Counter-Currents
2,436 words
I wish to respond to Asier Abadroa’s critique of my essay “Against Imperialism,” which he has entitled “White Nationalism vs. Racially Conscious White Ethnonationalisms” (Part 1, Part 2).
Imperialism
Abadroa thinks it is a bad idea for advocates of a single white state, like Francis Parker Yockey or Gregory Hood, to call themselves “imperialists”:
First, we must categorically reject the term “imperialist” as a designation for someone who wants a single white nation. Francis Parker Yockey is far from representing the majority of this tendency’s supporters, and the word “imperialism” has a negative psychological charge due to its association with such concepts as one ethnic group imposing itself by force on others, or an absolute hegemony by one ethnic group over others.
Abadroa, instead, wishes to use the terms “White Nationalism” or “White Unionism.” I will use “White Unionism” here, since I call my own position White Nationalism. He stipulates that White Unionism won’t have the bad traits associated with imperialism, namely coercion, cultural homogenization, and the domination of one ethnic group over others.
White Nationalism
Abadroa objects to my definition of White Nationalism as the right of all white peoples to their own sovereign homelands:
Let’s not forget that the term nationalist in our milieu is always accompanied by the adjective referring to that which the individual considers his or her nation. I consider the white race to be my nation, and therefore, I am a White Nationalist. But, if someone considers his nation to be that of a particular ethnicity, in what sense can he call himself a White Nationalist? To say “I am a White Nationalist and I want independence for my ethnicity” is as contradictory as saying “I am a Spanish nationalist and I want independence for my Basque Country,” or for a Scot to say “I am a British nationalist and I want independence for my Scotland.” It just doesn’t make sense.
I don’t think my concept of White Nationalism is problematic, for two reasons.
First, a race is not a nation, it is a biological group. To be a nation, a group needs several traits.
- They must be biologically related.
- They must share a common consciousness, meaning primarily a common culture and a common mother tongue. (Mother tongue = first language.)
Whites are biologically related, but we do not share a common mother language. We have a common cultural heritage, but we also have many distinct cultures. Therefore, whites are not a nation. Whites are many nations. We call a group that is both biologically related and united by a common consciousness an ethnic group.
You can buy Greg Johnson’s The Year America Died here.
As an ethnonationalist, I believe that different ethnic groups are the proper bearers of sovereignty, as opposed to the many peoples encompassed in multicultural states. A sovereign people can live how they like in their own homeland. They don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to be themselves, and if outside forces interfere with a sovereign nation, such forces have done something wrong.
The sovereignty of peoples is a moral concept analogous to the rights of individuals: both concepts provide boundaries . These boundaries proscribe force, promote cooperation, and create zones of freedom where both nations and individuals can live as they see fit, consistent with the rights of others to do the same. (To understand how my idea of sovereignty differs from that of Abadroa, see my articles “Might, Right, and Sovereignty” and “Notes on Sovereignty and International Order.“)
A group’s culture can be likened to an individual’s personality. Individuals seek to have their own lives and their own spaces because sharing a household, a bedroom, or a kitchen with others can lead to needless tensions and conflicts that simply disappear when we have our own spaces. The same is true for different ethnic groups living in the same country, under the same rules. As William Blake put it, “One law for the lion and ox is oppression.” The solution is separation. This is why peoples who live in multiethnic nations seek independence. (For more in this vein, see “Ethnonationalism for Normies.”)
Abadroa is simply wrong to claim that the world is trending away from nationalism. The number of sovereign states has increased dramatically over the last century. Beyond that, there’s nothing inevitable about globalization erasing national borders and identities. That might make it easier for shoppers and refugees, but states simply need to summon the political will to say “no.” We can share recipes and trade goods without erasing borders and peoples.
If you want the white race to become a single ethnic group, this is akin to declaring existing white ethnicities to be merely the raw materials from which a new people can be fashioned. Why would any self-respecting people consent to that? Making whites into a single ethnic group requires cultural and linguistic homogenization, which looks a lot like ethnic domination by the people whose mother tongue is being imposed. Moreover, such a program will create an inevitable backlash, at which point its advocates will either have to abandon it or resort to coercion. You may not wish to call this imperialism, but the substance is the same.
