TRANSCENDING THE BEYOND
FROM THIRD POSITION TO NATIONAL-ANARCHISM

by Troy Southgate

Man's obsession with trinitarian concepts has lasted for thousands of years. Indeed, when presented with two distinct choices - both of which are considered inadequate - we often look for a third alternative. In the late sixth century BC, the famous Buddhist sage, Prince Gautama, rejected a life of opulent complacency and experimented with self-disciple and denial. Consequently, after driving himself to the very brink of starvation the Prince realised that there was -a middle way- beyond both luxury and asceticism. In this case, it was the path of meditation and detachment, a process in which both lifestyles were transcended and overcome.

An interesting parallel can be drawn between the example of Gautama's rejection of hereditary privilege and the search for an alternative to Capitalism during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The solution, as we know only too well, was Communism. In fact the last century may be rightly perceived as having been a furious historical battleground for two highly adversarial and bitterly-opposed ideologies. But as Hilaire Belloc observed in The Restoration of Property over sixty years ago, the differences between the two are not as distinct or clear-cut as their supporters often like to contend: The only economic difference between a herd of subservient Russians and a mob of free Englishmen pouring into a factory of a morning is that the latter are exploited by private profit, the former by the State in communal fashion. The motive of the Russian masters is to establish a comfortable bureaucracy for themselves and their friends out of the proletariat labour. The motive of the English masters is to increase their private fortunes out of proletariat labour. But we want something different from either. Thus Communism is considered, not as the antidote, but as a symptom and a product of Capitalism. Belloc-s own quest for a genuine alternative to both Capitalism and Communism was represented by The Distributist League, which he founded in 1936 with G.K. Chesterton. Both were famous converts to Catholicism and were inspired by Rerum Novarum, a timely encyclical in which Pope Leo XIII replied to the challenge of atheistic Communism by proposing that property be distributed more fairly and workers treated with more dignity. As we shall see below, Belloc and Chesterton were to become two of the chief ideologues of the new Third Position.

By the late1970s Britain-s largest Far Right organisation, the National Front (NF), had experienced an unprecedented growth spurt. Virtually indistinguishable from the more mainstream Conservative Party in that it defended family values, law and order, capital punishment and several other Right-wing policies, the NF became a household name due to its opposition to multi-racialism and support for the compulsory repatriation of all non-white immigrants. By 1979, however, the Party was heavily defeated at the ballot box after Margaret Thatcher had herself expressed one or two outspoken comments about the growing immigration problem. As a result, most NF supporters left for the comparatively less extreme realms of the Centre Right, although, predictably, Mrs. Thatcher's pledge to tighten up on immigration was never practicably consolidated. From that point onwards the NF went through a period of factionalism, as the complicated mish-mash of ideologies which for so long had marched beneath the same banner now resulted in a bitter struggle between reactionary conservatives, blatant neo-nazis and revolutionaries. NF luminaries like Martin Webster and John Tyndall were ousted from the Party in the early-1980s, clearing the way for a new up-and-coming generation of young activists; men like Derek Holland, Nick Griffin, Patrick Harrington and Graham Williamson. These individuals had been motivated by -third way- organisations abroad, not least by Italy-s Terza Pozitione (Third Position) and the exiled Roberto Fiore. The strategy of tension - Anno di Piombo - which had characterised Italian politics during the 1970s had led to the development of the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (Armed Revolutionary Nuclei), and demonstrators had been seen on the streets bearing placards in simultaneous praise of both Hitler and Mao. Many NF members had also been inspired by Otto Strasser, a former member of the German National-Socialist Workers Party who had fought with Hitler over the latter-s betrayal of the NSDAP's more socialistic tenets. So, for the NF, this was to be a new era for revolutionary politics. One in which the boundaries of left and right were to be totally rejected and redefined.

In 1983 the British NF began to publish a series of revolutionary magazines, entitled Rising: Booklet For The Political Soldier, in which detailed articles were given over to the twin concepts of political sacrifice and struggle. Meanwhile, Derek Holland's pamphlet, The Political Soldier, inspired yet another generation of new activists and was heavily influenced by the Italian philosopher Julius Evola. By 1986 the NF claimed to have finally purged its ranks of Tories and reactionaries and, much to the chagrin of the traditional Left, was soon forging alliances with Black separatist organisations like Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam and commending the third way stance of Khomeini's Iran. Indeed, whilst the works of Belloc and Chesterton were used to provide the NF with a unique economic platform, the organisation was also advocating Popular Rule, an interesting socio-political theory in which the structure of British society would become so decentralised that it would come to resemble that of Colonel Qathafi-s Libya. Not culturally, but in terms of establishing street, area and regional committees through which power could be decisively channelled up from the grass roots. This, of course, was in stark contrast to the NF's former dependence upon the electoral voting system. The NF, in awe of its Libyan counterparts, was now distributing copies of Qathafi's Green Book and happily chanting the mantra "no representation without participation." As a consequence, therefore, the NF's rejection of the ballot box confirmed its inevitable admittance into the revolutionary domain of extra-parliamentary politics. The movement went on to express its support for regional independence, European solidarity, positive anti-racism and co-operation with Black and Asian communities residing in England.

