RadixJournal - Islamitarianism

00:00:00.000 Guillaume du Rocher, welcome back to the program. How are you?

00:00:03.760 Very good, thanks. Great to be here.

00:00:06.700 Well, as we said before we started the recording, we're just in this new normal where we're no longer really shocked by terrorist attacks as we were previously.

00:00:19.260 It's just, it's something that seems to happen every few months, and it's something we're getting inured to, which is, I guess, kind of sad in a way.

00:00:30.620 But before we dive into all this stuff, why don't you give us your personal experience, because you were very close to the action.

00:00:42.400 That I was. I happened to be visiting Brussels during the terrorist attack.

00:00:48.400 I saw the news in the morning. I thought that there had been an explosion at the airport.

00:00:54.740 I thought that maybe it had been an accident.

00:00:58.280 And then, as it emerged during the day, they shut down all the transportation.

00:01:03.400 They shut down the trains, the metro, and we learned that there had also been the bomb attack in the tram station.

00:01:11.980 I actually know some people who work for the EU and have to commute through that station, and it was at peak time, more or less.

00:01:24.200 So no one I knew was killed, but it certainly could have happened.

00:01:27.340 And in terms of the scenes, it was sort of this frantic activity of the police, the military, and the ambulances.

00:01:40.220 Not really a feeling of fear or terror, because I'm sort of blasé about this stuff.

00:01:47.800 And there had been the attacks in Paris before, which were even bigger.

00:01:54.300 But maybe there's an element of things not seeming completely real.

00:01:59.120 You know, we write about these things, and we talk about them, and yet it is somewhat – it's still very abstract.

00:02:08.300 And so even when it happens, you're not even really reacting to it.

00:02:13.680 Yeah, I think there is a surreality to it.

00:02:16.280 I think I mentioned this before in previous podcasts, but I was actually in New York City during 9-11.

00:02:23.380 I was in Brooklyn.

00:02:25.720 I was living in Brooklyn, and then I was working in an internship pretty close, actually, to Lower Manhattan and the Towers.

00:02:33.160 And there was a surreality, because I – again, I think I've told this story before.

00:02:39.240 I remember I was walking to work, which is around a mile or so walk.

00:02:47.500 And I remember people were opening their car doors and playing the radio, and there was this report on a plane hitting the towers.

00:02:54.580 And I thought this was just bizarre.

00:02:55.960 And then as I kept walking, it got realer and realer, and then I remember this – I remember this really vividly, but a black lady grabbed me, and she said,

00:03:07.540 they've hit the Twin Towers, they've hit Washington, like, we're at war.

00:03:12.040 And, you know, it was one of those things where it's like you have all this kind of commonality with everyone around you,

00:03:19.860 maybe for the first time, because these cities are so anonymous and atomizing.

00:03:23.300 But you're kind of like, oh, my – you know, you want to talk to someone.

00:03:26.340 I also noticed that people certainly were shocked.

00:03:30.100 I mean, it affected everyone.

00:03:31.620 But then it's not like everyone was running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

00:03:36.100 You know, no one was going nuts like you think they might be when such a radically shocking event occurs.

00:03:42.840 But I think in a way now – I mean, that was 2001, and that really was something new at that point.

00:03:49.340 I think by 26, by the current year, you know, I think there's almost like another layer of irony to this where we're becoming inert to it.

00:04:01.280 I mean, this really is the new normal.

00:04:03.440 You can't be shocked by it.

00:04:05.080 And I even think the Cologne incident might have been more shocking just because – despite the fact that no one died, just because it was more symbolic. 0.89

00:04:14.800 It was like let's rape these women in the – literally in the shadow of a Gothic cathedral. 1.00

00:04:20.320 I thought that in a way affected me more. 0.97

00:04:22.780 But in terms of these terror attacks and airports and trams and metros and so on, I think we've got into this point when any reasonable person just has to say, like, this is the new normal.

00:04:36.420 We're going to have to – we're going to be living with this kind of stuff for the foreseeable future.

00:04:41.900 Well, that's what the economists said immediately afterwards.

00:04:44.360 And, I mean, it's amazing.

00:04:45.960 They just think, oh, there's nothing we can do about this.

00:04:48.380 It's just a force of nature which happens and that's it.

00:04:52.820 It's like a car accident or a – there's going to be a plane crash every couple of years just by the nature of it all.

00:05:04.140 And the risk that you take is negligible, so you don't really think about it.

00:05:09.580 Yeah, I think that's basically the way of seeing it.

00:05:13.880 What is going on in Brussels, though?

00:05:16.880 Because I was just – I was doing some research.

00:05:20.740 And, again, we're recording this on Thursday, Thursday evening over in Europe and then Thursday morning here in the U.S.

00:05:30.580 And so, obviously, things might change.

00:05:35.160 They most likely will.

00:05:36.400 But at the moment, we have these two brothers, who is Khalid and Ibrahim El-Bakuri.

00:05:45.520 And then, actually, there is a person who is suspected, who I think there's a manhunt for right now, named Najim Lakarawi.

00:05:54.740 I'm sure I'm mispronouncing those names.

00:05:56.580 But, actually, interestingly – and I'll just throw out a few facts here and then you can run with them.

00:06:03.320 First off, Najim Lakarawi is also suspected of being connected with the Paris attacks and is being – he's a young person.

00:06:11.660 I think he's like 24 or something, but he's a master bomb maker.

00:06:14.300 And so, first off, there's these connections between these attacks. 0.89

00:06:20.180 These aren't just some random Muslim who decides to blow stuff up. 0.98

00:06:23.880 There's clearly coordination going on.

00:06:26.800 There's clearly a kind of army, a postmodern army living within Europe.

00:06:32.220 And the other thing, which I don't think could ever be underestimated, is that these people are not foreigners.

00:06:38.900 They're not aliens.

00:06:39.940 And they are not even refugees.

00:06:41.260 They are European-born citizens of Belgium.

00:06:46.440 So, I guess we have to ask – obviously, you can run with those in whatever direction you want.

00:06:54.020 But also, what's going on with Belgium?

00:06:56.480 Belgium seems to be a real hotspot for ISIS warriors.

00:07:04.320 It really is.

00:07:05.060 I was just looking at the stats.

00:07:07.140 There are over 400 Belgians, Belgian citizens who have gone to the Islamic State and may or may not have come back.

