Counter-Currents
472 words
I will not be attending the National Policy Institute Conference in Budapest because the conference has been shut down by the Hungarian government. Furthermore, I see no reason to believe that there will be an alternative conference because:
- The Hungarian government has threatened to arrest the organizers.
- NPI does not have an alternative venue. Note: I am now told that another venue has been found.
- The conference hotel is now canceling reservations.
- One would-be attendee has already been detained at the Budapest airport and sent home.
- The Hungarian government obviously has a list of the speakers, the people who registered at the hotel, and people like me who announced on Facebook and other venues that we are attending. This list surely is in the hands of Hungarian customs officials, who may turn back anyone on the list who tries to enter the country. Not everyone might be turned back, naturally, but one needs to understand that if one is a known participant, one is at risk.
- If you are not likely to be on such a list, you may get into Hungary, but there may be very few others there with whom to meet, no venue for such a meeting, and the threat of arrest if a venue is found and meetings take place. So assess your risks accordingly.
I am announcing this because I know of at least ten people who are planning to fly to Budapest in the next 24 hours and have the right to know the risk that they will be spending hundreds of dollars and many hours traveling, only to be turned away at the border — or to find, if they do get inside Hungary, that nobody and nothing awaits them.
I am sure NPI is planning to announce the same things eventually, but it may not be soon enough to prevent people from needlessly wasting money and time on a complete fiasco.
I am canceling my tickets and requesting a complete refund for my registration.
The aim of this trip for me was knowledge, fellowship, and networking. But I also hoped to at least break even by selling books. At this point, the Budapest leg of the journey looks like it will be a complete financial loss, and I see no reason to risk any more scarce money on the slim chance that I will be able to get into Hungary and meet up with a few people whom I already know. After all, it is not my money to waste — it is your money, the money of Counter-Currents donors and customers.
I am sorry that this potentially wonderful event apparently will come to naught, and I want to thank the organizers for the audacity to dream. It is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all.
Greg Johnson
Editor-in-Chief
50 comments
Where has the hungarian government said they would arrest people. You are fear mongering – post a link to this evidence.
Specifically the Hungarian government has threatened to arrest the organizers, which I have heard from . . . the organizers.
The Hungarian government has declared that the conference is illegal, that it violates the Hungarian Constitution. Sándor Pintér, the Minister of Interior, has ordered the police to prevent the conference from happening, using “all legal means necessary”. This is all declared explicitly at the Hungarian government’s website:
http://www.kormany.hu/en/ministry-of-interior/news/minister-of-interior-bans-racist-conference
In other words, Greg isn’t fear mongering, he is giving us a realistic and up-to-date assessment of the situation. If the government says that the conference is illegal, if the police has orders to stop any attempt to hold the conference, and if (at least, that we know of) one attendee has already been detained at the border, I would say this is a fair warning.
This all shows the use of having conservative, mainstream parties in power …
The other side is nothing without censorship and repression.
Obviously it is not the Hungarian government who troll our websites, Facebook and Twitter accounts and so forth in order to prevent these meetings. These governments and hotels and other venue managers are contacted by anti Whites who fear us so much they will spend many hours stalking us to get the latest on what we are doing.
I appreciate that you have decided to conserve money by not attending, even if you could have gotten into the country for sightseeing.
James, until you have actually been the beneficiary of this type of harassment and these type of threats, I know they sound unbelievable. But these are the types of people/organizations who actually threaten people like me that they will take my children away, cause people like my husband to be blacklisted from employment in his career field, incite government officials against our peaceful gatherings and seem to make a living doing it. It really is reality no matter how farfetched it sounds.
Alternate last-minute location suggestion: try Greece.
Greece, where the leaders of Golden Dawn are in jail? Beyond that, it is absurd to suggest that a venue can be found in another country and a host of people can change their travel plans at the last minute.
Not all the leaders are in jail. Except for the two or three top guys, they go in and out, they consider it almost a joke. Besides they have enough guys out, a lot more tough guys than in Hungary. Just a suggestion. Maybe try Romania?
