Sunday, February 15, 2009

The North Worth Saving

“We need a paradigm shift in the West that would pave the way for a genuine Northern Alliance of Russia, Europe, and North America, as all three face similar existential threats in the decades ahead. In an uncertain and ever more brutal world, the Northerners may finally consider banding together, lest they be defeated in detail.”

I’m going out on a limb here by posting in its entirety a Srdja Trifkovic article that is not yet available online. It’s from the February 2009 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, and was sent to us by email. If either Mr. Trifkovic or Chronicles objects, I’ll take it down.

This is an excellent analysis of the crisis of the West — or, as the author calls it, “the North” — and, given the imminent economic implosion that we all face, it is especially important that Srdja Trifkovic’s sage advice be disseminated as widely as possible.


The North Worth Saving
By Srdja Trifkovic

Srdja Trifkovic“Defeat in detail” is a military concept that denotes the rout of an enemy by dividing and destroying segments of his forces one by one, instead of engaging his entire strength. A brilliant example was Stonewall Jackson’s 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign, when his force of 17,000 beat three mutually unsupported Union commands almost four times his strength.

The concept is as old as Sun Tzu (“if enemy forces are united, separate them”) and was more recently restated by Mao (“concentrate a superior force to destroy the enemy forces one by one”). It is highly relevant to the American interest because the civilization upon which this country is founded — usually described as “Western,” although “Northern” would be more accurate — is in danger of being defeated in detail by its enemies, internal and external.

The problem was aptly summarized by Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, in an interview with Russia Today last November 18:

There is a new civilization emerging in the Third World that thinks that the white, northern hemisphere has always oppressed it and must therefore fall at its feet now…. If the northern civilization wants to protect itself, it must be united: America, the European Union, and Russia. If they are not together, they will be defeated one by one.

Rogozin’s statement reflects a profound understanding of the biological, cultural and spiritual commonalities shared by one billion Europeans and their overseas descendants in the “white, northern hemisphere” — an understanding as accurate as it is odious to the Western elite class.

It indicates that, in some important respects, Russia is freer than the United States or the European Union: No American or Western European diplomat of his rank would dare make such a statement, even if he shared the sentiment — or hope to remain in his post after making it.
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And finally, it correctly diagnoses the attitude of the Third World to the northern civilization as inherently adversarial, based on the myth of the latter’s oppressiveness and on the expectation of its eventual collapse.

Europe’s demographic self-annihilation is well advanced, from the Atlantic to the Urals and beyond, with Russia and the rest of the Old Continent sharing the same downward trend. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s population has fallen six percent, from around 150 million to just over 140 million. The combination of a low birthrate, an aging population, and a public-health crisis may result in the country’s population collapsing by one third, to around 100 million, by 2050. On current form, there will be a 40-percent drop in the size of the core (ages 14 to 25) group, ensuring a continued decline for the rest of the century. At the same time, the number of self-identified Muslims in Russia has risen by 40 percent in the last 15 years to 20 million, partly fueled by immigration from Central Asia and the Caucasus.

In Metropolitan France, an ostensibly healthy birthrate of 12.2 per thousand conceals the fact that, of some 800,000 births in a nation of almost 60 million, Muslim immigrants (predominantly from North Africa) and their French-born descendants account for more than a quarter. Italy will plummet from today’s 57 million to a much older 40 million by 2050. By that time, the continent as a whole will face a net loss of some 150 million people. Europe’s population has aged to such a degree that it will continue to shrink even in the unlikely event that birthrates rebound to the replacement level. This “negative momentum” means that even if women in the future should have an unexpected fertility increase to two children on average, the population would be destined to continue shrinking.

In the 1970’s, the U.S. birthrate not only dipped below replacement but fell below the European rate. In the years since, the American rate recovered modestly to just below replacement level. The fertility rate of white Americans slipped below the replacement rate in the early 1970’s, however, and it never recovered: Today it stands at about 1.8 babies per woman.