00:07:18.440 That's the highest figure per capita in Western Europe, really by a substantial margin.

00:07:23.620 Belgium has had a significant amount of Muslim immigration, especially Moroccan and Turkish Muslims. 0.50

00:07:34.000 You know, it's always horrible in Europe.

00:07:35.340 We never actually have hard statistics to really be able to tell what is going on.

00:07:40.420 But the estimate is that one-quarter of the population of Brussels is Muslim, so 250,000 people.

00:07:48.060 And there's a very high unemployment rate in Brussels, a shocking rate, about 20 percent.

00:07:55.620 And that gets even higher in these communities.

00:07:58.480 So, you're thinking of communities where they could have unemployment of up to 40 percent.

00:08:03.500 So, you know, I'm sure that's pretty lame.

00:08:05.900 You can look at the pattern of these attacks.

00:08:09.840 And this is – I wouldn't say this is a scientific account.

00:08:12.520 And again, you know, we don't really know the details of what just happened.

00:08:15.780 But this is based on the previous attacks and the – sort of the – there are ISIS supporters in Belgium.

00:08:23.960 You know, they've done demonstrations in the center of the city and they take video of themselves and they're wearing masks and they, you know, they parade.

00:08:34.100 There's actually some similarities, I dare say, between your average ISIS supporter and to some – or an Islamist and a nationalist.

00:08:44.900 And it tends to be disaffected young men.

00:08:49.280 And with the ISIS people, it tends to be really disaffected people.

00:08:53.960 They tend to – you know, they even tend to look nerdy.

00:08:59.000 They tend to look, you know, dysfunctional in some way. 0.94

00:09:03.340 And so I think you have this big body of, you know, alienated, you know, young Muslims whose community is obviously, you know, a loser community in the European country that they're in. 1.00

00:09:17.060 And they come from a proud, patriarchal, macho, tribal, religious culture. 0.99

00:09:25.300 And they're in Europe and they're losers. 0.99

00:09:27.760 And that's a big body of those people. 0.94

00:09:31.400 And in addition, they have the Islamic State in the Middle East, which is willing to come, give meaning to their lives, give them struggle against the, you know, Judeo-American empire against Israel and who can give them resources to commit these terrorist attacks. 0.84

00:09:51.500 And I think that's what's happening is that you're finding – you have this combination of these – the Muslims in the West, disaffected young Muslims, and then the actual – you know, I mean, I don't even know what the Islamic State is like.

00:10:06.980 My impression is, you know, it's medieval, fanatical, you know, organization.

00:10:13.580 And so these two extremely different cultures.

00:10:15.820 I mean, you really get this impression from the fact that the attackers themselves often don't really seem like they're willing to go all the way with it and that they hesitate at the last minute, that they didn't – you know, that they wanted meaning in their lives but didn't necessarily really want to kill themselves.

00:10:31.680 And you get this – you know, during the Paris attacks, there was a – you know, one of the young lady terrorists, you know, who had made a ridiculous statement before blowing herself up because the police were yelling at her, where's your boyfriend?

00:10:48.540 Where's your boyfriend?

00:10:49.960 You know, who is your collaborator?

00:10:51.680 And her response was, he's not my boyfriend.

00:10:54.100 And then she blew herself up.

00:10:56.740 You know, this is not –

00:10:59.100 Sorry to laugh.

00:10:59.880 No, but this happened.

00:11:02.960 We have video and audio of this happening.

00:11:08.020 I can just imagine.

00:11:12.520 I dated him once or twice.

00:11:14.420 He's not really my boyfriend.

00:11:17.120 Yeah.

00:11:18.040 Sorry.

00:11:18.840 I'm just really in bad taste, but sometimes you have to laugh at this stuff.

00:11:23.080 There's a tragicomic aspect to all of this.

00:11:26.480 Yeah.

00:11:27.000 Well, I think with ISIS as well.

00:11:29.000 I mean, like, as you point out, it is a medieval – to use that word in kind of like the – not like an historical sense, but in the colloquial sense of just being backward and ridiculous and brutal and extreme.

00:11:45.620 There is a medieval aspect to it, but then there's a very postmodern aspect to it.

00:11:53.180 And in a couple of ways.

00:11:55.980 I mean, first off, ISIS is a master of social media.

00:12:01.040 You know, bin Laden would send these videotapes out that were almost like him, you know, kind of strange.

00:12:08.540 I remember one of the later ones in 2004 was like him almost like at a news desk or something.

00:12:12.960 It was very strange.

00:12:13.540 But bin Laden would send these videotapes out.

00:12:16.600 But ISIS, they're on Twitter, and they're using the irony of Twitter. 0.62

00:12:21.780 I remember one of them compared a beheaded head to a soccer ball and all this kind of stuff.

00:12:29.300 In a way, they're picking up on that snark and silliness of Twitter.

00:12:34.100 And also, like al-Qaeda, it's a postmodern organization in the sense that it's not an institution.

00:12:42.080 You know, it's – I mean, it is and it isn't.

00:12:44.980 There might very well be leaders and there might very well be nodes, but it actually is this amorphous group.

00:12:51.740 And in a way, you can say that you're part of al-Qaeda or I'm part of ISIS.

00:12:55.340 And, you know, it's – that doesn't mean – it's not like you're being higher up in the Soviet Union or something where there's like, you know, an institutional structure.

00:13:06.440 It's a nation state more or less and so on.

00:13:10.480 It really is this amorphous blob that you can't really attack.

00:13:16.760 It's very difficult to attack.

00:13:18.820 Oh, no, you can't attack it.

00:13:19.980 Yeah.

00:13:20.240 And so, I don't know.

00:13:22.340 I mean, it's just this – I think this is kind of, you know, also kind of how we just don't understand it and we don't want to understand it.

00:13:30.100 I mean, this is really my take on this whole thing is I've seen some images of candlelight vigils and a lot of people who are basically saying we're going to stay calm and carry on.

00:13:44.460 You know, we're not going to let this affect us.

00:13:46.100 We're all Belgians and people put on a Belgian flag on their Facebook profile or so on.

00:13:52.060 And, you know, I think there's something admirable about that in the sense of not freaking out, not, you know, keep – you keep on keeping on kind of thing.

00:14:03.880 There is something admirable about that.

00:14:05.400 However, I think there's also something not admirable about that in the sense that it's a bunch of people who are in total denial and they're basically just accepting the situation.

