Saturday, November 17, 2007

Nazi or Communist?

As most readers already know, ever since the Counterjihad conference in Brussels ended last month, there has been a non-stop Whac-a-Mole game of accusations against the Flemish separatist party Vlaams Belang. Every time a new “neo-Nazi” mole of allegation pops up, it gets whacked back down. But instantly another one takes its place, and the old one is forgotten.

One of the remaining unwhacked moles has been a photo taken in 1992 showing a current EU Parliament MEP from Vlaams Belang named Koenraad Dillen with the 84-year-old ex-Nazi officer Léon Degrelle. Christine of CVF was able to locate Mr. Dillen today and ask him about the photo. Here is his response:

Yes I met LD on 11th of July 1992. I was 27 years old at the time.

I finished my studies in 1987 with a paper on the French writer Robert Brasillach. The director of my thesis was a left wing professor of literature, named George Adé. He died in 1992. I got “maxima cum laude” with my thesis.

Before the war, Robert Brasillach published a book on “Léon Degrelle et l’avenir de Rex”. Since my paper deals a lot with Brasillach and Belgium, I took a genuine interest in Degrelle and wrote about him. He was an important figure in prewar politics and played a major role during the war years. After the war, in exile, he continued his life in Spain as a writer.

Soldier on the eastern front, Degrelle was convicted, in absentia, for high treason. But he was never charged with war crimes.

I had neither sympathy, nor animosity for Degrelle in 1992. He was 84 years old at the time. He interested me as a person who played a historical role. No more, no less. I had no political functions at the time.

In May 1992, I started a weekly column on French intellectual life and politics in the newspaper ‘t’ Pallieterke. I still write my article every week. So I have a partly job as a journalist.

Degrelle talked to me. He explained me for example, why Franco did extradite Pierre Laval, the prime minister of collaborating France who was executed by De Gaulle and not him, the SS-general. (“Because I was Catholic, and Laval not”.) It was an interesting testimony, never published in any book. Why should I be blamed? I had a few drinks on his terrace. Fifty years after the war, it was not up to me to act as an attorney general ! He signed some books and photos. Did I have to refuse? I met the former Bolshevik commissar Lew Kopelev in 1987. He signed his memories for me. Does it make me a communist?

I published a book on [corrected] European Commissioner Louis Michel and on the accession to European Union of Turkey. A major book on François Mitterrand — on which I work since three years — will follow in some months. I had interviewed and toasted with many French socialists — e.g. the former minister of Foreign Affairs Roland Dumas. It doesn’t make me a socialist.

As we all know, Mr. Dillen could claim to be a Communist and wear Lenin pins and hammer-and-sickle insignia as much as he liked, and no one would mind except for a few fascists like us. A taint of Bolshevism does no harm to a politician or a journalist; in fact, it confers upon him that cachet of self-righteous and high-minded social justice that is so dear to the Left. Never mind the hundred million corpses left behind by Communism: if you want to make an omelet, you have to etc blah yak.

But don’t get within a mile of anyone who even knew a Nazi — then you’re dead meat.

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It’s unfortunate that we have to endure all this folderol about VB, because it’s heartening to read about what they’re doing in the European Parliament. Christine has collected some recent examples of Mr. Dillen’s speeches as an MEP; some excerpts are included below:

In terms of human rights, democracy and good governance, this forum is a faithful reflection of official EU policy and utterly fails to send out a powerful signal. A signal that demonstrates to the relevant countries that a refusal to respect human rights and apply democratic principles should be reciprocated with a reduction, or even scrapping, of all forms of development aid.

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In recent years, we have seen some striking examples of the deliberate deafness of official Europe. In France and the Netherlands, in democratic referendums, the people said ‘no’ to the European super state. Despite this, the German Presidency simply carries on down the path already chosen. For Angela Merkel, and I am afraid for you as a Member of the European Council, the will of the people does not count. All opinion polls show that whilst the Europeans want to be on friendly terms with the Turks, they do not want a non-European and Islamic country to join our Union. Again, the pre-determined path is simply followed.

