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Guillaume Faye was a doyen in the French new right until his criminal charge for ‘the colonization of Europe’ when Alain de Benoist had him kicked out of GRECE for being too controversial, & ruining their button up image. Here is a review/summary of the book by a fascist admirer
The fascist use of anti-colonial language & propaganda goes back to before WWII.
Here is a chapter on the role of colonialism in fascism & the Holocaust.
https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199211869.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199211869-e-5
Here's the pdf link
https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199211869.003.0005#
& screenshots
https://imgur.com/a/5dKL9WJ
Here is a chapter on the role of colonialism in fascism & the Holocaust.
https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199211869.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199211869-e-5
Here's the pdf linkhttps://sci-hub.se/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199211869.003.0005#
& screenshots https://imgur.com/a/5dKL9WJ
In fact it was central to their propaganda, diplomatic & military campaigns in the Middle East
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1npq5k
https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/from-empathy-to-denial-arab-responses-to-the-holocaust
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jun/26/arabs-holocaust-israeli-war-narratives
https://watermark.silverchair.com/zah140.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAp4wggKaBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggKLMIIChwIBADCCAoAGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMyeU-64tfYxejw41QAgEQgIICUe777tBnnuUoaqqAseZ71tpxPeLB_AXbCUVsbs92Ifr-DHePksULY7y5sLuaYWHcUoCr_0QFdCgmXTY30lAEYk4tifVEdWxIYz0GH1NlLJSx2Ad2Z0b-5_XYezarALAHrCAUFDHqvBg0RpIPNoFQXf7Oa5sGNrA4TBsJjY-IpnN5zQBygn2yWu1pc9INkkOSuHR4-swCPXpcnkSg51vf9R_tGdGOgkYyOAMC8TzGeFs2zGSLVvN6_QWkck7hVIWb0ryykutC7w0MtsUpqbks3AOcXlGAW6A6T4We31OeghiEaWw2XpMNHN4thR7hDcUMs3LWU5a2_YsM6LqFf63FqnxccDnO5aEubxEmZTwb-2fckeNEhT98xVcLuOXqpCvC2hbqoZ3SC1LK0P6DTpd_EZVLVDD5hW9knYThxjCYB9q6J6NLJfJigoyjfgAn0xFXzDJB0vuzeDF5yFp0o_Y4JPTwZ3lIxtK50ShY5kfshJfhI0xG_Eg71zRpf6yeeXl-wJkYhe-1U9UamM9wUlh17_Ql6oIZrDyxC1M5tTMS9ih-1juLAtLvqeXI0LnrZ2kqWrVcF36Ahh_lHQ-dkd0FlRWkdMJj9e8IawB7JUEEXiC78mb8DtaAbGR45PvLDY3ad_ODyqnc0lidhCCQW1-CbgEgTzeqr5ku4LjIflZ8zyzEYLxD9sVDXvQ_gCQqpHhGAOtPnChHyC2Ah74boiJwkGxCqYshahlOBFZ71rAjrSvil2Q8Y4L8601TUpX9RJdzVHQocUNqDlG9xlQ1BfCQMtNd
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1npq5k
https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/from-empathy-to-denial-arab-responses-to-the-holocaust
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jun/26/arabs-holocaust-israeli-war-narratives
https://watermark.silverchair.com/zah140.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAp4wggKaBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggKLMIIChwIBADCCAoAGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMyeU-64tfYxejw41QAgEQgIICUe777tBnnuUoaqqAseZ71tpxPeLB_AXbCUVsbs92Ifr-DHePksULY7y5sLuaYWHcUoCr_0QFdCgmXTY30lAEYk4tifVEdWxIYz0GH1NlLJSx2Ad2Z0b-5_XYezarALAHrCAUFDHqvBg0RpIPNoFQXf7Oa5sGNrA4TBsJjY-IpnN5zQBygn2yWu1pc9INkkOSuHR4-swCPXpcnkSg51vf9R_tGdGOgkYyOAMC8TzGeFs2zGSLVvN6_QWkck7hVIWb0ryykutC7w0MtsUpqbks3AOcXlGAW6A6T4We31OeghiEaWw2XpMNHN4thR7hDcUMs3LWU5a2_YsM6LqFf63FqnxccDnO5aEubxEmZTwb-2fckeNEhT98xVcLuOXqpCvC2hbqoZ3SC1LK0P6DTpd_EZVLVDD5hW9knYThxjCYB9q6J6NLJfJigoyjfgAn0xFXzDJB0vuzeDF5yFp0o_Y4JPTwZ3lIxtK50ShY5kfshJfhI0xG_Eg71zRpf6yeeXl-wJkYhe-1U9UamM9wUlh17_Ql6oIZrDyxC1M5tTMS9ih-1juLAtLvqeXI0LnrZ2kqWrVcF36Ahh_lHQ-dkd0FlRWkdMJj9e8IawB7JUEEXiC78mb8DtaAbGR45PvLDY3ad_ODyqnc0lidhCCQW1-CbgEgTzeqr5ku4LjIflZ8zyzEYLxD9sVDXvQ_gCQqpHhGAOtPnChHyC2Ah74boiJwkGxCqYshahlOBFZ71rAjrSvil2Q8Y4L8601TUpX9RJdzVHQocUNqDlG9xlQ1BfCQMtNd
(These are links to works or reviews of works on the subject--the Herf & the Litvak--and then the Achcar is a critique/response, and the first paper is more general background--I link them all so one can triangulate claims across them if they are interested )
I want to make a more conceptual point about intellectual history & argument--note, I am not making an accusation, conspiracy theory or direct argument, nor claiming impropriety on the case of leftists/anticolonialists--fascists are opportunists, appropriators & entryists
I will give some background on the myriad (mostly opportunistic, contingent & entryist) connections, convergences, & genealogies btwn the far right & the far left--esp left nationalists, vulgar anti- imperialists/colonialists, conspiracy theorists & conservative greens
Mostly because my computer is freezing up & I don't want to lose this thread that I have already written out, I am going to send it, and then add to it after. However, originally I wanted to make my conceptual argument *then* go to some brief historical connections.