Should we start an action of writing protest letters to the Hungarian embassy in our country? If you support that idea, please publish a model of such a letter.
Template to all Hungarian Ambassadors in Europe and the USA:
Your Excellency
I expect you are aware that the First Identitarian Congress scheduled to take place in Budapest between 3rd and 5th October 2014 has been closed down by the Ministry of the Interior on the grounds that it is “racist”.
It has been our experience that politicians are not always as well informed as civil servants, especially if those civil servants are diplomats. Therefore the Minister and his colleagues may not be aware (but you might be) that this ban without evidence is a violation of Articles 9, 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights 1950 to which Hungary is presumably a signatory although it is unconnected with the EU.
The breach of Articles 10 and 11 is self-evident. Breach of Article 9 needed testing in court with regard to political beliefs. This has now taken place in court on at least two occasions, and it has been declared that both Nationalism and Socialism (and also by the way Environmentalism) are Beliefs under Article 9. We can give you case references if you require them.
The Ethnologists and Nationalists taking part in the conference do not believe that the European races are superior to others, merely that the diversity of the nations and the races they contain must be preserved and not blended into one homogenous mass all speaking only one language (probably English!) as occurred in the Tower of Babel.
You may not know that the science of Ethnology and Ethnography, a branch of Anthropology, was begun or at least formalised by a Hungarian. The term ethnologia (ethnology) is credited to Adam Franz Kollár (1718-1783) who used and defined it in his Historiae ivrisqve pvblici Regni Vngariae amoenitates published in Vienna in 1783 as: “the science of nations and peoples, or, that study of learned men in which they inquire into the origins, languages, customs, and institutions of various nations, and finally into the fatherland and ancient seats, in order to be able better to judge the nations and peoples in their own times.”
Kollár’s interest in linguistic and cultural diversity was aroused by the situation in his native multi-lingual Kingdom of Hungary and his roots among its Slovaks, and by the shifts that began to emerge after the gradual retreat of the Ottoman Empire in the more distant Balkans.
Many nations have a deep interest in Ethnology – there is a famous Museum of Ethnology in Izmir, for instance, and in Hanoi, Vienna, Leiden, etc. There is an organisation called “Survival” which fights for the identity of races which are still tribal – but this now needs to be extended to other more sophisticated cultures whose existence is also threatened by the modern world. This is human history that is being erased by accusations of racism – this is a crime which is by no means petty although banning one conference may be petty, but the larger picture involves the possibility of both genocide and/or linguicide in some instances.
We beg you to intercede on behalf of Ethnology and the non-aggressive Nationalism that arises from the desire to preserve humanity’s cultural inheritance so far as possible, and initiate some sort of learning process amongst your superiors in government so that in future they at least do no violate the ECHR with no evidence at all that they have a right to do so under the second paragraphs of Articles 9, 10 and 11. Better still, they could move on from not violating human rights law to actively defending the culture and heritage of Hungary from an overdose of Progress – because you must believe us when we say, that this will kill everything that matters most to all Hungarians. Even if they came to Hungary from other places, they presumably came because there is something about Hungary that they like and want to preserve. We appreciate that Americans have a poor reputation when it comes to preserving indigenous peoples and cultures, but not all Americans are the same and to assume that they are is, well …… “racist”?
SINCERELY
…………………………………
I am profoundly disappointed with the lack of support from Jobbik. The way the MP pathetically bowed out of the conference, citing those eeee-vil “U.S. racists”, is an embarrassment to anything that could be called right-wing. It’s time to break with these people once and for all. What a bunch of rotten bastards.
Well, what is one to think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0PUXhWCUCA
I’m a few miles away and committed. Will report on what happens at the proper time. Sorry you can’t be here, Greg.
Thanks Roger. I look forward to your impressions.