00:14:17.640 They're accepting that there's going to be these attacks frequently and they don't want to, A, do anything substantial about it.

00:14:24.900 And they also don't really want to look at the fundamental causes of this.

00:14:31.760 And, you know, you hear this even among so-called conservatives.

00:14:34.460 I was listening to a conservative podcast before this just to kind of get my mind working.

00:14:38.900 And, you know, they were saying, oh, Britain's been much more successful at combating this because we – Britain MI5, you know, seeks out the decent Muslims.

00:14:49.340 And they hire them and use them as embedded spies, you know.

00:14:54.340 It kind of – you know, let's engage in espionage against all the bad Muslims, whatever. 1.00

00:15:00.260 Again, this is just all denial, denial, denial. 0.92

00:15:05.500 Like, you know, really, at the end of the day, this is about race or ethnicity to a large degree.

00:15:14.580 But it is really deeply about Islam and Islamic immigration.

00:15:19.620 And the fact is a tremendous amount of Muslims are kind of, you could say, fellow travelers to this whole thing.

00:15:30.560 Within that – you know, I'm drawing concentric circles here.

00:15:33.460 Within that circle of fellow travelers, there are a lot of people who will openly sympathize.

00:15:38.620 And within that circle, there's a very small circle of people.

00:15:42.280 It might even just be dozens, actually, who are really willing to go all the way.

00:15:47.520 And so, again, I agree with liberals that obviously not all – most Muslims are not terrorists. 0.99

00:15:55.600 Of course, that's a stupid thing to say. 0.98

00:15:58.280 But that doesn't mean that there isn't this deep connection between all Muslims in Europe and terrorism. 0.99

00:16:06.620 And it's just like I'm in a way kind of sick of people keeping calm and carrying on.

00:16:13.020 Like, let's actually look at the causes of this and let's actually change.

00:16:20.940 And I don't know.

00:16:21.680 I mean, I think that's my ultimate conclusion. 0.99

00:16:25.300 And, again, I think Donald Trump is kind of a – you know, he's clownish in many ways. 0.92

00:16:32.060 And, you know, I never – I think his whole run is kind of miraculous. 0.99

00:16:37.020 But just this basic thing, ban all Muslims. 1.00

00:16:42.060 I mean, it's – you can say that's, oh, that's stupid. 1.00

00:16:45.380 We need more nuance or whatever. 0.99

00:16:47.280 Well, maybe we don't, actually, you know?

00:16:50.260 Maybe, actually, he's getting at something very real.

00:16:53.380 And maybe, actually, he's getting at this, you know, civilizational divide between Europeans and Islam.

00:17:02.760 Because Islam is not just a religion.

00:17:05.260 It's not like you adopt, you know, some New Age faith or you change denominations of Protestantism.

00:17:11.160 You go from being a Presbyterian to a Methodist and then to an Episcopalian and back again or something.

00:17:16.740 No.

00:17:17.160 I mean, Islam is a civilization.

00:17:20.300 It has certainly racial components.

00:17:22.240 It's not a race, obviously, but it has racial components.

00:17:24.840 It's – and it is something that is profoundly not part of Europe.

00:17:31.140 And, you know, it's like, in a way, Trump has been one of the very few people and one of the very, very few public people to recognize this.

00:17:41.420 I think Trump had a wonderful reaction to the attacks.

00:17:45.040 It was very comforting to me.

00:17:47.060 He tweeted,

00:17:47.840 So, it's these sort of very simple, almost tautological statements that, you know, really get it done.

00:18:06.240 Yeah.

00:18:06.720 Yeah.

00:18:07.440 No, I mean, these cities have been really dramatically changed.

00:18:11.280 And, actually, maybe you can talk about that because I know you've spent a lot of time in Brussels.

00:18:14.920 I mean, I've spent certainly time in Paris.

00:18:21.160 And, I mean, Paris itself, there's definitely posh neighborhoods where you can go to.

00:18:27.220 And it feels like the Paris of 10 years ago and 20 years ago and 30 years ago, or at least presumably for me.

00:18:34.580 But there are also neighborhoods that you can visit that are just shockingly out of place.

00:18:40.260 It's like a, through teleportation or something, we've taken part of, you know, Islamabad and put it right down in Paris.

00:18:51.540 I mean, it's amazing.

00:18:53.200 What is Brussels like?

00:18:54.920 I've spent a lot less of, I have been to Brussels.

00:18:57.120 I've spent a lot less time there.

00:18:58.300 But what is it like for a Westerner?

00:19:01.820 Is it kind of that same thing where there's like a checkerboard of civilizations?

00:19:05.700 It really is.

00:19:11.220 Brussels is a city where Belgians are a minority.

00:19:15.640 Now, it's not quite as bad as that makes it sound.

00:19:18.320 They're already a minority.

00:19:19.180 But it's not quite as bad as that makes it sound because there's been a huge amount of European immigration.

00:19:23.540 So you have lots of French, lots of Italians, lots of Romanians, Polish.

00:19:28.940 And that has made it – so I don't really know what the racial breakdown is.

00:19:36.280 But you'll be hard-pressed to find that many native Belgians actually.

00:19:40.880 Then when it comes to the – there's been a huge amount of Maghreb, Congolese, and Turkish immigration.

00:19:48.600 And it's what you would expect.

00:19:49.940 I mean it's totally non-integrated.

00:19:51.540 And the neighborhoods are poor.

00:19:55.200 The Congolese district has drugs and it has poverty and just general dirt. 0.98

00:20:02.300 I mean it's dirty, dirty neighborhood. 0.93

00:20:05.000 And people don't really talk to each other.

00:20:07.700 The communities just sort of live side by side because famously you have European institutions there.

00:20:13.340 So the Eurocrats are there.

00:20:17.180 And they stay among themselves too.

00:20:19.680 They don't – certainly don't – they don't become Belgian and they don't mix with Maghrebis on a day-to-day basis. 0.72

00:20:26.760 I mean to be a little bit more nuanced, I think Maghrebis in particular are not nowhere near as bad in terms of educational performance as, say, Africans are. 0.97

00:20:39.040 And so you are more likely to get a smart Maghreb who has his life together, so to speak,

00:20:44.920 and works at an engineering company or works at a decent communications company, it's easier to get your token Maghreb and then think, okay, well then, what's the problem?

