Giuseppe Garibaldi (1866)
485 words
The dog days of summer are a slow time for movement activity and fundraising, but over the last week, our fundraiser still crept 1% closer to the goal. This year, Counter-Currents is raising $300,000. Since our fundraiser started on March 10th, we have raised $112,660.50, which is 38% of our goal. I want to thank all of those who have given so far. Full information on how to donate is below, but before you read that, I want to share a few words from Kathryn S. — Greg Johnson
162 years ago and on an August day like this, articles began to appear in British newspapers that called on Britons to raise funds and muster volunteers willing to aid Guiseppe Garibaldi in his fight for Italian unification. In order to skirt the ban on the enlistment of soldiers for a foreign army, the ads talked about “excursionists” traveling to southern Italy on holiday, “furnished with means of self-defense . . . and attired in picturesque and uniform costume.” Since the previous summer, Garibaldi’s cause had inspired enthusiastic discussion throughout the country. Meetings, conferences, chants, and panorama theater shows were all dedicated to his cause. Indeed, Garibaldi sought a “public mandate” abroad for the Italian nation.[1] In a matter of days, thousands of Britons signed up for the “excursion” bound for southern Italy. Why was the Italian cause so popular? Why did so many ladies organize church drives, and why did so many men join Garibaldi’s British Legion? For romance and adventure, of course. But it was more than anything because of a deeply-felt and transcendent European nationalism. Sacrificing for one’s country sacralized the nation, and the idea of a unity of white sister nations also became a sacred goal.[2]
This goal is as sacred today as it was in August 1860. Counter-Currents is the only White Nationalist site I know of that has both a generous spirit that champions worldwide white identity; as well as the realism to advance the cause of particular European peoples and nations. And like Garibaldi, we need “excursionists” willing to advance the unity of our sister nations, no “picturesque” nineteenth-century uniform required (but no one’s stopping you). Become a member, donate to Counter-Currents, and help us grow. Meeting our fundraising goal won’t just be a monetary victory, but it will also be a spiritual and psychological triumph. It will be a message that our mission has your support; that we have a reason to continue. We all here have deeply-held convictions. But we shouldn’t underestimate the bolstering effect that a successful fundraiser confers, especially when our convictions are so embattled. It is nothing less than a “public mandate” for nothing less than preserving our national homelands. Viva la nazione!
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Finally, we would like to broach a very delicate topic: your will. If you are planning your estate, please think about how you can continue helping the cause even after you are gone. The essay “Majority Estate Planning” contains many helpful suggestions.
Notes
[1] Daily News, 12 August 1860.
[2] See Elena Bacchin, “Brothers of Liberty: Garibaldi’s British Legion,” The Historical Journal 58, no.3 (September 2015) pp. 827-853, 827.
24 comments
Kathryn: Can you suggest a good book on Garibaldi’s life and works?
Garibaldi Hero of Italian unification by Christopher Hibbert is one, He was known as The Hero of Two Worlds.
Thank you!
I second Cutler’s recommendation, and since I’m an obnoxiously elitist proponent of primary over secondary sources, I would add Garibaldi’s autobiography titled: The Life of General Garibaldi. Like Al Dante mentioned, he’s a complex and controversial figure, but he, perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, embodied the spirit of the age. The nineteenth century really was the era of romantic intra-European “excursionists” and adventurers — the white “happy warrior.”
Where have all the swashbucklers gone? I want them back.
Where have all the swashbucklers gone? I want them back.
Really? They could readily cut your throat.
It was a bit tongue-in-cheek.
Again, I appreciate your passion for this subject, but I think there is something to be said for people willing to both put themselves on the line for a cause and to put their money where their mouths are.
These two things are what it will take and what it has always taken to achieve worthwhile political goals, such as nation-building. Dismissing nineteenth-century nationalist movements as having little or nothing to offer us would be a mistake. My final word on the matter is that in terms of enthusiasm, public-spiritedness, and fundraising, they are useful cases, the studying of which does not mean complete agreement with their members’ beliefs/actions.
I’d like to suggest the fine art of horseback riding to our readers, and if we were really serious about slowing down the ingress of the useless immigrants crossing our borders at will, we would group together as riders, and stop their forward passage. Just a few months back, several border guards on horseback caused a real fracas as their horses reared in fright at the sight of so many oncoming immigrants, and the do-gooders in our country had a good cry over the horrid threat to those innocent people, being run down (!) by mounted police!
Oh, what a merry time we could have with all of this. We’d only have to ride down the dirt roads cross-crossing the dusty desert, and just showing ourselves riding slowly and peaceably — no guns, no knives, no lassos, just everyday reins needed to control the horse — and I’m sure we could scatter a good bunch of them and break up their forward momentum, and their dreams of easy access to riches in America would be dashed. If we rode in two’s and three’s in every direction on those dusty desert roads, even the border patrol could not stop us.
