of his type, e.g., Tom Cruise, who, at the time of filming Valkyrie (2008), declared that playing Stauffenberg was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream, that he, too, always wanted to time-travel and assassinate Hitler). Now, considering all this, how different is it from the ideology of a Sarkozy, Merkel, Berlusconi, Cameron, or the average op-ed columnist in a Western newspaper?
There is one slight difference. To the left of the Merkels, Camerons, Sarkozys, stands Obama (and many other liberals of his type). Obama, an Afro-American from a radical Leftist background, wants as many Hispanics to migrate to America as possible (either legally or illegally); the goal is for the border states of the US (originally "stolen" from Mexico) to be annexed, through Hispanic demographic expansion, to a "Greater Mexico". The border states will be ethnically cleansed of Anglo-Americans, and become part of a Lebensraum for Mexican immigrants. Obama doesn't care, one jot, about the strains the influx of Mexican immigrants will place on American infrastructure and the American government; the purpose of government is to pay the bills of these Mexicans, and redistribute wealth from the Anglo-American majority to the immigrants from Mexico, and to Afro-Americans. Obama's type is quite common in Western Europe - one can find plenty examples of it there. But, on the other hand, in Europe, we have politicians who, while loving diversity and immigration, and sympathising with Israel, recognise that there is a public backlash against immigration, multiculturalism and compulsory diversity; and, as practical politicians, recognise that the huge influx of immigrants have strained their countries to breaking point. Housing, health care, education, public transport, translation services, welfare money, space in prisons, the criminal justice system, even internment camps (e.g., Lampedusa, off the coast of Italy, which has space for only 800 illegal immigrants, and is already full to overflowing), coast guards, sanitation - Europe does not have an infinite supply of these.
One cannot fit fifty people in a lifeboat: one can rail, for as long as one likes, that a lifeboat is "racist" for not being able to accommodate the entire Third World, the starving, hungry, needy masses of North Africa, the Middle East, China, India, Pakistan; but still, one can't fight facts. The European politicians are, whatever their other failings, not stupid, and they see this. Obama, on the other hand, does not see this, or if he does, does not care.
A European example of the Obama type is former Norwegian prime minister, and now Nobel Peace Prize committee member, Thorbjørn Jagland:
Thorbjørn Jagland, a former prime minister of his country, said leaders such as the British premier would be "playing with fire" if they continued to use rhetoric that could be exploited by extremists.
Jagland, who is also secretary general of the Council of Europe, told the Observer: "We have to be very careful how we are discussing these issues, what words are used."Political leaders have got to defend the fact that society has become more diverse. We have to defend the reality, otherwise we are going to get into a mess. I think political leaders have to send a clear message to embrace it and benefit from it."We should be very cautious now, we should not play with fire. Therefore I think the words we are using are very important because it can lead to much more."
Jagland has also urged leading politicians to change their terminology. He said the word "diversity" was better than multiculturalism because the latter had become defined in different ways by different groups. "We also need to stop using 'Islamic terrorism', which indicates that terrorism is about Islam. We should be saying that terrorism is terrorism and not linked to religion," said Jagland. ['Nobel chairman warns Europe's leaders over 'inflaming far-right sentiment', The Guardian, 30/07/2011].
One can balk at the arrogance of this man's message - 'Europe is becoming diverse, you'd better get used to it' - but this is quite typical of the Western, left-liberal, pro-multiracialist establishment. In Jagland, we have one wing of the establishment wagging his finger and admonishing the other, for daring to hint that a policy of unrestricted non-white immigration to the West may have negative consequences. Such talk may lead to another Breivik massacre (but Breivik, in the main, only got rid of white Norwegians, which is what the Jaglands want to do anyway).
I must stress that, despite the differences between the Obamas and Jaglands on one hand, and the Sarkozys and Merkels on the other, both are united on core assumptions - assumptions that they share with Breivik. The real difference between the adherents of the Gates of Vienna school, and the Sarkozys and Camerons, is that the former want action, straight away, on the question of (mainly Muslim) immigration. In the end, Wilders is a Merkel or Cameron, but with a more intense focus on immigration (and diverting state resources (e.g., welfare money) from the immigrants who have already arrived). The average European head of state is notoriously bad at dealing with immigration. David Cameron vowed to do something, once elected, to stem the tide of immigrants heading to Britain, but the dreary statistics show that things are the same, if not worse, than under Labour (immigrants continue to come in the hundreds of thousands, and take the majority of newly-created jobs, etc.). The Wilders type promises to do the job far more efficiently; and the evidence suggests that the Danish and Dutch governments have, respectively, tightened their immigration laws in response to pressure from the Far Right (these are minority governments which are dependent on support from the Dutch Party of Freedom and the Danish People's Party). In Italy, the Far Right Northern League exerts a similar influence on the government of Berlusconi.
A common criticism, among nationalists, of the Far Right, 'Gates of Vienna'-influenced, populists, is that they are only anti-Muslim, not anti-immigrant in general. Ergo, were a Wilders or Pjaersgaard to get a political majority, they would focus only on Muslim immigrants, to the exclusion of the rest. It is true that Muslims make up the majority of the immigrant populations in Europe; but immigrants from other groups are prominent as well. In England and Wales alone, the Indian population numbers 1.43 million (!), the Africans are at 800,000, the Chinese are at 452,000 (these are the figures from 2009). A nationalist comrade of mine, who had made a recent trip to Britain, told me that London was, at present, not in danger of being Islamised, but Africanised (the Islamic presence was more felt in other British cities). Breivik repeatedly stresses that he has no problems with immigrants who are not Muslim, and who choose to 'assimilate', and that he is not a racialist; Wilders and co. say the same thing, and even hint that they have no problem with 'moderate' Muslims (whatever 'moderate' Islam is). Nationalists take these sorts of statements very seriously.
I will say that it is very unlikely that the Danish and Dutch minority governments have now adopted a policy of, 'If you're Muslim, you can't come in; if you're African, Indian or Chinese, by all means, enter our country'. Indeed, it seems that Western European voters have two choices: either they can have a government which does nothing on immigration (e.g., Cameron, Gillard here in Australia); or they can have, at this point, a minority liberal democratic government, in coalition with Far Right populists, who at least take some action against immigration. Those are the only alternatives, for the present, and to me, a little Far Right nationalism in Europe is better than none.