However, instead, the thread will go:
1. The intro above about Faye
2. My brief outline above
3. Some links to works on settler colonialism
4. Some brief background connections
5. The argument I wanted to make first, but will add after (I'll append the link below here later)
1. The intro above about Faye
2. My brief outline above
3. Some links to works on settler colonialism
4. Some brief background connections
5. The argument I wanted to make first, but will add after (I'll append the link below here later)
First let's look at the 'Structural account of settler colonialism'--a perspective to which I am partial, because it sees the Americas & elsewhere as an ongoing settler colonial project & doesn't focus on intent. Links in tweet below.
This account, where it is not used highly selectively, to reproduce the exceptionalist presentist idea that settler colonialism is 'complete' in the Americas, or that only Europe has been settler colonial, is very powerful, & has many comparative upsides, but also has drawbacks.
There are roughly 3 main approaches to settler colonialism studies:
1. Ontological/cultural/genealogical--who has priority, was on the land 'first' & has 'ontological' ties to the land
2. Typological--a check off list approach basically
3. Structural
1. Ontological/cultural/genealogical--who has priority, was on the land 'first' & has 'ontological' ties to the land
2. Typological--a check off list approach basically
3. Structural
The typological accounts' key features
The structural account, however, not without dispute, is very different
Now, it doesn't take much to realize that *if* all of the above is true, and it is not strictly delineated, or tied to a typological or ontological account, *then*, mostly settler colonialism can only usually be seen after the fact (once established), altho it can be seen before
one realizes that if immigrants & refugees without a metropole, from a different culture or group, can, when there is mass migration, lack of assimilation, & even law following, still be settler colonialism, then all Faye needs to do to make his case is find *some* evidence
And this is what he does--he points to ideologies, intentions, violences, crimes, cultures, ontologies, conflicts, demography, & so on--like others, he adopts the structuralist approach to colonialism but uses ontological & typological evidence to make his case
If one uses a strict typological account of settler colonialism, or detaches the structural account from its most extreme cases & asymmetric uses, it's easy to see how Guillaume Faye's argument is incoherent, empirically false, & racist.
However, if one uses:
a. one kind of ontological account, &/OR,
b. a structural account, not tied to strict historicism & analysis, &/or is used asymmetrically, &/or is partially supplemented by selective use of the ontological &/or typological account then he can make his case
a. one kind of ontological account, &/OR,
b. a structural account, not tied to strict historicism & analysis, &/or is used asymmetrically, &/or is partially supplemented by selective use of the ontological &/or typological account then he can make his case
And, this is, along with the other critiques I listed, is one of the main problems of the structural account. What's more, I want to argue that this problem isn't accidental, but is also not damning, &, *again*, I am NOT suggesting impropriety on the account of structuralists
NOR am I suggesting an elective affinity between decolonization/settler colonial studies & fascism. I am suggesting that certain arguments, mixed with common conceptions, are especially apt for misuse by opportunistic, entryist, fascists.
Now some links, before some brief background & then tying it all together.
https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520601056240
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623520601056240
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2332649214560440
https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2332649214560440#
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230220973
https://sci-hub.se/10.1057/9780230299191#
https://clas.osu.edu/sites/clas.osu.edu/files/Tuck%20and%20Yang%202012%20Decolonization%20is%20not%20a%20metaphor.pdf
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2201473X.2012.10648830
https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2012.10648830
Renaud Camus--creator of 'The Great Replacement Theory'--was originally a socialist & gay rights activist, coming of age in French universities during the 60s & decolonization. Henning Eichberg coined the term 'Ethnopluralism' & became a left wing anti-colonial activist.