Oh, and of course, no uniforms would be needed, just jeans and a great western shirt from nearby thrift shops — pure Americana garb. By the way, I am quite serious about this — we really could do this! Not me, of course, I’m a bit long in the tooth, but the rest of you have no excuse. Get busy — we have to show our clear opposition to the open border and the INVASION of our land.
no guns, no knives, no lassos
Take bows and arrows. Horse, bow, arrows. Sometimes that was enough to conquer the half of the world. Lasso could also be good to take the prisoners – as slaves for sale.
“Attila, Çingiz, Tömür dünyani titrekten idi, qan birip nam alimiz, biz ularnig evladibiz”. (Attila, Çingizkağan, Timur (Aksak) have once trembled the world, by giving blood and earning, we are their children).
The nationalism of that time period was akin to the globalism of today only on a smaller scale.
Italy and even Germany of the 19th century were comprised of culturally distinct principalities and states. Southern Italy and Sicily were part of a thousand year old entity called the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Garibaldi was from Piedmont a region that had more in common with France than Italy. Along with his multinational volunteers he invaded the South and precipitated a civil war which was in some ways analogous to the War Between the States in the US.
After the wealth of the South was seized by the Piedmontese and taxes favored development in the North many were forced to flee Italy for opportunity elsewhere. This is the reason why I am an American now.
The Bourbon ruling dynasty in the Two Sicilies may have originated in Spain, but they were culturally Neapolitan. They were very popular with the peasant and contadini class. It was the middle class which opposed the Bourbons and were a fifth column for the Garibaldi invaders.
This is all a moot point now as the White nations all face the same predicament and share a common battle for survival. This little aside about forced unification of Italy was little written about until recent times and is not widely known so Kathryn can be forgiven for making me cringe when I read this praise for Garibaldi.
Italy and even Germany of the 19th century were comprised of culturally distinct principalities and states.
And with different ethnies. Both states were artificially “riveted” from the various ethnic and cultural groups. In the case of Italy, the territories of the South, incl. Sicily, i.e. inhabited by Catholicized Maghrebian North Africans, were forcibly annexed to the Northern Italy, which had undergone a process of Europeanization under German leadership since the days of the Holy Roman Empire. It is clear that there was and is no mutual sympathy between these culturally different groups, and in fact Italy was a failed state, holding on through maneuvering and outright betrayal of the allies, which it so successfully did in both world wars. A more or less viable Italy was created not by Garibaldi, but by Mussolini sixty years later. However after his defeat, the country practically lost its independence and turned into a camp of American military bases.
Germany was artificially created in the same way from various small and large states, where the iron hand of Prince Bismarck reached out, leveling under the Prussian model of the country, uniting the lands of different ethnic origin, such as the forcibly Germanized Slavs of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg and Sachsen, Germanized ex-Türkic Mountainous Bavaria (Bayern), ex-Celtic Hesse, etc. This country was more viable than Italy, thanks to a tougher authoritarian regime. But its fate is just as sad politically, although better economically. It also lacks sovereignty, is a vassal of the American liberal globalists, and swallowed up the poorer and healthier GDR (DDR), where the brainless local population sold their own statehood for cheap bananas from the West Berlin ALDI supermarkets.
Artificially and mechanically created states maybe could be more or less successful, but only when they are “produced” on the empty place, created from scrutch, all-immigrants states like the US. But not when they have different local populations.
“Catholicized Maghrebian North Africans” ??
This is a gross exaggeration. The North African component is about 6% at the highest in isolated places.
Anecdotally my admixture is 0.2% NA. As far back as I can trace, all my ancestors came from Southern Italy.
My point was that Nationalism of the 19th century variety had more to do with upending traditional, organic societies to build something new but artificial. In this Garibaldi and Co. had more in common with globalists of our time.
Now to come full circle White Nationalists are in the position of cobbling together new political entities as those 19th century nationalists. This is where studying Garibaldi has value.
The nationalism of the late 18th and early 19th centuries was not born “among the common people”, it was not grown from the grass-roots. It was created by intellectuals in different secret societies, mostly various Freemasons lodges (Illuminati?), which all together wanted to destroy the power of the Church and grasp the power for themselves using new ideology of Nationalism as a useful tool for the motivation for stupid “people masses”. Hundert years later the same role played the Marxism /and Bolshevism, and two hundert years later – the Globalism with all its PC, tolerance and other BS.
Exactly! You said it better than me : )
I have used the Arabian word Maghreb (West) just as it is most known in the West. I do not mean here only Maghrebian Arabs and Berbers (aka the Moors, white North Africans – and Othello by Shakespeare was not a Negro, he was a Moor, Arabian or Berberian seafarer, white, and not black – have you ever heard about black African seafarers?).
