So there's been some controversy about the Lebanese consul in New York. If you go to the consul's website, you can see a statement complaining about protests and angry emails and demands to resign, which seems to have begun since last week's explosion: https://nylebcons.org/consulate/html/index.php
Now if you look at the consulate itself as well as the statement online, you'll see some interesting language about the consul, Abir Taha Audi, being a Nazi in the first instance and about her “ideological beliefs” in the second.
https://twitter.com/nhatassi/status/1292201281797398532
So what are these "ideological beliefs" ? Well, they are coming an interview posted here in which Taha expresses some very fascist views: http://www.mourningtheancient.com/abir.htm 
This is straight up Ariosophist, neo-Nazi stuff about the "Race of Light," social Darwinism, and eugenics. In short, Nazi shit. Now the statement up at the consulate website claims that she is the victim of baseless smears.
Could it be true that she's the victim of malicious hackers and "fake news"? Well, the interview says it's been published with the permission of "our good comrades at Black Sun Invictus."
6. Going to start numbering now. Black Sun Invictus is a now defunct website that was devoted to the same sort of neo-Nazi, neo-Pagan stuff that you see in the interview. This sort of thing: https://web.archive.org/web/20120722073542/http://blacksuninvictus.org/
6. Going to start numbering now. Black Sun Invictus is a now defunct website that was devoted to the same sort of neo-Nazi, neo-Pagan stuff that you see in the interview. This sort of thing: https://web.archive.org/web/20120722073542/http://blacksuninvictus.org/
6. Going to start numbering now. Black Sun Invictus is a now defunct website that was devoted to the same sort of neo-Nazi, neo-Pagan stuff that you see in the interview. This sort of thing: https://web.archive.org/web/20120722073542/http://blacksuninvictus.org/
6. Going to start numbering now. Black Sun Invictus is a now defunct website that was devoted to the same sort of neo-Nazi, neo-Pagan stuff that you see in the interview. This sort of thing: https://web.archive.org/web/20120722073542/http://blacksuninvictus.org/
7. The original interview has not been archived, but guess what has. Abir Taha's announcement of the interview on Facebook, which she has deleted but is still available through google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ae2Ug--8c8FQJ%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpermalink.php%3Fstory_fbid%3D10153079462690817%26id%3D236100370816%20&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=eg
8. But Taha denies that this is her interview and claims that someone hacked her FB back in 2015. According to her statement on the consulate site, she's just an academic studying Nietzsche and Nazis among other things.
9. As I mentioned in a previous tweet, her "academic" titles are published in English by an extreme right-wing publisher Arktos, more on which here: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3k3558/how-a-small-budapest-publishing-house-is-quietly-fueling-far-right-extremism https://twitter.com/humanprovince/status/1292874260772511754
10. I don't have access to those books, and I'm certainly not paying Arktos to read them. But there's another book by Taha, not put out by them:
11. This book is published by AuthorHouse, which is actually just a self-publishing (or vanity publishing) firm. Certainly not an academic press. I don't have this book either, but what I do have is Taha's MA thesis, and it turns out this book is just an edited version of that.
