By Paul Nachman
05/12/2017
Although VDARE.com focuses heavily on immigration, the underlying concern is "The National Question": Can the U.S. survive as a nation-state, the political expression of a particular people?**The Question** is far off the beaten path, as demonstrated by the horror that routinely arises when Jean Raspail’s dystopian novel The Camp of the Saints is stumbled upon by people of the Left, who are generally oblivious to reality and allergic to thinking. For example, in a "Letter from Paris," Stanford University professor Cécile Alduy mused about Raspail’s "strange apocalyptic novel," clucking about "the supposed threat to Western civilization posed by immigration" while reluctantly acknowledging — because it’s really hard to avoid noticing "the wave of refugees arriving in Europe" — that "the book has started to be perceived less as a madman’s fantasy, and more as a metaphor for the times." [What a 1973 French Novel Tells Us About Marine Le Pen, Steve Bannon and the Rise of the Populist Right, Politico, April 23, 2017]
So it’s always heartening when people with prominent soapboxes demonstrate at least some awareness of The National Question. A week ago it was Bloomberg blogger Megan McArdle, writing in anticipation of the French presidential election:
The echoes of a Donald Trump rally rang louder than those amplifiers [at a rally for National Front candidate Marine Le Pen]. The details differ, but the framework is the same. Security, prosperity, and rage against a smug cosmopolitan elite that has taken those things from the ordinary classes and divided that birthright between poor strangers and themselves.The subtitle of McArdle’s article is "The nastiness among supporters of both leaders is the worst face of a legitimate position," and this was in spite of a McArdle post at Bloomberg the previous day (In France’s Centrist Vs. Populist Debate, Deja Vu for Americans) wherein she wrote of Le Pen, "I don’t like her agenda, and I really don’t like her party."[Le Pen’s Voters, Like Trump’s, Should Be Taken Seriously, May 5, 2017]
(In the latter article, McArdle also described the eventual winner of the French election, the wet-behind-the-ears Emmanuel Macron:
Macron, like Hillary Clinton, is the candidate of “more of the same, but with, you know, more of the same.” His contempt for Le Pen was obvious, and if this were an American debate, would have hurt him.In other words, France has — to use Mark Steyn’s memorable formulation — a depraved political class to match America’s.)
Even more recently than McArdle, prominent Scottish-born commentator and historian at Harvard Niall Ferguson wrote:
American Democrats and British Labour supporters have essentially the same problem. The old coalition between progressive elites and the proletariat is broken. The former are too liberal on immigration, too in love with multiculturalism. The latter loathe both. As the British journalist David Goodhart shrewdly observed 13 years ago, the project of a redistributive welfare state is only viable in an ethnically homogeneous society. He was vilified for saying it. He has been vindicated by events.(Ferguson went on to recommend an upcoming book by Goodhart, The Road To Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics.)[Is Social Democracy Shattered?, Jewish World Review, May 10, 2017]
Finally, it’s not hot off the press, but I just recently discovered an article by Daniel Pipes comparing the nationalist orientations and aspirations of Enoch Powell (always a hero at VDARE.com) and Charles de Gaulle. Pipes quoted de Gaulle, "arguably the most important leader of France since Napoleon," from a 1959 speech:
It is very good that there are yellow French, black French, brown French. They show that France is open to all races and has a universal vocation. But [it is good] on condition that they remain a small minority. Otherwise, France would no longer be France. We are still primarily a European people of the white race, Greek and Latin culture, and the Christian religion.As I intimated at the start, concern over The National Question is a "first cause" for many of us, perhaps ultimately understandable via biology and evolution. Nevertheless, it’s clear that many of our fellow citizens aren’t wired with this concern, which is why Western civilization is in a fight for survival. But for those conscious of the concern, it’s The National Question "all the way down."Don’t tell me stories! Muslims, have you gone to see them? Have you watched them with their turbans and jellabiyas? You can see that they are not French! Those who advocate integration have the brain of a hummingbird. Try to mix oil and vinegar. Shake the bottle. After a second, they will separate again.
Arabs are Arabs, the French are French. Do you think the French body politic can absorb ten million Muslims, who tomorrow will be twenty million, after tomorrow forty? If we integrated, if all the Arabs and Berbers of Algeria were considered French, would you prevent them to settle in France, where the standard of living is so much higher? My village would no longer be called Colombey-The-Two-Churches but Colombey-The-Two-Mosques.
[Why Was Enoch Powell Condemned as a Racist and Not Charles de Gaulle?, History News Network, August 19, 2013]
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.