Demographers say that the U.S. population will grow by 135 million in the next four decades — a stunning 44-percent increase — but that growth will be entirely the result of immigration (overwhelmingly from the Third World) and increases in the nonwhite population.

In Russia, Rogozin’s thesis is disputed by two very different groups. The Westernizers — insignificant in numbers but influential in the country’s intelligentsia — reject the notion that Russia can be, or should aspire to be, an equal partner of Europe and America unless and until she is reformed in their image. The Eurasianists, by contrast, see Russia’s destiny in the great continental heartland and in strategic partnership with her southern and southeastern neighbors. They believe that Russia’s interests and those of the United States are inherently divergent. In their view, détente with Islam is more desirable than cooperation with the West. As Aleksandr Dugin says, the new Eurasian empire should be based on the rejection of Atlanticism and liberalism: “[T]his common civilizational impulse will be the basis of a political and strategic union” between Russia and the Heartland, the Slavs and the Turkic peoples of the Central Asian steppe.

Continental conservatives — German Christian Democrats; French, Spanish, and Italian rightists — are natural Northerners even when they are squeamish about admitting it. Members of the dominant European left, however, are overwhelmingly enthusiastic about Barack Obama because they are ashamed of their own roots and looks. The sentiment is becoming all-pervasive: Even The Economist opined that Obama’s victory “would salve, if not close, the ugly wound left by America’s history.” The left flatly denies that a common Euro-Russo-American civilization exists, let alone that it is worth preserving or jointly defending.

It is in the United States that the obstacles to a northern paradigm are the most formidable. Opponents are present, to some extent, in every influential segment of this country’s foreign-policy community.

American exceptionalists believe that the United States differs qualitatively from Europe (not to mention Russia) by virtue of her “propositional credo,” which transcends the shackles of ethnicity, race, culture, and faith. Global hegemonists seek dominance over Europe and fragmentation of Russia, rather than partnership with them. Many hegemonists are also visceral Russophobes, owing to their own ethno-cultural baggage rather than any objective assessment of Moscow’s global position and impact on U.S. interests. Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as his Vice President, Hillary Clinton’s appointment to State, Robert Gates’ retention at the Pentagon, and General Jones’s management of the National Security Council point to the President’s willful blindness to the collapsing economic foundation of the American “hyperpower.”

Multiculturalists oppose any notion of “our” physical or cultural space that does not belong to everyone. They deny that we should have a special affinity for any particular country, nation, race, or culture, but demand the imposition of our preferences upon the whole world. They are the mortal enemy of any notion that any shared legacy of the European family is worthy of preservation.

These groups share the radical notion that America is not a real country, but a metaphysical concept or a tool for their own Will to Power — or both. They do not want this country to belong to the people whose ancestors created her and who have inhabited her for generations. They celebrate the resulting random mélange of mutually disconnected multitudes as somehow uniquely “American” and virtuous.

Ideologues will deny it, but in the decades to come Europe, Russia, and America will be in similar mortal peril from those very multitudes. The magnitude of that threat will become clear as those nations age and the numbers of hostile aliens grow. In the end there will be no grand synthesis, no crossfertilization, and certainly no peaceful coexistence, between the North and the Third World.

The short-term prospects for fostering a sense of unity among Europeans — Eastern, Western, and American — are dim and will remain so for as long as the regimes of all the major states of the West are controlled by an elite class hostile to its own biological roots and cultural fruits.

In the longer term, however, it is at least conceivable that the ongoing financial and economic crisis will produce salutary political and cultural effects. In the face of diminished property values, rising unemployment, and collapsed retirement portfolios, our elites risk a comprehensive loss of credibility and authority comparable to that experienced by Europe’s ruling class in 1914-18. When the dust settles they may no longer be heeded as arbiters of who we are, what we are to think, and how we are to lead a good life. As the credibility of American global dominance tanks with the dollar, Europe may increasingly see its interests tracking with those of Russia, forcing Washington to acquiesce.