Why not have it in the backyard of a supporter’s residence…
As Dorothy said, “This isn’t Kansas.” (or something like that) . Smart decision not to go
Just out of curiosity, do you suspect that with America and Russia “sabre rattling” that the presence of Alexander Dugin, who is said to have Kremlin connections had anything to do with it?
For a European conference, the program was rather heavy with non-Europeans: Dugin, plus three Americans. Given that Hungary shares a border with Ukraine and a common history of Soviet repression, Dugin’s strident anti-Ukraine posturing and history of Stalin apologetics of course gives the Hungarians pause. Beyond that, having three Americans gave the whole thing the feel of the Americans and the Red Army fighting their way to Torgau in 1945. Now, I am sure that none of these factors really determined the Orban government’s decisions, but they do make it rather easy to spin this as carpet-baggers, outside agitators, and rabid Russophiles descending on Budapest.
Is the ruling system so afraid of white advocacy that it must take police state measures against a mere conference?
The answer is: Yes!
Read the proclamation from the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (via the NPI website). You can just see the eurocrats trembling over an invasion of “extremists” and “xenophobes” onto the Hungarian plains.
It is a symptom of the bankruptcy of the ruling system that a movement as marginalized as White Nationalism can cause such an hysterical response. Look at the frantic proclamations from the ministry. Threatened arrests for attending a conference. Closing the frontier. It’s like something out of a B-movie.
Would it take just a few hundred or even dozen White Nationalists speaking openly to bring down the current world order? It looks so.
In a bizarre sort of way, the system has cleared the way for White Nationalism. It has destroyed competing ideologies on the right: the nation-state has been wrecked by globalization; mainstream conservatism has demonstrated itself useless; Christianity is mocked and treated as obsolete.
But there is still your average white man and white woman who know in their hearts that the system is against them.
If/when White Nationalists stand up and speak clearly their ideas, the great majority will rally.
I also wanted to ask if someone on a higher echelon put the Hungarian government up to closing the conference. Hungary has a proud history, and Hungarians have always been warriors. But are there people/organizations putting pressure on the ministries? The country may be in a bad position, hemmed in by the EU and NATO geographically, politically and economically. There may be a lot more going on here than meets the eye.
Greg Johnson wrote:
“[T]he whole thing [had] the feel of the Americans and the Red Army fighting their way to Torgau in 1945.”
This might seem, to an outsider, to be a stretch, but in fact Greg’s words are a more poetic version of what the Hungarian government itself has said:
From the Wall Street Journal:
“Hungary’s ministry of foreign affairs and trade [on why Hungary banned the NPI Conference] said it was ‘unacceptable that an extremist American racist organization should hold a conference with Russian radicals here in Hungary,” and that such a conference would damage Hungary’s international reputation. Mr. Dugin couldn’t be reached for comment.’ …” [Link]
We can only conclude that PC pressure from the Ethnomasochist Left was the main driving force here. The thing is, their agitation wouldn’t normally carry the day. The (ostensible) “support for free speech” (which would’ve been, in this case, actually implicit [approaching quasi-explicit in Hungary] support for European voelkisch politics) which was supposed to come from the Right, especially the Jobbik Right, laid down its arms. Why? Maybe the answer is one word: Dugin.
Rather than the presence of any one speaker in particular, it is more likely that the Fidesz government feels compelled to crack down on a, relatively speaking, high-profile international Nationalist conference, considering the bad press they constantly get in the Western MSM for their deep-blue, “authoritarian tendencies”, or whatever they call those there.
And Jobbik? They do not even regard the Hungarians to be a European people. What do they care about White Nationalism?
It is of course up to the organizers and not to Counter-Currents to call off the conference. Why this blatant attempt by Greg to sabotage the whole thing? Is there some kind of animosity between him and the NPI organizers?
You are misrepresenting this entirely. I did not call off the conference. The Hungarian government did that. I was merely informing my readers, many of whom expected me to be there, that I was not going, and why I was not going — based on information that Richard Spencer was unwilling to share.