3. The Likudnik entryists
The real danger presented by the anti-Islamics is that they are opening up the European nationalist movement to infiltration and subversion by representatives of the Israeli Right - that is, Likudniks. In other words, they are leaving themselves open to activists who are practising the old Trotskyite tactic of entryism, all in order to steer European nationalists to agitating, and fighting for, what are, in the end, Israeli interests (and, by and large, the interests of the Jewish Diaspora in Europe). The anti-racialist and philo-Semitic ideology of the 'Vienna School' makes inexperienced nationalist activists highly vulnerable to such a subversion and disruption.
This process - of utilisation of the European nationalist movement - is there for all to see. It is especially noticeable in the English Defence League. The Jewish anti-Zionist activist, Gilad Atzmon, writes, in an exposé of Jewish infiltration of the EDL:
I guess it shouldn’t take us by surprise that the Israeli flag has become a common feature at the ultra nationalist English Defence League's (EDL) demonstrations and gatherings.
The EDL calls for taking action against the "Islamization of Britain" and “Muslim fundamentalists”. It is a magnet for extremist right-wing activists and is driven by xenophobia and ethno centrism. Recently the organisation gained an ‘important’ addition to its coalition of hatred. It is called the "The EDL Jewish division." According to the Jewish Chronicle “hundreds of (Jewish) followers” joined immediately. Supporters include an ex-Community Security Trust volunteer who claims "a lot of Jewish guys want to get stuck in". Another follower wrote on Facebook "we are all Shayetet 13", the barbarian Israeli Navy commando unit that was directly responsible for the massacre and executions on the Mavi Marmara. It is also notable that this Jewish bloodthirsty ‘patriot’ didn’t say ‘we are all SAS, British Navy or RAF’. He for some reason preferred to affiliate himself with a foreign Navy, a Navy unit that fights Jewish wars rather than so-called British ones.
I guess that the English Defence League's leaders are not aware of the fact that their ‘Jewish Division’ is there to exploit the new organization...
As we are trying to recover from the devastating influence of the infamous ‘Labour friends of Israel’ and while becoming accustomed to the unethical impact of the “Conservative Friends of Israel” that already has succeeded in amending British universal jurisdiction, we are also becoming used to seeing the Israeli flag wave at us in extremist right wing demonstrations. Clearly, this is far from being a big surprise. The continuum between apartheid Israel, European Islamophobia, Melanie Philips’ Londonistan and Nick Cohen's anti Islam is apparent and transparent...
I learned from Haaretz’ expose of the Jewish Division that its leader Roberta Moore, 39, is a Brazilian Jew born in Rio de Janeiro, she once lived in Israel and now resides in north London. In the following video you can watch Moore preaching Islamophobia while covering her body with an Israeli flag.
Moore told Haaretz “We believe that if we call the enemy by his name, we will be able to fight him. We single out organizations that discriminate against Jews and Zionist organizations, and try to explain there is no difference between anti- Semitism and anti-Zionism...The problem is that they (Muslims) are being brainwashed and believe they are superior to everyone else. They have the right to think that, but don't try to force your opinions on me and tell me the clothes I wear or the music I listen to are bad. Or that my beliefs are inferior and I must not do this or that. Why do we women have to cover anything?"
[Gilad Atzmon, 'The Jewish Division', 15/10/2010, at: http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/gilad-atzmon-the-jewish-division.html]
Atzmon, of course, is no friend of European nationalism. But, because he is Jewish, he can mock, and belittle, the 'Jewishness' of the likes of Roberta Moore and Pamela Geller, without being called anti-Semitic; gentile nationalists don't have that luxury.
What is clear is that, from reading Atzmon's piece, and others detailing the intersection of Likudnism, 'Gates of Vienna'-ism and the European Far Right, is that there is a determined effort, on the part of some opportunistic pro-Israel, Jewish activists and publicists, to link up with the European Far Right and steer nationalists towards Israel, Judaism, and Zionism (which are, these days, the one and same thing). Concomitant with these ideologies is an anti-racialism and an opposition to the 'old' European Far Right anti-Semitism of the Vichy/German National Socialist type. These activists are working certain philo-Semitic tendencies (or rather, individuals) who are already there on the Far Right. Hence Wilders' Far Right nationalist conferences in Israel, and the declarations, by EDL leaders, that the English Defence League is not a "racist" organisation and that it supports Israel, the "only democracy in the Middle East". Hence Breivik, the self-proclaimed nationalist and 'cultural conservative' and enemy of multiculturalism, who made it a priority, on his killing spree, to kill white leftist enemies of Israel.
What is happening here is a mutual exploitation.
The nationalists want the legitimacy and respectability that a philo-Semitic ideology can provide: Kevin MacDonald writes that the white Western population is terrified of anything associated with racialism, Holocaust denial, neofascism, Neo-Nazism, white nationalism, etc., and would rather die than risk being associated with these things. What better way of reassuring those timorous Britons, French, Germans, Dutch, Swedes, Italians, that one is not of that species than by declaring that one loves Israel and the Jewish people? Marine Le Pen makes pro-Jewish statements all the time in the media (statements which are not representative, I'm sure, of the rank-and-file of the Front National); but one cannot make a successful presidential bid, in France, on a platform which is in any way critical of the Jewish people. So the European Far Right, by adopting philo-Semitism, and allowing the 'Gates of Vienna' school into its parties, gets a licence to practice politics.
What of the Likudniks? What do they get? In the case of the EDL, thousands of sturdy, British, white working-class lads who are determined to make a war - a political war - on the substantial Islamic immigrant populations in Britain, populations which are by and large antithetical to Israel (and Jews), and are supportive of the Palestinians, Hamas and Hezbollah.