I should like to finish off by saying to Mr Prodi that the government of my country brought itself into disrepute last week by refusing, for commercial reasons, to allow the Dalai Lama to visit Belgium. Nobody wants to offend China. It is very unfortunate that the rule in these situations seems to be that of Erst das Fressen und dann die Moral . I therefore hope that, within the European Council, you will speak up to focus on the attitude of your government which, although it likes to wax lyrical about human rights, when the chips are down, lets its own economic interests prevail, and also to denounce Belgium in this matter. If Europe is serious about defending human rights, it should also have the courage to denounce the hypocrisy of some Member States.

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The sanctimonious line is that a mutually acceptable solution must be found for Tibet’s future. To say that is to make victim and executioner equal partners in dialogue. It became once again evident on whose side the EU is when in November 2005, the Chinese President, Hu Jintao, was received with much pomp and circumstance across Europe, yet it had, in fact, been he who perpetrated serious human rights violations when he was Secretary of Tibet’s Communist Party between December 1988 and March 1992.

The Tibet issue once again demonstrates that European rhetoric all too often amounts to nothing but moral wrapping paper and that in reality, only economic interests matter. We must continue to have the courage to denounce the cowardice and sanctimoniousness of this Europe, of this mercantile Europe that chooses to side with the oppressors to the detriment of innocent peoples.

Does this sound like someone we should shun? An unreconstructed neo-Nazi racist white supremacist?

Christine has more quotes over at the CVF blog.

Judge for yourself.

13 comments:

Stogie said...

Excellent article. Once again, you impress on me the importance of keeping an open mind until all the facts can be weighed and considered.

Pastorius said...

Sounds decent enough to me.

Both Robert Spencer and Fjordman have concerns about the VB. Fjordman limited his criticism to the fact that DeWinter apparently likes Jean-Marie Le Pen.

That has been the issue which most sticks in my craw.

Robert Spencer was more vague about what his concerns are.

The reason I bring this up is because until Fjordman and Spencer wrote their respective essays, this whole issue has been framed by you and Pamela such that people like me and some of the others here at IBA are not good enough counter-Jihadis.

Is your tent is big enough for Jean-Marie Le Pen, but not big enough for someone like myself, or Charles Johnson?

Pastorius said...

By the way, thanks for posting this article here. I hope you will continue to post here whenever you feel like it. Even though I don't agree with you (thus far) on this issue, I am happy to have both sides presented, especially if the other side is presented by someone as rational and intelligent as you.

BFB said...

Pasty, why don't you just suck Stogie's knob and post it on YouTube?

YUK!

I mean serious YUK!

Epaminondas said...

Baron, nothing but the passage of time and it's demonstration of what VB is can prove the point.

The efforts to explain the whack a mole instances just get lame. They may be real explanations, but after a while only an emotional attachment to making VB good, and the other's opposed to what VB MIGHT BE, NOT SO GOOD becomes a waste of effort. For you, for us all. WASTE.

Maybe Dewinter was not thinking and over emotional in his 1991(?) White europe/flanders ABSURD remarks, and now it's tough to get out of it. Maybe the wreath thing has an explanation which is REAL not post hoc made up (but you have to admit any chain of events ending up with laying a wreath at SS graves will probably alienate the vast majority pretty fast and it's therefore BEYOND stupid to begin with, as the best explanation possible in politics)

So, in the SPIRIT of community, I have to say, unless there is a Walid Shoebat smoking gun who arrives in our midst out of VB, we simply put it all in abeyance and let the facts of history to come determine VB's place in it.

Either they will make it about white europe as things pass or not. That's up to them. Their nation. Their continent. Their policies. Their conscience.

The counter jihad summit was necessary and extremely important, but if knowing beforehand - having to explain Stormfront symbols, white power statements, and wreaths for the SS, wouldn't it have been better to have kept the attendance list a bit shorter?

That's the bottom line for the summit for me.
VB's bottom line will be determined by them.

If you know these guys, perhaps a word to them about laying wreaths, etc, and not letting any chain of 'logic' lead them into just what the euro-lefties want them to do to be seen as Stormfront's Flemish branch here?