Nor did I “sabotage” anything — unless it was NPI’s plan to keep people in the dark in the hope that they would be able to cobble together an alternative conference at the last minute, which seems unlikely given the fact that the Hungarian government has expelled at least one person involved with NPI, and Richard Spencer, last I heard, had not even tried to enter Hungary.
I have a lot of disagreements with the direction that Spencer has been taking NPI and Radix in recent months. He has basically abandoned ethnonationalism and turned into an apologist for Dugin and reactionary Russian chauvinism. But I still wished to attend the conference and wanted it to be a success.
Greg Johnson speaks for himself, not the conference or organizers.
In many instances, he presents speculation or hear-say as fact.
It is obvious I speak for myself. My information sources are the same as Richard Spencer’s. I just chose to share them with my friends and fellow conference goers, so they could better weigh the risks, whereas Richard Spencer chose to keep them in the dark.
http://www.europeancongress.org/blog/category/perseverance-in-budapest
Richard, which part of the statement do you consider speculation?
If the speculations in the article are true, could not Arktos, which is based in Hungary and planned to attend the conference, arrange an alternative event? With their Jobbik contacts, surely a venue, public or private, could be found.
Arktos was co-sponsoring the event already. And since the organizers have been threatened with arrest, I think this might discourage further participation.
It increasingly seems that we need to regard the “free” in “free speech” as a verb rather than as an adjective.
It is an enormous disappointment to hear the Hungarian government foaming at the mouth shrieking “racist” and “fascist” like any brain dead leftist. Conservatism, even of the autoritarian kind, even in an unassailable position of power, where they do not have to worry about leftists, is definitely not our friend. I blame Christianity that, even in its most reactionary forms, will not admit to any racial consciousness.
I suspect that racial issues are a minor (if even that) factor in the sabre rattling between Russia and America today.The issue appears to be oil and the dollar, i.e who rules?
I’m not clear if the conference was arranged prior to today’s “Cold War” but it really is an issue we should side step – although as a loyal tax payer I seem to have chosen sides. It is just one of those things that happen and in our post 9/11 world where it is all too easy to end up on no fly lists and the T list we don’t want to be seen as siding with the enemy. We may not approve of some of the policies of today’s “Big Boys” but on the serious issues it is best not to upset them. Best that we should stick to our knitting and concentrate on Saving the Whale, I mean Whitey. That they can handle!!!!!
It is no surprise that Orban government has banned NPI event. Dugin’s close ties to the Kremlin are a major factor. Richard Spencer, like Greg said, has sided with Moscow. When you add to that Jobbik’s close ties to Moscow, this was a problem for Budapest. This conference looked like a Russian provocation.
Jobbik’s links with Russian intelligence are so well known they are in the MSM in USA —
http://www.newsweek.com/far-right-mep-accused-acting-russian-spy-273444
Do you think Orban Viktor does not know this too?
Well it is their country after all, They have a Nationalist government (kind of)
They should be able to stop anyone they don’t want from coming across their border.
Greg,
Your displeasure at Spencer’s latest mania and the failure of this conference to materialize have, as I see it, the same source: these eastern European governments are not friendly to American “ethnonationalism”. They are the same fearful elites as anyone else, they don’t care, and they will sooner put the boot down on you than risk making geopolitical waves anywhere around them.
I believe this ought to have been obvious, but let a European nationalist party win seats in parliament, and suddenly white nationalists are hailing as the new promised land of ethnonationalism.
I am not sure it is so cut and dried. Surely there is a place for summit conferences between different European nationalists. I certainly wanted to learn more about Jobbik directly from its members. I think the conference might have had a better chance if it looked like an opportunity for Hungarians and other Europeans to spread their message and less like a group of people from outside of Europe (Americans and Russians) coming to lecture them.
Spencer, apparently, was planning to deliver a speech on the virtues of deracinated Americanism, in the vein of his recent remarks on “Europe coming together” and the emergence of a “homogeneous” European man (http://www.radixjournal.com/blog/2014/9/18/the-scottish-play), which I imagine would have come across as air-headed beauty pageant prattle in the center of Europe where national identities and ancient hatreds have very deep roots.