All of this is political horse-trading. But, at this point, we must pause and take stock. We nationalists believe in what we do because we are right and the rest of the world, which disagrees with us, is wrong. Our opponents are, in fact, evil: the pilots of the RAF and USAAF, who laid waste to the cities of Europe, and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, were evil; the US Army infantrymen, who guarded Eisenhower's POW camps, which killed hundreds of thousands of Germans in occupied France and Germany, were evil. We nationalists must not succumb to liberal democratic (and communist) brainwashing, and we must remind ourselves, continually, that we stand on the side of truth and righteousness. The Breiviks, Obamas, Camerons, Merkels, Gellers and Moores, on the other hand, are on the side of wrong. So we cannot compromise with the enemy, and accede to philo-Semitism, Atlanticism and liberal democratism, no matter how unpopular that stance makes us (and, in Europe at the present, that stance makes us very unpopular; certainly, it leads to our being persecuted by the political establishment).
Whether or not the EDL, and the European Far Right in general, rejects Breivikism, the Gates of Vienna School, and Likudism, remains to be seen; quite possibly, it will recognise this as yet another instance of Culture Distortion and spew it out.
In the case of the EDL, what we have is an anomaly, a curious hybrid. The white working-class men who make up the EDL rank and file are exactly the same sort as those who joined Mosley in the 1930s; their tactics, fighting spirit, mentality, are exactly the same. But while the body of the organisation is quasi-fascist, in its organisation and method (as I will argue below), the head is at least part Breivikist. What we have here is, in the words of the Likudnik activist Pamela Geller (and one of Breivik's chief inspirations) is a 'struggle for the heart and soul of the EDL'.
The situation is reminiscent of that of the New Left in the 1970s. The New Left was a student movement which practised 'direct democracy' - i.e., nobody leading anything, no central organisation at all. The New Left came about spontaneously, and really was an uprising by the student body, leaderless, directionless, and without a clear ideology (much like the uprisings in the Arab world at present). Over time, however, that lack of direction and leadership proved to be its undoing, and it became vulnerable to penetration by the small, dwindling, but better-organised, more disciplined Trotskyite communist groups. Will the activists of the EDL - who come from the working-class football club 'divisions' - go down the same route, and succumb to the Gellers and Moores? Or will it spit them out? Time will tell.
For the remainder of this article, I will detail some of the methods and tactics of fascism in the 1920s and 1930s, and explain how the EDL makes use of those same methods (probably without knowing it) and their efficacy.
4. Fascism defined: 'emotional politics'
It is extremely difficult to define what 'fascism' (and hence 'neofascism') actually is. In my view, Part of the answer – as to what the fascist ideology really consists of – is given in the classic essay by Karl Loewenstein, ‘Militant Democracy and Fundamental Rights’, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 31, No. 3. (Jun., 1937), pp. 417-432. Like most writing on fascism, Loewenstein’s essay is negative; but it does come closer than a good many others in defining the fascist fundamentals.
In Loewenstein’s essay, fascism is defined as a technique, as a method, not as an ideology. An ideology rests on a coherent set of principles, but fascism has none: it is a series of negatives – anti-Communism, anti-capitalism, anti-Semitism, anti-monarchism, anti-liberal democracy, anti-Masonry, even anti-Christian (while, at the same time, denouncing modern atheism, immorality, etc., all at once). For Loewenstein, fascism is all about emotion – arousing emotion and directing it to a certain goal.
The fact that fascism is not an ideology, but only a political technique, is abundantly evidenced by the vast experience of the last decade. Fascism is not a philosophy – not even a realistic constructive program – but the most effectivepolitical technique in modern history... Fascism simply wants to rule. The vagueness of the fascist offerings hardens into concrete invective only if manifest deficiencies of the democratic system are singled out for attack. Leadership, order, and disciple are set over against parliamentary corruption, chaos and selfishness... General discontent is focussed on palpable objectives (Jews, freemasons, bankers, chain stores). Colossal propaganda is launched against what appears as the most conspicuously vulnerable targets. A technique of incessant repetition, of over-statements and over-simplifications, is evolved and applied. The different sections of the people are played off against one another. In brief, to arouse, to guide, and to use emotionalism in its crudest and its most refined forms is the essence of the fascist technique for which movement and emotion are not only linguistically identical. It is a peculiar feature of the emotional technique that those who are brought into play as the instruments, i.e., the masses, should not be aware of the rational calculations by which the wire-pullers direct it. Fascism is the true child of the age of technical wonders and of the emotional masses. [Loewenstein, p.423].
So what are the techniques of fascism? The main one is the uniformed militia – the paramilitary organisation which ‘takes on the Reds’ in the streets. The paramilitary unit is in constant conflict with the Communists. It comes into contact with them by gatecrashing left-wing marches and events, or hosting provocative marches through communist-dominated neighbourhoods, or by organising public meetings, which, inevitably, are attended by Communists who either blockade those meetings with large groups of demonstrators (who seek to prevent people from going in by threatening them with violence or by inserting communists in the audience who either heckle the speakers or physically attack them).
This conflict, which takes place on the streets between uniformed fascist street fighters and communist thugs, serves many functions at once, as Loewenstein explains:
The [fascist] movement organises itself in the form of a semi-military corps, the party militia or private army of the party. Under the pretense of self-protection, the original nucleus of the personal bodyguard of the leaders, and of the stewards for the maintenance of order in meetings, is developed into a large fighting body of high efficiency equipped with the fullest outfit of military paraphernalia, such as military hierarchy, uniforms and other symbols, and if possible arms. Again, this technique has strong emotional values and purposes. In the first place, mere demonstration of military force, even without actual violence, does not fail deeply to impress the peaceful and law-abiding bourgeois. Its manifestation, so alien to the normal expressions of party life, is, as such, a source of intimidation and of emotional strain for the citizens. On the other hand, while democratic parties are characterised by the looseness of their spiritual allegiance, the military organisation of the fascist parties emphasises the irrevocable nature of the political bond. It creates and maintains that sense of mystical comradeship of all for each and each for all, that exclusiveness of political obsession in comparison to which the usual party allegiance is only one among many pluralistic loyalties... [Loewenstein, p.424-425].
The purpose of all this is to achieve the breakdown of law and order, and the destruction of the liberal democratic State.
When party allegiance finally transcends allegiance to the state, the dangerous atmosphere of double legality is created. The military routine, because it is directed against despised democracy, is ethically glorified as part of party symbolism which in turn is part of the emotional domination. Disobedience towards the constituted authorities naturally grows into violence, and violence becomes a new source of disciplined emotionalism. The conflicts with the state – unavoidable when this phase of active aggressiveness is reached – increase the common sentiment of persecution, martyrdom, heroism, and dangerous life so closely akin to legalised violence during war. [Loewenstein, ibid.]