12. As you can see from the two tables of contents, they are pretty much the same.
12. As you can see from the two tables of contents, they are pretty much the same.
12. As you can see from the two tables of contents, they are pretty much the same.
12. As you can see from the two tables of contents, they are pretty much the same.
12. As you can see from the two tables of contents, they are pretty much the same.
13. The thesis version (1998) written in the PSPA dept at AUB under the supervision of Nizar Hazmeh, Paul Salem, and Hassan Krayem, is a derivative exploration of the links between Nazi thought at the philosophy of Nietzsche. Here are some excerpts from the intro:
13. The thesis version (1998) written in the PSPA dept at AUB under the supervision of Nizar Hazmeh, Paul Salem, and Hassan Krayem, is a derivative exploration of the links between Nazi thought at the philosophy of Nietzsche. Here are some excerpts from the intro:
13. The thesis version (1998) written in the PSPA dept at AUB under the supervision of Nizar Hazmeh, Paul Salem, and Hassan Krayem, is a derivative exploration of the links between Nazi thought at the philosophy of Nietzsche. Here are some excerpts from the intro:
13. The thesis version (1998) written in the PSPA dept at AUB under the supervision of Nizar Hazmeh, Paul Salem, and Hassan Krayem, is a derivative exploration of the links between Nazi thought at the philosophy of Nietzsche. Here are some excerpts from the intro:
14. This is all kind of gross and snuggles right up to the border of espousing the views she's attributing to Nietzsche but could still be read through the lens of a young person who doesn't write very well.
15. Except it's not. The thesis takes pain to describe the Nazis as "faithful disciples of Nietzsche, practising and advocating almost everything he preached" (p. 3). And that's an argument one can make, and she spends several chapters doing so.
16. Now I've only skimmed this thesis. I haven't read it too closely, but there are some passages that I think pretty clearly cross the line from describing fascist thought to espousing it. For instance, this section on anti-Semitism:
17. Or this bit from the conclusion, which describes Nietzsche's thought, which she's just spent 150 pages describing as the precursor to Nazism, as "an infinite source of inspiration" and "an eternal call to create -evermore- the Superman..."
18. But the real tell is in the dedication. Before she spends so much time arguing that the Nazis are the "faithful disciples of Nietzsche," she dedicates her thesis to "the Nietzsche's faithful disciples" and "To Dori, with whom I share Nietzsche's true values"
18. But the real tell is in the dedication. Before she spends so much time arguing that the Nazis are the "faithful disciples of Nietzsche," she dedicates her thesis to "the Nietzsche's faithful disciples" and "To Dori, with whom I share Nietzsche's true values"
18. But the real tell is in the dedication. Before she spends so much time arguing that the Nazis are the "faithful disciples of Nietzsche," she dedicates her thesis to "the Nietzsche's faithful disciples" and "To Dori, with whom I share Nietzsche's true values"
19. So I ask you, fair minded reader, which is more likely? That someone hacked the FB page of Abir Taha to promote a fake interview they'd given to a whacko neo-Nazi website, or that she, herself, is a "faithful disciple," aka a Nazi, as she tells us back in 1998?
20. There are all sorts of rabbit holes this story can take you down. For instance, you can ask why Abir Taha went from MA student in 1998 to first secretary of the Lebanese mission to the UN in 2000 and then Consul in France in 2002. https://whoisshe.lau.edu.lb/expert-profile/abir-taha-audi
21. Hint: it might have something to do with the fact that she is the daughter of the former head of the Lebanese press syndicate Riad Taha, who was assassinated (probably by Syria) in 1980. Or maybe it's because she's married to someone from the Audi family.
21. Or you can start digging into the philosophical oeuvre of her husband Dori Audi (who's also on twitter!):
22. Or you can ask yourself why she would want to be posted in New York, which she describes as representing "everything that is wrong with modernity, as opposed to civilization: racial miscegenation, moral decadence, deviance, depravity, savage capitalism, atomistic selfishness
23. ..., spiritual alienation, "mob rule above and below" as Nietzsche wrote... In The Epic of Arya, when I described the hell of the city ("if there is a hell on this earth, it is in the city"), I had NYC in mind."
24. Or finally, you can wonder if the Lebanese consulate's claim that she has a PhD from la Sorbonne (Paris I) is bullshit since, her dissertation on Rousseau is described as having been started in November of 2018: http://theses.fr/s220793 
25. To close, this story is kind of batshit crazy, but it exemplifies the sort of nepotism that permeates all levels of the Lebanese state, where one can go from writing a proto-Nazi MA thesis to being the first secretary at the UN mission in Geneva in two years.
26. One last thing: if the Rousseau thèse actually exists, please someone send it to me!!!!
27. Coda. It seems Abir Taha has succeeded in getting her neo-Nazi interview taken down. But that's ok, but it's been archived for your reading displeasure: https://web.archive.org/web/20160708172137/http://www.mourningtheancient.com/abir.htm
28. She has a book of aphorisms aping Nietzsche, which of course begins with a long quote of her own novel. In this book, Verses of Light, Taha has a short section of aphorisms on "the Master Race."
