Characteristics of a Real Refugee

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The vast majority of Muslims seeking ‘asylum’ in Europe, whether from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran or Iraq, are not real refugees. If they were, as has been said countless times before, they would have settled in the first peaceful country they arrived at after fleeing their own.

It is now clear to all but the most doctrinaire Leftist that these people are actually migrants, most of them seeking solely material benefit and financial reward. They are economic refugees, then, not political ones (as the media would have us believe). Not that we should allow political refugees in either, of course, since the first-safe-country principle is also valid in that case.

The only possible exception to this principle – and thus the only conceivable justification for allowing, say, a Syrian or Afghan asylum seeker to settle in Europe – is if the person in question were proven to qualify as a cultural refugee; that is, someone who is fleeing not merely the violent excess of Islam, but Islam itself. While this remains vanishingly rare, it will cost us nothing to briefly define what such a case would be like.

Imagine if in the future a man in his twenties washes up on the southerly coast of Spain. After being taken into custody he is revealed to be a Moroccan citizen who has swam the distance from North Africa to Europe alone and without any possessions. To the surprise of his interrogators the man speaks very good English and announces – convincingly – that he has had enough of living in the age of religious barbarism and wishes to join the Dar al-Harb permanently. He emphatically identifies himself as an atheist, or a Christian (or whatever other non-Islamic identity you care to imagine), and he can eloquently back up his self-identification with detailed arguments and sincere passion.

What to do with him? The response would almost certainly depend on and reflect the deepest ideological poise of those who are asked the question. A nativist, or ethno-nationalist, for example, would politely decline the stranger or perhaps unceremoniously throw him back into the Mediterranean. A Leftist meanwhile would also rather the stranger return to his land of origin, since there is enough ‘Islamophobia’ in Europe already.

Me? I’d demand a probationary period of police vigilance on the fellow, and after that a path to citizenship. In my 3 years as a blogger, I’ve found that ex-Muslims are a very potent resource of resistance to Islam, far more indeed than the average Native. And surely this hypothetical case is exactly what an asylum law is designed for. Just as in the time of Communism we generously admitted those Russians and Eastern-Europeans who wished for freedom, but did not admit Communist sympathisers or state bureaucrats (for reasons of security). So in the age of political Islam must we admit those opposed to barbarism and keep out those dedicated to it.

Whenever a native of the Muslim world shows up at the Free World’s borders, one question should be asked before all others: Why are you leaving? If the answer is not in English, the answer should be treated with suspicion. If the answer is in English but is nevertheless punctuated with inshallahs, al-hamdu lilahs and salaams, the response should be a swift refusal. But if in reasonable English the native says something like the following: “I am looking for freedom. I want to live in the modern world and leave behind the darkness of Islam and its primitive, undeveloped society”, a more generous and warm response is surely merited.

One cannot reasonably ask that the native returns to the first safe country he or she came across, because the first safe country might no longer be safe for an infidel. A more reasonable action would be to inter the individual while background checks are carried out, and then if the individual is clean of connections with Jihad relocate that person to an appropriate part of the Dar al-Harb. It might not be somewhere as illustrious as London or Berlin, but there are many options available.

Over time, a policy like this would lead to the only logical resolution we can hope for in our clash with the Islamic world; geo-cultural segregation. The Free and the Unfree kept apart, and never to merge again.

D, LDN

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What Would Bismarck Do?

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A few years ago, I was enjoying a lazy evening in my university library when I noticed that an essay was due for the following day. I had been completely unaware of it until then (having been absent on the day it was set). To my further anxiety, I noted that I was also unaware of its subject, the Father of Germany – Otto Von Bismarck.

I can be excused for the latter offence, I think. In British schools, we are taught an extremely limited curriculum (usually covering only the Holocaust, Henry VIII and Slavery in any detail). Bismarck was a familiar name to me, as it is to most people, but I had never been given a reason to make him any more vivid or lifelike in my imagination.