These were exciting times for supporters of Revolutionary Nationalism, but the personality clashes which tend to prevail in all political circles eventually tore the organisation apart during the Autumn of 1989. On one side were gathered the supporters of Derek Holland, Colin Todd, Nick Griffin and Roberto Fiore, all of whom were involved in the establishment of a new rural project in northern France. On the other were Patrick Harrington, Graham Williamson and David Kerr, who believed that the administrative core of the organisation should remain in the British Isles. Holland, Todd, Griffin and Fiore all left to form the International Third Position (ITP), whilst Harrington and the remaining supporters of the NF disbanded the movement in March 1990 and formed Third Way. But for those who believed that the revolutionary dynamism of the late-1980s could somehow be recreated, it was to end in disappointment and dejection. Third Way became far more conservative by supporting anti-federalist and "save the pound" campaigns, now portraying itself as the radical centre. The ITP, on the other hand, tried to influence traditional Catholics grouped around The Society of St. Pius X, and - to the horror of the overwhelming majority of its membership - took the disastrous road towards reactionary fascism. So whilst one segment of the old NF had become respectable and centrist, the leaders of the other were espousing the principles of Mussolini, Petain and Franco. For the ITP, the inevitable spilt came in September 1992.

By this time I had been personally involved with the NF and, consequently, the ITP since joining as a teenager in 1984. Throughout those years I had served as Regional Organiser with both Sussex NF and the Tunbridge Wells branch of the ITP, publishing magazines such as The Kent Crusader, Surrey Action, Eastern Legion and Catholic Action. Combined with Northern Rising (published by the ITP's Yorkshire and Lancashire branches), these publications comprised five-fifths of the organisation-s literary output. When the ITP virtually disintegrated in 1992, these magazines all withdrew their support. The ITP, meanwhile, was left with Final Conflict, comprising a mixture of skinhead youth culture and Christian bigotry.

The split occurred for a variety of reasons, most notably the fact that the ITP had rejected the internal cadre structure which had been used to such great effect during the NF period. Coupled with the fact that Derek Holland and several others had left the country and were now completely disinterested in the Third Positionist struggle in England, Roberto Fiore was attacked by myself and many others for his involvement in a ruthlessly Capitalist enterprise which operated from Central London. Several outgoing ITP activists also accused Holland and Fiore of stealing many thousands of pounds they had invested in property based within the group's rural enclave in northern France. But the most decisive factor of all, however, was the ITP leadership's increasing obsession with Catholicism and its gradual descent into the reactionary waters of neo-fascism.

From the tattered remains of the ITP came a new independence organisation, the English Nationalist Movement (ENM). New attempts were made to restate the principles of the Third Position, and ENM publications like The Crusader and Catalyst attacked both Hitler and Mussolini and preferred to emulate home-grown English socialists like Robert Owen, William Cobbett, Robert Blatchford and William Morris. This was combined with a call to arms. The ENM also campaigned against Unionism, advocating the break-up of the British Isles into seven distinct nations: England, Scotland, Wales, Ulster, Ireland, Mannin (Isle of Man) and Kernow (Cornwall). Meanwhile, its publishing service, The Rising Press, distributed booklets and pamphlets covering a whole range of topics, including works by Otto and Gregor Strasser, Corneliu Codreanu and Colonel Qathafi.

In 1998 the ENM changed its name to the National Revolutionary Faction and began to call for armed insurrection against the British State in even stronger terms. A series of detailed pamphlets and internal bulletins were disseminated amongst Nationalists across the length and breadth of the country, seeking to end the British National Party's (BNP) obsession with marches and elections. The revamped organisation also forged contacts with like-minded Third Positionist groups abroad, such as Nouvelle Resistance (France), the American Front, Spartacus (Canada), the Canadian Front, Alternativa Europea (Spain), National Destiny (New Zealand), Devenir (Belgium), Rivolta (Italy), Free Nationalists (Germany) and the National Bolshevik Party (Russia). National Bolshevism is a concept which seeks to establish an alliance between East and West, and has been around for many years. Its earliest supporters were men like Arthur Moeller van den Bruck and Ernst Junger, both of whom tried desperately to unite Germany with Russia. National Bolshevism today is mainly associated with the contemporary Russian thinker, Alexander Dugin, and has become one of the NRF's main interests. Not least because the NRF supports the creation of a decentralised Eurasian bloc in defiance of American hegemony.

In recent years the NRF has rejected Third Positionism and now describes itself as a National-Anarchist movement. In other words, whilst Third Positionists are committed to going beyond Capitalism and Communism, National-Anarchists have taken things one step further by actually transcending the very notion of beyond. According to the well-known Anarchist thinker, Hakim Bey, writing in Millennium (1996): "Five years ago it still remained possible to occupy a third position in the world, a neither/nor of refusal or slyness, a realm outside the dialectic". He goes on to suggest that "Where there is no second, no opposition, there can be no third, no neither/nor." So the choice remains: either we accept ourselves as the last humans, or else we accept ourselves as the opposition." This has led the NRF to praise Anarchist thinkers like Bakunin and Proudhon, as well as to reject the concept of the State and call for independent enclaves "in which National-Anarchists can live according to their own principles and ideals." National-Anarchists also declare that even after the demise of Capitalism they neither hope nor desire to establish a national infrastructure, believing that like-minded and pragmatic individuals must set up and maintain organic communities of their own choosing. This, of course, means that whilst the NRF retains its vision of Natural Order and racial separatism it no longer wishes to impose its beliefs on others. The group has also been involved in ecological campaigns, anti-Capitalist demonstrations and animal liberation circles.