At the heart of fascism is the uniform:
The uniform has a mystical attraction also in avowedly non-militaristic countries. The effect of military display on the ‘soft’ bourgeois is all the more lasting because he contrasts the firmness of purpose of accumulated force in fascism with the uncontrolled fluctuations of normal political life... In any democratic country, be it traditionally ever so sober and balanced, the existence of a political movement organised as a military force makes the average citizen uneasy and creates the feeling of restiveness which emotional politics needs. [Loewenstein, ibid.]
In contrast to modern day revolutionary movements which aim at conducting a war (against the forces of the state) from the shadows, under cover of the darkness of anonymity and obscurity, fascism takes the reverse route. It depends on achieving as much exposure as possible, as gaining as much attention as possible. It is, in fact, the political equivalent of the attention-seeking child.
In former ages, revolutionary movements operated cautiously and in secrecy. They were dangerous of their underground nature. They could strike without warning. In most states, legislation was passed against secret societies. In the age of the emotional masses, the situation is reserved. Revolutionary fascism needs the spotlight of the utmost publicity. It could never unfold itself in the dark. Thus fascism forces itself into the foreground, where its emotional spell can be cast upon the masses. Its technique is relentless self-advertisement and propaganda. Democracy could not reckon with the effects of open propaganda. While vigilance was focussed, in fatal misunderstanding of the changed technique of revolutionary movements, on secret actions, no legislative devices existed for offsetting revolutionary emotionalism in the garb of legality, propaganda, and military symbolism. Fascism shrewdly capitalised this situation and won its most notable victories by boring into the weakness of the democratic system. [Loewenstein, pp. 425-246].
Among the fascist attention-grabbing techniques there is its ‘revolutionary and subversive’ propaganda sets out to be as attention-grabbing and shocking as possible:
Overt acts of incitement to armed sedition can easily be squashed, but the vast armory of fascist technique includes the more subtle weapons of vilifying, defaming, slandering, and last but not least, ridiculing, the democratic state itself, its political institutions and leading personalities. For a long time, in the Action Française, the finesse of noted authors like Daudet and Maurras developed political invective into both an art and a science... [Liberal democracy] acquiesced, because freedom of public opinion evidently included also freedom of political abuse, and even malignant criticism was sheltered. Redress had to be sought by the person affected through the ordinary procedure of libel, thereby affording a welcome opportunity for advertising the political intentions of the offender... [Belgian Rexist leader] Degrelle... boasted that at one time more than two hundred libel suits were pending against him. [Karl Loewenstein,‘Militant Democracy and Fundamental Rights, II’, in American Political Science Review, vol. 31, no. 4 (Aug., 1937), pp. 653-654.]
Then there is the practice of the cult of the political criminal:
More patently subversive is fascism’s habit of public exalting political criminals and offenders against the existing laws – a practice which serves the twofold purpose of building up the revolutionary symbolism of martyrs and heroes and of defying, with impunity, the existing order. It is still remembered that Herr Hitler, in August, 1933, when the rowdies of his party murdered, under particularly revolting circumstances, a political adversary in Potempa and were sentenced to death by the court, proclaimed his “spiritual unity” with them. [Loewenstein, p 654.].
The bottom line is that fascism aims at, and often succeeds in, delegitimising the liberal democratic status quo. Fascist politicians, when they did attain parliamentary seats in the opposition benches, often used the opportunity of parliamentary question-time to turn the parliament into a zoo – disrupting proceedings by, among other things, taunting and provoking liberal democratic MPs until they lost their temper, turning parliamentary sittings into a free-for-all of yelling, insults and general bad behaviour. Such stunts were used by fascists as propaganda for their thesis that parliament and liberal democracy is inherently chaotic (and needs to be replaced by a more orderly and disciplined system of doing things).
5. The fascist minimum
In summary, fascism rests on a number of things:
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The use of military-type uniforms, symbols, etc.: that is, ‘Private para-military armies of political parties... political uniforms or parts thereof (badges, armlets).. other symbols (flags, banners, emblems, streamers and pennants) which serve to denote the political opinion of the person in public. [These make up] the roots of the fascist technique of propaganda, namely, self-advertisement and intimidation of others. The military garb symbolises and crystallises the mystical comradeship of arms so essential to the emotional needs of fascism’. [Loewenstein, p.648-649].
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Provocative marches: ‘It became obvious that fascist demonstrations, processions, and meetings were held in districts where they could be considered only as a deliberate provocation because of the hostility of the bulk of the people living in these quarters. If, in such cases, disturbances occurred, they were actually created by the opponents. Exploiting this situation was one of the favourite methods of rising fascist movements whereby they could stand on the constitutional right of free processions and assembly’. [Loewenstein, p. 652].
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‘Stewards’, bodyguards, militias: that is, ‘The formation of military bands or private party militias. Created originally as “stewards” for the protection of party rallies and as bodyguards for the “leaders”, they have a tendency to grow into private armies for offensive purposes and to prepare for the ultimate seizure of power. Thus they constitute intolerable competitors of the state’s own armed forces’. [Loewenstein, p. 649].
These are the main points. Other important elements are a) the cult of the martyr, fallen in battle against the ‘Reds’ (e.g., Horst Wessel) and b) revolutionary, subversive, seditious propaganda.
So: given these definitions of what fascist practice consists of – which groups are ‘fascist’ today? Are there any ‘neofascist’ groups in the post-war era?