Needless to say, I got no sleep that night, spending the whole period in the library, pumped full of machine coffee and knee deep in a pile of thick, dusty books. But despite the anxious mood in which I was prompted to discover it, the story of Bismarck has proven enduringly fascinating to me. More than anyone in European history, Bismarck seemed to have been a living embodiment of the romantic ideal – Nietzsche’s ‘Ubermensch’, Carlyle’s ‘Great Man’, Machiavelli’s ‘Prince’ – a superman of reality, gifted far beyond the ordinary and with a drive to succeed that dramatically alters world history. There wouldn’t even be a ‘Germany’ without Bismarck, without his deviousness, intellect and personal strength. He is the author of Germany. Germany is his magnum opus. What other major country can call itself the product of one man’s cunning?

I believe the elephantine heroism exhibited by Bismarck goes some way to explain the quintessentially Germanic reverence for strong leaders (a reverence which, of course, went terribly astray in the 20th century). Bismarck was the proof of the German type. He demonstrated what a German could achieve. In this regard, he can be compared to Abu Bakr, the Muslim leader who conquered most of what is now defamed as the ‘Muslim World’. Bakr, like Bismarck, demonstrated an ideal – an ideal which Muslims try (in vain) to emulate right up to the present day (see, Bin Laden, Baghdadi, Zarqawi etc…). They are unwilling to accept that Bakr was a one-off giant, unrepresentative of the human average. Hitler and the Jihadists are thus products of the same delusion.

Still, unlike Bakr (a talented barbarian), Bismarck still has lessons to teach the leaders of the civilised world. For example, what would a man like Bismarck do in the context of the Euro-Islamic war? Let’s speculate now with the aid of three famous Bismarck quotes.

“A conquering army on the border will not be stopped by eloquence.”

This saying could hardly be more timely. As in Bismarck’s tinderbox era, Europe today finds itself under a long and potentially devastating siege. This time, the conquering army is not composed of other Europeans, but represents a detachment of our most ancient geo-cultural rival. Bismarck is surely correct to say that eloquence, reason and speech-making are bladeless weapons, useless in times of war and crisis. What we need is a physical, material blockade, strong enough to keep the hordes from advancing on our cities. In the case of the ‘refugee’ invasion, we should be deploying a massive, pan-European military force to Southern and South-Eastern coastlines. Anybody who shows up and is unable to prove they are Christian or of another non-Muslim minority faith must be turned away. If they try to rush the borders after being warned, they should be shot. That’s what war is like.

“With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and when I have to do with a pirate, I try to be a pirate and a half.”

Bismarck here uses ‘pirate’ to mean barbarian. He is correct to say that one should adjust one’s manner and values depending upon the force one is faced with. Since with Islam we are faced with a force of barbarism, we need not be overly civilised in defending ourselves.

“The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.”

As regards European politics, this is a timeless truth. No attempt to secure Europe is feasible if it does not factor in the influence of Russia. To have thought otherwise is the foundational error of NATO. If Islam is to be kept at bay, Russia must be incorporated into our security structure and provided with a role reflecting her size and innate capabilities.

Though the age of Great Europeans has passed, their words and wisdom remain as relevant and necessary as in their own time.

D, LDN

Multiculturalism May Be Irreversible

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The youtube vlogger Ramzpaul is not someone I particularly care for. He is explicitly racist, often anti-Semitic, and has long associated himself with some extremely unsavoury company. Nevertheless, this week he released video that contained a moment of shocking and important truth (which he then followed with a mad rant about the Jews – for that reason I won’t link to the video).

In the video, Ramzpaul notes that it is probably better for Budapest to be hit with a nuclear bomb than to be ‘enriched’ with the current flow of ‘refugees’. He notes that cities often recover from nuclear blasts, giving the examples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. All it takes is time, industry and skill, and a city, however damaged by war, can be reborn as it once was.

But, the vlogger notes, it is almost impossible for a city to fully recover from cultural diversification. Unlike nuclear blasts, diversification unleashes sentient and reproducing agents into the target city. A thousand Muslims becomes ten thousand, becomes a hundred thousand, becomes a million etc…

This cannot be attenuated by repair or investment. It is there to stay. And it will only get worse.

D, LDN

Hitler Was an Atheist.

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By far the most obnoxious trait in the movement described (somewhat grandly) as the ‘New Atheism’ is the denial of well-established historical facts. In a flagrantly dishonest campaign, the propagandists of unbelief have sought to depict a cartoon version of history; one in which religion was the source of all malady and science the soft-spoken voice of moderation and progress.

This is anti-history, plain and simple. It is as abusive to the truth as anything attempted by the religious or political.