00:20:56.480 And I do think in general there is a huge difference between, say, Eurasians and Sub-Saharan Africans in terms of cognitive performance and behavior.

00:21:08.080 So that's one thing.

00:21:10.520 Another thing – maybe I can riff on some of the stuff you were saying earlier.

00:21:15.940 Yeah, sure.

00:21:16.320 Which is that we have a very easy case to make when it comes to terrorism and Islam in the sense that Islam is not indigenous to Europe. 0.61

00:21:28.000 And 90 percent of the deaths due to terrorism over the last 10 years have been due to Islamism. 0.93

00:21:35.140 So all those people who are dead would not be dead today if we had prevented the immigration. 1.00

00:21:42.200 So that's a very simple argument to make and most people – a lot of people will find it fairly compelling.

00:21:51.140 On the other hand, the number of deaths from these terrorist attacks are still negligible in the grand scheme of things if you consider other sorts of death or real wars.

00:22:01.660 And the liberals can say, well, look, all we need to do is improve their economic standard of living, to destroy their religious ideology, to denature Islam. 0.92

00:22:18.440 And this has been a long-term project.

00:22:20.140 I mean I remember many years ago the head of the American Jewish Committee was bragging – I think it was in 2001 – in an article saying,

00:22:28.200 you know, we really need to be careful about the Muslims coming over because they really don't like us. 1.00

00:22:32.760 But in the long run, I'm pretty sure that MTV will get a better hold on them than their imams will. 1.00

00:22:40.220 And so he was really gloating that he would destroy their traditional culture and spirituality.

00:22:46.140 And I think there's a strong case for that.

00:22:48.660 Yeah, in a way that has happened to a degree.

00:22:52.300 Yeah.

00:22:52.420 Who said that?

00:22:54.500 That seems – that's such a great quote because he seems to have articulated what so many have kind of assumed or thought.

00:23:03.740 I believe the last name was Steinleit.

00:23:06.000 Uh-huh.

00:23:08.200 Gosh, Steinleit.

00:23:09.360 I wonder what kind of name is that?

00:23:10.880 The Jewish Steak in America's Changing Demography. 0.97

00:23:13.460 I think that's the article.

00:23:14.560 Okay.

00:23:17.120 Yeah, here it is.

00:23:18.020 And maybe I can take a more meta view of the Islamism phenomenon and I think also, for that matter, the identitarianism phenomenon because I actually think they're related.

00:23:32.860 At the risk of – I think Heidegger said events are just – historical events are manifestations of more deep-seated historical forces.

00:23:43.600 And I think a way of thinking about that is to say that in particular, historical human events are often reflections of the human soul in a way.

00:23:56.260 The humans – you know, different aspects of the human personality affirming itself or giving way and taking particular human and institutional forms.

00:24:07.060 To make that a little bit more concrete, I think that Islam – as you were saying, the terrorist attacks are related to race and to religion.

00:24:18.420 It's related to race in the sense that people find the religion emotionally compelling if it serves their ethnic group or if it assuages their ethnic pride.

00:24:31.140 So if you're an Arab who is a loser in Brussels, you feel bad about that and you try to affirm yourself in a tribal way. 0.93

00:24:41.440 And I believe that Islam and Islamism are rationalizations of that because you put yourself into a bigger community, which is credible. 0.96

00:24:51.300 You know, because if you're just an Arab, you're a Moroccan, you know, you're not – that's not great. 1.00

00:24:57.580 You know, Morocco sucks on the whole. 1.00

00:25:01.220 Being an Arab in Brussels sucks. 0.99

00:25:02.780 But if you're a Muslim, then you are part of a global community which is growing and which on current trends will eventually absorb Europe actually. 0.98

00:25:13.080 And which kind of freaks people out as well.

00:25:17.240 Like it's – you know what I mean?

00:25:18.900 Like you're part of something that's waving the black flag, that's badass in a way.

00:25:25.380 I think that – I don't think anyone should underestimate that attraction for people.

00:25:32.060 You know, it's like I work at a, you know, a convenience store, a little kiosk or whatever. 0.85

00:25:39.420 I sell magazines and cigarettes like this sucks but, you know, one day we're going to turn Europe black. 0.86

00:25:47.620 You know, there's something – you know, and I understand that actually. 0.97

00:25:52.920 I mean –

00:25:53.300 Yeah, and I've noticed this also with say black British people.

00:25:58.960 Like there's a surprising number of Jamaican Brits who have converted to Islam and become, you know, preachers.

00:26:06.460 And I'm convinced it's the same thing or for that matter why Malcolm X would choose Islam. 0.85

00:26:13.500 You know, being black, you know, what do black people have to be proud of? 0.93

00:26:17.940 Well, you know, go look. 0.97

00:26:19.580 But if you're part of Islam, that's – you know, that's a powerful force. 1.00

00:26:25.260 And I think you could say – you can make a similar statement about European identitarianism is that it is us today asserting our ethnocentrism and finding an outlet to it which we find emotionally compelling and intellectually compelling.

00:26:45.540 And because we're European and not Semites, this leads to different conclusions.

00:26:50.940 And you see that these two forces, Islamism and identitarianism, have both been suppressed in the West.

00:27:03.200 Islamism because it leads to terrorism and identitarianism because, you know, it would lead us to being free and having our own countries. 0.99

00:27:09.640 Well, real quick, I really like this comparison because I – you know, and I'm sure a lot of our listeners might not like it because they're like, oh, I don't care if it compares to Muslims. 1.00

00:27:19.160 But, yeah, I mean there's something also to be said of the person who, you know, is on Twitter and it has an anonymous Twitter handle.

00:27:27.340 Exactly, exactly.

00:27:27.840 It's the same thing.

00:27:28.340 Weeding, you know, images of like knights slaughtering Muslims and, you know, kind of this kind of thing.

00:27:34.000 I mean granted, these people are not, you know, blowing up train stations.

00:27:39.060 But they are indulging – like there's a similar pull to both of those things about being something that's bigger than yourself, you know.

00:27:48.960 And it's actually a noble thing.

00:27:51.480 Yes, and I was really struck by the comparison because there are a lot of ISIS Twitter accounts which are not run from Syria.

00:28:01.360 They are people – they are, you know, French people or people in France or they are people in Belgium or people in the UK.

00:28:09.280 So it's young Muslims in those countries who just have their Twitter account and they're pro-ISIS. 0.91

00:28:15.580 And, you know, it's a lot like somebody who is LARPing as a Nazi, you know, and posts, you know, Third Reich stuff because it's something – and I think it's two things.

