One White State or Many?

2,257 words

The following is the text of Greg Johnson’s opening statement in the “Ethnonationalism vs. Imperialism” debate with Gregory Hood that was held at the recent Counter-Currents Spring Retreat. Gregory Hood’s opening statement , which came after this one, can be read here ^[2].

By my count, there are 52 historically white sovereign states in the world today. That’s not a lot. That’s one for every card in a standard deck. By “historically white,” I mean a state that had a white majority and white culture within the last 70 years, during which plunging white fertility rates and non-white immigration began changing historically white lands into multicultural, multiracial dystopias.

Note that I am simply talking about existing white “states” or “countries.” I will not talk about “nation-states” or “ethnostates,” because most existing white states don’t meet that description. The Vatican, for instance, is not the homeland of a people but the sovereign headquarters of a Church. But this is the world we live in, so this is where we have to begin.

In every one of these states, white birthrates are below replacement. If these trends persist, the white race will become extinct, even in the absence of non-white immigration, which is at alarming levels in most historically white countries.

How, then, can we save the white race? We need to play our cards right. We have been dealt 52 sovereign states. Sovereignty means a state controls its own internal affairs. A sovereign state is empowered to say “no” to all subsidiary jurisdictions. A sovereign state also has the power to say “no” to other sovereign states and to transnational bodies such as the United Nations, the European Union, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Sovereign states can control their own borders. They also have the power to create incentives and remove disincentives to healthy population growth.

Thus, if whites around the world are to be saved, our goal should be to take power in as many historically white sovereign states as possible, preferably all of them. Then we need to use state power to raise white birthrates, end non-white immigration, and begin non-white emigration.

The wild card is the Vatican, which is untroubled by low birthrates among its celibate residents. Nor is it beset with immigrants. But the Vatican could still do a great deal to combat the demographic decline of white Catholics.

It sounds like a huge task for a small movement. But you shouldn’t wonder if a small but organized and fanatical minority can change the course of history, because they do so all the time. Truth be told, they are the only force that makes history. They always have. So how do we begin?

First, we need to spread the word about white demographic decline, its causes, and its cures. Then we need to find courageous and farsighted people in every white state to create white preservationist movements. These movements need to raise public awareness of anti-white demographic trends, propose workable solutions, and organize politically to contest for power on all levels of the system. But the ultimate goal of our movement should be to gain the highest levels of power in as many sovereign states as possible, then implement the necessary policies to save our people.

Who is most likely to support such efforts in the white states that exist today? They will tend to be people with strong attachments to their own kith and kin, including their own ethnic group. They will tend to have pro-natal, pro-family values. They are likely to be patriotic, ethnocentric, and even nationalistic. But they won’t fall for the fake civic nationalism that declares Africans with a Swedish passport to be Swedes. They know that every real Swede is a white person, although they also know that not every white person is a Swede. They will tend to be on the political Right. Because they are attached to their own homelands and serious about connecting with and converting their own people, they will tend to look to their own traditions for models of the movements, policies, and champions necessary to save their countries.

But that doesn’t mean that each of the 52 white preservationist movements has to go it alone. Since all white lands face the same challenges and the same enemies, white advocates everywhere are more likely to triumph if they can cooperate with one another. They can share ideas, strategies, and tactics. They can support one another in international bodies. They can provide moral and material support to beleaguered comrades in other countries. Thus we need to maximize communication, cooperation, and solidarity among pro-whites worldwide. The more that we cooperate, the greater the chance that at least some white countries can be saved.

How can we maximize cooperation among pro-white movements? If two states wish to cooperate, they have to treat one another with mutual respect, meaning that they recognize the legitimacy of one another’s sovereignty and interests. What is true of cooperation between states is true of cooperation between nationalist movements, nationalists being those most likely to insist on respecting the sovereignty of their own homelands.

What is the quickest way to chill international cooperation among white advocates? To reject the sovereignty of any white state. Again, the people who are most likely to promote white survival in any particular state are also the most likely to be fervent patriots and nationalists. Attacking the sovereignty of a white state thus makes enemies of those who were most likely to be our friends — i.e., those who were most likely to cooperate with and strengthen us in the most important struggle in the world against overwhelming odds and diabolical enemies. I can’t think of a more self-defeating tactic if one’s aim is to foster worldwide cooperation among white preservationists.

There are two principal ways to reject the sovereignty of other white states.

The first is the bad old zero-sum nationalism of the past, in which nations struggled to preserve their own sovereignty while denying the sovereignty of their neighbors. They refused to treat others as they wished to be treated themselves. I hesitate to even call this position nationalism, since there is a better word for when one nation aggresses against another. We call that imperialism. I wish to reserve the word “nationalism” for the good kind of nationalists, who believe in nationalism for all nations. They treat other peoples as they would like to be treated themselves.

White preservationists don’t have the power to launch wars against other white states. But every white nation has historical grievances against other white nations due to the bad old nationalism. Oftentimes, it is possible to chill international cooperation between pro-white groups simply by rehashing old wars and old grievances.

Morally speaking, this is even worse than the bad old nationalists — who may have been evil, but at least they weren’t stupid. If nothing else, they believed they were gaining some tangible benefit by attacking their neighbors. But nobody is benefitted when white preservationists fall out over battles that took place in the past rather than pull together to fight the great battle of our time.