No refocusing of international policy will matter if there is not a reversal of demographic and immigration trends. The richer the country, the emptier its cradles. A trend toward Third World living standards may lead to Third World birthrates. Increased scarcity may finally break the political taboo about addressing non-European immigration.

Can we hope that a reminder of the harsher realities of life will revive the North’s sense of itself as a Christian civilization and resistance to the stealth jihad being waged in our midst? Sadly, the more likely result of the crisis we now face is deepening demoralization, increased demands for government solutions and services, and ever more inane adulation of such purveyors of political snake oil as our newly enthroned President Messiah. In the early eighth century the triumphant march of Islam into Christendom seemed unstoppable, until it was halted at the gates of Constantinople (718) and at Tours (732). Conversely, in July 1914, Europe was at the peak of every imaginable human achievement, only to be turned into a pale shadow of its former self a mere century later.

Much of this depends on leadership. Can we find political leaders who will serve as catalysts for social regeneration? If there are any Dmitry Rogozins lurking in the corridors of American and European politics, this would be a good time for them to step forward.

Rogozin’s position on the essential dilemma of our time coincides with what I have repeatedly advocated in these pages over the past decade: a paradigm shift in the West that would pave the way for a genuine Northern Alliance of Russia, Europe, and North America, as all three face similar existential threats in the decades ahead. In an uncertain and ever more brutal world, the Northerners may finally consider banding together, lest they be defeated in detail. I do not know if and when they will do so. I do know that, if they don’t, the best and greatest civilization the world has known will be finished for ever.

16 comments:

eatyourbeans said...

To think this through a little further, our loyalty and allegiance should go to Moscow. Our own governments serve the enemy.

Charlemagne said...

A radical suggestion. Conservative governments in Europe should invite Conservative Americans to immigrate.
I'd be willing to be part of a country dedicated to its own preservation.

I'm reading "Carnage and Culture, Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power" by Victor Davis Hanson at the moment and I highly recommend it.

babs said...

Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as his Vice President, Hillary Clinton’s appointment to State, Robert Gates’ retention at the Pentagon, and General Jones’s management of the National Security Council point to the President’s willful blindness to the collapsing economic foundation of the American “hyperpower.”

I wish the writer had supported this statement.

Anonymous said...

Yet another excellent essay from an excellent writer. Well done, Dr. Trifkovic. I have advocated closer ties with Russia for some time now and it's good to see someone I admire advocating the same thing.

xlbrl said...

This position makes no sense, because it is redundant. When the elites lose all credibility and authority, our problems are solved. There is no need to circle wagons at that point.
The second and third world resents us because our elites have encouraged them to. That and other problems would end very quickly.

X said...

To think this through a little further, our loyalty and allegiance should go to Moscow. Our own governments serve the enemy.

No. Your allegiance should be to your own people. Swearing yourself to a foreign government, no matter how much you might admire that government, is no better than the situation we have now.

Sagunto said...

Amen to that Graham.

The message underlying this article by Trifkovic is important. But there's something that always strikes me when I read lines like:
"Can we hope that a reminder of the harsher realities of life will revive the North’s sense of itself as a Christian civilization [..]?"

Christian civilization indeed, but how come that in the analysis of "partnerships for survival of the North", there's no further mention whatsoever of Christianity? For sure, the Pope doesn't command an awful lot of tank divisions, and no Christian denomination that I know of seems to own large reserves of natural gas, but nevertheless..