Glad to see you crazy kids have finally tied the knot.
From Arktos :
“With deep regret, Arktos is announcing that we are withdrawing our co-sponsorship of and participation in the European Congress in Budapest, Hungary this coming weekend. While we strongly disagree with the actions taken against the Congress by the Hungarian government, we want to be respectful of the authorities of our host country and we will abide by their decision to halt the meeting. Various Hungarian political figures have taken issue with some of the foreign speakers who were invited to the event and have misinterpreted the intentions of the Congress. It should be clear to anyone who is familiar with the wide range of Arktos’ publications and authors, which includes texts from an array of perspectives and traditions, both European and from outside of Europe, that we are not a partisan organization. Likewise, we viewed our participation in the Congress as an opportunity to bring these many perspectives together into a single forum where they could be discussed, in a way that would be entirely consistent with Hungary’s history as a place where many traditions have met and benefited each other. We hope that the Hungarian government will re-evaluate its judgment so that future events of this nature, which seek to facilitate the free exchange of ideas, will not be prevented from doing so.”
Hallo – I am a BNP member and electoral candidate but like many Ethno Nationalists I have become disillusioned with party politics for reasons of maths – i.e. the Natives in Europe are now only 80 per cent at best in most countries, and although this sounds OK it is not enough to win via the electoral system. As for the USA ….. well, I know it sounds daft, but really I wonder if White Americans should not wend their way back to whichever European country their ancestors came from? They would be most welcome, and the numbers would physically block, just by their presence and superior wealth, the flood of migrants into Europe from other continents.
Regarding this conference – it was an excellent idea, and would probably have worked fine in another EU Member State. But Hungary has only recently joined the EU (in 2004) and is a bit of a nervous “new boy”, over anxious to please emperors which it has not yet noticed have no clothes. Worse still, Hungary is unfamiliar with Europe’s ECHR 1950 – this has recently been hijacked by the EU but in reality has nothing to do with it, and is still a massive weapon of defence for anyone including Nationalists.
The presence of Arktos as co-sponsor (and their superb reaction above) proves beyond doubt that Article 9 of the ECHR 1950 is being breached by Hungary, as well as the more familiar Articles 10 and 11
This is copied from a booklet on Article 9 by the mainstream and completely impartial Human Rights Review, 2012:
“Article 9 does not define ‘religion’, and the European Court has repeated on many occasions that the state is not entitled to assess the legitimacy of religious views or the way in which they are manifested. Article 18 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, which is similar to Article 9, has been interpreted by the UN Human Rights Committee as protecting:
‘ …. theistic, non-theistic and atheistic beliefs as well as the right not to profess any religion or belief. The terms belief and religion are broadly construed. Article 18 is not limited in its application to traditional religions or to religions and beliefs with institutional characteristics or practices analogous to those of traditional religions.’
Religious beliefs which have attracted the protection of Article 9 include the Baha’i faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Rastafarianism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism, as well as the Church of Scientology.
Article 9 has also been applied to philosophical beliefs including atheism, veganism, environmentalism and pacifism.” End of quote.
In fact a BNP member called Arthur Redfearn tested Article 11 in his defence all the way through the British courts (4 courts in all, each higher than the last), and then won at last at the ECHR. He not only won, but was told that he could also have won on Article 9 because Nationalism is a Belief in that sense. This has also been established for the “Left” side of the political spectrum, with much greater ease – normal Labour ideology has been deemed a Belief under Article 9, and one which employees are free to express outside work, whatever the rules are in their workplace.