David Lane--who originated 'white genocide' conspiracy theory & 14 words--founded 'The Order' to oppose 'Zionist Occupied Government'. Francis Yockey, the American Neo Nazi, wrote propaganda for Nasser.
After WWII Nazis escaped to & worked with governments of Paraguay, Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Guatemala, Ecuador and Bolivia, United States, Spain, Switzerland, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, not to mention obviously Germany, Italy & Japan themselves.
David Duke frequently appears on TV in many countries & the far right--for reasons different than MLs--admire nationalist governments https://theintercept.com/2017/09/08/syria-why-white-nationalists-love-bashar-al-assad-charlottesville/
Malcolm X once hosted a fundraiser with George Lincoln Rockwell of the ANP. German Court documents reveal Black September was helped by German Neo Nazi groups, *not* the RAF. Farrakhan (not a leftist obvi), Metzger, Larouche (& strangely enough Scientology) are all buddy buddy.
Alain de Benoist, Aleksandr Dugin, Richard Spencer, EM Cioran, Mircia Eliade, are just some of the examples of far right people who were influenced by the left, cite leftists, work with leftist groups & for left nationalist governments.
Alexander Reid Ross has been writing about the left red brown alliance for a long time & ‘fascist creep’—I am going to be honest & say I don’t really buy most of the evidence he marshalls for his arguments which is often guilt by association.
When he sticks to *direct* ties, citations, networks, funding, & deployment of different ideas, his work is strongest. When he writes about how a rolling stone journalist hung out with a misogynist & military podcaster in Russia & this proves Chapo is fascist I am less convinced
Nonetheless I am going to link to a few of his pieces because he has come to similar conclusions through different means https://hummusforthought.com/2018/03/16/the-multipolar-spin-how-fascists-operationalize-left-wing-resentment/
My own take is similar to my take on ‘ecofascism’—for example, several of the people I mentioned above also had ties to various green movements & there are high profile cases of Ecological racists & fascists Abbey, for ex, and ITS these days
Similarly, the right loves to take inspiration from people like Kaczynski, even though their views are diametrically opposed.
Mostly I think the right appropriates ecological discourse & *aesthetics* , and practices entryism & opportunism. Most fascists with green aesthetics started as fascists & adopted the green aesthetics later.
There are much fewer cases of people starting off ecological & ending up fascist, although they do exist. Usually they are funneled through anti globalization, conspiracy theories & so on.
In addition, self identified ecofascists do exist, but they’re much smaller in number, & different from those that the Bookchinites, conservative media & left Twitter call ecofascists.
I will post some links to my critique of how the term ecofascist is used to strangle discourse, mislabel people, and to excuse the dominant liberal hegemony https://twitter.com/yungneocon/status/1315292457513431042
This is my super thread on the subject. It’s very long & has fewer sources than the above https://twitter.com/yungneocon/status/1247293497071239170
four sources listed here are relevant to the beginning of my thread (the rest aren’t—‘Motivated to Forget’, ‘Acts & Omissions’, ‘Globalization of Resentment’, & ‘Collective Victimhood’
https://twitter.com/yungneocon/status/1319744625570172936?s=21
https://twitter.com/yungneocon/status/1319744625570172936?s=21
These four pieces are relevant as is a general idea of why conspiracy theories exist
Conspiracy theory often arises when people cannot integrate the facts of the world with the sentimental & unconscious idealizations of how the world works.
Since Kennedy & Diana, for example, were seen as ‘good’ & above the rest of humans, their banal deaths were impossible to integrate. The Russiagate & Pizzagate conspiracies are another clear case of such a phenomena.
N Chomsky points to ‘Wilsonian Idealism’ & J Massad to mistaken beliefs of American exceptionalism, for why people need to posit a conspiracy or cabal without whom the US would not be imperialistic.
Said focuses on conspiracy theories of the oppressed, and sees them as the normal reaction to feelings of powerlessness, in addition, in many places really do have conspiracies (coups or outside interventions), from which people extrapolate.
This, however, leads people to see conspiracies where they don’t exist & to miss & dismiss them where they actually do. Feelings of powerlessness furthermore discourage action.