The Russian communists were, despite what the New Atheists say, a viciously anti-religious gang of crooks who took immense delight in arresting and killing those still committed to immaterial beliefs. Such actions are thus directly attributable to their atheism. There is no other way of justifying (if that is even possible) the burning of Russian churches.

Likewise, Adolf Hitler, despite what the New Atheists say, was a very committed – distinctly German – unbeliever, who saw Semitic faiths as foreign and harmful to the natural instincts of the Aryan folk.

Being a canny politician in a still religious nation, Hitler inevitably made friendly gestures to the Church in public (and these are the statements shamelessly cited by the New Atheists, who are surely aware of their context). But in private, Hitler was – as we all are in private – more honest in describing the vibrations of his heart.

“Christianity” he said in the presence of Martin Bormann “is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure.”

In another conversation, the meth-head Fuhrer let loose the following rant: “The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity. Bolshevism practises a lie of the same nature, when it claims to bring liberty to men, whereas in reality it seeks only to enslave them. In the ancient world, the relations between men and gods were founded on an instinctive respect. It was a world enlightened by the idea of tolerance. Christianity was the first creed in the world to exterminate its adversaries in the name of love. Its key-note is intolerance.”

This is not even worth arguing about, of course. It is so obvious to the reasonable that debate can only have a recreational value. It is nevertheless infuriating to hear New Atheist claims made without repudiation on a regular basis. Hitler was not a Christian. He was a pure-blooded atheist, and his actions were only allowed for by a non-Christian system of ethics.

D, LDN.

Letter to the Jews of Europe.

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Ever since the attacks in Paris, the question of whether you, the Jewish people, are safe in Europe has been hotly debated. The actress Maureen Lipmann, the editor of the UK Jewish Chronicle and numerous other public figures have questioned whether there is any longer a place for you on this continent. Even the Prime Minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu has called for your mass emigration to Israel, citing the same security concerns.

After Copenhagen, the second case in swift succession that a Jewish venue has come under attack by Muslim colonists, more of you than ever will be beginning to wonder if such sentiments are justified.

Europe is in a dire condition. I won’t pretend otherwise. Nevertheless, I think it would be a terrible shame is you were to abandon it and its people to cultural desertification. As has been said by innumerable French intellectuals over the past months, a Judenfrei France is not ‘France’ at all. I would extend that even further. A Judenfrei Europe is not ‘Europe’ at all.

It probably goes without saying that had you never settled in Europe, many of the glories of the continent would never have been possible. In European science, medicine, the arts and political thought, you have been a leading edge ever since your emancipation from the Ghettos.

In the aftermath of Paris, it has not been pointed out enough that the supreme work of modern French literature, ‘À la recherche du temps perdu’ was written by an author of Jewish origin; that the halls of French philosophy are similarly decorated with Jewish achievements; that the economic fortunes of Paris itself are entwined with the security of its Jewish community.

The fear you feel is obviously justified. The Muslim conquest of Europe is proceeding at an accelerating pace and challenges everything we hold dear. Ghettos of violent intolerance are becoming a feature of everyday life, not just in France, but in Britain, Germany and Scandinavia too. From these Ghettos, there will likely be further attacks on the general public and on your community in particular. People will die. Women will be raped. Transport networks will be blown up and trains derailed. Perhaps there will one day be an attack on a French nuclear reactor, sending winds of toxic fallout across the nearest residential sprawl.

You could, of course, flee to Israel and from there watch the descent of Europe with a grinning, “told you so..” schadenfreude – but surely this is a gutterish pleasure befitting a people of far lesser qualities than your own.

I understand there is a demographic war in Israel and that an exodus would bolster the Zionist project, but surely your presence in the powerful nations of Europe also lends itself to that project. If you depart, what will become of your reputation or influence on a continent increasingly populated by those who hate you?

We are told repeatedly by the dispensers of Hasbara that we in the West should ‘stand with Israel’ in her times of peril. And that of course is very proper and correct. We should do. But we should also expect reciprocation.