The NRF has also been heavily influenced by Alternative Green, a group set up in the wake of Richard Hunt-s resignation as Editor from the leftist newspaper, Green Anarchist. Hunt-s unique economic analysis of the Western core-s exploitation of the Third World periphery, as well as his wholesale rejection of the division of labour, has led to an open-minded alliance between Alternative Green, the NRF, Nationale-Anarchie (German National-Anarchists), the Wessex Regionalists, Oriflamme (medievalists), Albion Awake (a Christian-Anarchist organisation), the Anarchic Movement (influenced by both Junger and Evola) and various other political groupuscles which all firmly believe that opponents of Capitalism from across the board must come together in order to exchange ideas and strategies. In May 2000 these elements staged the first Anarchist Heretics Fair in Brighton, launching a new political initiative called Beyond Left-Right. This has since been attacked by a variety of anarcho-dogmatists on the Left, including the International Workers of the World (IWW) and Anti-Fascist Action (AFA). To date, however, neither of these organisations has attempted to explain precisely why the NRF or its allies deserve the fascist epithet or deserve their threats of violence and intimidation. Furthermore, fewer still have tried to define the actual meaning of fascism itself.

Given that ideologies such as National-Socialism, National Communism and National Bolshevism have each attempted to combine two seemingly diverse and contradictory opposites, the arrival of National-Anarchism always seemed inevitable. But what distinguishes the NRF from its counterparts within the prevailing left-right spectrum, however, is the fact that it is seeking to create a synthesis.

Indeed, Synthesis is the name of a new online magazine established by the Cercle de la Rose Noire, through which NRF thinkers, Evolians and prominent ex-members of the now defunct White Order of Thule (WOT) are promoting the three-fold strategy of Anarchy, Occulture, and Metapolitics. The Circle's website, http://www.rosenoire.org/, has presented National-Anarchists with an esoteric perspective, becoming a huge counter-cultural resource from which articles, essays, poetry, interviews and reviews can be easy obtained.

The similarities between the strategy of National-Anarchism and the triadic analysis of the famous German philosopher, Georg Friedrich Hegel, are tremendous. Hegel believed that when confronted with the ineffectiveness of a thought or affirmation (thesis) and its subsequent negation (antithesis), the result is a yet further negation as the two original precepts are united and thus resolved at a much higher level (synthesis). Once this process takes place, the synthesis itself can then be negated by another antithesis, until the arrival of a second synthesis starts the whole process over again. This brings us back to our long and repeated flirtations with trinitarianism. When considered from this perspective, National-Anarchism appears to be the next logical next towards the raising of mankind's spiritual and intellectual consciousness.

Taken from "Beyond Left and Right" http://blr.folkandfaith.com/beyond3p.htm

Prof. Arnold Keyserling

 

METAPOLITICS, WISDOM AND THE INTERNET

by Prof. Arnold Keyserling and his American student, Ralph

Wisdom is the natural quality of old age. It develops through experience and social action, transforming consciousness into Awareness.

At the dawn of human history, in the clans and tribes, political authority was vested in the wise elders of the community. The elders were given the authority to guide the community because they understood the meaning of existence in all four worlds: the waking world of living people; the dream world of animals, plants and elemental spirits; the world of the dead; and, the world of the Ancestors who have attained immortality. In those times the teachings of Wisdom were founded on vertical hierarchies, absolute obedience to the master of initiations, and loyalty to the prevailing social-cultural tradition.

The nexus between politics and Wisdom has been lost for millennia. Politicians have not gained their authority from Wisdom, and wise men and women have seldom, if ever, been active in politics. Although largely cutoff from political power, the authoritarian structures in spiritual traditions still continued until recent times. Over the last 150 years, however, this hierarchy has crumbled. More and more people have had peak experiences on their own, outside of vertical organizations and established rituals and beliefs. These experiences have provided individuals with glimpses of the kind of holistic Awareness which is inherent to Wisdom. By the nineteen sixties, at the beginning of global civilization and the computer age, the spiritual hierarchies no longer had any real authority for most people. They were replaced by individual search for personal development. The search was based upon psycho-technologies and personal experience, rather than faith and submission to authority. The Human Potential Movement of the nineteen sixties and seventies spearheaded this spiritual revolution.