The answer is that there groups and individuals which uses bits and pieces of the fascist ‘armoury’ of techniques. One can point to, in the modern nationalist scene, a few practices which are evocative of fascism. There are the marches commemorating the life of Daniel Wreström, the Swedish skinhead youth murdered by immigrants, and who is a kind of neofascist martyr, a modern-day Horst Wessel. There is the ‘revolutionary and subversive’ propaganda of the late William Pierce, whose broadcasts most definitely stir up emotions in the old Goebbels style. (For an instance of the cult of the political criminal, nationalists with long memories will recall Pierce’s eulogy to the Oklahoma bomber, Timothy McVeigh). Even the anti-immigrant brochures and posters of a staid populist party like the BNP (in particular, the pamphlets show disturbing pictures of indigenous British people who are the victims of immigrant crime) are fascist-type propaganda (despite the BNP declaring itself as anything but). As for street confrontations with the ‘Reds’, they are the stock in trade of the sturdy German nationalists, like the NPD, who still, seventy years on, rely on provocative marches through Communist- and Antifa-dominated neighbourhoods and the feeling of ‘mystical bonding’ which results after these often violent confrontations. (The British National Front in the 1970s, and the British National Party, in its early days, also made a specialty of street confrontations with the Communists but since then such large scale street activism in the Anglosphere nations has been very rare until the emergence of the EDL which has generated this review paper). Paramilitary uniforms in Europe are, of course, banned, but Eastern European nationalists, particularly in Hungary, the Ukraine and Russia, have formed their own nationalist paramilitary units.
6. Triangulation
So where does this leave us? Fascism, for sure, requires an opponent in order to achieve power. According to Loewenstein, fascism is a kind of political chemistry which brings about a certain reaction. The fascists and communists engage in a violent, semi-civil war in the street, while liberal democracy looks on, helplessly. In Loewenstein's view, the state has the monopoly on all forms of coercion and violence - arrest, imprisonment, execution, conscription, declaring war - and any state that fails to keep a tight hold on that monopoly, and surrenders its exclusive rights to others (e.g., fascists, communists), will suffer. In fact, political power is, to quote Francis Parker Yockey, a plenum - which is the opposite of a vacuum, i.e., it is a space that is totally filled (as opposed to a space containing nothing). The result is that any foregoing of political power means that the political power will flow elsewhere. So if the liberal democratic gives up its monopoly on coercion and violence, it will experience a 'leakage' of power. That power will flow to the communists, and the fascists, who are usurping the state's political rights, by engaging in a political struggle resembling warfare in the streets.
Historically, communists, and fascists, have resorted to thuggery, intimidation, violence. But the essential thing is that they are constituting themselves as political units which are separate from the state. Carl Schmitt declared that even a mass assembly, a crowd, at a demonstration, presents 'potential' political possibilities, and the crowds at mass fascist and political demonstrations are indeed political.
So we have, in liberal democracy, a state unable to stand up for itself, and enforce its political rights, i.e., the monopoly on coercion and violence, and by Schmitt's understanding, 'politics' itself. That is to say, only the state has the right to engage in politics, and the state which does not, invariably experiences a leakage of political power.
The fascist method, as Loewenstein defines it, is to create a three-player contest - between fascism, communism and liberal democracy. Fascism and communism battle it out, while liberal democracy does nothing but wring its hands, and becomes more and more weak. Chaos and discord within the liberal democratic state arises, as the masses recognise that liberal democracy is unable, or unwilling, to assert its monopoly rights. Rampant communism and fascism are akin to tumours, cancers, within the political organism which is the liberal democratic state, and can make it grow sick and die. After a point, fascism is able to accomplish two things: firstly, it can crush its communist opponent, and then leapfrog over the corpse of the politically-defeated communist, and into the seat of political power - after elbowing a weakened liberal democracy out of the way.
This strategy is a high-risk one. It rests on two assumptions: a) that the communist opponent will fold, and will be unable to seize political power for itself; and b), that the liberal democratic state will not turn 'militant' (to use Loewenstein's term) and vigorously defend itself and assert its (exclusive) political rights, by, among other things, banning its competitors - "extremist", "anti-democratic" political groups such as the communists and fascists. Loewenstein, of course, recommends the latter course for liberal democracies, and the post-war government of Germany took on his recommendations, adopting a constitution that has extraordinary powers to ban political groups it deems "extremist" and "opposed to liberal democracy".
This fascist strategy I call 'triangulation', out of recognition that it requires three contesting forces: communists, fascists and liberal democrats. Without a doubt, it proved to be, in the 1920s and 1930s, extremely effective. The fascist political groupings of the time understood 'triangulation' intuitively. While the presentation of 'triangulation' here has been theoretical, the fascist groups of the 1920s and 1930s, which appeared, spontaneously, all over Europe, went into action without a theoretical understanding. They knew that the 'triangulation' strategy had the power to topple liberal democratic governments all over Europe, that the violent, uncompromising, and above all, theatrical struggle against communism could be used as a springboard, of sorts, to launch them into political power.
Now, the reader could be forgiven that it is possible, then, for nationalist groups in the 21st century to apply the above 'fascist minimum', and use similar strategies to achieve 'triangulation'. The communists of the present day, who are as violent and obnoxious as their forebears in the 1920s and 1930s, are perfectly willing to engage in a confrontation with the Far Right. And, indeed, the Left is returning to street demonstrations, and terroristic violence - as we have seen in the recent anarchist riots in Britain, and the bombings in Italy and Greece (which is in itself a return to the anarchist tactics of a hundred years ago). Any struggle, between the extreme Left and Right, then, would have the potential of weakening, and eroding, the liberal democratic state, thus allowing the nationalist groups to 'leapfrog' over the Left and into power. Certainly, such a strategy would be a gamble, but then, the fascist strategy of a century ago was a gamble.
7. Communism: no longer a worthy opponent
I myself object to this reasoning - not because I believe that 'triangulation' is impossible in today's day and age, but because I believe that the Left is not what it was. We have to remember that, in the 1920s and 1930s, the Left - specifically, the communist Left - was tremendously powerful, politically and militarily. Communism was controlled, and directed, from Moscow, which, at the time, had the monopoly on the Marxist idea. The communist movement in Europe was millions strong, and, by dint of its extremism and organisation, virtually controlled all the trade unions from top to bottom, or, at least, infected them with their ideas. Communism's intention, at the time, was to spread its power into Europe by force of arms; this was the logical culmination of the Marxist idea of class war (which results in the complete and utter destruction of the bourgeoisie, and the dictatorship of the "proletariat", namely, the Communist Party of Russia and its proxies). Accordingly, the Red Army was large, well-equipped, and aggressive - going to war with Poland in 1920, then against Spanish nationalists in the Spanish Civil War (sending "advisors" (in fact, Red Army soldiers), weapons and materiel to Spain), then Poland again, in 1939, and Finland in the same year, and then annexing Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and northern Romania. Certainly, the Red Army, in terms of leadership, tactics, skill, was not a good one - the small armies of Poland (in 1920-1921) and Finland, were able to best it. But it made up for lack of skill with its size and sheer aggressiveness. Complementing it were the communist parties of Europe, which could spread subversion, strikes, discord, sabotage, class warfare in the countries of Western Europe, should the USSR decide to invade. (This was, of course, providing that those countries were politically weak and susceptible to the communist parties which sought to erode them from within).