After all, if you go and Muslims remain, Europe will lose a vital and reliable source of resistance. That will leave the prospects of Jihad much brighter and the likelihood of European survival greatly diminished. Even in Israel, the fallout from an Islamified France or Sweden will be felt. Sweden is already voting to recognise a Palestinian state, no doubt under duress from its swelling Islamic population. Without a Jewish-led opposition to such suicidal policies, Israel might find itself left with only Washington as an ally. In my opinion, it would be extremely dangerous to place all your eggs in the basket of a post-Obama, soon to be minority-majority America. Especially one where even the Republican base increasingly jostles for a more isolationist foreign policy.

So don’t flee. Stay here. Lock arms with us. Fight alongside us and be willing to defend our common values. This is your home as much as anyone else’s.

D, LDN

Objections Anticipated.

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anti-Semitism, Arguments against Islamophobia, Britain First, Civilisation, Counter-Jihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, France, Germany, Islamisation of London, Islamophobia increase, Islamophobia mainstream, Multiculturalism, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Swiss People's Party

As Islamophobia migrates from the margins of European discourse to breach the mainstream, our opponents on the political Left are busily arming their partisans with objections and counter-arguments. Most of these arguments are (or will be) junk, but we’ve all come across a few that do not sound obviously false, and so let’s arm ourselves in kind, so to speak. Here are three reasonable sounding arguments against cultural preservation, followed by a clarification of each individual issue.

Claim: “People overestimate the number of Muslims in their country.”

Reality:

On the face of it, there is nothing to object to here. People do indeed overestimate the Islamic percentage of their nation’s population. In France for example, the Economist found that ordinary natives believed 1 in 5 French people were of Islamic origin, when the real figure is actually closer to 1 in 10.

As it relates to the larger picture however, this argument means next to nothing at all. History is a work in progress, and the predictions of mainstream demographers all concur that Islam will become a major cultural force in Europe in the coming decades and that it will ultimately find itself in a position to bully its cultural rivals – including secularists, Jews and Christians.

It must also be noted that statistics do not always tell the whole story, especially if numbers are cherry-picked out of their proper context. It’s true that Muslims currently make up a small percentage of passport-holding Europeans. However it is also true that this Muslim population is typically youthful and that the non-Muslim population is quickly aging. With the greatest respect to any older folk reading this, a native over the age of 65 cannot be counted on in a situation of street conflict or civil war – that is, unless the population is armed. To best understand the street-fighting power (and this matters) of European Muslims therefore, the figure of believers should rightly be doubled to reflect the real balance of forces. This detrimental process shows no sign of slowing down, and should native birth-rates recover to replacement level (and they show no sign of doing so) there will still be a very long and perilous period of ‘generational drag’ – a period open for more virile aliens to make their power felt.

Claim: “Muslims are just like Jews of the 1930s. Islamophobia is just a replacement for anti-Semitism.”

Reality:

I fully understand what people mean by this and – looked at with a lazy eye – the claim would appear to be supported by evidence. The cartoons we see depicting blood-thirsty Jihadis are clearly reminiscent (hook-noses and all) of those gruesome caricatures of Jews in Hitler’s Germany. Similarly, the phrase ‘Islamic Menace’ can easily be (mis)heard as an echo of ‘Jewish menace’, ‘Muslim problem’ of ‘Jewish problem’ and so on.

That though is as much as I will concede. Unlike contemporary Islamophobia, the anti-Jewish hate-wave which billowed across the continent in the early Twentieth century was a detailed portrait of human irrationality. Of course the Jews of Germany enjoyed a disproportionate share of influence (as they do today in America), but this is a consequence of talent, rather than conspiracy and this is borne out by the fact that all around the world, there are other ‘Jews’.

As Amy Chua explained in her book ‘World on Fire’, the concept of a ‘market-dominant minority’ is a universal one, and the reactions to it are everywhere the same. In Africa, the Tutsis of Rwanda were the ‘Jews’ – and they were attacked for it by Hutu Nazis. The Chinese minority in the Philippines are hated with a similarly violent passion and Filipino Nazis have called openly for their genocide. The Koreans of south Los Angeles in the 1990s were the ‘Jews’ – and the local Black Nazis reacted in the same time-honoured fashion. Chua’s rule is easy to understand and more-or-less solid: Whenever a racial minority does well, anywhere in the world, the racial majority senses conspiracy and reacts with violent populism.