Second, there is no contradiction in saying “I am a White Nationalist, and I want a sovereign homeland for my particular people.” Why talk about race at all if you are simply a Spanish or an Austrian nationalist? Because of “naturalization.” Every state makes provisions for outsiders to become citizens. We are now being told that non-whites can become Spaniards and Austrians through naturalization. So we have to remind them that only whites can be naturalized as members of European nations (and only in small numbers, and only if they “assimilate” the local culture, a process that generally requires several generations). Just as there are Spanish civic nationalists and multiculturalists, there should also be Spanish White Nationalists to remind them that whiteness is a necessary condition for being part of any European nation. (See my essay “Why ‘White’ Nationalism?“)
The United States
Abadroa expresses some confusions about the nature of America and American nationalism. In such articles as “American Ethnic Identity” and “What Is American Nationalism?” I argue that Americans are a distinct European people, blended from different European stocks. We are not English. We have our own language (American English) and our own culture (for better or worse). Americans, I hasten to add, are a white nation. Blacks, Asians, Amerindians, and Mestizos living within America’s borders are not Americans. They are either distinct peoples (for instance, Indian tribes and black Americans) or members of other nations who have simply crossed our borders (for instance, Mestizos and various Asian groups).
As an ethnonationalist, I support a combination of partition and repatriation to solve America’s diversity problem. There should be at least one white American nation. There may be multiple ones, depending on how the current system crumbles. I would not object to the South rising again, but I wonder if there are enough actual Southerners left in Dixie for something like that to happen. There should be a nation for black Americans. The various Amerindian nations should be able to keep their reservations. I also support repatriation of post-1965 immigrant populations. Opening our borders to the world was a mistake that simply needs to be rectified. But it will be a “no fault” divorce. We won’t demand reparations.
Federalism
Abadroa claims that ethnonationalist fears of cultural homogenization in a single white state can be handled with “federalism”:
. . . there is no reason why a federal nation could not grant autonomy in such matters to various territories within it. If China under the Communist dictatorship had special economic where capitalism was practiced freely as an experiment — and whose economic model has since been copied to a large extent by the rest of the country — then surely this autonomy can also be granted within a white nation, even at the most local level, such as cities or counties.
In fact, pilot projects are sometimes carried out in only a few towns or cities, and this is something that I believe should be developed to its full potential, especially as an excellent vehicle for reducing people’s sense of alienation. If it were to be decided, there is no reason why within each ethnic federated state there cannot be anarchist micro-societies, homosexual villages, Amish reservations, pagan communities, or anything else where there is sufficient demand. Therefore, a federal nation can be politically, culturally, and genetically as diverse as several independent ethnostates.
My issue is with this language of “granting autonomy.” Abadroa envisions a single white state “granting” local autonomy to distinct peoples to speak their own languages, celebrate their own holidays and heroes, and educate their children to do the same. Of course, existing nations do this as a matter of sovereign right. They don’t have to ask anyone’s permission. Why would they surrender their sovereignty to a centralized state from which they would then petition to be granted permission to do what they used to do as a matter of right? Why would a sovereign Italian nation accept the status of a mere Italian reservation, a status that can be granted or revoked by a central state?
Federalism is a very slippery concept. It is a hybrid of a confederation and a unified sovereign state with devolved powers. A confederation is a group of sovereign states that have delegated certain powers to a central government, for instance to organize common policies for defense, foreign affairs, money, weights and measures, etc. In a confederation, sovereignty remains with the states that enter into the agreement. A unified sovereign state can devolve (or concentrate) its powers at will, and such decisions do not hinge on “sufficient demand,” since that would imply that sovereignty is in the hands of any group that wants it, rather than in the hands of the central state.