This is not just about some internecine fight. If the american people are going to wake up acros the board, any taint such as this will give heed to those who just say islamofascist opposition is a fancy way of saying racism. And then, the people will shrug. Just look at how tough it is for a basic idea like Tancredo's to even get aired.

It's tough enough not being seen as fear mongering lunatic sometimes, but if you add racist to the front of that, one doesn't even get to MAKE the argument to others, if that is their opening impression, let alone win it.

Always On Watch said...

Pastorius,
people like me and some of the others here at IBA are not good enough counter-Jihadis

I hadn't thought of the conflict in those terms. But that seems to be the implication--even for me, who hasn't even settled the issue in my own mind.

I'm suffering from TMI (Too Much Information) and, apparently, disinformation (with regard to something I said about the BNP yesterday on the The Gathering Storm Radio Show).

I'm pretty stupid about modern EU politics, but this much I'm certain of: Europe is in a dire situation, and the Islamists are winning there. Any number of blogs and articles show that to be a fact. Getting to the other pertinent facts is the core of the problem now.

Still, we in America cannot control Europe's politics. Nor should we.

I don't see any quick resolution to the blog wars over the issue at hand. But I feel that, sooner or later, the msm may pick up on what's going on. What would be the effect if that happens? And will the effect really matter in the long term?

Pastorius said...

AOW,
What would be the effect if the MSM picks up on what is going on?

I agree with Epa's comment. If the MSM picks it up and the counter-Jihad is broken into those who oppose European Nationalism, and those who support it, then the MSM will define the movement as racist, and we will ALL have even more trouble getting traction.

This whole situation depresses me beyond belief. I have considered quitting what I do, but I think I am doing the right thing.

Always On Watch said...

Pastorius,
I didn't see Epa's comment until just now. He and I must have been posting our individual comments at roughly the same time because the last comment I saw before posting mine was BFB's.

Yes, I agree with what EPA said:

This is not just about some internecine fight. If the american people are going to wake up acros the board, any taint such as this will give heed to those who just say islamofascist opposition is a fancy way of saying racism. And then, the people will shrug.

Also, I have to wonder this: Is this public dispute already doing damage? I certainly know that it has disheartened ME!

truepeers said...

Please cheer up Pastorius. You're doing a good job. I really admire what you do.

But if you want to do politics seriously, and not just be concerned with finding a pure position, you have to be ready to be called just about any name you can imagine. The MSM in its current incarnation is going to call you a racist, no matter how you formulate your stance against Islam. And to a degree, they have a point: being against Islam in Europe IS being against all those for whom Islam is the transcendent representation of their fundamentally tribal existence. Pastorius, you assume that you are fighting against tribalism, not against any race, but pragmatically these two may be much the same thing, and the relativist left assumes you have no right to fight tribalism, unless, paradoxically, you are also open to the tribal Muslims. And they have a point because maybe the only hope for all these Muslims to get over their tribalism is if enough of them are allowed to come to places like Europe, and to be more or less welcomed, as preconditions for changing Islam under the pressures of relatively free societies (I am assuming that "separationism" of Islam from the West is not a real possibility in this global village of ICBMs.)

Of course, that "reformist" idea entails risk of a collapse of the West into Islamic totalitarianism, a risk that you don't seem willing to take. But anyway, if the MSM call you a racist, I'll say maybe they're right. Or maybe they're not right. How can I or anyone really know what is and is not possible in future in regard to overcoming Islamic tribalism? Maybe, in practise, fighting Islamic tribalism by denying Islam a presence in Europe is pragmatically to be against the very existence of a race(s), even if you can allow yourself some distinction in theory. Or maybe it's not.

In other words, if it's name-calling that concerns us most, we are never going to get serious about weighing necessary political risks and trying to take the lead in dialogues about the future. It's lonely at the top and a leader has to be willing to be called names.

I suggest, as a guiding light, make the defense of freedom over totalitarianism your cause. This will likely lead you to clash with the traditional VB, but the trick, it seems to me, is to define that clash in a useful way for the future of freedom. If you hold to any position more specific than freedom as your bottom line, you will get trapped in the problem of not being able to think through dilemmas in which there is more than one competing imperative for the cause of freedom, as there always is.