What changed, for Soviet communism, was the war with National Socialist Germany and its allies. The war devastated the USSR, and led to the death of many, many millions of Red Army soldiers. The USSR never really recovered from the losses (Walter Sanning puts the death toll at 13 million soldiers out of 21 million).
More than that, however, was the blow to the USSR's image. Before the war, the USSR was hermetically sealed off from the outer world. Somewhere around five to seven million died from the Ukrainian famine in the early 1930s, but the USSR was so tightly controlled that it managed to keep this information, for the most part, from the outer world. In effect, the USSR was as closed and secretive as North Korea (only more so), and so was able to present an ideal image of itself to the left-wing activists, trade unionists and working classes of the West. The Axis invasion of the USSR "opened up" the USSR to Europe, in a dramatic way. European soldiers could see, for the first time, how the people in the Soviet Union actually lived (in the early months of the invasion, soldiers from Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, Hungary and Romania participated - later this was to expand to some 30 nations). Furthermore, after the successful Soviet invasion and occupation of eastern Germany, and eastern Europe, the world finally began to understand, once and for all, that life under Soviet-style communism, was not, to say the least, as good as Soviet propaganda had portrayed it. The Western Left, had kept, up until that point, faith in the Soviet idea. It believed that life in the Soviet Union was more equitable, more just, and better, on the whole, for the working-classes than in the West. But, by 1948, that faith had evaporated. The subsequent splits and discords in the Left - which came about from Khruschev's secret speech, and the invasion of Hungary in 1956 - were a mere formality.
So, early on in the post-war period, the Soviet Union had relinquished the Stalinist doctrine of spreading communism into Europe by force of arms - because, among other reasons, of military incapacity - and seen its image, as a progressive and socialist state, tarnished, irrevocably, by the time of the onset of the Cold War.
Soviet communism, also, had a competitor in the form of communist China, and communism's post-war successes - in China, Indochina, Cuba, North Korea - were, not in the prosperous and advanced countries of Western Europe, but in the Third World (to use Mao's term). Marx and Lenin's dream, of a strong, militant (to the point of actual militarism) Left, unified and directed by communist leadership, came to an end - with the fracturing of communist world, and the Left itself.
The rise of the New Left was symptomatic of this, the New Left being much more successful in capturing the hearts and minds of progressive Western youth than the old-style, pro-Russian communist parties, who were, by then, the 'Old Left'.
This, I think, explains why 'neofascism' - the revival of the aims and methods of fascism - never caught on in the Cold War period. In order to achieve 'triangulation', the nationalist needs a credible opponent. To use a metaphor, the communists and the fascists are two boxers in a ring, while liberal democracy is the referee. But the communists, in the post-war period, were unable to step in to the ring, because, being so weak and wizened, they were unable to pass muster in the weigh-in.
Now, many veteran nationalists will object to this. One can point to a fighting-fit Left in the seventies, for example, in the street battles in Britain between communists and the National Front; or today's Antifa in Europe. But this only proves my point. Although quite a few pro-Soviet and pro-Russian communist groups, and trade unionists, were on the ground in that period (the 1970s), by then, the communist movement, as a whole, had been taken over by Trotskyites. That same grouping - so antithetical to Stalin, Khruschev and Brezhnev - remains firmly ensconced in the leadership of the communist movement in the West today. The fact that this dissident, essentially anti-Soviet, faction of Marxism, could take control of the international Marxist movement (along with, of course, the Maoist groupings of the West) attests to the weakness of Soviet communism in the West, compared to the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, when all communist parties (including the Chinese for most of that time) were controlled and directed by Moscow. As for the Antifa, they stem from anarchism, although, theoretically, they draw their ideas from the ideology of multiculturalism and anti-racism (which is, ironically, sanctioned by the liberal democratic state).
And, it goes without saying, one of the reasons why communism was such a credible opponent in the 1920s and 1930s was because of the fact that it had been put into practice, in the Soviet Union, and stood a good chance of being put into practice in Europe as well. The communists of the West could point to Russia and say, 'It happened there, it could happen here'. After 1991, communists had nowhere to point to. Only North Korea and Cuba have planned, socialist economies (and even Cuba, under the previously intransigent hardliner, Raoul Castro, shows signs of turning towards a more market-based economy, at the time of writing). Eccentric communists may hold up those two countries as models for the West, but, needless to say, do not get very far in winning over the working-classes to the Marxist idea. The appeal of early Soviet communism was the notion that the working-classes of the West would be somehow better off under a Bolshevik arrangement of things. Once that simple belief - which was an article of faith - was gone, the appeal of communism in the West faded. And so have the hundreds of thousands of idealistic, pro-Moscow foot soldiers, willing to fight to the death for Stalinist rule, and who would meet fascists in battle, in the street, and so destabilise liberal democracy.
8. Islamism: the new communism?
The fascists of the early 20th century intuitively grasped the notion of 'triangulation'. Now the working-class activists of the EDL have grasped it, intuitively, as well. But who is their ideological opponent? Liberal democracy is still around, but who, or what, has taken the place of communism? The answer is: Islam.
There are massive numbers of Muslim immigrants on European soil. At present, the numbers are: 2.4 million in Britain; 4.3 million in Germany; 7 million in France (and this is not counting the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and other Western European countries). One could argue that this is not immigration, but colonisation - colonisation on a huge scale, exceeding that of the settlement of the 'New World' (the Americas, Australia and New Zealand) of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Islam is not a nation, in the Western sense - that is, a nation-state. It is not identified with a nation-state (in the way that communism was with Russia); it is, in Spengler's words, a 'community of believers', a nation defined by its religious faith. Having said that, Islam in the West does bear resemblance to the Soviet communism of the early 20th century on a number of points: it is well-organised; doctrinally homogeneous (there are no splits within it over points of doctrine, not even a Trotsky-Stalin split); extremely averse to doctrines and creeds which contradict it (e.g., Western secularism and liberalism); receives foreign funding, and a degree of organisational direction, from outside the West (Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and other Islamic countries); and boasts millions of followers who are fanatics in believing in the rightness, and eventual triumph, of their cause.