Federalism is an attempt to split the difference. Federalists think they can give some sovereignty to the central government and some to lesser jurisdictions. But sovereignty cannot be divided. Sovereign states can delegate their powers to a central government. Or a central sovereign state can devolve powers to local communities. But sovereignty can’t rest in both places. What if the states disagree with the central government on a matter of great importance? Sovereignty lies with the party that takes precedence. Sovereignty lies with the party that can say “no.” If the central government can say “no,” then sovereignty resides there. If the constituent states can say “no,” then sovereignty resides there. What if a federal system does not anticipate such a conflict and makes no provisions for its resolution, perhaps out of a desire not to take a stand on where sovereignty ultimately lies? Eventually, such conflicts will be settled by force.
You can buy Greg Johnson’s Toward a New Nationalism here
This is precisely the path America followed to its Civil War. In the South, the states believed they retained sovereignty and had the power to nullify federal laws they regarded as unconstitutional. In the North, the federal government, specifically the federal judiciary, claimed to be the highest authority on the interpretation of law. This conflict could not be solved within the existing constitutional framework, so the South seceded and the North went to war to stop them.
Why would anyone create such an unstable “federal” hybrid? Short-sightedness and anti-intellectualism can’t be ruled out. Most politicians are more concerned with pleasing people than with intellectual consistency. Americans especially have a tendency to avoid tough decisions and force future generations to pay the price. For what it is worth, though, the anti-federalists feared that the new Constitution was merely the first step by which predominantly northern and mercantile elites would create a consolidated, imperial state. It turns out they were right. The process of consolidation was completed by Abraham Lincoln, to the ruin of Constitution and Confederacy alike. The lesson is that sometimes, sovereign states enter empires voluntarily, often deceived as much by their own hopes as the imperialists’ guile. Force comes into play only when they want to leave.
The European Union
The European Union, like the United States before the Civil War, is an inherently unstable “federal” hybrid. It began as a confederation of sovereign states. But the eventual goal of the EU was clear from the start: to gradually strip the constituent states of their sovereignty and establish itself as a consolidated sovereign superstate. The EU is not a sovereign state yet, however, which is why the United Kingdom could leave and, arguably, why other states still wish to join. But as the EU’s drive toward consolidating sovereign power continues, it may set the stage for the next great European civil war. This is why I disagree with Abadroa’s views on the EU:
Despite not being governed by the people and political ideas we want, the closest example there is of a united white nation at present is the European Union. Not only has it been implemented and carried out peacefully, but it has itself greatly contributed to creating a lasting peace among a multitude of peoples who had previously continuously slaughtered each other in wars over ethnic differences, territorial disputes, religious conflicts, and so on.
The EU is not a sovereign entity (yet). It is a confederation of sovereign states with an obvious drive toward consolidation. Nations enter voluntarily on the assumption that they will retain their sovereignty. And as soon as that is no longer the case, they may have to fight to leave.
Beyond that, what has the EU done to promote “lasting peace”? It is not a sovereign entity. It does not have an army of its own. It actually has no power to prevent European nations from going to war against each other. Furthermore, NATO would do nothing to prevent its members from going to war against each other, as Greece and Turkey are well aware. So why has there not been a major war in the center of Europe since the Second World War? Largely, because there is a broad consensus, among elites and masses alike, that such a war is undesirable.
If, however, the EU can be shown to have contributed to peace, it has done so not as a sovereign entity, but as a confederation of sovereign European states. I welcome such news, because as an ethnonationalist, I am all for a confederation of sovereign European states that promotes conflict resolution among its members and a common defense of the continent. But to create such a confederation, the issue of sovereignty must be clearly settled, not fudged with a “federal” compromise.
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7 comments
It’s true there can ultimately only be one decider on how to resolve exceptional situations regarding federal and state control, and foreign policy, and many other potentially dangerous issues.
But people don’t have to draw the most dangerous conclusions from that. If people feel that they are the same kind of people, for example if they are racially homogeneous and the educational system teaches them that this is a good and very important fact which gives them common interests, then there may be a bomb in the federal constitution, and nobody may light the fuse.