This revolution in the intimate sphere of personal growth has cleared the way for new developments in the world of community. Personal development is not enough. Both the individual Self, and the social functional Ego, demand our attention. We must develop both the personal Self and the community Ego. This development can only come by bridging the gap which naturally separates the Ego from the Self. The Self is situated in the Hara and the right hemisphere of the brain, and dominates in dreaming and deep sleep. The Ego is located in the head and left hemisphere, and dominates in waking and reflection. In consciousness these two sides - Self and Ego, cannot merge. If you are awake, you are not dreaming. If you are asleep, you are not experiencing thinking associations. In order to blend the Ego and Self, and understand the meaning of the four worlds like the elders of ancient times, you have to move out of consciousness into Awareness, into Wisdom. This happens momentarily in the peak experience, but it does not last. Ordinary consciousness returns and the division between Ego and Self returns. The four worlds separate. In order to permanently link the Ego and Self, and thus attain continuing Awareness, you need to transform all of your social functions in the world so that they embody your personal vision. Conversely you need to channel your personal development into action with others for the service of Humanity and the Earth. In this way the four consciousness functions merge. You are in contact with your dreams in waking life where you work to make them come true. Your thinking is in touch with deep sleep - Nothingness - and you can communicate with all worlds. The Ego serves the Self, but remains autonomous. The Self is vertical, but the Ego is horizontal, not submitted to hierarchy.

This revolution in human development triggers a change from Politics to Metapolitics, which means politics linked with Wisdom. This is a reawakening of the ancient traditions of the clan and the tribe in a new democratic form. The individual realizes their potential with others through self organized activities. Through the free flow of information on a global scale, and the voluntary assistance of friends, people will help each other to accomplish their life's work, to fulfill their meaning in life, and thus attain Awareness and Wisdom. Metapolitical actions groups will form on a local level, but will be based on world wide communications. Groups with complementary aims all around the world will naturally link up with each other and create ever larger synergies of effectiveness. The unique personal motivations and potentials of each individual will be transformed by such Metapolitical action into common intentions and group projects. Taking selfless motivations as the starting point, the many local cultures of the world should pass from ideologies and wars, into intentional harmony - a polyphony of global civilization. As Wisdom retakes its position in community action - in politics - the world will inevitably move from political and economic hierarchies, into synergetic webs.

People around the world are already busy spinning a global web of information and communication. Free people openly communicating with free people creates the Noosphere of the planet. This enables each of us to more easily find the tools necessary to create our meaning in life, and to network with others to carry it out. As we do this a new kind of ecology is forming, an ecology based on global information which links our Ego and Self to the Earth, instead of the heavens. This paradigm shift returns us to Metapolitical action based on the wisdom of the Earth and the Ancestors, and the necessity to fulfill our common human role as Stewards of the Earth. All of us have a common aim as human beings to protect our planet for future generations. This goal of a green Earth serves as the common ground linking the Metapolitics of striving individuals everywhere.

The God of the new Wisdom seekers reflects the historical evolution of Humanity. God is self organizing from Chaos, not predeterministic. He is not, but He becomes, just like the Jewish revelation of his name on Sinai: "I will be who I will be" - the eternal unconditioned future, not "I am that I am" the eternal conditioned present of Newtonian physics. The ideals of today are necessarily future oriented, and so we must act together to preserve a future for our planet. We are no longer masters of Nature, separate and apart from Earth - she is our Mother. We are a part of her, and we must act responsibly to preserve our future as a species with her.

Through Internet, the newly evolving computer communications and information network, each person is now able to create his personal way of knowledge - a path which leads to Wisdom and community. The Internet is the seed of the Noosphere, the natural forum of global Metapolitics. It is the place where the new civilization can flower, where people can learn from each other, and can assist each other in common projects to unite Self and Ego through service to the Earth.

(Taken from http://www.schoolofwisdom.com/internet.html )

The Communal Solution
An Alternative Way

By Avadis

Unfortunately, today a political organisation has no future. There are many people that have been encaged in such organisations or movements and in the end they gave it up or "unexpectedly" found themselves in prison. Reality is very hard, but harder when you are not prepared for things like this.

But as someone who comes from Greece, I am prepared and will give you an example. Here there are two or three nationalist organisations and parties that are clearly tools of the System, full of secret agents, brainless extreme right-wing and xenophobic people.

Well these organisations have no future (which is as it should be). Not because they don't have many people, and neither because they are "extreme", but because the State itself has set the limits of their existence. They are part of the System, and they are not an alternative solution to the one-way street of Capitalism. And I think it is the same in other countries, too. So when many of these people meet with them and begin to understand their dirty role, in the end they give it up altogether. Many times they are compromising with the system, and they are becoming increasingly bourgeois or apolitical.

Leading them there is the one-way street - or dead end - of Capitalism and the modern way of life. They don't want to be "marginal", they're looking for an outlet. But when they see that there is no other outlet than the way towards Capitalism, they become prey to the tentacles of the system.

Some years ago, a Greek pagan (heathen) group was thinking along the lines of creating a village where people with same interests (way of life, religion etc.) could live and work based on their beliefs and on their way of life. This, maybe, would be a solution, a return to the Community. It might sound laughable, but it would undoubtedly be a strike against urbanism and centralisation. I believe that as Troy Southgate says, it is absolutely right that the fight of the future will be between Decentralisation and Centralisation. And it is an alternative way, because the System gathers us into big cities, with many policemen, extreme control, the same way of life and thinking, with thousands of cameras everywhere (Big Brother isn't a tv-show, it is reality!) and we all end up as robots in their hands (all the same).