The article also seems to be abstract to such an extent that I can easily subscribe to the intention, but hardly figure out how this call for Northern partnership would translate to the individual or local level (no jokes please about importing Russian brides).
The desired cooperation between Europe, Russia and the US (with a severely damaged currency) seems to concern the political establishment yet again, and I don't expect much from that department in the struggle against Islam. Governments can join forces against a standing army, but how could a Russian bureaucrat be of any practical use to the native peoples in e.g. Antwerp or Amsterdam in the upcoming combat against stealth Jihad and creeping Islamization? National govt's have failed miserably to protect their people throughout the West (North), Multinational "governments" like that monstrous European Union are even worse, so I can't imagine the combined machineries of State - even if some sort of new alliance would come about as the result of a worldwide economic collapse - to suddenly be able to save peoples of the North (West) against Islam. State bureaucracies fail, more state bureaucrats on top of that won't fail to continue those inadequate policies.

As far as politics go, best hope i.m.o. for any Northerner living in the West today, is a chance to vote for their own Geert Wilders (2nd largest party by now in Holland, if elections were held today). I think the more practical and important alliance right now, should be between Northerners from all over the Western world and people like him.

Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.

eatyourbeans said...

Archonix:

My people are those of the North. The first government that declares itself our defender will be the one I'll acknowledge. Russia's shows potential here, although right now it's only a small speck against a bleak horizon.

Zenster said...

Dmitry Rogozin: There is a new civilization emerging in the Third World that thinks that the white, northern hemisphere has always oppressed it and must therefore fall at its feet now ...

Mr. Rogozin handily omits how Soviet Russia bears overwhelming responsibility for infecting the entire Third World with it's Marxist Zero Sum Equation. While there can be no doubt that the region has always abounded with victim mentality cultures, few other tidbits of propaganda have so thoroughly beset Northern Culture than the notion that all White Christian success has been arrived at upon the backs of downtrodden and expolited Third Worlders.

It indicates that, in some important respects, Russia is freer than the United States or the European Union: No American or Western European diplomat of his rank would dare make such a statement, even if he shared the sentiment — or hope to remain in his post after making it.

The "freedom" cited is a false freedom based upon a false premise. The opportunity to make an abrasive statement has no similarity to the actual freedom to fully express oneself at all times. Mr. Rogozin enjoys his ability to make such a comment solely because it serves some other ulterior Russian agenda.

Plenty of other Russian journalists have attempted to enjoy similarly "free" speech and ended up paying for it with their lives. If only because their particular viewpoint was unwelcome or did not fit the current political template.

And finally, it correctly diagnoses the attitude of the Third World to the northern civilization as inherently adversarial, based on the myth of the latter’s oppressiveness and on the expectation of its eventual collapse.

This cannot be disputed, regardless of any disagreement over origins or rationale. Much as with Jeremiah Wright's racist Black Liberation Theology, so many of these Third World victim cultures have no interest in equality but instead seek domination. Unwilling to honestly confront how they have crippled themselves, they instead seek to maim other more successful cultures in a perverted quest for ascendance.

The Eurasianists, by contrast, see Russia’s destiny in the great continental heartland and in strategic partnership with her southern and southeastern neighbors. They believe that Russia’s interests and those of the United States are inherently divergent. In their view, détente with Islam is more desirable than cooperation with the West.

Few notions could be more delusional than that of "détente with Islam". Hudna is all you ever get and those who think there can be any rapport or rapprochement with Islam are willfully ignorant of history.

Furthermore, the Eurasianist view that "Russia’s interests and those of the United States are inherently divergent" smacks of Cold War triangulation and all the counterproductive baggage that came with it. This is especially so in light of their moronic desire to embrace Islam as a functional partner. It is the spider embracing the scorpion.

American exceptionalists believe that the United States differs qualitatively from Europe (not to mention Russia) by virtue of her “propositional credo,” which transcends the shackles of ethnicity, race, culture, and faith.

True as this may be, it in no way alters the fact that such exceptionalism must not be allowed to become exclusivity. There is absolutlely no reason why other relatively civilized cultures cannot attain a similar degree of personal liberty, elected representation and constitutional rule.

In the end there will be no grand synthesis, no crossfertilization, and certainly no peaceful coexistence, between the North and the Third World.