In addition to this, some anti-Islamic writers allege that Islam is a cult: it brainwashes its members by restricting the flow of information (which may contradict the doctrines of that cult), by cutting off their contact with the outside world (friends, family, who are not Muslim, etc.), by encouraging them that they are an elect who have been specially chosen for a world-shaking mission, and so on. I would argue that Soviet communism (and, in fact, all forms of communism) was akin to a cult, and that it used exactly the same techniques on communist party members.
Most importantly of all, Islam is a political doctrine - political in Carl Schmitt's force. To Schmitt, a doctrine is only truly political when it raises differences up to the point of war, or possible war - when it organises one side, and arrays them against the another, for the purpose of committing acts of violence. These acts of violence can either be military (that is, war between nation-states), terroristic, or those leading up to civil war. Communism has, historically, availed itself of all three, but so has Islamism. From the outset, Islam, under the rule of the prophet Muhammad, spread its rule by war, and, according to the anti-Islamists, used terror, assassination, extortion, etc., to achieve its objectives. Islamist terrorism in the 21st century is only the modern expression of this. This process - of spreading Islamism by force - will repeat itself, inevitably, in the Europe of the 21st century: according to the anti-Islamics, the nature of the Islamist doctrine is that Islam will attempt to conquer non-believers and force them to adopt Islam; Western secularism and liberalism (along with Western communism and anarchism) will be crushed. This is a certainty in countries which have large numbers of Muslims but no Islamic regime - that is, without the Islam-inspired laws of Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other countries.
Multiculturalism aids and abets this process. Multiculturalism is, in practice, a ghettoism: immigrant groups to Western nations are encouraged to set up ethnically-homogenous Diaspora ghettoes, with their own schools, ethnic press, radio, customs, traditions, etc., and refuse to assimilate to the host Western nation. (The Jews in Europe in the Middle Ages were the first Diaspora group of unassimilable outsiders in a Western society, and so, possibly, were the first proponents of the multiculturalist idea in the West). Under the lax immigration laws of Europe in the 20th century, ghettoes, composed of people from the Islamic nations, have sprung up which are millions of strong. At some point, the anti-Islamists say, Islamic doctrine will reach critical mass. The leaders of those ghettoes will demand that their host nations assimilate to Islam, and not the other way around. Already, however, the Muslims are winning large swathes of European territory through 'facts on the ground'. Israel uses the settlements to steal parts of Palestinian territory in the West Bank and Jerusalem: the aim is to settle large numbers of Jews in those areas and have them put down roots, thus building 'facts on the ground', all of which will serve to make any handing back of those areas to the Palestinians that much the harder. The same is occurring, "spontaneously", in the cities of Europe which are heavily populated by Muslims and are almost bereft of members of the indigenous European population. The next step is for Muslim leaders to demand that these communities be run according to Islamic Sharia law, and/or the customs and moralities of, say, Pakistan, where honour killings and mutilations of disobedient wives and female siblings are common.
By the logic of multiculturalism, these Islamist leaders are perfectly right: why cannot, given the tenets of multiculturalism, these communities live under Sharia law? The Western liberals, all of whom support multiculturalism, are hoist by their own petard and do not have a leg to stand on.
Given these demographic facts, and the 'political' quality of the Islamic doctrine, the Muslim settlers are more than willing to fight, in the street, those nationalists who oppose the spread of Islam in Europe; they are willing to confront their opponents, they are willing to use physical force, they are willing to constitute an extra-parliamentary opposition to European nationalism and they are willing to usurp the rights of the state - that is, the state's monopoly on all forms of coercion and violence; in short, they are willing to fulfil the role left vacant by Soviet, Stalin-era communism.
Ironically, it is precisely at this point in history that the Western liberal democracies have never been weaker. In the case of Germany and Italy in the 20th century, the liberal democrats were unwilling to act fast enough, or hard enough, to stamp down on the twin extremisms of fascism and communism. In Europe, in the 21st century, the liberal democracies can hardly launch a campaign of repression against Islamism - not while there are millions of Muslim immigrants, in Europe, who would view such a thing as a violation of their "rights". Liberal democratic governments can lock up individual Islamist terrorists, but as for Islamism itself - they cannot, or will not, do nothing. In December 2010, a British Muslim blew himself up, and attempted to murder a number of people, in a shopping mall in Sweden. Ironically, at the same time, Britain was contemplating banning the anti-Islamist American pastor, Terry Jones, from entering the country. I say ironic, because this was the same government which lets individual Islamists, with terroristic intent, flit back and forth all over Europe, and which tolerates the presence of Islamism in Luton - a town in Britain notorious for being a 'hotbed of Islamic terrorism', a kind of incubator and training school for Islamist terrorists.
Liberal democrats, and liberals themselves, are in a terrible bind. One columnist for the left-wing Guardian newspaper suggested that the answer to Islamist terrorism of the Luton sort is 'more outreach programs'. Obviously, a doctrine as old, and as dogmatically defended, as Islamism is, is not going to be vanquished by a few well-meaning 'outreach programs'. And this particular columnist, along with plenty of other Western liberals, knows it. It is a case of self-division, a lack of self-belief, and an unwillingness to act decisively and firmly, which is paralysing the Western liberal democracies of Europe.
(Even modern Germany belongs in that category. While ideologically and constitutionally well-equipped to waging a struggle against the "extremisms" of communism and Neo-Nazism, it is helpless before Islamism, for the simple reason that the framers of the 1949 German constitution never foresaw the possibility of millions of Muslims living, permanently, on German soil. While it is easy enough for a government to ban a political party (communist or Neo-Nazi), it cannot ban a religious faith with millions of adherents (who have all the rights and protections of German nations, including the right to freedom of religious belief) nor can it somehow carry out some sort of theological surgery which would excise the "extreme" parts of Islam from the "moderate").