Community-ism and resistance on the periphery is the only thing we have now, maybe our only hope, we don't have to show mercy to the cities, from the time they took our freedom we will also take away their peace. Let's terrorise them with the way they've been terrorising us for so many years. We must have no morality outside of our community. Out there is the enemy, the chaos, the tyrant . . . inside the community we are all brothers, we have the same visions, ideals, beliefs, customs and the same blood. Outside are those who want to destroy us . . . this must be our basic thought.

Our communities must be open for the folk, to become the real alternative solution and another way of life to the modern West.

Don't forget that community-ism was the basic way of organisation by the ancient Indo-Europeans (and this is why the real racialist is the "community-ist").

Many would say that this is "utopianism". I don't think so. The System doesn't fall with prayers and implorations. But only with loyalty to our visions, for our ancestors, to our customs and our folk, in our race and to the real freedom we can win. It would be a hard, strong fight and for a long time, so let's start the resistance now. Let's become the solution we are looking for . . .

Against bourgeois hypocrisy! For OUR totalitarian tomorrow . . .

VIVA LA REVOLUCION!

Welf Herfurth 

Discussing Race In A Global World

By Welf Herfurth



The subject of race and racial difference is something a lot of people avoid. Some consider it bad manners or impolite. Others say it is offensive and discussion of it should be suppressed by legislation. One spin-off from that category goes as far as to deny the existence of races, claiming any number of religious, philosophic, scientific (sic) and moral theories in support of the proposition. Then, some fellow travellers might conclude that races exist in some narrow, almost meaningless sort of way and may conclude that, for 'human-universalist' reasons - they should be abolished.

Of course, there are people - amongst all races - who believe their particular origin renders them wise or good or superior. The fact this class of human beings exists might condition the attitudes of those who prefer the matter not bedevil us further. Sometimes this group is downright offensive and some amongst them have a genocidalist frame of mind. However, that does not make the existence of races as such - invalid. The old Chinese who spoke of others as barbarian or the Hitlerite who took refuge in false aesthetics or the Zionist Jew who believes some peoples are lesser entities are used as an excuse by many to refuse to entertain any theory of race that proclaims a virtue in their existence.

I am not afraid to discuss race. Because I am prepared to accept races exist, I must therefore say: “Where did they come from? What does it mean?”

I see race and species as different. I certainly agree that humans, as a whole are a species, but within the family you have different races. It is like in the animal world. You have dogs, cats, whales, deer, etc., but within each 'species' you have different 'races'. It might be a simplistic description, but take the species of dogs. You have your German Shepherd, Schnauzer, Fox Terrier, etc. They are all dogs, but they are different - in looks, size and temperament. They can interbreed, if you really want to, but the sense of individuality might ultimately be lost. In my opinion that is the same with humans. We all walk on two legs; have a head and arms and legs. We think, have needs and we need to love and be loved. We communicate with each other and we have always regarded ourselves as related to each other. There is no doubt that we are, however, very special 'animals' (I note there may be certain religious opposition to this label being applied, but my purpose should quickly become clear). Essentially, we have self-awareness. The philosophers have long debated that notion. It is the capacity to think in 'higher' terms, moral terms, to distinguish wants and needs, to regulate impulse, to act socially, that makes the human species special. Why should we be surprised if nature has equipped each of the races slightly differently?

Between the different races we note great differences. Not only the skin colour, but also how we act in different situations and our physical abilities. The Negroid race is generally a more physical race than the Asian or 'Indian' or European or Semite. He has the well known (if always given in cliché form) abilities at certain sports and song, of physical labour and in the endurance of pain. Some Asian groups on the other hand have a higher IQ than the white man, and a capacity for skilled application to the finery of life and culture. The Eskimo have a high IQ, but black groups seem to come in at the bottom of the range. Then the white man is generally more practical and scientific. The Semitic groups have the ability to form intricate systems of religious and mystical Gnostic thought. In some ways, each is 'better' than another and in some ways 'lesser'.

There are also differences within the races whereby each may be broken into sub-groups. We just have to look at the Europeans. They are 'white', but the Italians are different to the Swedish, the Germans are different culturally and temperamentally to the Russians. But this difference is mainly based on their habits, which is influenced by the culture they live in. There are also certain anatomical variations. I suppose we could apply that principle to the Asian race. Japanese are 'fairer' to Vietnamese; Han Chinese have heavier frames to Thais. The skull of the Ethiopian may be easily compared to the Senegalese and the legendary collectivity of the Zulu contrasts with the freer structures of Sierra Leone. And so forth.

This incredible difference between races and variation within races is a natural thing. We can say God made it that way (if we are religious in our view) or we can say nature made it that way (if we are evolutionists). Whichever way, we are dealing with a fact of existence. It seems to be a wondrous fact. The differences in humanity cannot be a thing decried, but only accepted. Once accepted, we should celebrate it. If one is religious in outlook we could say that if it was made that way, it is not to be tampered with. If we are scientific in our outlook, we would say that nature's processes are not to be willed away. I would venture to say that a proper discussion of the existence of race implies a revolution in philosophy of political correctness.