Not so long as the Third World continues to embrace tribalism and an almost obsessive sense of victimhood.

As the credibility of American global dominance tanks with the dollar, Europe may increasingly see its interests tracking with those of Russia, forcing Washington to acquiesce.

Didn't Europe already test this idiotic proposition by allowing themselves to become dependent upon Russian natural gas supplies? There can be no "tracking" of interests by anyone else with Russia's oligarchic thugocracy.

Can we hope that a reminder of the harsher realities of life will revive the North’s sense of itself as a Christian civilization and resistance to the stealth jihad being waged in our midst?

We had better. Or else.

... a paradigm shift in the West that would pave the way for a genuine Northern Alliance of Russia, Europe, and North America, as all three face similar existential threats in the decades ahead.

I would suggest that Russia had better abandon its self-absorbed gaming of world politics if there is to be any hope of such a desireable Northern Alliance. At present, Russia is fomenting jihad and innumerable other global crises that only serve to break down Western civilization. Only when Russia finally understands just how truly counterproductive this is for her own citizens and culture can there be any hope. At present, Russia's monied interests have no such concern and, much as with their halfbred spawn communist China, continue to piss in the global punchbowl.

Czechmade said...

A truly islamic marriage - the groom knows nothing about the bride and has never seen her in persona.

Hopefully immediate divorce wan´t be too violent. The problem I see, the groom might be fatally pregnant even after running away from his bride.

I just finished reading a book from a Czech person who even became orthodox and spent 5 years in Russia - in no way biased as I might be seen here by the Happy Smiling Well Dressed Groom...

His book is called "How to survive in Russia", he means that seriously, no irony.

...the reality seems much much worse than I could ever present in a few articles here.

Russophiles - you can buy russian passport - it is really cheap!

Russophiles - do not hesitate to commit any number of crimes in Russia - you can buy your way out of the prison easily. Join the big party.

Still I do not understand why you refuse so much islam, it is on the same level somehow.

Homophobic Horse said...

I believe what Trifkovic means is that Rogozin does not suffer from the spiritual* terror that the modern paradigm creates in the minds of most Westerners, including their Western elites.

The modern Liberal paradigm consists in the obscuring and falsification of experience and sense perception, into accordance with ethical goals that are regarded as a priori. "Diversity", "multi-plicity" (cultural, faith, etc), "dialogue", "change", "our values", these are not ontological realities, they don't refer to anything that really exists; they are intellectual abstractions that mask and distort the true complexity of life. But therein lies the intention. Liberals can't deal with reality because reality makes it possible to despair (and given that most Westerners don't believe in God anymore this is natural), to escape this they take refuge in a fantasy world of their own making.

For example: It was said that the problem with Geert Wilder's film Fitna is not that it suggests that Islam is an existential threat--for that requires terrible actions to avert the threat--but is really one of "free-speech". Free-speech is also a bland abstraction and not an ontological reality.

There are many examples in Western culture that indicate this degenerate state of mind. Hugely popular films like "The Matrix", for example, end with a man called "Neo" proclaiming "a world without rules and boundaries, a world where anything is possible" against a jangling background of "Rage Against the Machine". Such a world is impossible, and absurd, as any one even moderately acquainted with philosophy knows. All human reason and thought is inherently discursive and relative, subject to a world not at all of your making, and only controllable to a limited extent. The Liberal world view inverts this. The Liberal world view subsumes the actual world to the entirely controllable world of mental abstractions - "Liberty", "Equality", "Fraternity", "Freedom of Individual" etc. This is also the world promised by the Communist Revolution, where man, in the language of Hegel, was supposed to become Free For Himself and no longer subject to social pressures of any kind-- in the classless society.

Neo, remember was "The One", which is how Barack Obama was greeted by some of his fans.

*By spiritual I mean Tao, or Logos: "All things are made by Tao and without Tao was not anything made that was made." Everyone participates in Tao to some extent, even when they try to close their eyes to it with abstractions. To be in spiritual terror is to close one's mind to the logos.