A man who puts freedom first might realize:

1) Migration, to some degree, is a good and necessary part of expanding the modern Western-led global economic-technological system in which our hopes for expanding freedom for everyone rest. At the same time, migration, taken to some degree, is antithetical to freedom, perhaps especially in those countries drained of their more ambitious and bright peoople, but also in more modern countries swamped and transformed by non-modern tribal peoples.

2) Democratic self-rule is a good and necessary part of our global political system of nation-states, which act as the guarantors and regulators of the global economic system, maximizing its freedom by working against over-centralization of political (non)decision-making.

3) Democratic self-rule is greatly harmed if a people feels it has no control over immigration policy and must simply accept the ideology of leftist post-nationalism. "Anti-racism", as an ideology, has been the cause by which the international left has eroded the democratic sovereignty of Western nations, because this ideology makes illegal any recognition of any real differences among populations, differences without which we can't think and act.

"Anti-racism", in other words, does not really try to distinguish genetic from cultural differences in defining "race", to the degree anyone ever can. It sometimes pretends to, but it doesn't really want to because its main intellectual impulse is anti-Western, and it only really contests "White supremacy" because it wants to be anti-Western, not because it is itself free of "racist" assumptions. It wants to be "anti-Western" as a way of guaranteeing its holiness, given that both it (as it exists today) and its basic religious impulse - "progressivism" - are essentially a white Western movement, an embarrassing paradox which it must hide. (Deep in the multiculti haze, we see the same "progressive" impulse that motivated much of the imperialism of the past. "Anti-racism" is the postmodern equivalent of the White man's burden. Past tragedy has truly become present farce/tragedy, because now the progressive imperialists think they can only fulfill their burden to make the world's underdeveloped countries freer by leading them to criticize everything about those cultures and peoples who have been relatively successful and are thus in a "privileged", unequal position. The "progressives" thus guarantee their privileged leadership by helping destroy cultural models and truths, including sane models of religion and nationalism, that would be useful to developing, and developed, countries.)

4) People may make the wrong decision, re point #1 - not having a rational consideration for what is good about migration - but the defender of freedom has to respond to that with some respect for point #3 and see there are two competing imperatives at play.

5) Instead of trying to make either point 1 or 3 his bottom line, and trying to purify this choice against all competing arguments (i.e taking either side in this blog war), maybe it is best to think about politics as a free, open-ended, process in which any idea can be politely voiced (except that of overthrowing constitutions that protect freedom), the process by which we find useful compromises to transcend the necessary contradiction between 1 and 3. Mayce we can push, through engagement with all freedom-loving sides, both sides closer together, so that they can both come to share in a sign of transcendence because this sign will include something from each side while at the same time no one can be sure whom it favors. Such a sign renews political freedom.

Bottom line: all the people we want to engage will profess some desire for greater freedom. We are never going to want a part of obvious totalitarians. But most freedom lovers will also have totalitarian sides or potentials. This is as true for the "anti-racists" as it is for the "racists". The point being: no one alone has the full plan for greater freedom. If anyone did have such a plan, it couldn't be free, because freedom means not having a plan, not knowing what you or anyone is going to think or do when faced with unprecedented situations. Freedom, in other words, means not knowing where you are going, but jumping into the muck anyway and letting people call you names, because you believe that interaction is the good thing, not any uncompromising stance outside it.

Anyone who argues that we know where xyz nationalism leads because of where "it" has led in the past, isn't someone who fully understands freedom. (He is like the "progressive" Westerner who keeps reworking the White man's burden even as he pretends to be against it.) It is the logic of the hedge fund operators who make big bucks bringing all kinds of historical stock market data into complex computer-driven formulations. They make big money thinking past behaviours are the best guide to future behaviours (and that they will be essentially the same behaviour), which they often are, until, that is, they lose big money because the market has changed because, among other things, of all the unprecedented actions of hedge fund operators; and now, because of some new transformative event that has thrown a wrench into the works, the market simply doesn't behave according to past behaviours. Then, the greatest models become the greatest ways to lose lots of money quickly.