00:28:27.620 It's one, it's identifying with a great cause.

00:28:30.100 But it's also rationalizing your marginality in the society, you know, because it's self-marginalizing.

00:28:37.360 And, you know, if you do this, you're going to be pushed to the margins even more and become even more, you know, I don't know, irrelevant.

00:28:47.260 Yeah.

00:28:47.860 And so I see that commonality.

00:28:52.860 You know, there's a psychological similarity there.

00:28:54.460 And I think that with the internet, this sort of abstract force, which could be – you could say one would be European ethnocentrism and the other one would be Arab, Turkish or, you know, this sort of brown ethnocentrism of different groups but which like Islam or find – rationalize their greatness with Islam. 0.69

00:29:15.300 That these two suppressed historic instincts can't only get embodied on the internet, you know, because now they're free.

00:29:26.040 There you can actually express it.

00:29:27.480 And the only difference with the Muslims is that they are more marginal. 1.00

00:29:31.820 I mean they are – they have more lumpenproles, you know, people who don't have a stake in the system, whereas most of us are comfortable.

00:29:42.900 We're fine.

00:29:43.840 And so we're less likely to, you know, go blow ourselves up or murder people.

00:29:49.140 And we don't have the institutional support, so to speak, of something like the Islamic State to do so.

00:29:55.740 And so we only have one Bravik, but they have, you know, a lot.

00:30:00.700 And considering, you know, that Muslims are only maybe 10 percent of the Western European population, they've done 90 percent of the terrorism. 1.00

00:30:08.160 So, you know, that probably explains that disparity.

00:30:11.480 Yeah, I agree.

00:30:13.100 I think it's – again, I think a lot of us might resist this comparison when we first hear it, but I think there actually is a lot to that. 0.70

00:30:22.340 I think Romain Bernard, in a podcast I did with him a couple years ago, I think he expressed it well when he said that, you know, Islam is the black flag of the underman. 0.99

00:30:35.060 And that, you know, it's a way for a lumpenprol or an underman to be bigger than himself. 0.56

00:30:45.240 And it's a way for him to achieve a kind of horrible nobility.

00:30:51.860 But, you know, so again, it's not – I think a lot of people kind of miss the point when they – you know, the kind of kosher neocons who criticize Islam by quoting various, you know, various sentences from the Koran.

00:31:06.480 And then, like, oh, look at that.

00:31:07.680 That explains all.

00:31:09.320 You know, I mean, first off, you can do that with the Bible.

00:31:12.320 You can do that with a lot of different texts.

00:31:13.960 And, you know, you're not really proving much of anything.

00:31:18.200 You have to understand it, like, as a phenomenon in the world.

00:31:21.280 Like, what is it now?

00:31:22.380 How does it understand itself?

00:31:23.760 How is it functioning?

00:31:24.460 And in that sense, it really is functioning as something that gives meaning to the life of someone who has no meaning and has no future and has no rootedness as well.

00:31:38.080 So a kind of person who's a prole or maybe even saying a proletariat is not even correct.

00:31:44.820 Proletariat is the working class. 0.96

00:31:46.400 You know, someone who's just this lost soul in the postmodern world, it gives meaning to their lives.

00:31:56.620 Yeah, I think that's a good assessment.

00:31:59.980 I mean, I'm really not sure why Belgium provides so many compared to other Western European countries.

00:32:06.300 It could be that there's also a weakness to the national identity here because there are two – Belgium is split between Flemish and Walloon, so Dutch speakers and French speakers.

00:32:20.120 And if I compare this to, say, France, there, it is not actually impossible for a Maghrebian France to identify to a certain extent with the French nation-state or the French national project because there's a history of French colonialism and there's the francophonie.

00:32:41.420 And I think in particular – and that can seem very strange to identitarians, and I don't think it's ideal.

00:32:46.840 But you do – but a lot of the people who maybe would have been attracted to Islamism in France could be attracted to some of the civic nationalism there like Egalité et Réconciliation, where those energies get channeled into an anti-Zionist, anti-Judaic alliance, multiracial anti-Zionist, anti-Judaic alliance.

00:33:10.960 But that's not really going on in Belgium.

00:33:14.340 No, no.

00:33:15.300 To be fair, there's some local – there's one local politician of that type, but I haven't followed him closely, and he's a bit weird.

00:33:25.940 I'm speculating to a certain extent.

00:33:27.960 Yeah.

00:33:29.020 What do you think – do you think anything is going to change of any significance in the EU, with a national security of the EU, such as this, and with national security?

00:33:44.300 Or, again, is this – I think the conclusion I would kind of come to is that we've just – we've been inured to all this to such a degree that nothing much is going to change.

00:33:53.820 I've seen no real indications that anything is going to change.

00:33:59.280 They might make a token effort to make an EU security agency or to heighten their cooperation.

00:34:08.180 But in practice, these things don't really lead to very much.

00:34:13.380 I saw that the Polish government said – well, use the attack to say that it won't take in any refugees.

00:34:21.320 Then again, I thought they had already said they wouldn't.

00:34:23.260 But in any case, this sort of – there's another – a good occasion for the Visigrad countries actually to come together and say no immigration, no Muslims. 1.00

00:34:35.780 They all came out and said that, all of them.

00:34:40.160 Orban in Hungary, Simon in Czech, FICO in Slovakia, and then Poland saying no refugees.

00:34:46.720 So we are seeing this Visigrad block consolidating, and one thing's for sure. 0.91

00:34:53.280 They're not going to have many Muslim terrorist attacks.

00:34:56.840 Well, that's true. 0.58

00:34:58.400 Although, I mean, even Victor Orban, my dear friend.

00:35:03.260 And a man I do support, and I don't say that.

00:35:09.880 I am not being ironical.

00:35:12.220 I do support him, despite our little history together.

00:35:16.740 But, yeah, I mean, in a way, he can't even escape from it himself just because whatever he wanted to do.

00:35:27.480 There was a tremendous amount of refugees in Budapest this summer, and I'm sure this is an ongoing thing.

00:35:33.260 But, no, I would say this, though.

00:35:38.560 The Visigrad alliance, this kind of central European – I guess all of those countries are Catholic, too.

00:35:46.440 That probably is – there's probably a connection there as well.