Sadly, apart from Arktos and a couple of other outfits, Nationalists are wary of getting “spiritual” – I suppose it might be a bit like being gay, especially for men – it takes a lot of courage to reveal something to do with your emotional side. Yet of course Nationalists are deeply deeply spiritual – and are allowed to be if they are Red Indian, West Indian, Hausa, Kurdish, etc. etc. It seems it is only White Nationalists that are obliged to have a stiff upper lip at all times. I admire the stiff upper lip attitude up to a point, it is after all characteristic of Northern Europeans – but sometimes it needs to be combined with a judicious dash of emotion – like the tomato juice in a Bloody Mary. Otherwise you get emotion reserved for daft displays at football matches, when really it should be woven through daily life like a golden thread. And the Law in the shape of the ECHR not only allows this – it protects and encourages it.
Excellent information Edith, I hope the legal challenge is made.
Like Arktos I would not go to Budapest in defiance of the Hungarian government’s ban, far too personally dangerous for one thing, but I admire Richard Spencer’s courage and his brave exposition of his views in the interviews with journalists in Hungary.
Absolutely. I admire both the stance of Arktos and the more impetuous stance of NPI. Every possible defence mechanism has to be deployed simultaneously. It really is an emergency, the Developing World is bursting its banks as “Camp of the Saints” predicted – and the author of this was an Ethnologist who had travelled the Developing World in his youth in complete sympathy with it – however he knew the beginnings of an emergency when he saw them. Sometimes emergencies are slow-motion or seem slow-motion at the time, though not when seen in the context of millennia, or is it milleniums.
A rather depressing update by Jared Taylor: http://www.amren.com/news/2014/10/report-from-budapest/
I think all of us can agree that kudos are in order not only for Tom Sunic, Jared Taylor and Richard Spencer, who delivered (or tried to deliver) their respective talks in defiance of the threat of arrest, but also to all of the brave seventy or so participants of the ill fated conference who chose to regroup after the formal gathering was banned and carry on in an alternate venue.
Their courage and boldness is inspiring and, I think, reminds us, at least in a small way, that: the true warrior values honor more than life itself.
Given the media attention it has gathered from all corners I cant help but feel that the event will become a watershed event in the history of the movement with perhaps far reaching circumstances.
I don’t know Tom.
Finding another venue when a private vendor backs out is the plucky thing to do. But it is quite another thing when a foreign government declares you a persona non grata and shuts down your congress. Vowing defiance, sneaking into the country, and urging, in effect, the registrants to engage in civil disobedience in a foreign country: well, that just sounds like entitled, ugly-American douchebag behavior to me.
Spencer should have simply shut down the conference when it was banned. Not to do so put all the attendees at risk: of legal harassment by the Hungarian government (including arrest, deportation, and banning), of exposure of their identities as dissidents (with personal and professional consequences), and even of physical harassment from antifa (the police may not have suppressed a secret gathering, but they might not have protected it either). It also put the co-sponsors at Arktos at risk of deportation — not deportation back to their homes, but deportation from their homes in Hungary.
I applauded Hungarian president Viktor Orban when he said he was going to build an illiberal nationalistic state. On what grounds, exactly, are we supposed to defy Orban’s disinvitation? The inalienable rights of man? Is NPI going to appeal to the European Union’s Human Rights court? Are we liberals now? Am I the only person who finds this deeply ironic and intellectually inconsistent?
Orban certainly does not deserve the tasteless, witless, and probably libelous would-be parody published at TOO: http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2014/10/sandor-petofi-the-magyar-noble-original-and-updated/
Count me out of the high-fives and wagon-circling.
Thank you Greg Johnson – it is very calming to have the situation examined in some detail, whatever the conclusion or even if no conclusion is reached. I call this the “Poirot Effect”. A few errors of fact or speculation (if any) do not matter – light is being thrown on the subject and that is a good start. The grey cells are working, and are not just idle grey goo.
Whilst active in the BNP, which has nearly as many plants and moles as the Green Party (a much bigger threat to the status quo below leadership level), I decided to trust everyone and no-one – i.e. not to worry if people are plants, have hidden agendas, or are just narrow-minded. What matters is keeping your OWN eyes on the prize as Pete Seeger sang in the 1960s for the civil rights movement.
