In the comments to the Statement on Radical Nationalism post, a commenter named Mark asks if I would oppose a White nationalist movement in say Brazil or South Africa carving away a piece of the territory completely peacefully to have a White state.
Mark, along with an earlier WN commenter, Scott, who confused White nationalism per se with integrationist blood and soil national fascism, did not un understand the post.
Once again, there is a difference between integrationist, national unificationist, fascist nationalists (who never want to allow anyone to secede) and national liberation secessionist movements.
Much as I dislike WN’s, I must admit that a number of them do fall into the progressive national liberation seccessionist movements category. They certainly are not the integrationist, unificationist, nation-building standard variety of blood and soil fascist.
The problem in South Africa and Brazil would be find an area that had no people in it and then populate it with Whites and the press for secession. I normally don’t support secessionist movements that are trying to secede for shitty reasons (to grab all the oil in the country, for instance) and I might oppose such a movement, but it certainly is NOT fascist type blood and soil ultranationalism.
In fact, I would have to admit that it was a progressive minded movement. I usually only support the secession of actual nations within states, and usually nations with a long history, a common language, culture, etc. Catalans, Basques, Scottish, Welsh, Corsicans, Bretons, Chechens, Ingush, Galicians, Kurds, Baloch, Kashmiris, Tibetans, Acehese, Papuans, Shan, Karen, Assamese, Tripuri, Bodos, Inner Mongolians, Abkhaz, South Ossetians, etc.
What are the differences? For starters, national liberation secessionists movements, ideally, are about liberation, autonomy, democracy and maximal freedom. They are about people ruling themselves and being themselves, speaking and cultivating their own languages, promoting their own cultures and religions, governing themselves, and even having their own postage stamps.
It’s hard to think of a more liberating project out there for a valid and real national entity. Sadly, these projects are opposed all over the globe by existing states, many of which have no right to their post-colonial borders.
Blood and soil, integrationist, national unificationist, consolidating national fascism seeks to rule over existing nations within the state against their will. It tries to crush all minority languages, cultures and religions and meld them into one language, culture and religion, that of the state – typically that of the largest ethno-religious group, I might add.
It’s oppressive and dominating by its very nature. It’s Domination writ large. It tries to force people to live in a state that they want no part of. It lays claims to the lands of nations that it has no right to rule over. It is hostile towards most or all of its neighbors and is very warlike. At its worst, it believes in permanent war and the permanent martialization of all society. At no time does it invision peace, because all states are seen as permanently at war with each other due to their ultranationalsims constantly having competing interests.
It is interested in alliances only with other ultranationalist states. It generally lays claims to its neighbors lands and often attacks its neighbors. It’s not uncommon for it to attack all of its neighbors. It is typically backwards and reactionary. It is sexist, men rule over women. It is heirarchical, the strong rule over the weak. It exalts the most reactionary customs and history of the land, since this is part of the glorious blood and soil spectacle.
It often refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing on the part of the nation and blames all problems on foreigners and outsiders. It is often suspicious of or hostile to modernism, especially if modernism is coming from competing nations not of one’s own.
It exalts the glorious history of the past and seeks rebuilt the great nation of old on the ashes of the degraded present. The phoenix rising from the ashes is an appropriate metaphor. This sort of nationalism is pessimistic. It sees the present as an era of degradation and humiliation. The great nation has been smashed down, impoverished, colonized or in some way prevented by wicked outsiders from achieving the greatness to which it is entitled.
The national-fascist movement will unite the state, crush all the traitors who seek to divide and thereby weaken it, threaten or attack its external enemies, assimilate all minorities within the state and thereby rise from the ashes of the present to become the glorious state that is its destiny, possibly its religious destiny ordered by God.
It is fascism, in a word.
Ideally, national-liberation secessionist movements are not like this, but there is a lot of overlap. They tend to be positive towards minorities, to not harbor claims on surrounding nations and to seek not domination but merely autonomy or indedpendence. They welcome modernism, women’s rights and democracy. They support other national liberation movements around the globe. In the 20th Century, these movements were often Marxist, despite Marxist internationalism. Ideally, these are really just decolonization movements. These nations are really just being colonized by existing states.
They look forward to an era of peace at some time and do not imagine being involved in permanent war. They look forward to national alliances, since when they become independent, they will be weak, small states in need of allies.
Although in general they are cultural modernists, there are exceptions. The Basque separatists of the ETA, nominally Marxists, were said to be notorious sexists about women’s rights on at least an individual level, and female cadres often had to put up with a lot of bullshit form male ETA members. The dichotomy here is Liberation versus Domination.
There do exist cases of carryover. There are Irish nationalists of both the consolidationist fascist and the national liberationist variety. Since Northern Ireland is seen as a wayward part of the state, it is necessary to reign it in to consolidate the state. They make alliances with Spanish Franoist consolidationist fascists and oppose the ETA.
There are also very many leftwing Irish nationalists who, while wishing to unite with Ireland, see this as an anti-colonization movement of national liberation. They support secessionist movements around the globe. Within Breton nationalists, there exist both rightwing (fascist) and leftwing (Leftist) varieties. Things get awfully complicated pretty fast once you start researching these movements, but the main dichotomy above still holds.
Fascist national consolidationists have cynically utilized national liberation secessionist movements to screw over neighbors they feel hostile towards. Fascist nationalist Saddam Hussein used the Ahwaz national liberationists against the hated Iranians. Fascist nationalists in Syria supported the national liberationist secessionist Kurdish PKK against Turkey as punishment for Turkey allying with Israel.