00:35:50.700 But the Czech Republic and Slovakia and Poland and Hungary, they really are – I wouldn't say that they're – I wouldn't say they're identitarian maybe in the way that you and I want them to be identitarian.

00:36:05.000 They're kind of conservative, and maybe they kind of don't get it at some level.

00:36:08.340 I think that's true.

00:36:09.940 But they are pushing for a different path, and I think that's a very good thing.

00:36:14.840 And maybe they're kind of starting us down the path towards an identitarian Europe.

00:36:22.420 But –

00:36:23.020 It's something I'm very curious about.

00:36:25.040 I am – I think most of them are just conservative and maybe even opportunistic.

00:36:30.260 That it's simply their populations were raised under communism.

00:36:34.440 They're still relatively poor, and that stokes your ethnocentric instincts.

00:36:39.320 That makes you more ethnocentric.

00:36:41.400 And they haven't had the 60 years of Western prop brainwashing.

00:36:45.880 Yeah.

00:36:46.340 Communism attacks the body.

00:36:48.180 Liberalism rots the soul, as Jonathan Bowden memorably said.

00:36:52.560 Absolutely.

00:36:53.600 And so there's this fear that this is nice, but maybe it won't really change the trajectory.

00:37:01.020 And then after 20, 30 years, a new generation will come to power, and then that will fall apart.

00:37:07.800 Then again, if I look at, say, Hungary, I mean, I think some of Orban's advisors really do get it and are really quite edgy.

00:37:16.900 I agree.

00:37:18.180 I was surprised.

00:37:19.520 But, you know, again, I am certainly not an expert on this matter, and there's this huge language barrier.

00:37:25.420 But, yes, from what I've seen from some of his advisors, they seem to be reading the alt-right.

00:37:32.300 And I'm not just saying that to be narcissistic or something.

00:37:36.780 I think they're clearly doing that.

00:37:38.420 So I think that is a good thing.

00:37:41.440 You know, keep it up.

00:37:42.500 I will say the American, the European-American role in the liberation of Europe, I more and more think will be critical.

00:37:53.700 And this is because of the American, the hegemony of American or Judeo-American culture in Europe.

00:37:58.680 And so if the Americans discredit that, you know, and show that to be hollow or false or uncool, you know, it can be uncool, then that will liberate European minds too.

00:38:13.420 And, you know, in this recent massacre, you know, you see the memes that came out of it, you know, because we always have our memes.

00:38:20.860 What came out, Je suis Bruxelles, you know, these cartoons of, you know, usually they had one of Tintin crying.

00:38:29.820 They had one of Tintin, they had one of the pissing boy of Brussels called the mannequin crying.

00:38:37.160 One of the mannequin peeing on a terrorist. 0.94

00:38:40.120 I mean, it's just lame. 1.00

00:38:42.400 It's just gay. 1.00

00:38:44.200 And I think it's lost all emotional resonance.

00:38:47.620 You know, I think the first I think the first time when it was the Charlie Hebdo massacre, I think there, you know, people were sort of feeling it was all sort of artificially stoked and managed by the government, to be sure.

00:38:57.660 But, you know, it resonated with people.

00:39:00.560 Yeah.

00:39:00.780 And here every time, you know, there's no sincerity left.

00:39:04.480 People go through the motions.

00:39:05.860 You know, they project the Belgian flag on the national monuments in different places.

00:39:10.340 But I think these memes have no power.

00:39:12.960 And so that's, you know, that means our memes, our memes have power.

00:39:16.980 You know, that's for sure.

00:39:19.060 Yeah, I agree.

00:39:20.600 I think what you said is actually powerful.

00:39:23.660 Because we do, we still do live in this post-20th century world where American popular culture is hegemonic.

00:39:35.200 Certainly the Washington consensus is still hegemonic.

00:39:41.280 I mean, remember, we're still on effectively a dollar standard, which goes back to 1944 and Bretton Woods and all that kind of stuff.

00:39:49.000 I mean, we still are in an American-centric world.

00:39:53.340 And I'm not just saying that as an American.

00:39:56.800 And there's not really an alternative to it.

00:40:00.580 I mean, I wish there were, but there's really not.

00:40:03.480 And that doesn't mean that it isn't weakening and that it might actually be gone within our lifetime.

00:40:09.140 I think it probably will.

00:40:11.400 Remember, after World War I, I was, just as a side note, I'm actually rereading Pat Buchanan's excellent book on Churchill, Hitler, and the unnecessary war.

00:40:21.760 And one interesting, which I recommend to everyone, it's a really, it's a good kind of like starter book on thinking about the world wars.

00:40:30.120 But, you know, one aspect of that is that after World War I, the British Empire was riding high.

00:40:37.320 I mean, they increased territories.

00:40:39.600 They increased power.

00:40:41.520 They took away some German colonies.

00:40:44.040 They, you know, a lot of Americans actually who were kind of anti-war Americans were saying, you know, Wilson told us that we fought this war for, to make the world safe for democracy.

00:40:54.300 But we really made it safe for the British Empire.

00:40:57.300 So, but again, what they didn't recognize is that we were actually at the very end of British hegemony and that it was about to all come crashing down.

00:41:07.440 I think we might very well be at that point with American hegemony.

00:41:10.960 But nevertheless, it really is, I think it is maybe, it's really incumbent upon us, you know, as English speakers and as Americans to kind of like attack this from the inside.

00:41:26.100 And.

00:41:26.520 Absolutely.

00:41:27.580 Yeah.

00:41:28.840 I, I've read that book too, and it's a wonderful book.

00:41:32.180 I highly recommend people read it.

00:41:34.880 It was part of my red pilling.

00:41:36.700 Oh, good.

00:41:37.000 And it really shows Churchill to be, I mean, I haven't read enough on him to have a full assessment like I might have of, say, Charles de Gaulle.

00:41:47.180 But the thing with Churchill is that he knew what communism was, and he said so in an article called Bolshevism versus Zionism, where he notes that Jews were leading many of the movements.

00:41:58.720 He said he wanted the British Empire to last for 1,000 years.

00:42:04.960 And he said after the war as prime minister that, no, indeed, really, people always quoting Hitler on that.

00:42:12.700 But Churchill said it too.

00:42:14.640 Did it.

00:42:15.600 Both were wrong.

00:42:17.700 Both were wrong.

