Bryan Sylvian conducted the following exclusive interview with Alain de Benoist,a prominent intellectual in the European New Right and a founder of the Centrefor Research and Study on European Civilization (Groupement de Rechercheet d’Études sur la Civilisation Européene—GRECE). Mikayel Raffi assisted inthe translation.Few schools of thought come even close to the range and depth of the European NewRight, from its Indo-European origins to the current biotech revolution and everythought current in between. This holds especially true for the dynamic core personifiedin one of the philosophical prime movers of France’s New Right: Alain de Benoist.

The French New Right (hereafter NR) greeted the new century ready for action,and proved it by issuing a manifesto for the whole world to read. Alain de Benoist(b. 1943), along with Charles Champetier, crafted that statement, which took stock ofthe NR since its birth in 1968 and fashioned a weapon for future intellectual combatin response to its critical assessment of our present predicament. The NR manifesto,“The French New Right in the Year 2000,” along with a biography of Alain de Benoistand a selection of his writings, can be viewed online (“Les Amis d’Alain de Benoist” http://www.alaindebenoist.com/).

The interview is a snippet from a much larger one that fleshes out the 2000NR manifesto. It may also be the first exposure to the NR’s outlook for many in theEnglish-speaking world, for whom so little of the NR’s output has been translated. Thisinterview may serve as the first exposure of many in the English-speaking world to the NR’s thought.

To read on, please go to http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/vol5no3/53-bs-debenoist.pdf

“This Land Is Ours” …?

When Lord Tebbit used a fringe meeting of the Conservative Party conference this summer to attack the concept of multi-culturalism, he also expressed the fear that we are becoming “a pagan society worshipping Mother Earth”. We must pay tribute to him here for being the first establishment politician to acknowledge the best ecological magazine on the Internet… at the same time, we note the irony of this little-reported part of his speech — for paganism, more than any spiritual tradition, is linked intimately to cultural identity as well as climate, ecology and landscape. Japan’s Shinto religion, for example, is linked at both folk and State level to the concept of racial and cultural uniqueness. The name “Hindu” is linked to the name “India”, and African Traditional Religion is the spiritual wing of black consciousness — as such it is growing fast. In our own European societies, the revival of interest in pagan beliefs and folklore is part of a wider movement to reclaim folk identities. The growing fascination for Celtic goddesses, Norse shaman-kings and Baltic wood spirits is one that unites a pride in ethnic heritage with a reverence for nature — a green, non-racist form of regional loyalty.
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“To disregard the national bond of human groups and to establish a political system contradictory to social reality sets up a temporary structure which will be destroyed by the movement of the social factor of those groups, i.e. the national movement of each nation.”

“All the states which are composed of several nationalisms for various reasons – whether of religious, economics, military power or of man-made ideologies – will be torn up by the national conflict until each nationalism is independent, i.e. the social factor will inevitably triumph over the political factor.”- Muammar al-Qathafi, THE GREEN BOOK.

Yule, or more precisely ‘Jul’ is a Nordic name for the heathen feast that was celebrated in the middle of January. There were at least two such feasts or offerings every year in Scandinavia, one in midsummer and one in midwinter.

While the English and Americans have their “Christmas” (‘The Mass of Jesus Christ’) and the Germans their “Weihnachten” (‘Holy Night’) the Nordic countries still have the original ancient word ‘jul’. Since the word occurs in different variations in other Germanic languages, it is likely to believe that the ‘jul’ celebration was a common Germanic feast.

The use of the word ‘Xmas’ is of cause due to the Americans’ love for simplifications, Xmas is Christmas and the ‘X’ is also a symbol for the cross. The word is close to a pictorial word.

Yule – or more correctly ‘jul’ utmost origin and actual meaning is still somehow unclear since it is truly very ancient, but we can concrete trace the word back about 2000 years, even though it’s older than that. Today the Nordic people (Sweden, Denmark and Norway) all say ‘jul’, and they use the word in plural, and that indicates that there have been several feasts, a festival period.

The first time we hear about the word is in the poem by the Norwegian ‘skald’ (poet) Torbjørn Hornklove, ‘Haraldskvadet’ (The poetry for Harold’), from about 900. He writes about ‘drikke jul’ (‘drinking jul’). The saga tells us that people were gathering and brewing beer to be drink in memory of the gods. The beer drinking in honour of the gods was to increase the growth and to make peace.

“This memorial drinking was not to go away from the heathen tradition. The expression “at drekka jol”, to drink Christmas, was the common expression for Christmas celebrations even in the 16th century. The god of jul had the name Jolne, and that was Odin. We can find this name in a poem called ‘Jolna sumbl’. It means intoxicant of Odin. The beer drinking gave people courage to turn to the gods.” (source – the Viking Network)

In the wild and mythical landscape of Norway survived the old Indo-European word for the midwinter feast: Jul. (Extract from J.C. Dahl – Fra Stalheim, 1842. Norway National Gallery)
A few centuries later we find the word in Old-English “geohul”, but this word does not survive and in modern times the English looks north and borrow “yule” from Scandinavian languages. The same is story behind the Germans’ “Jul”.
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Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, a leading Scottish opponent of the Treaty of Union with England in 1707, provided us with a most perceptive definition of nationalism:

“Show me a true patriot, and I will show you a lover not merely of his own country, but of all mankind. Show me a spurious patriot, a bombastic fire-eater, and I will show you a rascal. Show me a man who loves other countries equally with his own and I will show you a man entirely deficient in a sense of proportion. But show me a man who respects the rights of all nations, while ready to defend the rights of his own against them all, and I will show you a man who is both a nationalist and an internationalist.”

From that, it is easy enough to see where the confusion has arisen today between “patriotism” and “nationalism”. The saying about patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel is often indeed the truth, by the latter-day definition of patriotism as being loyalty to the existing State (in whatever form) and its institutions… Thus “patriotism” on its own is really just a commitment to the maintenance of the status quo. We have seen too many profiteering wars, too many acts against the interests of the nations and their people disguised and justified in fervent flag-waving, to doubt the accuracy of the statement. A good nationalist will reject the institutions of the State and the system, if they no longer serve the interests of the Nation. Yet nowadays it is “nationalism” which is the vilified concept, smeared in negative connotations, despite its true definition being that given by Fletcher of Saltoun; while “patriotism” is of course permissable…. since it effectively endorses the existing power structure, economic system, and Establishment.

Taken from Crikey

Crikey reporter Jane Nethercote writes:Last night, a gig going under the name of “Rock Against Racism” was to be held at the student union’s SAMbar at Macquarie University. The event was all about raising money for an African community centre. It was also an effort by students to create a public front of solidarity for an open and tolerant society – most specifically to try and counteract the damage done to Macquarie University’s reputation by Andrew Fraser, the controversial professor who opposes non-white immigration and was banned from teaching at the Sydney university earlier this year.

But according to organisers, the bar’s management cancelled the gig a week ago – apparently after receiving a threat from a right wing or neo-nazi group – citing a “duty of care” to their patrons. They could have beefed up security, says one of the organisers L’amahz Bah, President of the African Communities Council, but instead they cancelled the event without consultation – and without detailing the nature of the threat. It was an “act of cowardice really,” says Joseph Pugliese, associate professor of the Department of Critical and Cultural Studies. Students and staff are “pretty disappointed” – staff had been very supportive of the event (the gig appeared in the university’s staff newsletter).And Pugliese agrees with Bah that the reasons for cancelling are “problematic,” given that a forum held two months ago to debate Fraser’s convictions received similar neo-nazi threats, but went ahead after security had been increased. So there’s a precedent for overcoming these kinds of threats, he says.
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