But Islam is not hated because of envy. In modern Europe, Muslims are disliked because they are a proven threat to civilisation. No country in the world has ever successfully integrated a Muslim minority, or at least not without injury to its native way of life. In China, the Uygurs behead, blow up and enrage the Han majority. Lebanese Maronites have had their tolerance repaid with paramilitary violence. Serbia has been mutilated and half-destroyed. It is not irrational, but the height of clear-headedness for Europeans to resist the same fate.

Claim: “Muslims can be integrated. The reason they have not done yet is because of Islamophobia.”

Reality:

This is a quite ludicrous idea and I include it only because of its popularity. The reason Muslims haven’t integrated into our native culture has nothing to do with the native reaction to their lack of integration. It is frankly surreal to advocate any other way. But given that some continue to maintain this, the best response would be the following counter-interrogation: If Western Islamophobia explains the lack of Muslim integration into Western culture, why have Muslims similarly failed to integrate into Chinese, Thai, Latin American or African culture? Are Nigerians Islamophobic? Is that why Boko Haram exists – to combat reactionaries?

—
Despite the increasing desperation of our enemies, I (like you) take great pleasure in being on the right side of history. When people look back at our generation, whether from the vantage point of a free world or a nightmarish Islamised Europe, some of us will be remembered fondly, and others with contempt. I implore everyone, of any background, to come over to the side of truth if they are not already here. It is not yet too late, but the clock is ticking. 

D, LDN.

Islamophobia, Class, and ‘Pinstripe Nazis’.

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Last month (December, 2014), more than 15,000 people amassed in the German city of Dresden to sing Christmas carols. While that description makes it seem rather pedestrian, the event was in fact organised and intended as a cultural protest. The group behind it is called Pegida (Patriotische Europäer Gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes – or in English, ‘Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West’.)

Given the high turn out and evident success of the demonstration, the German press was dutifully quick to label the protestors as little better than … go on, see if you can guess …. Nazis.

Actually the specific phrase they coined was ‘Pinstripe Nazis’, a reference to the allegedly paradoxical gentility and ordinariness of those gathered. You see, these were not the skinheads or ruffians of the English style. They were typically older, more orderly and uniformly sober. If you look up photographs of the event on google, you might think many of them were off-duty bank managers, soldiers, polizei and civil servants.

You might well be right.

That is what is truly new about Dresden. It has demonstrated that a sentiment previously regarded as belonging exclusively to the ‘Lower Classes’, seems to have found agreement in the Middle Class.

The importance of this development really cannot be overstated. Whether we like it or not, class divisions do exist and can greatly retard the construction of a national consensus. To allow Islamophobia to dwell amongst the stupid bigotries of racism and anti-Semitism has rendered it unnecessarily toxic. Though I appreciate (and have often supported) the activities of the EDL, I am keenly aware that the manner of its demonstrations plays into an ingrained snobbery in the public at large. The conduct of the gathering in Dresden, and the wonderful decision to sing Christmas carols, shows us a new and better way forward.

Of course, I must admit it seems regrettable that Dresden was chosen as a venue. As is well known internationally, the city occupies a hallowed place in the imagination of Neo-Nazis. Choosing the site of a (so-called) Anglo-American war-crime made the hatchet jobs of the mainstream media pathetically easy. Let’s hope the next event won’t be held in Wannsee or Nuremburg…

On the whole though, we should take immense encouragement from Pegida. Opposition to Islam is a duty so serious that it must transcend any consideration of category or class. If these demonstrations remind us only of this, they will have been worthwhile.

D, LDN.

Book Review: Mein Kampf.

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Following someone else’s lead, I decided to spend this week reading my (barely touched) copy of Adolf Hitler’s bestselling autobiography ‘Mein Kampf’.

Firstly, I can tell you that reading this book in Starbucks attracts a lot of unwanted attention. Secondly, I don’t think I’ve ever read a more poorly written book in my life.

I expected nothing else, of course, and in the introduction (I was reading the Picarus edition), the translator even forewarns the reader that the book is quite laborious and difficult to finish. Hitler’s sentences ‘lack rhythm and poetry’. He stresses the wrong words, leads with the wrong phrases and finishes without conclusions.

The attempts at scientific comment in particular, amount to ranting ignorance.