The second way to sabotage international cooperation is the idea of one great white state: a white imperium or “civilization-state.” I have criticized the principal arguments for one big white state in my essay “Against Imperialism ^[7],” and we shall surely revisit them in the course of this debate. But before we go into such arguments, let’s take a step back and ask ourselves how such discussions will impact our current struggle.

In today’s 52 historically white sovereign states, I know of pro-white individuals or groups in 44 of them. I don’t know of any in Moldova, Kosovo, Cyprus, San Marino, Lichtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, or the Vatican. But maybe I haven’t looked hard enough. I also know of white preservationists in majority non-white countries such as Chile and Brazil.

All of these individuals and groups feel strong attachments to their families, their homelands, and their race. Many of them struggle daily with alienation, demoralization, and oppression. But the strongest prevail. They talk to family, friends, even complete strangers. They post ideas online. They form virtual and real-world networks. They found webzines, publishing houses, active clubs, and activist groups. Some of these groups grow into political parties. Some of these parties actually win elections. A few actually govern.

But all of these institutions, large or small, began with small, individual acts of courage in particular places and at particular times. Someday, I would like to see a worldwide congress of white advocates from all 52 states, as well as white minority populations around the world. I would like to see them all working together for the preservation of our race. But that dream will only emerge from the grassroots efforts of white advocates in their own countries.

What’s the last thing these people need to hear from us? How about that their efforts are “petty”? That they live in silly little “comic opera” states that don’t really have sovereignty? That their efforts are doomed to defeat? That their peoples and cultures have no future except as provinces of one great white state? But not to worry, they will be granted “autonomy” by the capital to speak their quaint languages and dance their quaint dances on their little Estonian and Slovenian and Hungarian reservations. So they should stop working to take state power in their own countries and wait for an emperor to save them. Indeed, if I were crafting propaganda to demoralize white activists, I couldn’t come up with a better message.

Personally, I think we should encourage grassroots white preservationist efforts in as many countries as possible, not pour cold water on them. But the “one white state” idea is a great gush of cold water, delivered from on high. Even if one white state were supported by strong arguments (which it is not), I want to argue that it is impolitic, bad optics, even bad taste to bring it up, because it denigrates the grassroots efforts of pro-whites around the world.

Ethnic nationalist movements, including separatist movements such as in Flanders, are where the energy and numbers are. Aside from a few would-be emperors, there isn’t much of a constituency for one big white state.

Fortunately, from my experience in the quaint, comic opera statelets of Europe, the idea of one white state has had little negative effect, largely because it is dismissed. It is seen as an “American” idea, because most Europeans don’t recognize Americans as a distinct people, compounded out of other peoples. They see us as simply generic, deracinated whites hankering for a generic white state. I have criticized this false image of Americans in my essay “American Ethnic Identity ^[8],”[1] ^[9] where I argue that Americans are a distinct white people who deserve a homeland of their own.

There are no generic white people. There are many white peoples distinguished by their languages, cultures, and histories. Thus, White Nationalism does not mean one homeland for one white people. It means many homelands for many white peoples. White Nationalism in America is American nationalism, just as White Nationlism in Spain is Spanish nationalism.

The idea of one big white state is also seen as apologetics for the bad old imperialist “nationalism.” Yockey’s Imperium ^[12] was a defense of Hitler’s imperialism. Yockey’s The Enemy of Europe ^[13] was a serpentine defense of Stalin’s. Today’s Eurasianists are simply dismissed as apologists for Russian/neo-Soviet imperial revanchism.

Today’s Europe consists of the shattered remnants of old empires. Today’s Europe is in the pincers of American and Russian imperialism. Europe also faces an enemy within: the EU, which even now gnaws at its entrails. Given this history — given this present situation — I think we can understand why European nationalists want to preserve and perfect their sovereignty, not throw it all away.

But don’t nations and national identities change over time? Couldn’t whites grow out of their particular identities into a pan-white identity? Couldn’t they become like Americans, a new people compounded out of many different peoples? Yes, of course, today’s distinct white nations could disappear. Countless peoples throughout history have disappeared not just by slaughter, but by assimilation.

But how does that sound to the people whose grassroots efforts we wish to encourage today? Nobody wants to hear that his identity does not matter. Nobody wants to hear that he is regarded merely as fungible raw material for someone else’s grandiose dream. That sounds like the globalist dystopia we all want to reject; just a smaller, whiter version of it. It does not sound like the respect that is the bedrock of productive collaboration.

America was founded by people who were willing to give up their homelands over religion, ideology, and money. The people who remained behind were not willing to do that. Moreover, the passionate identitarians among them are the least receptive to such a proposal. And those are precisely the people we need to work with.

Why do I oppose one white state? Because I think the idea harms rather than helps the cause of white survival. We have been dealt 52 sovereign historically white entities. That’s where white preservationism needs to begin. That’s where it has begun. That’s where the energy is. That’s where the people are. It seems mad to throw it all away to chase a meme. If we are going to save our race, we will save it one white state at a time.

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Note

[1] ^[18] Greg Johnson, “American Ethnic Identity ^[8],” reprinted in Toward a New Nationalism (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2019).