Freedom means having an open mind, knowing that the decision that leads to greater freedom for all might come from an unexpected place, even as you know full well that often it doesn't, but quite the reverse. Freedom means being guided by the past but knowing that the past alone won't provide the key to what is new in the future. Freedom means fighting against destructive hatreds, while also knowing that greater freedom starts, when it does, from confused and confusing resentments. Freedom means giving people some space to work through their genuine resentments, that they might hopefully find a decent way to transcend them; because if you try to outlaw resentment, you are outlawing human nature, something that is in all of us, and outlawing reality is bound to lead to a nasty mess. Bottom line: don't be a Utopian.

Pastorius said...

Hi TruePeers,
Thanks for your words of encouragement.

Let me be clear. I have been called a Nazi, a racist, and a hater for years now. That does not bother me much.

What is bothering me these days is that people, whom I have considered to be my allies, now have decided that I am no longer their allies.

Why is that?

Because I oppose the Vlaams Belang.

Why do I oppose the Vlaams Belang?

For exactly the reason you suggest; because they are anti-Freedom.

Why do I say they are anti-Freedom?

Because I define Freedom with the following words,

"All of us, every single man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth were born with the same inalienable rights; to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Anyone who would oppose the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of any citizen (whether they be White, Hispanic, Asian, Indian, etc.) is, in my opinion, opposed to Freedom. The Vlaams Belang are, as far as I can tell, Ethnic Nationalists, which means they do not believe all citizens have the same rights in their country.

Pastorius said...

Your six points on Freedom are interesting food for thought.

The one thing I would quibble with is your point that past behavior does not necessarily predict future outcomes.

True enough, and you, to your credit, do make the point that past behavior quite regularly does teach us about the future.

The thing is, we are now living in a time when Europe is under pressure. Does Europe have any track record for behaving well when under pressure, or does Europe fall into murderous behavior and fascism when they are under pressure?

Today, I was thinking about something which gave me hope for Europe. I was thinking about how the American Civil War, the Reconstruction, the Jim Crow laws, etc. All these are fits and starts in America's move towards a greater Freedom for the Individual. America reformed intself over time.

I started thinking about how Europe has never gone through such a reformation. But, immediately, I realized that I was wrong.

The fact is, Europe has reformed itself on several occasions. The Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the current post-WWII attempt to live as Constitutional Democratic Republics guided by something close to free market capitalism, are reformations of the European way of life.

The current post WWII reformation is only sixty years old. America had not made much progress in its post-Civil War reformation at the sixty year mark, right?

And yet, the fact is, Europe battles on. Fact is, just sixty years ago, Europe was a continent full of powers which aspired to imperialistic empire.

Sixty years later, European countries have all dropped their pretensions to Empire and have learned how to play, more or less, by the rules of free market capitalism.

Europe deserves a lot of credit for that.

The question remains, however, whether the forces at play are enough to move Europe beyond its history of intemperate riot whenever it is under pressure.

The rise of the Vlaams Belang does not bode well for Europe, in my opinion.

But, perhaps, the VB is truly redefining itself just as the American Democratic party redefined itself post-Civil Rights movement.

The truth is, the American Democratic Party did not all of the sudden shed all its racism when LBJ pushed through the Great Society. Truth is, the Democratic party still has Robert Byrd in it's midst.

How can we expect anything better of Belgian politics?

We can't.

Such changes are moved by the dynamism of new ideas, and the charisma of leaders who express those ideass, but such change is also generational in nature.

truepeers said...

Pastorius,

What is bothering me these days is that people, whom I have considered to be my allies, now have decided that I am no longer their allies.

-that's truly unfortunate. Maybe tempers will soon diminish and people will get back to reality. There are always going to be people out there who are hard to get along with because you hold some difference with them, and they, or you, are puritanical about it. I would just suggest to anyone that there is no such thing as a great politician who is a puritan of any stripe. A puritan may be a great soldier or a leader of a community in exodus, or a successful "revolutionary" (the kind who often bring more woe than liberation). But if you are serious about doing politics in any general sense, in a way that respects everyone's freedom, it's best to appreciate the art of the compromise.