00:42:18.560 And Churchill also said as prime minister after the war to his cabinet on his preferred immigration policy, keep England white. 0.99

00:42:30.740 Now, is Churchill stupid or is he short-sighted or is he disingenuous? 0.97

00:42:37.680 I don't know which, but in any case, he allied with forces in a Faustian pact, which could only destroy the empire and race that he held dear, or claimed to hold dear anyway. 0.99

00:42:51.320 Oh, I think you're absolutely true.

00:42:52.980 We've really got – this is an interesting tangent, and I think it's worth pursuing.

00:42:56.900 Churchill, I think, is really one of the most ironic figures of the 20th century.

00:43:01.100 And it's interesting because here, particularly in America, there is just a Churchill cult.

00:43:08.520 And it's interesting.

00:43:09.920 I've noticed that a lot of – you know, we have these quotes like, you know, what is it?

00:43:14.580 First they make fun of you, then they attack you, then they follow you.

00:43:17.880 Or, you know, some of these kind of chestnuts that are apocryphal quotes.

00:43:22.080 And they're sometimes attributed to Gandhi or they're sometimes attributed to Churchill.

00:43:25.980 So I think it shows this, you know, devotion to the man that we, you know, attribute all this wisdom to him.

00:43:33.680 But actually, I think he was a deeply short-sighted person.

00:43:37.120 And I think that's – myopia was really his fundamental problem.

00:43:42.720 He was fighting Germany out of some kind of, like, Victorian rivalry or something.

00:43:49.400 It's just, you know, the fact is, if he had allowed Hitler to win the war, the British Empire might still exist. 0.86

00:43:58.160 I mean, Hitler explicitly did not want to dismantle the British Empire.

00:44:04.620 And yet he aligned himself with these forces that did.

00:44:09.440 And, yeah, I mean, he is one of these short-sighted and ironic figures where he's lionized by neoconservatives and so on.

00:44:17.680 But then everything he sought out to accomplish, he actually failed at.

00:44:22.880 I think he's the perfect neoconservative and cuckservative icon.

00:44:28.280 And I think George Bush was right to have his bust in the White House.

00:44:31.460 And I think, you know, Britain is going to have him on the pound, on the pound bill soon.

00:44:37.880 That's the plan.

00:44:38.560 Interesting.

00:44:39.220 I mean, because he basically made Britain safe.

00:44:41.740 He made the world safe for multiculturalism, seems to be what he ultimately accomplished.

00:44:46.500 Even though he was, again, his goals were to, like, fight off German advances out of some, you know, 19th century-style rivalry and to protect the British Empire.

00:44:59.280 But what he ended up doing was creating cool Britannia and...

00:45:04.500 Tony Blair's...

00:45:05.500 Yeah.

00:45:05.940 Yeah.

00:45:06.700 No, I mean, it's a profound irony of history.

00:45:09.760 He's just, like, one of the most misunderstood people.

00:45:12.000 I have another thought on the Americanization of Europe, which has been a long-term process.

00:45:21.820 And I sort of am getting two minds about this.

00:45:24.780 And I actually more and more think in a way which maybe our friend Romain Bernard would approve of.

00:45:32.180 And that is that we have to roll to a certain extent with these trends.

00:45:37.660 You know, they are long, deep-seated trends.

00:45:39.920 Yeah.

00:45:40.300 And I think, for instance, of the fact that today 94% of kids in Europe get...

00:45:48.420 are taught English in secondary school.

00:45:50.640 Mm-hmm.

00:45:50.960 94%.

00:45:51.680 There's been an explosion in the number of university courses in continental Europe in English.

00:46:00.600 It's increased by about tenfold, 1,000% in the last decade or so.

00:46:08.880 And, you know, I have to say the national fact is very stubborn.

00:46:15.440 And, you know, we don't see this harmonious gelling of Europe, which would make it really a force on its own.

00:46:25.660 And the development of the European Union is so slow and so ineffectual that I've tended to adapt to, you know,

00:46:34.240 disconsider notions of too much European or white unity as a feasible thing.

00:46:42.120 But the more I think about it, the more I think that if you had the right cultural policies,

00:46:49.140 assuming this were desirable, because I think a certain amount of diversity within the European world would be a good thing.

00:46:56.100 Of course.

00:46:56.700 But I think you could create a very high level of common identity through television.

00:47:03.740 And the thing that makes me realize this is that all of the countries where they have their television and English,

00:47:12.120 usually with subtitles in the national language, are very sensitive to American culture.

00:47:20.060 So they're the ones who go on the alt-right and participate in it.

00:47:24.560 It's Dutch.

00:47:26.100 It's Scandinavians. 0.72

00:47:27.440 So those smaller, more English-speaking countries.

00:47:32.740 And I think this could be – if we wanted to create a pan-Western, pan-European identity,

00:47:41.480 it could be done through television if we stopped dubbing things.

00:47:45.660 And as much as I love French culture, I don't think The Simpsons dubbed in French as much to French culture.

00:47:52.680 But if it were in English, it would add, to an enormous extent, to European and transatlantic identity.

00:48:02.860 Yeah, I mean, I think it's happening.

00:48:05.300 I mean, I think actually what you're saying is not even that speculative because I think it's actually happening.

00:48:10.200 And that we're really connecting in this way.

00:48:13.880 And English as a lingua franca is vitally important to that.

00:48:17.240 But I've kind of been amazed by the amount of people who use the term alt-right.

00:48:23.080 And I think alt-right is kind of like Al-Qaeda or ISIS.

00:48:27.300 It's like there's some institutions within it.

00:48:30.840 And I would say MPI is one.

00:48:32.700 And MREN, so on, all these – Occidental Observer, Kevin MacDonald, like whatever.

00:48:38.740 But it's actually really amorphous and it's everywhere.

00:48:43.620 And I think it's okay if – we don't need to be Puritans kicking everyone out of it. 0.90

00:48:50.080 I think it's okay if we have some different types of people in it adopting that term because it's just a general term.

00:48:58.400 It's like our black flag.

00:49:00.080 It's our saying no to the contemporary world.

00:49:04.120 And I think that's good.

00:49:04.800 I made this joke actually at the last conference, last MPI conference, but Ramsey Paul said that he was in Romania and he was at a bar.

00:49:13.220 And someone approached him at the bar.

00:49:16.160 So it's not like they met up on Twitter and decided to meet.

00:49:19.200 This is a random guy who came up to Ramsey Paul the bar.