29. It just doesn't stop. Also from Verses of Light.
30. Going back to the question of the interview not being fake. That seems inconceivable to me. This is someone who liberally quotes herself in the interview, exactly like she does in her books and on her facebook page.
Check out her FB page, which is basically just a bunch of self-quotations, like some sort of fascist Paulo Coelho:
Check out her FB page, which is basically just a bunch of self-quotations, like some sort of fascist Paulo Coelho:
Check out her FB page, which is basically just a bunch of self-quotations, like some sort of fascist Paulo Coelho:
32. And here she is seemingly claiming that her novel Epic of Arya was "originally published by Penguin Classics," which is just insane.
33. I honestly wonder where this (repeated!) Penguin Classics claim is coming from. If you're not familiar with the sort of thing they publish, it's like Jane Austen and the Iliad: https://www.penguin.com/static/pages/classics/about.php
34. Anyway, she clearly has delusions of grandeur (which goes with believing you're an Übermensch) and is obsessed with someone else taking credit for her hackneyed aphorisms, which is why the self-referential Aryan interview rings so totally true.
35. And the Lebanese press really fans these sorts of narcissistic flames. For example with this glowing profile from February in OLJ: https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1206796/-je-voudrais-ressusciter-dans-le-coeur-de-la-diaspora-le-liban-qui-ne-meurt-jamais-.html
36. I could go through her FB feed all day. Here, the claim is that Penguin Classics "wanted to publish" her novel. But I guess she turned them down for the fascists over at Arktos instead!
37. Her FB page is so full of onanistic self-citation it's hard to get to any actual views, but here are some views on @mashrou3leila ("decadent perverts") & "Christianophobia":
37. Her FB page is so full of onanistic self-citation it's hard to get to any actual views, but here are some views on @mashrou3leila ("decadent perverts") & "Christianophobia":
37. Her FB page is so full of onanistic self-citation it's hard to get to any actual views, but here are some views on @mashrou3leila ("decadent perverts") & "Christianophobia":
38. And here she is vaunting an "excellent review" in the explicitly white power outlet Counter-Currents: https://www.counter-currents.com/2010/07/the-epic-of-arya/ Here's Counter-Currents' ideas on white nationalism: https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/06/frequently-asked-questions-part-1/
38. And here she is vaunting an "excellent review" in the explicitly white power outlet Counter-Currents: https://www.counter-currents.com/2010/07/the-epic-of-arya/ Here's Counter-Currents' ideas on white nationalism: https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/06/frequently-asked-questions-part-1/
38. And here she is vaunting an "excellent review" in the explicitly white power outlet Counter-Currents: https://www.counter-currents.com/2010/07/the-epic-of-arya/ Here's Counter-Currents' ideas on white nationalism: https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/06/frequently-asked-questions-part-1/
38. And here she is vaunting an "excellent review" in the explicitly white power outlet Counter-Currents: https://www.counter-currents.com/2010/07/the-epic-of-arya/ Here's Counter-Currents' ideas on white nationalism: https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/06/frequently-asked-questions-part-1/
38. And here she is vaunting an "excellent review" in the explicitly white power outlet Counter-Currents: https://www.counter-currents.com/2010/07/the-epic-of-arya/ Here's Counter-Currents' ideas on white nationalism: https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/06/frequently-asked-questions-part-1/
39. The OLJ press Taha has gotten is a great example of the way cultural capital is so often just superficial prestige. No one in these circles cares about her actual ideas, rather "author of 8 books" is just a signifier of Lebanese genius: https://twitter.com/humanprovince/status/1293119035912134657
40. Here is a clip from the other day of Taha addressing protesters at the consulate in New York: https://fr.news.yahoo.com/%C3%A9mue-consule-liban-sadresse-%C3%A0-134309872.html
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