There are many instances of states having issues with alarming potential in their constitutions, but the potential never realized, and ultimately the state was ruined for some unrelated reason.
The more homogeneity there is, the more workable federalism will be.
Racial homogeneity is a very important kind of homogeneity, though not the only kind. This implies that a whitopia might be very large and very powerful, yet still be able to make federalism work better than smaller states do if they have racial diversity and consequently racial problems.
Federalism is not only a cost; it can also have benefits. I think Ukraine that was might have worked out better than it did if it had had more racial homogeneity (meaning no Jewish input) and also a federal system such that the inevitable contest for power between racially homogeneous but culturally conflicting White groups had been for the relatively small stakes of a weak federal government (with all sides securely retaining state governments of their liking) rather than a winner-take-all fight for the mighty government of a unitary state. It’s easier to be a good loser, politically, when the consequences of losing power are not severe. (If Ukraine is too provocative an example, select or invent a different illustration; in any case I think the idea is clear.)
I think federalism might work well enough to enable a big and powerful pro-White state that could protect other pro-White states and shield them from the hostile and subversive economic and foreign policies of states influenced by antiwhites.
Such a pro-White Titan would aspire to become or to remain homogeneously White, but it might not aspire to be nationally homogeneous. It might be too big for that, and too attracted to the ideas of being the military hegemon of its region and the prestigious shepherd of pro-white states worldwide, even at the cost of some national and cultural diversity.
Alliances of convenience created by blatant threats and entered into by mutually abrasive White nationalist states of roughly equal power are no substitute for pro-White bandwaggoning around an obvious leader.
I admit that there is a conflict in this vision of the Whitopian Empire; the same state should have a relatively weak federal authority in order to let minority national and cultural groups be good political losers in dignity and safety, and it should aspire to the hegemonic power that will enable it to serve as an effective protector of smaller (and more culturally homogeneous) pro-White states, which implies great power for the federal government.
But without such a pro-White Titan I think the environment for smaller, more homogeneous White nationalist states would be much more dangerous and subversive, and maybe not viable at all.
I think the trade-off might be worth it, if we could build a pro-White Titan, a Whitopian Empire.
We live in an imperfect world. We shouldn’t insist on political solutions that don’t imply any problems or conflicts for the future.
The bandwagon effect is powerful in interstate relations.
This is the basis for assuming that an explicitly pro-White and very powerful state would make the world safer for most (but not necessarily all) less powerful pro-White states. If you were an enemy of the hegemonic regional power of the Whitopian Empire you would be in danger; that cannot be denied. But if you were not an enemy you would be safer if there was a Whitopian Empire to be your patron and protector against antiwhite or intimidating non-White neighbors.
Because of this, there is an argument against a true unitary world state for all Whites that Greg Johnson does not make but that should be made.
It’s hard to see how we could get to one state that claimed exclusive authority over every White person without passing through a phase where there was a very powerful Great White Empire and a bunch of smaller White states that did not have the power to resist annexation into the Whitopia. But at that point the Whitopian Empire would have to want to annex all those smaller states, and Whites typically don’t act like that.
History is full of powerful White states that tolerated, encouraged, and protected other states that could have been attacked with success, but were not. Everybody knows this. Everybody relies on it, and rightly so. After World War II, New Zealanders were not in dread because victorious America would have the power to conquer smaller states like New Zealand. It would have the power but not the intention. A Pax Americana would obviously make the world safer for New Zealand regardless of who had the power to conquer whom.
Imperial Great Britain enthusiastically built colonies and encouraged them to grow until they were bound to become independent states such as Australia. This is typical and healthy White behavior.
A Whitopian Empire would be full of healthy White people acting in typically White ways. How would you get them to engage in the un-White behavior of gobbling up all the small (and likely friendly) White states in the world?
Suppose that there was a slowly-cleansed North American Empire with statues of Kevin MacDonald in every city, and no neocons to distort and censor public debate. In such a state, how would you persuade the great White fathers in Washington that the continued existence of Norway as a national home for Norwegians was an affront to American power that could no longer be tolerated? I don’t think you could do it.