It is thus no accident that elites & security services have spread conspiracy theories for ages:
1. The Catholic Church & German government created Illuminati conspiracies
2. The Tsarist police created the protocols of Zion & the Nazis,Henry Ford & father coughlin spread the book
1. The Catholic Church & German government created Illuminati conspiracies
2. The Tsarist police created the protocols of Zion & the Nazis,Henry Ford & father coughlin spread the book
3. Every fascist government—Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, etc—spread conspiracy theories as official ideologies & as propaganda
4. Populists Like Jackson, & the Know Nothings, institutionally supported groups like the John Birch society, & conservatives like Nixon & Trump All spread conspiracy theories as part of their campaigns
5. The US military & foreign intelligence spread conspiracy theories as disinfo campaigns abroad, partially to cause confusion & discourage action
6. The FBI spread conspiracy theories as part of COINTELPRO
6. The FBI spread conspiracy theories as part of COINTELPRO
7. All the modern populists—Abe, Trump, Modi, Orban, UKIP, BMP, FN, Bolsonaro—spread conspiracy theories openly
8. Left wing, populist & anti American govs & their media orgs spread conspiracy theories & platform conspiracists
8. Left wing, populist & anti American govs & their media orgs spread conspiracy theories & platform conspiracists
9. However minor their role, the Russian govt spreads conspiracy theories abroad, for ex, tho nowhere near as much as the US itself
10. Many conspiracy theories like Pizzagate have odd ties to former intelligence & NatSec people
10. Many conspiracy theories like Pizzagate have odd ties to former intelligence & NatSec people
Now, what ties together:
1. Fascist use of anti colonialism
2. Left right ties
3. The new right
4. Opportunistic mis-use Structural theories of settler colonialism
5. ‘Red brown’ alliance
6. Both actual ecofascism & the misuse of the term
1. Fascist use of anti colonialism
2. Left right ties
3. The new right
4. Opportunistic mis-use Structural theories of settler colonialism
5. ‘Red brown’ alliance
6. Both actual ecofascism & the misuse of the term
7. Sentimental idealizations of the world & power
8. Inability to process guilt or complicity etc
9. Conspiracy theories
10. Populist nationalism
8. Inability to process guilt or complicity etc
9. Conspiracy theories
10. Populist nationalism
1. First of all, the actors involved: many people in, say, conservative green movements, random conspiracy theorists on the British left, the Russian left, the New Right, Neo Nazi movements & various state intelligence & media orgs, fall under, spread or are involved in ALL 10
2. Second, all of them involve opportunism, entryism, exploitation, & misinformation
3. Third, the ideological ones all similarly seize on partially true facts/realizations, on useful academic terms & on correct left discourses & twist them for use by the right
3. Third, the ideological ones all similarly seize on partially true facts/realizations, on useful academic terms & on correct left discourses & twist them for use by the right
4. All of them involve what’s called bourgeois idealism, false consciousness, ideology (pejorative sense), ideological state apparatuses, and so on
5. All of them work by seizing on contradictions in the state, capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy, reality, leftism, our worldviews, & so on, & exploit the fissures
6. Most of them are reactive & many of them are spread by grifters, many of them play on our anxieties & dupe us, & many exist to resolve ego identity threat & contradiction
7. All of them are meant to sow dissent & lack of solidarity, to discourage resistance, to focus & misdirect attention on targets other than the real elites
8. They all have similar class bases—downward petty boug,upward professional,lumpen,historically the dispossessed peasantry
8. They all have similar class bases—downward petty boug,upward professional,lumpen,historically the dispossessed peasantry
9. All of them, when they spread out of the above class basis pray on vulnerable marginalized people, often target them & try to turn them against each other
10. They all spread the best in settler colonies & former settler colonies, and all of them have ideological affinities to many common ideas (individualism, great man theory, Protestantism, teleology, perverse liberalism, moralism, carceralism & ethnonationalism)
What’s more, it’s a win win for the right wingers involved because, for example, either their use of anti colonial, or ecological, or socialist or structural theories will bring people over to their side, OR, they will discredit those movements otherwise.
In addition, it means that when Neoliberals, liberals & state authorities dismiss & condemn these ideas etc For bad faith, opportunistic reasons, it is harder to rebut them.
This creates a perverse dynamic where:
1. On one side, neoliberals opportunistically call everything fascism, conspiracy theory &/or antisemitism
2. On the other, certain people claim that their side *never* has these things & the neoliberals are lying opportunists
1. On one side, neoliberals opportunistically call everything fascism, conspiracy theory &/or antisemitism
2. On the other, certain people claim that their side *never* has these things & the neoliberals are lying opportunists
The problem is that both sides contain truth—there really is antisemitism, fascist entryists & conspiracy theory on the left, and the neoliberals are also lying opportunists who call everything those things even if they are not.
Thus, to the outsider, they become entrenched in either position—either they see the real examples of what the neoliberals are saying, dismiss the left wing critiques as dishonest & thus accept the neoliberal overgeneralization
Or they perform the opposite maneuver & adopt the position that the neoliberals claims are ALWAYS wrong & lies, thus preventing them from seeing the genuine cases.
Either way it is neither the neoliberals nor the fascists who will ever be held to account for what they are doing.
Meanwhile the people who lose out are the genuine radicals, anti Colonialists , the vulnerable marginalized groups & others.