When I do my travels, I always love to cross a border and be instantly in a different world. Just going from Germany to Switzerland is amazing. The landscape might be the same as might be the architecture, but the people and the cultures are different. And that is what I would like to preserve. Look at Europe today. You have so many other races living in England that more than half of London is non-white. If we go to some countries in the Arab world, we would think we were in Pakistan. If we go to India, we find people wanting to be Americans and chatting away only in English. What effect does all this pseudo-globalisation have on the economy of this country? What about the survival of the heritages of the 'native' peoples? I am German, but I would not be offended if people in an African country became annoyed with too many of our tourists or businessmen making pests of themselves. It does not offend me as a 'white man' to learn Malaysians painted large slogans back in the 1950's: "British go home!", "White Man: Pack Up Your Burden". It is always 'numbers' and ‘weight’ that drives a people to demand a bit of living room. I wasn't upset either when Libya sent home many of its guest workers or when Nigeria packed off its illegal immigrants. Nor am I offended when an Icelander asks the question why do they need Indians in their country? It almost seems that if everyone was in his 'place', being himself, there would be less tension and more respect?

Where does all the pressure for 'one world' end? Let us imagine every person on this planet became chocolate coloured with dark hair and dark eyes. No more Asian, African, European or Indian races. Let us assume, therefore, that there was no more racial diversity in people. Let us assume we could teach one language, use one money-system, knock down all barriers and borders and live in one huge market place. Where would the benefit be? Do we really think that that in itself would make for a better mankind or a more harmonious or prosperous or culturally achieving world? And of course, can we assume that if we could put humanity through a blending machine that differentiation might not reappear, in a new form perhaps, but still operate in human affairs?

Of course what is different often has the appeal of the exotic and one cannot prevent the small scale mixing of the races. In certain places too at different times this has occurred on a visible scale, with historical and cultural forces operating to produce over long periods new results. But when we are confronted by those who suggest it should be the norm and be pursued consciously and aggressively, then we must act to prevent the large-scale destruction of singular identities and struggle hard to preserve the diversity of humanity.

I do not know if there is an agenda to encourage the one-world result. It could be the naivety or foolishness or greed of people who push this vision. However, I have come to think there is a push from Western liberals, capitalists of all colours, some theologians and others to create 'one-world'. World-improvers of all sorts and the so-called liberals are promoting the idea that diversity is a tiresome nothing. There can be no doubt that these delightful sounding platitudes will serve those who see that by breaking down all boundaries, humanity is better 'managed' in a market-millennium. For one, I would attack that sort of 'vision' as a monstrosity and prefer the racial differences and diversity. And I would argue that we are not “naturally gravitating” towards The Great Brown Race, but we are being in fact resettled.

I know that in today’s western society discussing the race issue is rather sticky and a dangerous ground to walk on. But I am willing to do that. I believe that the survival of the different races and cultures is as important as the survival of the whale, elephants and different birds. It is a worthy goal if it is kept as a celebration of diversity as essential to overall human progress. We are still a family.

To keep to such a goal, I would repudiate any notion that one race is better than another race in a hierarchy arranged from the best to the least. It is precisely because the races have different skills and aptitudes and possibly deficits that this cannot be done. I am left to say that the races are equal - but they are not the same. We can and we should accept that these differences are recorded in our cultures. Our cultures are the windows to our souls. They define each of the races, each of the sub-types, each of the peoples. These cultures are treasures. They can be appreciated by each of the human types, but they are only fully lived and appreciated only by their creator group. Surely a race or a nation has the right to retain their nation’s culture and identity in their own country. Where is the arrogant self-assertion in that? If a race or other group owns a culture, it has the right to prefer to retain it.

Could we have a world of peoples in definable zones as an alternative to the New World Order of chaos and destruction? Perhaps that is the ultimate expression of the argument I am putting here! But the agenda of the political liberals, the mass media outlets and the entertainment industry in promoting multiculturalism (which in my opinion is actually liberal monoculture) in Western societies will, in effect, destroy the European cultures. However, their model is now increasingly pushed upon other peoples as part of New World Order imperialism. It is a strange imperialism that comes to divest the conquered of their culture and then to merge its wreckage with the wreckage of others. I am pleased to note many people are rising against this model.

I always liked travelling and seeing the world. It gives me the feeling of being alive and interacting with people and place. I will never understand how people can live in one place and one place only - and think that they are living in "the best place" on earth. Each land may be a great country, but there is no such thing as "the best place". Similarly we can discard the idea of the best race. In a world that seems to be losing its way and descending into conflict, we should seek the causes. They do not only lie in the rivalries of races, nor has this sort of rivalry brought the human world to the brink of destruction. If we look back into history, it certainly involved conflicts of races and peoples and evil deeds. However, the past also possessed an outline principle of diversity as being essential to progress overall. Whatever the differences were and the contentions they produced, there was amongst all the idea of a certain security in the arrangements. This is now challenged by the false anti-racism of one-world-ism.