I think here also about the much earlier populations – Carthagenians/Phoenicians. They surely have populated Sicily and the south of Italy. Considered, that they have often visited Britain, and some of Phoenician priests became here “Celtic” druids, and the Carthagenian Moloch became “the Wicker Man”, then Sicily is much nearer to sail. Of course they were white.
Why were (are) there ‘Garibaldi’ clubs in so many Italian neighborhoods in the US if he was such a controversial figure? Perhaps because ‘Winning changes everything’?
Perhaps because he was a Freemason, and the Freemasonry has in the SU almost the same power, as the Communist Party in the former SU has had?
Perhaps because he was a Freemason, and the Freemasonry has in the US almost the same power, as the Communist Party in the former SU had, but only hidden power, not open. And, well, should the Italians in America name their clubs for Mussolini? Even if they wanted to, it would not be accepted (or allowed).
This recrudescent petty nationalism is intriguing insofar as further ethno-linguistic divisibility, which I can support. But the only serious separatism today from the last two unified European states (Germany, Italy) is economic, which only leads to degeneracy, such as the merchant kingdoms of Aragon, Genoa and Venetia. That’s all Bavarian and ‘Padanian’ nationalism is, along with these ‘micro-states’ (Luxembourg, Andorra, San Marino, Lichtenstein, Monaco). But even more ridiculous than all of these ‘countries’ combined is Gibraltar pretending to be anything other than an occupied outpost of Spain. As for romanticizing the DDR, it was just a satellite of the USSR, and it was so poor that it had the lowest birthrates on record and has severe female depopulation to this day.
The disparateness of German dialects is not large enough to consider them different people, unless you advocate civic nationalism, which Austrian nationalism and even Swiss statehood is, along with the disunited Belgium. Rump German-Austria has no business being distinct from Germany aside from federal autonomy. Its imperial capital is far too outsized for such a small successor state. Nestled beneath the banks and clocks lay a tremendous ethnic tension within Switzerland between the constituent nations. All of which could be divided up amongst its three Sprachraum neighbors.
The Slavic elements of Eastern Germany can also be said about the French connection to Franconia, or the Slovenian-Czech-Hungarian admixture of Austria. You have to draw a line somewhere between assimilation or there wouldn’t be any pure Germans. Besides, all of Europe has always feared a powerful Germany, so it can’t be all bad.
Italy is another story because there are so many different languages and dialects that all happen to fall under the Italo umbrella. Would the merchant nationalism of the medieval kingdoms of Sicily/Sardinia and the republics of Venetia/Genoa make these people better off rather than unified in one basket case? Obviously, South Tyrol should be part of Austria, not Italy.
One alternate timeline of history involves Napoleon, who was born a mere 3 months after the French conquest of Corsica, which it still tentatively holds without autonomy. A unified Italy was one of his imperial projects. Imagine if he had been an Italian statesman instead of a becoming a ‘Frenchman.’ A modern example of this is Jean-Marie Le Pen who has a very Brythonic surname, yet is also French nationalist. There are also countless examples of this strange white civic nationalism in the United Kingdom too with prominent Celtics eschewing ethnic-regionalist nationalism for unionist nationalism.
Small states are much better for people, living in them, as great powers. They are “cheaper to maintain”, take less taxes and do not make stupid wars for some imbecile theories and ideas. They are someway “nearer” and more answerable to their subjects. Of course it is good when the states are homogenous, like Armenia, and they could be geographically more or less big, when they are inhabitated by only one peoples, like Poles and Japanese.
Maybe Bavaria as independent Kingdom/or even Republic (not Sowjetrepublik) would be better off, than a part of Grossdeutsches Reich, and Sachsen too. Moreover the East Germans should of course throw out all those Honeckers, Mielkes, Wolfs, Stophs, Krenzes, and Schnitzers, but not join to the “FRG” under just another “unified” un-German occupation government. They could build its own statehood, without the Communism, with good relations to their neighbours, but “ohne Anschluss-1990” and without following American/Globalist occupation.
In a matter of days, thousands of Britons signed up for the “excursion” bound for southern Italy. Why was the Italian cause so popular? Why did so many ladies organize church drives, and why did so many men join Garibaldi’s British Legion? For romance and adventure, of course. But it was more than anything because of a deeply-felt and transcendent European nationalism. Sacrificing for one’s country sacralized the nation, and the idea of a unity of white sister nations also became a sacred goal.