Here is a representative paragraph:

“Whenever Aryans have mingled their blood with that of an inferior race the result has been the downfall of the people who were the standard-bearers of a higher culture. In North America, where the population is prevalently Teutonic, and where those elements intermingled with the inferior race only to a very small degree, we have a quality of mankind and a civilization which are different from those of Central and South America. In these latter countries the immigrants – who mainly belonged to the Latin races – mated with the aborigines, sometimes to a very large extent indeed. In this case we have a clear and decisive example of the effect produced by the mixture of races. But in North America the Teutonic element, which has kept its racial stock pure and did not mix it with any other racial stock, has come to dominate the American Continent and will remain master of it as long as that element does not fall a victim to the habit of adulterating its blood.”

This kind of rambling pub philosophy takes up a good third of the book. The other two thirds are tedious (and often phoney) recollections of childhood and youth.

Still, as with any book of this length, there are occasional flashes of truth, and occasionally, insight. One such moment of clarity is when the Austrian talks about the transient convictions of the general public. About halfway through, the budding despot complains that after a rally in which the audience seemingly accepted his arguments, it would take only a few days for that same crowd to applaud an opposing thesis.

This is (sadly) all too accurate and the process can be observed in any democratic society. Just watch an episode of Question Time to see how fickle the modern crowd can be.

As regards this volume in general, it’s an agonising shame that Europe was once in such a low mood that it accepted this drivel as profound.

D, LDN.

Thomas Carlyle, Goethe and the Prophet Muhammad.

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Very few writers either merit or can withstand comparison with William Shakespeare. The only two I would dare to suggest are Edward Gibbon and Thomas Carlyle.

The first, in his Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, demonstrated a perfection in writing that has never been (and may never be) surpassed. The second, in his history of the French Revolution and his essays on Heroism, exposed the wilder possibilities of language, blurring the boundaries of thought and emotion, poetry and prose.

So in the past few months of frantic intra-national diplomacy, it’s been saddening to hear so little about Scotland’s greatest writer. Andrew Marr’s ‘Great Scots’ BBC series surveyed in detail the likes of Hugh Mcdiarmand and James Boswell, but had nothing to say of a man who influenced history in a greater and more dynamic way than either of them.

War leaders and men of power are particularly drawn to Carlyle’s thrilling voice. When the meth-addicted dictator Adolf Hitler lived out his last few days in the Fuhrerbunker, the book at his bedside (which – I’m pleased to say – he never got the chance to finish) was Carlyle’s history of Frederick the Great. On the other side, Sartor Resartus (Carlyle’s satirical novel) was referenced approvingly by the allied commander in the Pacific.

Carlyle’s writing is in some ways alike Wagnerian music. It makes the reader want to become something better than himself. Through its chaotic poetry, it breeds an orderly ambition.

Consider the beauty of the following paragraph:

“Behold therefore, the England of the Year 1200 was no chimerical vacuity or dreamland, peopled with mere vaporous Fantasms, Rymer’s Foedera, and Doctrines of the Constitution, but a green solid place, that grew corn and several other things. The Sun shone on it; the vicissitude of seasons and human fortunes. Cloth was woven and worn; ditches were dug, furrowfields ploughed, and houses built. Day by day all men and cattle rose to labour, and night by night returned home weary to their several lairs. In wondrous Dualism, then as now, lived nations of breathing men; alternating, in all ways, between Light and Dark; between joy and sorrow, between rest and toil, between hope, hope reaching high as Heaven, and fear deep as very Hell.”

Alongside the connection with Hitler, you may have also heard Carlyle’s name associated with that of the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims are known to bring him up because of the author’s portrait of the prophet in ‘Heroes, Heroism and the Heroic in History’ – a book advancing the Great Man Theory of history.

The following quote is taken from that work:

“Mahomet himself, after all that can be said about him, was not a sensual man. We shall err widely if we consider this man as a common voluptuary, intent mainly on base enjoyments, — nay on enjoyments of any kind. His household was of the frugalest; his common diet barley-bread and water: sometimes for months there was not a fire once lighted on his hearth. They record with just pride that he would mend his own shoes, patch his own cloak. A poor, hard-toiling, ill-provided man; careless of what vulgar men toil for.”

Other positive comments are forthcoming from the same work. This use (or rather misuse) of Carlyle is typical of Muslim dishonesty. Carlyle, though he admired the impact of any great figure of world-history, retained a more exact part of his intellect for comparative judgement.