Let us discuss race. Let us see whether the defence of race offers a challenge to one-world-ism. That is a good place to start. If we like the fruits of this discussion, we can take it further. It may be the revolutionary idea to put up against same-ness, conformity, the drab, the destructive and globalisation.


We are all equal, but we are not the same


*Welf Herfurth is a political activist who lives in Sydney / Australia. He was born and raised in Germany. He can be contacted on herfurth@iinet.net.au

Why the Left Blows

By Ean Frick

Capitalism sucks, most people know that whether they say so or not. The vast majority of the problems that people suffer from are somehow attributed to the system we live under. Who has a crappy job? Who finds daily life boring? Who doesn't have enough' free time' (that very phrase says it all)? Who wants more out of life than pointless commodities? People who become anti-capitalist usually do so by having some sort of association with the monolith that is the Left. But they'll tell you that they came to the persuasion of anti-capitalist because of the way capitalism exploits the farmer in Colombia or the peasants in Chiapas and most people in the"privileged" West find it hard to relate to the abuses of that system. While I certainly agree that capitalism is a horribly malicious system that is based off the exploitation, by any means necessary, of workers (especially those in the Third World) to create profit, why do we think only to use those reasons to explain our disgust? Isn't it as equally valid to say I hate capitalism because I can't go to Larz Anderson park at night without some cop coming and telling me to leave because the park is closed (as if Nature hasvisiting hours).

Obviously the oppression of the Iraqis or Palestinians or Colombians at the hands of empire and capital is far greater than my conflict with the uniformed defenders of private property over my right to happiness but why prioritize to the point that my claim would seem petty or illegitimate in the eyes of most card carrying leftists. The game of objective importance is forced upon us everyday. Work is important, play isn't. What is reported on the news is what's officially important but what we personally find interesting isn't. Securing for the future, becoming morally responsible, Doing well at school to get a good job, "growing up", blah blah blah blah blah. No one wants to hear that. People could figure out what they wanted and what makes them happy if they actually had time to think and weren't constantly being told what to like and what to want from politicians and the mass media. Do that many people really want a SUV, a Mc Mansion in the suburbs and an eternity trapped in the hell of wage labor and the constraints of the nuclear family? I don't.

How boring. I don't know what I'll be doing in 20 years and I like that. Spontaneity and the unknown is what makes things fun. Why can't I just read or make collages and paintings all day, or go to the beach or sit on a hill and just enjoy the natural environment that surrounds me? Why should I be doing something 'important' ? Why can't I just be? Contemporary civilization is based on the idea that being productive is essential to living, but what is exactly meant by ‘being productive’ is where the problems come in. If I waste my day on menial labor that won't even be attributed to me when I'm finished but instead to some business for some measly pay I'm being productive. But if I sit in bed all day because I want to, I've committed some sin or crime against what I supposedly should be doing. However the truth remains the only Grand Plan that exists is the one we create ourselves. Now that that rant is out the reader may be asking her or his self what does this have to do with the Left per say? Well, my point is that the idea of objective importance is a tool used by the agents of Capital but also by the Left as well. When one becomes involved in the ranks of the Left they soon see this. Leftists will say they became activists because they felt somesense of duty, that they should be doing something with their free time. So they fill up all the time they have when they aren't cogs in the machine (as that is what free time is) running around making fliers,setting up meetings and espousing some dogma. Ideas are constantly in a state of flux and can come from anywhere, but when they are ordered, rationalized and placed in a nice little package and labeled for consumption they become dogma. Unbreakable rules popup that exist in the metaphysical realm but whom the dogmatists will tell you will cause serious consequences if broken.

Of course there are all sorts of dogmas on the Left, from pacifism to liberalism to Marxism-Leninism, all pushing for hegemony, for a totality, a fixed state where ideas can no longer move freely. Only recently have some on the Left recognized a need for organizations based around ideological pluralism, but whether this has produced new ideas out of the synthesis of others or just old dogmas bumping into each other like a tennis ball with a brick wall is yet to be seen. All dogma is is a police officer in your head. Blow his brains out.

The productivity of the Left is the same as the productivity of wage labor. After all those fliers that have been put up and all those meetings scheduled and all that literature sold what do you have to show for it? All that time and effort for what? Sure some minds were radicalized and exposed to new ideas, that is an achievement, but how much of it was discarded to end up in the rubble of information that fills the cracks of the streets in every city. More people went to antiwar demonstrations against the Iraq war than Vietnam by far, but was the war stopped? In fact the people who are doing the most to the end that war are the citizens of Iraq who are picking up guns and rocks and whatever else they can get their hands on to get the occupying forces out of their country and preserve what's left of their culture and dignity. While the white liberals of the American Left chastise the Iraqis for their violence and try to get 100 people to show up somewhere with signs with hackneyed slogans on them and hope the media notices their poor excuse for a spectacle. Then after they will analyze the (non)importance of their actions in some coffee shop and go back to their lives, separating the personal from the political and succumbing to the bourgeois trap of specialization. The Left forgets that people act in their own interests. They think people will want to sign on to some cause if only it’s sold properly. So ending war, saving nature, fighting bigotry, and even smashing capitalism just becomes treated like some other commodity. So when people refuse to join it because digesting it would take alot longer than some crap from WalMart, the Left either works harder to sell it or they lapse into saying that everyday Westerners are just ‘bought off’ by the decadence of the system.But people aren’t bought off so much as they are conditioned.