I don’t support the civil rights movement now, having become aware that the Red Indians were not as depicted in most movies, and black civil rights were (and still are) a total affront to their plight (not to mention the plight of many poor white descendants of the starving first settlers and white indentured labourers, who have never made it into the American Dream to this day).
But the modus operandi is still pure gold. Keep your eyes on the prize. Don’t descend into in-fighting and squabbles. I agree that anyone who just forges ahead in a unilateral way is riding for a fall (unless they are as tough and charismatic as Stalin) – but up to a point I think there is room for all approaches. As for moles – if you stick to your guns, they will come over to your side eventually, if it is a good cause.
Whilst keeping your eyes on the prize, constant analysis and reflection like yours are vital. For instance, it is most puzzling that an apparently ardent Nationalist such as Orban gave way to pressure. I agree with you that other Nationalists should be sympathetic if he has been obliged to be pragmatic momentarily. The problems of actually being in power are huge – you immediately lose your freedom to be rebellious. Unless you are a very very scary person like Stalin. Does this mean that Nationalists have to be led by Dictators? There have been some Benevolent Dictators (not many) – a handful of Monarchs in various places and times have been Benevolent Dictators, and I am reliably informed that Costa Rica had a Benevolent Dictator for years in the 20th century. If one country can achieve this in modern times, surely others can? Perhaps if the need arises, cometh the hour cometh the man ….. in each nation simultaneously, since we are all more or less in the same boat at this moment in Time. We now have Mr Modi in India – I am watching him with interest. Mr Putin too – there is no evidence that he is doing any more than actively combat and resist enormous pressure from the liberal West, and that does entail resisting all forms of Lib including Gay Lib I’m afraid. Personally, I feel that Women’s Lib was a mistake for women – and although I can’t speak for other Libs, I do wonder if the same is not true for them. There is a difference between Liberation and Freedom from Bullying.
“For when I gave you an inch, you tooke an ell” – John Heywood in 1546
It strikes me as inconsistent to praise nationalistic illiberalism used in the service of western liberalism.
Why are you so sure that it is in the service of western liberalism?
Could someone provide me with some links that give something more than speculation about who, outside of Hungary was pushing this? Because so far, I have seen only speculation.
One of the creepier little details of Spencer’s arrest drama is the Twitter feed of his wife Nina Kouprianova: https://twitter.com/NinaByzantina
During Spencer’s whole ordeal, there was not a peep, much less a tweet about him. It is just an endless stream of anti-Ukraine, pro-Russia chauvinism that she is noted for.
But, with the dishonesty we have come to expect from Radix, they declared on Oct. 6, “we don’t take an editorial stance in relation to the Ukrainian conflict.”
This is the journal where my frankly pro-Ukraine and anti-Putin comments were deleted and I was banned from further commentary.
Also, apparently, I was at least momentarily considered as a speaker for the NPI conference (because I had won their poll for desired speakers), but I was rejected for being pro-Ukraine and critical of Dugin, Putin, and Russia.*
The Russian angle, I think, leads to the most plausible hypothesis for why this conference was shut down: NPI and Radix are Russian propaganda organs; Dugin, the chief speaker, is an ideologue of Russian chauvinism and an apologist for Stalin; Manuel Ochsenreiter, another speaker, parrots the Kremlin line on Ukraine; Arktos, one of the co-sponsors, is one of Dugin’s publishers; Jobbik, which was also associated with the conference, is pro-Russian, which is rather tricky in a country invaded twice by Russia in the last century.
It is not yet clear what the roles of the US State Department or the organized Jewish community are in the shutdown of the congress — if any — but any self-respecting Hungarian government would not have needed much outside pressure to ban it once it came under scrutiny.
* And yes, for all that, I still wanted the congress to succeed, promoted it to my friends and followers, and sunk more than $1,000 into a plane ticket, another $1,000 into printing books for sale, plus the cost of registration, and the community day tour, and I budgeted money for food and transportation.