00:49:22.460 And he goes, oh, Paul, Ramsey Paul, let me introduce myself. 0.95

00:49:26.420 I am alt-right shitlord. 0.98

00:49:27.940 And I'm using – it's like I'm an ignorant American, so I'm using like a Russian accent for whatever. 0.99

00:49:36.700 Forgive me on that.

00:49:37.580 But it's just kind of funny that, A, he knew Ramsey Paul through his hilarious videos that he does. 0.96

00:49:44.740 And then, B, he said, I am alt-right shitlord.

00:49:47.720 You know, which is such a, like, American style of thing. 0.95

00:49:53.220 And so you could say, like, oh, we're Americanizing them.

00:49:55.520 But, you know, it's like, look, we need a common language. 0.91

00:49:59.220 And if you say I'm an alt-right shitlord, you immediately know where someone stands.

00:50:05.600 And so I think it's great. 0.93

00:50:07.460 You know, it's like we actually are coming together and talking to each other.

00:50:13.360 I have been to Romania.

00:50:15.220 It is a wonderful country.

00:50:16.340 One interesting thing about it is that they're big – I mean, they're 20 million people.

00:50:22.420 But they don't dub their TV.

00:50:24.560 They all leave it in the English.

00:50:26.840 So that's also, I think, probably part of it, that if he were raised with that, then he would – then they love alt-right because they can understand it.

00:50:34.360 You know, I met with Julien Rojdy, this French identitarian.

00:50:40.300 And, you know, he spoke a bit, but his English isn't so hot.

00:50:47.300 And that's already a barrier, you know.

00:50:50.300 Though he's wonderful with his own memes and I – anybody who speaks French, I recommend you check out his Twitter account.

00:50:55.960 But it's not going to resonate to a certain extent, you know, when you're not really socialized and even socialized at a young age to imprint, you know, that identity.

00:51:07.340 If you're watching American TV between the ages of 5 and 15, you're going to imprint on that as part of your tribe, actually.

00:51:14.900 And, yeah.

00:51:19.220 Well, it's – this is – yeah, this is very interesting stuff.

00:51:22.600 And I think what we're in a way saying, like, what we want to do is turn a lot of these things that seem bad, like Americanization or the Englishization, and turn it into something that's good.

00:51:38.020 And, I mean, that's what we can do, as opposed to, like, opposing everything and being like, oh, no, let's all speak different languages and blah, blah, blah.

00:51:46.600 You know, we're actually able to turn something that could be bad into something good.

00:51:51.500 And I think that's definitely how our movement should operate.

00:51:54.980 So let's do this.

00:51:57.660 Let's put a bookmark on this.

00:51:59.720 I promise that I won't – I'll have you back on in a circumstance other than a violent terror attack.

00:52:08.020 We're making this a tradition.

00:52:11.680 But anyway, thank you, Guillaume, for being on.

00:52:14.560 And I certainly look forward to reading more of your great stuff.

00:52:18.680 I had one last thought on some of the old fighters that are in our movement.

00:52:26.520 And I'm thinking of Sam Dixon, Jared Taylor.

00:52:31.180 I think it was one other.

00:52:33.660 But I've never seen them so happy.

00:52:38.020 And I've never seen them so – almost gloating.

00:52:43.560 You know, Jared Taylor made that really funny video about the Black Lives Matter movement saying, keep doing what you're doing.

00:52:50.940 You're just stoking European-American identity and we've never had it so good.

00:52:54.640 And Sam Dixon had the – an article about the intolerable whiteness of Bernie Sanders supporters.

00:53:07.940 And –

00:53:08.160 Where was that article?

00:53:09.840 It was – well, that wasn't the title, but –

00:53:13.380 Oh, it was on Occidental Observer.

00:53:14.740 I missed that one, yeah. 0.95

00:53:15.600 I mean, you know, all these Sanders supporters have to see their socialist champion who's going to give them, you know, the Daily Show in real life fail because of all these blacks and Mexicans voting for Hillary Clinton. 1.00

00:53:29.960 And, you know, so he was just gloating about that and thinking, well, you guys have some things to think about.

00:53:34.760 Maybe we'll see – maybe we'll catch up with you in a couple of years once you figure out what's going on.

00:53:40.040 Oh, yeah.

00:53:40.660 I'm looking at this now.

00:53:41.860 No, this is actually a fascinating thing.

00:53:44.700 Like if we – if only whites were voting in this country, we would basically have a Donald Trump v. Bernie Sanders, you know, confrontation. 0.91

00:53:55.640 Like Bernie would be dominating if blacks were not voting. 0.95

00:54:01.440 America would be Sweden. 0.98

00:54:03.580 Basically.

00:54:04.680 It would be great.

00:54:05.780 It would be like right-wing nationalism versus social democracy and like kind of granola bar nationalism of white people.

00:54:17.760 Totally.

00:54:17.820 But, I mean, it's simply to highlight, you know, there are these guys who were, you know, really working on this for decades, you know, against the whole tide of the society.

00:54:33.640 And now – I mean we'll see what this leads to.

00:54:36.680 But I'm thinking this is a sign that we're starting to really have a change in the culture and in the – certainly in the online debate.

00:54:48.460 I don't – I completely agree.

00:54:51.100 I don't think being optimistic is unfounded at this point.

00:54:55.100 I just think that, yeah, it's – the internet has been a godsend.

00:55:00.320 It's allowed for a tremendous amount of freedom.

00:55:01.960 And it's gotten to this point where people can't deny it.

00:55:05.020 I mean it's like people are calling up the Rush Limbaugh show and saying, I'm alt-right.

00:55:10.920 And I remember someone, this guy named Jack Tapper of CNN, he did this tweet.

00:55:17.400 I retweeted it where he said, when did Twitter become Stormfront?

00:55:21.640 Like, you know, exclamation mark.

00:55:24.320 You know, like – and what he's reacting to is just like you can't deny that there's this huge culture of, you know, the alt-right or identitarianism, whatever you want to call it.

00:55:34.500 You just can't deny it.

00:55:36.600 And whereas 25 years ago, you could easily deny it.

00:55:41.960 You know, it's like, ah, a bunch of meaningless people, a bunch of Klansmen and terrorists or whatever.

00:55:47.520 Now you can't say that.

00:55:48.500 Yeah.

RadixJournal - March 03, 2016

Islamitarianism

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