The Left has to face the fact that the Spectacle is better at misappropriating people’s desires than they are. And as for the ‘privileged’ West, this attitude is completely uncritical of the utter shit that is Western consumer civilization. Granted it’s no paradise to live in a Third World country with the immense poverty, the terror of the state, and the sweatshops; but many Third World nations still have a strong indigenous culture though that is also being destroyed by globalization and neoliberalism (imports from the West, no doubt). But the culture of the West is one of McDonalds, Thomas Kinkade and Coca Cola. While the regions that make up the monster known as Amerika have their own traditional cultures based on the ethnic groups that live there, that is well on its way out in favor of the cultural hegemony of a KmartNation.

Also the natural environment of Amerika is being completely paved in favor urban sprawl, a nation of strip malls. Many Third World communities also still have a sense of exactly that, community, but life in the West is alienating. Where is the local community to be found? The mall, of course. Any leftist who thinks life in the West is more pleasurable to live in hasn’t yet begun to scratch the surface of any serious criticism of capitalism. The point is nothing is absolute, the West is no better off than the Third World, and the Third World is no better off either. Life is these places are grim for different reasons, but the reasons for this can all be attributed to capitalism. This brings me to my next point: the enemy is capitalism, not the Bush agenda oreven the right wing, for capitalism works under dialectics as does everything else and it needs a leftwing to keep it going. The political spectrum is a product of capitalism, the left and right wings of the system. Also the idea of a spectrum presupposes an absolute, to moderates a leftist is a liberal Democrat, and to right wingers Hilary Clinton is a communist, to the League for a Revolutionary Party Nader is a nativist and a Dems sympathizer, and to the International Socialist Organization Nader was the only leftist choice in the ‘05 election. But who has the audacity to say that their view of what is truly Left and Right is correct? The truth is that there is a system and those support it and those who oppose it. That is the only dichotomy that should be allowed. As long as the Left is bent on ‘realism’ it will fail to pose any serious threat to the global order of capital or recruit any new young people who could possibly help turn it around from the sorry state it’s in now. Despite the fact that the words ‘progressive’ and ‘leftist’ are commonly held to be synonyms, most leftists I’ve encountered are extremely suspicious of new radical intellectual trends. Philosophers like Jean Baudrillard, Henri Lefebvre, Guy Debord, Deleuze & Guatarri and even Sartre (who is far from a new philosopher) have all made excellent contributions to an intellectual critique of the damaging effects of capitalism on individuals in everyday life. Also Theodor Adorno and other members of the Frankfurt School brought anti-capitalism to the realm of culture, another topic the Left is, for the most part,ignorant of. In all their tirades against colonialism, there is a shocking lack of any serious attack on cultural imperialism. To have a nation impose its culture by force upon another its always a reactionary thing, but its even worse when the aggressor nation is obviously culturally inferior. One need look no further than the current occupation of Iraq where you have Uncle Sam prying open the hungry mouths of the Iraqi populace and force feeding them Friends, Gap clothes and American Idol which they are promptly throwing up in the form of day to dayattacks on the new “democracy.”

I recently heard on NPR a new story about the contractors in Iraq (i.e.mercenaries) where one merc admitted to Terry Grossthat he had to educate the Iraqi men he dealt with not to hold hands, which is a sign of fraternity in Arabcountries. In the West, specifically America, this lack of an organic national culture outside of consumerism is a problem that resonates with many disaffected people, especially the youth. If we have another world to win, we’re going to have to build anew culture in place of the garbage that masquerades as one now, and no socialist realism or cult of the proletariat is going to help either. Toni Negri and Felix Guattari wrote an excellent book titled Communists Like Us, which noted how the realm of production in a late capitalist society has moved outside the old factories and is now operated in a much more social realm. The line between worker and consumer is being constantly blurred, and the average proletarian is stuck in the position of perpetually creating and buying commodities. This means that the realm of labor has moved into the social realm so you have a whole society of worker/consumers who have no break from the means of production. This leaves us all very tired at the end of the day and with little patience for the wage labor-like productivity of the Left. If the Left wants to seriously change things for the better its going to have to make some major changes, like a serious break with the dogmatists and reformist-grounded liberals who have no tolerance for extraparilmentary or direct action politics, an admission that we live in a new era of capitalism that requires new strategies and criticisms, an opening of a cultural front that would work with youth and avantgarde countercultural currents where grass roots, organic, and DIY ethics are practiced, and an abandoning of spectrum politics, which reduces every issue to left or right instead of capitalist and anti-capitalist, authoritarian and autonomous. Unless the Left starts to make these or similar changes, its going to continue to be part of the problem instead of the solution.