This is a reason why a true unitary White state (one state to rule every White person in the world) doesn’t need to be taken seriously, whether as an ideal or a threat.
The racial homogeneity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire would have failed with or without the Hapsburgs, as it also did later for Yugoslavia upon the moment of Tito’s death.
Especially for Bosnia & Herzegovina, we shouldn’t be confident that those borders were intended as a means to peace for any of the people living there, let alone the rest of Europe. Although the entire region is racially homogenous with no conventional empire in power, to understate the circumstances: No one is happy.
In addition, I think one of the starkest differences that should be now assigned to clarifying a confederate from a federal government is the lack of a central currency and bank. Federal structures will attempt to centralize constituent provinces into a single regulatory means of exchange simply for the expediency of its own vested functions, which opens the doors to abuse with or without a strictly external force with nefarious intent. Central banks don’t seem to share the same balance of considerations that nuclear energy might boast, and to excuse this feature of federalism must result in a compromise against all of the historical factors that have compounded our modern miseries.
This distinction is important when observing the asymmetrical nature of national European markets: To appeal to the EU federalism, with the tacit purchase of its administering a central currency and bank for its own interests, is to allow for the churning of financial mechanisms that might later encourage Germany to go to war against Greece in Turkey’s favour, with France and Britain once again volunteering to fight for the hapless (now Mediterranean) underdog.
I think my argument is intact. The path to one and only one world-state for all Whites has to pass through an explicitly pro-White regional hegemon, and such a state would not have the motivation to gobble up every White state that it could. Rather than guaranteeing the disappearance of all pro-White states other than itself, it would be a positive factor for the survival and growth of some other pro-White states. For this reason, we shouldn’t aspire to or oppose the dream of one and only one world-state for all Whites. It simply won’t happen.
Any expansive political unitary, in divesting from any final authourity over the regional wills within its contours, is antihegemonic by its nature; yet, in so forfeiting a prioritized central system of governance to function so ideally, would only refute its own essence as an authouritative monopolitical entity.
This entity must then have accessible methods of perpetuating its directives: In a non-electronic age of empire, a military conquest must be maintained by regional loyalty to the conquering union. To make this loyalty appealing, constituents must be rewarded with individual esteem and higher station within the union, which requires increasing provincial familiarity with the union’s customs and language. Thus, the provincial constituents are incentivized into abandoning their native culture in exchange for more status over generational time through incremental emphasis of the union’s culture, which will result in the annihilation of the province’s native culture. Modern social-contract unions will have the same positive reinforcement through participation via legal charters and professionalism even in the absence of overt imperial enforcement.
The destiny in undertaking imperial union ambitions is fulfilled by preempting any other unions from forming, as this may mean the unheroic humiliation of being subsumed yourself by similar incentives after your own defeat. Although failing to annex the summary of all neighbouring territories, Aurelius will be reincarnated should Gaul once again understand herself to not really be a Roman people, because the olive branch of Roman citizenship granted by Caeser had clearly never resulted in a vital Celtic culture within the restrictions of a Roman cultural context. The Roman desire to secure the entire European continent under their emphatic Iron Rule was a rationalization of their near defeats to Carthage, and yet their hubris against the resourceful Will of Germania failed to bleed into our own classical learning.
The desired effects of another racial unionism/imperialism would not necessitate a hegemonic super-state, since an ethno-cooperative military alliance will accomplish the same results in kind, creating a meta-state enforced by an invested community of these nation-states across terrains. Diplomatic negotiations between all interests in an apparent multi-polar world refutes the appeal to empire; however, in the interests of our success, favourably officiated diplomats are a prerequisite to either outcome. Ultimately, the European Union and the Russian Federation are attempting to pressure the Eastern European states into joining their respective sides only because that would be preferable to these Eastern states forming their own block, which could embarrass both the EU and the RF if this new block were to be genuinely more efficient and as defensible, all without reducing themselves to become the constituents of hostile interests.