US imperialism, one of the most cynical and amoral entities on Earth, generally opposes all seccessionist movements, except only if they are trying to secede from an enemy state, in which time they are cynically supported.
The Kurds were alternately either supported with arms to fight states, or states were supplied with arms to fight the very same Kurds, all part of Realpolitick bullshit, back in the 1970’s. This is actually ongoing today as the US supplies Kurds with weapons to fight Iran but at the same time supports Turkey’s armed warfare against these very same Kurds.
The US supports Baloch nationalist secessionists attacking Iran but also supports Pakistan’s armed attacks against these very same Balochs seeking to separate from Pakistan.
None of it makes any sense, except if one thinks like a sociopath.
Imperialism is sociopathy melded into a state ideological form. The morals of the sociopath involve doing whatever is necessary to meet his needs at the moment. That’s inherently amoral. Those are precisely the morals of imperialism. If you support imperialim, you are effectively supporting criminality and sociopathy on a state level. There is no excuse for any moral and/or progressive person to degrade their character in such a way.
Getting back to the subject, White nationalism exists in both “progressive”, national liberationist secessionist forms and in fascist, blood and soil, national consolidationist forms. The former, ideally, would seek to move Whites to a part of the stae with few of them and then petition for independence. However, the newly independent White state would probably discriminate against non-Whites, assuming any lived there. They would also have to set up some pretty weird immigration policies. As much as I hate to admit it, such a project could be seen in part as progressive.
The other type are the national consolidationist Whites who preach the blood and soil greatness of the Whites of whatever land, the need to attack all non-Whites in the land, throw them out of the country or legally discriminate against them. In the US, this type calls for deportation of all non-Whites from the US. That’s clearly a fascist movement.
As you can see, White nationalism can be either fascist or some strange sort of progressive.
This whole subject of the nature of fascism is very complex and many people, including some readers, do not seem to be grasping it well. I urge you to continue to study, as I was confused about it for a long time, and I still do not understand it well!
Their confusion is logical because the term fascism is much abused. It’s horribly abused by the Left to where any racist or any conservative is a fascist. This is not necessarily so.
It’s really the subject of another post, but a racist is not necessarily a fascist at all. On the other hand, most if not all fascists are indeed racists. One could argue that that is an essential aspect of the fascist project.
Further, all authoritarianism is routinely called fascism. This is not true. Fascism is only a variety of authoritarianism.
In addition, conservatives are not necessarily fascists, though most if not all fascists are conservatives.
On the other hand, we now have far rightwingers inventing some sort of “liberal fascism” (See Ann Coulter’s book of the same title) as a general term of abuse. It turns out that all of us liberals are really just stormtroopers in disguise. In reality, liberalism is quite a ways from fascism.
This silly mischaracterization has been abetted by a movment led by the Far Right to reinterpret Nazi National Socialism as a Leftist movement. Although German national socialism was heterodox, such a characterization is rejected by all reasonable political scientists.
Fascism is an extremely complex subject and it’s probably misunderstood by most people.
David Neiwert, a journalist from Washington, has done some excellent recent work on fascism, and I recommend it highly. His The Rise of Pseudo-Fascism and Rush, Newspeak and Pseudo-Fascism are two of the best recent documents on the subject and encompasses the recent groundbreaking work on fascism coming from political scientists. They are long (about 100 pp each) but I recommend them highly. After reading those documents, you should be a lot less confused about what fascism really is.
^here is also a scholar from Israel who has done a lot of top-notch political science and historical work on fascism, whose name escapes me now.
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This is an excellent post. Glad I provoked it, even though I disagree with your statement that I confused the difference between WN per se and blood and soil fascism.
“Getting back to the subject, White nationalism exists in both “progressive”, national liberationist secessionist forms and in fascist, blood and soil, national consolidationist forms. The former, ideally, would seek to move Whites to a part of the stae with few of them and then petition for independence.”
I don’t understand why whites would have to move anywhere. If whites in a white-dominated region of Brazil, say, wanted to secede peacefully to preserve their unique, European-derived culture, they could pretty much stay put in their white-dominated provinces, and just petition for secession.
“However, the newly independent White state would probably discriminate against non-Whites, assuming any lived there.”
Welll, hopefully they would not. It would depend on the character of the movement and the people in charge, of course.
“They would also have to set up some pretty weird immigration policies.”
Not weird at all. Most countries have fairly restrictive immigration policies that result in preserving the majority population.
“As much as I hate to admit it, such a project could be seen in part as progressive.”
This is the crux of my question, I think. Why do you hate to admit it? Why would you deny whites the same autonomy as any other group, or extend them that autonomy only grudgingly? Is it because of personal distaste for a lot of WNs you have met as individuals? FWIW, I haven’t liked most WN I’ve interacted with online (only met one in person, and found him to be obnoxious) so I can sympathize with you there, if so.
“The other type are the national consolidationist Whites who preach the blood and soil greatness of the Whites of whatever land, the need to attack all non-Whites in the land, throw them out of the country or legally discriminate against them. In the US, this type calls for deportation of all non-Whites from the US. That’s clearly a fascist movement.”
Yes, these people are dangerous loons.
I’m not a white nationalist, incidentally. Someone reading your post might get the idea that I am, since you refer to me and a “previous WN commentor” together in the second paragraph, so I thought I’d clear that up.