Fortunately, I hedged my bets by also booking a trip to London, which was successful. The refund of the Hungary portion of my ticket almost covered my early return from London. And the books can be sold another time, so they are not a total loss.
The 140-odd people who registered for this event must have collectively put up at least $140,000, much of it for airlines and hotels and restaurants — i.e., it is money spent outside the movement. That is enough to pay someone to work on movement activities full time for a two years. And that money has been largely wasted. High-fives about a movement “victory” thus seem rather hollow. It was a fiasco.
But Greg, aren’t you on record as saying there is nothing wrong with liberalism that some race realism and nationalism can’t fix? You certainly believe in free speech for racialists, right?
That’s true, and I guess I have not really gotten to the heart of my discomfort with this issue. The tendency of Americans is to think of ourselves as simply universal rights-bearing agents who can get our way anywhere on the globe by flashing our passports and throwing dollars around. That kind of entitled, ugly-American arrogance has no place in American racial nationalist circles. And that means that when another country disinvites us, we should not throw a tantrum. Even if they are wrong. Because I guess that one part of nationalism is the idea that one has a non-negotiable, absolute right to one’s own space — even to be wrong in one’s own space — and nationalists, of course, should be the first to respect that and not to barge in uninvited or go crying to the EU for redress. Of course Richard Spencer is no longer an ethnonationalist, judging from his recent statements.
This conference totally reminds me of the shenanigans of the leftists in the sixties. Get arrested and become a hero. It so smacks of a game planned out and using attendees as their tools. Cause a crisis and then bask in the sunshine.
You are so right Rhondda.
Spencer was rather stingy at sharing information that would have helped attendees assess the risks and make informed decisions, facts like: (1) the Hungarian government threatened the organizers with arrest, (2) that Bill Regnery was arrested at Budapest airport on Monday the 29th and deported on Tuesday, (3) that NPI did not have an alternative venue in place when Spencer announced his plan for a smaller private meeting (a distinction that made no legal difference anyway); a venue was secured only on Wednesday, October 1 according to Jared Taylor, and (4) Richard Spencer had not even tried to enter Hungary until October 2.
On Tuesday the 30th, once I learned that Regnery had been arrested and deported, that no alternative venue was in place, that the conference hotel had canceled everyone’s reservations, that Richard Spencer was not even in Hungary, and that Spencer had been ignoring requests for information from some would-be attendees for more than 24 hours, putting out only what I considered delusional-sounding communiques about defiance and perseverance (anybody remember Baghdad Bob?), I decided that the conference was too risky, and I publicly announced why I was pulling out because I believed that my friends and comrades had the right to know what I knew and weigh the risks accordingly.
As I never tire of repeating, we should allow people to determine their own levels of risk and involvement.
At this point, Spencer crossed the line from what might be charitably seen as deer-caught-in-the headlights paralysis in releasing important information to outright lying, because he publicly stated that my information was inaccurate and presented speculation as fact. Well, my information was not inaccurate, and my speculations about possible outcomes were not presented as anything but speculations — more informed speculations than Spencer would have liked to have seen, apparently. Spencer’s aim was clearly to sow enough doubt to keep people moving to Budapest where they would serve as extras in the grand drama he had envisioned for himself. This is the reputation I had heard for some time but refused to believe because I found the guy so intelligent and likable, namely that Richard Spencer fancies himself a man of destiny who casually uses and discards people. I didn’t believe it until I actually saw it in action.
Spencer knew that he would be arrested when he showed his face in public, so he chose to do so on Friday, October 3rd at a pub rather than the next day at the secret rump conference. So he assembled some extras and a couple of journalists (interesting detail, that), feigning shock and outrage when he was taken away, and flashing a V-for-victory sign from the back of the police van. Well-played Richard. Well-played. But it is a hollow victory, because people know they were being played. I certainly have lost all trust and respect for Richard Spencer because of this.
All I want to know is if Spencer demanded a Waldorf salad once he was thrown in the clink.
It would be interesting to know how many people besides Spencer and Regnery were arrested and expelled from Hungary.
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