The recent Christian debate refreshed my own pet theory on race relations: people who agree on 70% to 90% of all issues can be fanatical about that last little bit of the differentiation. Proximity, competition and broken similarity, not complete distance, breed contempt and hatred. You expect the most from those who are closest to you, not the most distant. From your spouse, your siblings, or your parents, or your racial cousins for that matter. We hate the traitor more than the enemy. If you think historically, the most severe conflict was not between Germans and Spaniards, who are somewhat different, no we were allied. It was between Anglo-Saxons and Germans, the two ethnics who are genetically closest to each other with the exception of the Dutch. Although go to a German-Dutch football match and suggest that the two are the same people! Even culturally there were large overlaps between Viktorian England and Wilhelminian Kaiserreich, or if you consider the worlds of Shakespeare and Goethe. But then there is that last accursed piece of radical difference, be it genetic, cultural or in our case philosophical, worsened by competition and envy. And the same can be said about the competition between a German dominated Europe under Hitler and US global hegemony, a state fundamentally founded by Germans and Anglo-Saxons.
Similarly the conflict was not between Ethiopian Jews or Mizrahi Jews, who were genetically the most distant, but between Germans and Ashkenazi Jews. The latter ultimately people who are cut right down the middle and 50% European, 75% if they are only half-Jewish, often blond and grey/blue eyed, and in their culture of education, fiscal discipline and once upon a time equal ethnocentric community almost identical to Germanism. Yiddish is closer to German than Dutch, the Deli essentially serves kosher German food stuffs. Both believe in chosenness and their right to heal the world through their culture and wise leadership: Tikkun Olam and “Am deutschen Wesen soll die Welt genesen.” Especially in the case of the Germans and the Ashkenazi it is extraordinary how such similar peoples could engage in mutual limitless fanatical, murderous hatred.
Ethno-nationalism is ultimately about reducing tension and fulfilling a vision for your people, ideally a pure one. It would lead to disaster, if one was to force together different groups of white people, the last bit of disunity which prevented ideal purity, would be fought about harder than anything else. All the more, if one white group had authority over another. The multi-culturalism of Austria-Hungary which my Sudetengerman ancestors lived in made the central powers alliance vulnerable, both from within and from without, and the 2nd Reich could not have been dragged into the first World War as easily. Furthermore, it lead to absolute ruin for my ancestors. – No, multi-culturalism among white people is certainly not paradise. Even if once started with noble intentions. And today we see the futility of white Unions in the aggressive imperialism of the USA and moral and cultural imperialism of the EU, their own racial decline, driven mostly not by Jewish subversives, but by the millions of the woke white left and white (traitor)-elites. I have already written elsewhere how these states, which the EU isn’t yet but will be, have to undermine national identities and why it could only be liberalism after the failures of European Imperialism. Its logical consequences are open-borders and interchange-ability not just between all European people, but then all races and it was intended as such from the beginning.
It may be heretical to say among white nationalists, but ultimately people are primarily divided by geopolitics and ideology. Currently Russia and Ukraine who share genetic ancestry are a very clear example of it. But so is the divide in Germany, Britain, any Western European country really or the whites in the USA. Even the white nationalist scene itself. I don’t know right now who constitutes my nation. An ethno-nationalist is a stateless person in Germany; he has no homeland and he has no people and he has no culture and he has no future – at least none that was truly his own. Precisely because he is supposed to be only an individual, at best ego- and money-maxxing, and his only sense of group identity must be one of shame, self-hatred, masochism and self-abolition as progress. And when the majority of your people affirm this, when they fund, agitate for, demand, vote for and enforce their destruction and when they’d rather destroy and criminalize you than stopping the madness, then they stop being your people. They become the foreigner, the alien, the outsider, the other. And it has grave consequences for your own safety and future if you live in denial about it.
OT: would you guys, the editors, consider REH an artist of the right? His birthday is January 22. His works contain strong racialist and antimiscegenation messages, beyond any other fiction writer I know of, even more than lovecraft in this regard. I could write a cogent essay on this topic if needed.
cf. shadows of zamboula, jewels of gwahlur
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