Anyone who would oppose the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of any citizen (whether they be White, Hispanic, Asian, Indian, etc.) is, in my opinion, opposed to Freedom. The Vlaams Belang are, as far as I can tell, Ethnic Nationalists, which means they do not believe all citizens have the same rights in their country.

-Well, if they believe all citizens don't have the same rights in their country, I agree, they do indeed have to be opposed, keeping in mind the problem with understanding something like a right to freedom of "religion" in a world where we can't ever stabilize the meaning of such terms. But if the VB believe they want to live in a country where most people are Flemish or Christian or even "white" in some "metaphoric" sense (kind of like how we pretend to oppose Islam but not "Muslims" as individuals, or as members of specific races), then can we treat them differently than we treat the Japanese, Chinese, or Turks, which is to say respecting their existing ethnic order and preferences while slowly opening them to more interaction with the world?

Anyway, if you oppose the VB, remember there is more than one way to oppose people: you can push them into a brick wall, or, in pushing, redirect them to a safer path.

It may be worth reminding - at the risk of being outrageously misunderstood - that the language of white racialism in the West has not always or even most often been about directly opposing non-white people (however much that has been part of the wider global context). That racial thinking has been all about oppressing non-Whites is just another leftist misrepresentation of history. In the history of Western imperialism, there has always been a tension between the claims and interests of imperialist factions and of more insular nationalists in the imperialists' home countries (not unlike the tension between the Flemish and the EUrabian elites today). The more insular have often used a defense of the "white race" as a rhetoric targeted at the imperialists and their grand ambitions to shape and rule the world. Similarly, imperialism has been used as a means of exporting resentments caused by capitalist economic development at home. Within the domestic battles of the capitalist countries, allowing whites to feel in some superior position to the colonized non-whites has been a way to defer the tensions inherent to any industrialzing society. And one way for white people to demand rights has been to claim that their white oppressors are not treating them as white people should be treated. For example, by claiming your employer acts like an Oriental despot, you try to shame him into making concessions to the workers.

My point is simply that championing whiteness can mean lots of things and if you are really a politician and not a puritan it may pay to see what people using such language really are on about before you decide how to relate to them. While you certainly don't want to be on the side of Nazi-like "scientific" racism, maybe you do want to be on the side of someone calling his boss an Oriental despot and in doing so emotionally evoking a defense of the white race. And once you are on his side, you have a better chance of making his language respectable. Of course it is hard to make these distinctions today because everything is clouded by the Nazi atrocities. I think that is giving the anti-nationalist imperialists of Eurabia an unfair upper hand.

How can we expect anything better of Belgian politics?

We can't.

Such changes are moved by the dynamism of new ideas, and the charisma of leaders who express those ideas, but such change is also generational in nature.


-Look, there is always reason for hope where people are given freedom to dialogue. THe future is always unpredictable. The thing worth fearing is that Belgium and Europe as a whole can become a lot worse, with really unbridled racial or cultural violence. If there is no way, for example, for all those scared, insular Flemings to be represented politically in an honest negotiation of differences, then we may be allowing pressures to build to a real explosion. I don't want or think you have to like the VB, I don't think you have to take their side, but i think it is wrong to refuse to deal outright with any party that it the major political party for a group of people, unless and until all negotiations fail and violence erupts. It's a little like saying I won't have any dealings with Chinese businesses because I detest the Communist party (and they are always connected to successful businesses in China), except that the VB is more democratic and probably less racist than the Chinese Communist party. Outright refusal to interact is not a path to deferring real tensions in this world. And the difference between taking sides and engaging in honest negotiations to find common ground on some issue is always open to dispute. It's a fine line. Anyone who doesn't see that and who isolates you in consequence is, as best I can tell, making a political mistake.

Similarly, anyone who clouds debate so much that few of us actually seem to know what went on in that Brussels conference - i.e. how much "allying" and how much "negotiating" took place - is making a mistake.

Pastorius said...

TruePeers,

Good thoughts again. I do not disagree with anything you said, nor do I have anything to add, unfortunately.

Well, actually, I do have something to add, but I have a little interview to do first, and then I will write it all in a post.