Zenster said...

Homophobic Horse: I believe what Trifkovic means is that Rogozin does not suffer from the spiritual* terror that the modern paradigm creates in the minds of most Westerners, including their Western elites.

A valid and useful distinction but one that does not alter how Rogozin still does not have true freedom of speech. Merely, an ability to speak that is encumbered by other overarching political considerations instead of Political Correctness.

eatyourbeans said...

Oh, I don't know about moving to Russia, although if their government was smart it would invite us "Russophiles" to come and fill the vacant spaces of their country, since there aren't enough Russians. It's not likely that Russia ever would do so and maybe it's just as well: Our duty is to stand and fight for the homes and countries we have. However, it would certainly increase our chances if there were a government, just one, that was on our side. The only one I can even faintly imagine is the one that the wise Rogozin works for.

Perhaps someday soon Moscow will found the "ReactIntern". Wouldn't that be a great joke on the part of history?

Afonso Henriques said...

Damn! Why did I not discover this sooner!
Really there is nothing to point out, he has spot on. And I wholehartedly agree with him.

The sad is that it will not happen without something very "grave" happening first.
Western Europeans just don't have that pride of beeing European as Russians and Italians seem to have... And the Americans... there are two kinds of Americans but those who have the power and will continue to have power seem to truly hate themselves, wether in Canada, the U.S.A., Brazil, Argentina, wherever! Even in New Zeland.

Well, and about that, we cannot call it "North"! What about Australia, New Zeland, Argentina, Uruguay and even Brazil and Chile?

Yesterday it was just natural. Today it is offensive to think as we are thinking here. We are indeed mad.

Afonso Henriques said...

"My people are those of the North. The first government that declares itself our defender will be the one I'll acknowledge. Russia's shows potential here..."

Eatyourbeans, great reflexion.
I am a Portuguese. But, if there is no Portugal or if Portugal cannot continue to live, submerged by the Third World, then I think I can move to Spain. But it will look like a strange and faux Portugal, so I would not like to stay there and meanwhile, if Portugal sinks, Spain will not stand tall and vice versa;

I can also go to my Americas, Latin America, but I would have to be among the richest, having the great life, otherwise it would be just like a truly Third World.

In case my Nation ceases to be mine (ceases to be European as America may rapidly become), I'd go to the two Nations I identify more with: Italy and Brittain. In that case yes, my allegence would be in London and Rome.
If they can't handle it either, and if really needed be, I will have to go to Russia...

It's just a degree of "relativeness" among the European cousins. We are Europeans. But that is too broad. It is so broad it is a useless "classification".
What makes as really Europeans is being English, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish (with the hell! Being more Basque, Catalan whatever than Spanish), Russian, etc.

In the New World? Well, I'll leave you this video of an Argentine intelectual, Claudio Ingerflom.

In case you don't read Spanish:

"We wanted to mix, we wanted to become Argentinians. In the United States happened the same... it's new lands... it's new Civilisations. In Europe that is IM-POS-SI-BLE. There is not and there cannot be integration of the other. Because they are societies that think themselves Historically, with centuries of age, with unique identities... The Asiatic immigration, the African Immigration, the Arab Immigration does not (it is not able to) integrate; It's much easier, in the last case, for an Argentine to integrate into the French society than for an Algerian to do so, although the Algerian may have spoke French since it's childhood and the Argentine learns it when arriving in Paris."

To be European is just our base, it's the "nothing that's all" as the poet says; but to be European has to mean more. Europe is our base to built our Nations in the light of Europe.

Afonso Henriques said...

Eatyourbeans, life is more ironic than reality and last week or so, Mr. Vladimir Putin alerted the American people for the dangers of the Socialism of the Obama administration.
In fact, he even said to Americans that "you should learn from the Soviet Union that it is not a good idea to have your economy too much dependent on the State".

That's "Change".