As for nationalism, in Britain (and elsewhere in Europe) it stems primarily from the recognition that Islamic immigration, and the growth of Islam, in Europe is a threat to the West's identity - and even to its biological survival. The mainstream political parties could combat this form of nationalist "extremism", in theory, were they to deport the millions of Muslims to their home countries; they could do this tomorrow, and thereby make Far Right nationalism wither on the vine. But they will not do so, of course, and their only alternative is a kind of mass-brainwashing campaign designed to make people believe that Islam is "good" for Europe. Which, again, they will not do - especially as they are fighting a losing war against Islamists in Afghanistan, all in the name of freedom, liberalism, democracy, women's rights and the rest. The West can, quite rightfully, ask its politicians: 'You're fighting for the rights of Afghanis to be "free" of Sharia law and extremist Islam; how about fighting for the same here?'. A good question.
Liberal democracy cannot ban Islam, and it cannot ban the reaction against it.
What has happened, in the case of the EDL, is that nationalists have formed themselves into a group, spontaneously, intuitively, into a kind of neofascist paramilitary, and are (again, intuitively) applying the fascist strategy of 'triangulation', but this time with Islam standing in for Stalinist communism. Fascism is a flexible, fluid doctrine, adaptive to circumstances, and willing to use various ideas as an ideological buttress for itself. Historically, it had many brilliant thinkers on its side, including Carl Schmitt, Spengler, Evola; but, in the main, its theories were a Hodge-podge of Marxism, guild socialism, racialism, conservatism, and modernism. Fascism's real consistency lay, as Loewenstein points out, in its application of methods. The EDL are applying the same methods. Liberal commentators, in the mainstream press, compare the EDL to Mosley's Black shirts, and they are right.
Fascism, and 'triangulation', have a great visceral appeal, especially to young men. The young British working-class man, who has little experience, or interest, in mainstream British politics, and very little interest in things outside of his individual wants (for a job, a car, housing, etc.), will come to an EDL rally and march against Islam, often through a neighbourhood where the majority of residents are Muslim. In his confrontation against militant Muslim counter-demonstrators, and the Antifa (in league with Islamism for the time being), he will find himself - in the solidarity, the unity, with other men of the British working-class, against a common foe. He will experience powerful emotions - the 'emotional politics' Loewenstein writes of - and go home, after that first experience, a changed man. What, then, do Cameron and Clegg, Tory and Liberal Democrat, have to offer against this? What could a neoliberal offer - would he preach, to these lads, the virtues of free markets?
The Far Right, in Britain, has always been strong, but has, historically, found parliament to be a tough nut to crack. My own theory is that, since the war, Britain has been the Western world's leading experiment in immigration and neo-Marxist social engineering, and so, in Britain, the forces of darkness have been unusually strong; as a consequence, these same forces will always put up a determined (more than usual) defence against nationalists who seek to enter parliament. They will always be able to put in more manpower, money, resources, into the "anti-racist", multiculturalist struggle, and nearly always succeed in tripping the nationalist parties up.
Nick Griffin, of the BNP, thought that he could circumvent that, by appealing to basest prejudices of the British tabloid-reading public - by appealing to, among other things, its traditional hatred of Germans ("Nazis", real or imagined), and the Continent (as represented by the EU), and its fear of "racism", "extremism" and anti-Semitism. He fell short, and the BNP failed to enjoy the successes of the Far Right, anti-Islamic populist parties on the Continent.
Perhaps, if the nationalists can build a sufficient mass-movement, an extra-parliamentary opposition, they can eventually end up bypassing the ballot box and achieving political power. This has long been the ambition of the radical Left itself. It is, despite first appearances, a more realistic ambition for the British nationalist than competing in the ballot box.
The street activists of the EDL understand that the goal is to create real 'political' possibilities; that is, to form both Far Right nationalism, and radical Islam, into distinct, competing political entities. In other words, both nationalism and Islam have to become tumours, cancers, in the organism which is British liberal democracy. Up until now, British liberal democracy has, since the war, been politically homogenous, i.e., without competing organisms growing within it; in other words, it has been cancer-free. But mass Islamic immigration, and a nationalist war against Islam, will change that. A cancer is, by definition a growth which expands against the host organism, and keeps expanding until the host dies. In Britain, the twin cancers - of a violent, militant Islamism, and a reaction, by indigenous Britons, against that Islamism - have appeared, and started to grow.
9. A new front
Politics, said Bismarck, is the art of the possible. What he meant by that was that politicians ought to explore all possible avenues towards reaching a certain political goal. The EDL ‘large scale street confrontation’ method represents one such possibility, which is not to say that there are not others.
In fact, the EDL approach, with its Islamic focus, is probably restricted only to Europe, which is facing a demographic Muslim onslaught. In America, the invaders and occupiers supported by that nations strong Zionist lobby come from, in Kevin MacDonald's words, the 'Failed states of Latin America'; in Australia, Indianization and Asianisation. In Britain, the vast influx of non-white immigrants in the Blair years came mostly from the Muslim countries, from Sub-Saharan Africa and from India. Out of those three ethnic groups, only the Muslims are willing to come to the fight. That is to say, only with the Muslims can 'triangulation' be achieved. For immigrant groups like the Hispanics, Chinese and Indians, the strategy seems to be: keep your head down and hope that you don't get noticed, and eventually you'll take over. This is a prudent course of action for Hispanics in America, most of whom (around 11 million) seem to be there illegally and are always dodging the law. But it is the Islamists who are, like the Bolsheviks of old, on a collision-course with Western Europe. So, the EDL strategy will not fly in America or Australia.
The EDL, and other 'Defence Leagues' throughout Europe, have a decentralised structure and not aligned with any particular Far Right nationalist party. Over time, by helping destabilise the liberal democratic states of Europe, they can, in effect, help out the Far Right parties seize power, fulfilling the same role as the Blackshirts or Brownshirts did for the Italian Fascist and German National Socialist parties did in the 1920s and 1930s. In countries where the Islamic presence is overwhelming and obvious to the public, there is much more possibility in a nationalist war against Islamism than there is in the same old, unproductive marches and demonstrations against ineffective Trotskyite communists and the Antifa. Islamism is the new Stalinist communism, threatening Europe, and it is the sons of the West who must rise up in its defence.
The question is, whether they or not the 'Defence Leagues' can do this without excising the Likudism and Breivikism in their midst.