“Only a sense of duty could carry a European through the Qur’an.” he wrote in a section of the same book quoted less often by Muslim observers. In that same paragraph, he pronounces the book in general to be a “wearisome confused jumble” and Islam to be greatly lacking relative to his own (fiercely held) Protestant faith.

The same dishonesty that allows Muslims to make use of Carlyle also permits mistreatment of the reputation of Goethe. Regarded by Germans to be the equal of Shakespeare, the polymath Goethe was a notably cosmopolitan figure, run through with a very optimistic kind of xenophilia. His poems took elements from numerous foreign traditions, including in his ‘West-Eastern Divan’ volume, the traditions of the Middle East. That book contains poems which glorify the Prophet of Islam, sometimes comparing him to the giants of Greek and Roman mythologies and more or less (unlike Carlyle) maintaining a positive tone throughout.

However, the truth of the matter is that Goethe (writing in a less-informed age than Carlyle) had very little knowledge of the Middle East and Islam as they actually were (and still are). Indeed, his kindly impressions of the culture of Islam were drawn almost exclusively from the poetry of the Persian (pantheist) Hafiz. This is hardly valid.

More generally, the Muslim longing to find in Western thought a validation for their own historical glories is really quite revealing. Do they concede (even if just inwardly) that the West has the clearer mind and the intellectual upper-hand?

D, LDN

Marine Le Pen: France’s Dilemma (and Ours).

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anti-Semitism, BNP, Christianity and Islam, Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, France, Germany, Marine Le Pen, Multiculturalism, National Front, Pen, politics, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Semites, Sweden

Is Marine Le Pen ideologically distinct from her father?

This could develop to be the most important French political dilemma in all its modern history.

The consequences of guessing wrongly are too grim to comprehend. If the bet paid off, however, then the bounties would be difficult to overstate.

For some, the future success of Ms Le Pen is the most realistic trigger for a continent-wide shift to nativism and cultural salvation. Unlike the knuckle-dragging failures of the UK BNP, Germany’s NPD or Sweden’s ‘Democrats’, Le Front Nationale is witnessing a consistent rise in national popularity. During the past few weeks, the party even topped a mainstream voters poll; the first time a far-right party in France has done so in living memory.

So why the surge in confidence for a party long written-off as consisting of Holocaust-deniers, scientific racists and German-hating loons?

Immigration is a fairly obvious answer. But this is a problem for every European country, and only in France has the far-right made substantial gains.

The answer is surely Marine Le Pen herself.

A true novelty on l’extreme-droit, Le Pen’s public image has almost supplanted that of the party she represents. From a public relations standpoint, this couldn’t be better news. Instead of skinheads and anti-Semites, Le Front Nationale now conjures up the charms of an expressive, confident, beautiful woman. Indeed, the very fact Le Pen is female appears to change the tone of the party’s policies. The FN no longer seems like hard, violent fascism – but something softer, reasonable and more agreeable.

By-itself of course, this is an illusion. There is nothing reassuring about a woman leading a party, (unless you’re one of those young, masochistic conservatives sent wild by the idea of a fuhrer with great legs). All that matters is the manifesto, and whether the policies contained therein are worthwhile.

So let’s see.

The current manifesto of the FN emphasizes ‘culture’ and the preservation of ‘French Identity’. Strict controls on immigration are demanded, but the old talk of ‘humane repatriation of non-Europeans’ has been excised. Criminal migrants, Islamists and those perpetually unemployed would be deported. The economy would be heavily deglobalised.

There is much in this to like, and much to disagree with. I agree, for example, with the deportation of Islamists, a tougher line on criminals and the reintroduction of the death penalty.

FN Economic policy however is far more troublesome. ‘De-globalization’ and protectionism can be ruinous, and peaceable relations between the countries of Europe is something not to be gambled with.

As to the long-term prospects of Le Pen, we will have to wait for the municipal and EU Parliament elections next year, at which the party is hyped to make substantial gains.

Personally, I don’t think Le Pen will rise all the way to Elysee Palace, and this is probably for the best. Though she herself may be likable, we are more than entitled to be worried about those lower down the pecking order, for whom reality is a web of Zionist conspiracies, black helicopters and Yankee malevolence.

Still, that the FN’s success demonstrates a desire for change in France is to be welcomed. Let’s hope Le Pen is not the only one capable of seizing it.

D, LDN.