Aha, and Austrians were and are not an European nation? And during the First World War, Britain also supported Arab separatism because of sympathy for “European nationalism” there? Did T. E. Lawrence also fight for the oppressed Europeans in Arabia Felix? And what is with the support for separatist movements around the world, as well as for all leftist bastards, starting with Marx, Bakunin and others? (Of course, the British were so worried about the liberation of the Poles from the “terrible” Russian Empire. For some reason they were not so worried about the freedom of the Irish – they would die without potatoes, that’s what they deserved!).
I don’t know how one can even suspect some kind of romanticism or idealism among the British. They have always acted exclusively in the pragmatic interests of their Empire, weakening their geopolitical competitors, be it Austria-Hungary, Russia, Türkey, China or Germany. If for this it was necessary to support any separatists in these countries, then propaganda events were organized, tearful cheap books like “The Gadfly” were composed, compassionate matrons gave their pennies in support of overseas bandits, also known as “freedom fighters”. And, in the end, if you look at the allegedly “liberated” peoples, it is clear that it would be better if the Austro-Hungarian Empire continued to exist. Both Italians and “liberated” in the spirit of idiotic pan-Slavism, composed by Russian intelligence in the middle of the 19th century, the Slavic subjects of the Habsburgs, turned out to be completely assed as a result of pseudo-independence, went through authoritarian regimes and foreign occupation, and even now they live much worse than the Austrians themselves. In Austria-Hungary, they definitely would have lived better. So the British matrons would be better off giving their pennies to help their own Oliver Twists, and not foreign thugs who, under the guise of a “freedom struggle”, only want to crawl through the bloody corpses to power with all those deceiving words about (never and nowhere existent) freedom, democracy, human rights and other BS.
And here I would add, that 300 years before Lawrence of Arabia there was another British superspy in the same corner of the world, known only as Mr. Hempher (see Memoirs of Mr. Hempher. The Confessions of a British Spy). Yes, that guy has supported one more “freedom fighter”. The British always supported various “freedom fighters”. Usually in countries of their geopolitical competitors, not at their own home.
That “freedom fighter”, supported and virtually created by Mr. Hempher, was Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, creator of the Wahhabism. If you hear something bad about “violations of the human rights in Saudi Arabia”, or maybe about some excesses of the Islamic Fundamentalism, just thank Mr. Hempher for it.
I can tell you’re very passionate about our cause and that you have a lot of interesting things to say; you should become a member, Mr. Böri.
Garibaldi was a freemason and an international darling of liberal intelligentsia, patronized by the globalists of his day which sought to undermine the Church and all kingdoms in the West, as they eventually did. There’s a reason for him being lionized by the likes of Che Guevara. Nationalism at this point in history was the spear tip of liberalism against the institutions of monarchy, replacing the idea of the divine rule of kings with the idea of the nation state, and the cult of Christ with the cult of reason. These were not grassroots events, they were brought about by conspiracy.
Of course these are not necessarily bad developments as they were not implicitly or explicitly anti-white events. Kingdoms and the Church were just as likely to be anti-white in their dealings. Garibaldi and his masonic brand of nationalism was, however, thoroughly anti-tradition, and in my opinion are a part of what started the great cultural decline in the west, which eventually would give rise to Communism and the Wokeism ideology of anti-whiteness.
Having said all this: best of luck with this year’s fundraiser.
Garibaldi and his masonic brand of nationalism was, however, thoroughly anti-tradition, and in my opinion are a part of what started the great cultural decline in the west, which eventually would give rise to Communism and the Wokeism ideology of anti-whiteness.
Well, something like thise was criticism against the Young Türks (Jön Türkler) and later Mustafa Kemal-Paşa, aka Atatürk. (Both Jön Türkler and Kemalists were Freemasons.)
Nihal Atsiz, great Türkiş poet and nationalist, highly appreciated the patriotism of Atatürk as a great hero of the National Liberation, but he critized him for he has given the citizenship of Türkey to all its inhabitants, without considering ethnical and racial aspects of people. But that is always difficult in the countries with racial and ethnical different populations like Italy and post-Osman Türkey and at lesser degree Germany. The civil nationalism is OK for empires, like Russia, where all inhabitants were considered as subjects, and where the ruling dinasty was of foreign origins, and for “Romanoffs” all inhabitants, Slavs, Türks, Fins, Mongols, Siberian, Caucasian and Asian peoples, all were “Untermenschen”. But you cannot build a homogenous nation with only civil nationalism.
(Washington was also a Freemason and he also built the state on the basis of not ethnic, but civic nationalism. But unlike Italians, Türks or Germans, he did not have an distinct and native ethnic group either. There was no such ethnic group as the Americans.)
Garibaldi, Atatürk, Washington were prominent national builders and heroes of national liberation wars. And they deserved to be popular and beloved as prominent generals and politicians. But their efforts and results have not much common with racial and ethnical versions of nationalism.
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