Recognising the Contradictions: Tolerant nationalism in a world tired of war

“Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one”
Friedrich Nietzsche

For eight years now I have subscribed to a nationalist ideology. I have taken part in numerous Council, General and European election campaigns, have run the youth wing of a political party, and have spent the past four years as a politically independent nationalist following a political split in December 2007. A split which was not just the result of a movement towards greater openness and democracy in the Party I first become active with at the age of eighteen, but also ended with me coming under fire for advocating the modernisation of a membership policy which until recently, was whites only.

Granted, you could say I got my way in the end. Yet today, even with this change in policy, many nationalists continue to cling to an old and outdated mode of thinking which states that the battle against globalisation is one which involves persecution and discrimination of those groups which are alien to our own.

Since 2001, the rise in nationalist sentiments has resulted in a whole plethora of patriotically minded belief structures, many of which seek to do nothing more than create division and sow the seed of distrust against those who have chosen to make our land, their home. Yet in doing so, many of these people – Pro Zionist lobbyists, anti Islamists and various christian fundementalist groups – quite often forget that in their rush to secure a future for the natural inhabitants of our ancestral homeland, the inevitable result is a decline of intellectual and moral belief structures, and the rise of a totalitarian form of nationalism which whilst condemning the totalitarian nature of liberal democracy, seeks to impose its own totalitarian belief structures on others. In other words, many have started to become the very monster they claim to be fighting against.

Granted, there are many deeply concerning issues in Europe today. Mass immigration and the rise of ideological Islam being two very perfect examples. But as the video above demonstrates (which, by the way, I am posting in response to a request I received to do so), we must be careful to distinguish between those who seek to impose their belief structures on our people, and those who want nothing more than to be part of, and contribute to a society that they have come to make their home.

DL

UK Governments war on moral breakdown: a crackdown on civil liberties and prison sentences for children

Throughout history, moments of terror have often resulted in the rise of totalitarian powers. The Reichstag fire being one such example. However, now it appears that the riots that swept across England for four nights last week are to be added to the list of draconian power inducing incidents as Theresa May, The British Home Secretary drafts a whole new set of police powers. Up to and including the right to impose blanket curfews.

Naturally, people are angry. Neighbourhoods trashed, homes destroyed, businesses ransacked. It would no doubt be hard to find anybody who wasn’t angry. Yet personally, I can’t help but feel that this whole incident is being used to launch yet another assault on freedom in the land that gave the world the very principle. Over the past ten years we have witnessed an assault on our civil liberties like never before. With such assaults always arriving shortly after a major incident. In 2005 it was the London bombings. Now, it is the riots that have swept England.

It goes without saying that such pointless violence needs tough action to counter any chance of a repeat. But what I can’t help but wonder is how many of these powers will now be used to crack down on perfectly lawful forms of protest.

Take the Student fees demonstration for example, or for that matter any number of the anti-war demonstrations or even any future demonstration which may arise as recession grips the western world and the ordinary man on the street begins to feel the squeeze more and more. Where as before there would have been nothing the police could do other than contain the protestors and arrest any trouble makers. They now have the power to use water cannon and rubber bullets. Not forgetting the power to impose a blanket curfew. A measure which poses some very searching questions as to the very nature of our democracy.

This is of course not forgetting the news that 2,500 arrests have taken place since the riots and the claims that there are far too many examples of too harsh a sentences being doled out.

Granted, nobody would dream of saying that some of these people don't deserve to be imprisoned. Especially where violence and arson are concerned. But when you have single mothers being imprisoned for receiving a pair of looted shorts. Or people being given prison terms for stealing a bottle of water. Or for that matter, somebody who glorified and encouraged riots on Facebook (riots which never actually took place...the individual in questions friends claim it was just a joke) receiving four years for Incitement to Riot; questions do need to be asked about the needless severity, and in all too many cases, kneejerk sentencing decisions being made in our court's. Especially when you take into account the court's choice to imprison so many teenagers.

Personally, to think that we live in a society where it is considered immoral (not to mention illegal) to smack your child (which let's be honest, is all most of these kids need). Yet it is considered perfectly moral to imprison them. Ruining their education, destroying their prospects, criminalising them at a young age and creating all kinds of psychological damage in the process. Is indeed deeply shocking. And if you ask me, not only goes to demonstrate just how sick and twisted the British State has become. But also suggests that the recent riots to have gripped England are only the beginning of a lot more to come.

DL

England Burning: riots, looting and the English underclass.

Many will by now be aware of the riots to erupt across England over the past four days. What started out in London, has now spread and it is perhaps time some serious questions were asked.

On the surface, this looks like nothing more than wanton criminality. No political statements have been made, no grievance voiced and in many cases this set of events demonstrates the complete lack of respect for the law that has come to typify the modern underclass. But what has created this situation and is there now, anything that society can do to heal the rift that so clearly exists between the looters and The State.

Now nobody would dream of attempting to justify the actions of the past four nights. After all, homes have been smashed, livelihoods destroyed, and communities torn in two. But typically, no riot is without its cause and regardless of the senseless nature of the events of the past few days, I do believe that these events demonstrate the hopeless situation that many of those involved, find themselves living in on a daily basis.

I grew up on a sink estate myself. I guess you could say, that I come from the very underclass which many of these rioters belong too. I grew up in a single parent household, my mother survived on State benefits and all around me, were people who lived a very much similar life to my own.

For many people in these areas, the problems are many. Low aspirations, poverty, a general sense of hopelessness. A belief if you like that they were born into the gutter and in the gutter they shall stay. You could even say that the Society which criticises, and quite often, is all too willing to imprison them for crimes against that Society, is a Society that these people have never been part off.

For many of these people, they speak differently, dress differently, behave differently, and in many ways, come from a completely different background to one that Society at large is familiar with. Yet at the same time they are subjected to the same television programmes and the same adverts which show a Society completely at odds with the one they live in. Essentially the mass media tells them that without the latest trainers, computer game or flat screen TV they’re a nobody. An attitude which is reinforced by a peer group who doesn’t care how you get these things, just that you have them, and as such “fit in.”

Essentially, you could ask, why would a person respect a society that they’re not part off? The people who committed these crimes may live amongst the communities they trashed, but they’re not part of them. They don’t socialise amongst them, they don’t work with them and they certainly can’t associate with a community which all too often views them as hostile. They’re treated with suspicion because of how they dress, they’re searched by police because of where they live, and the problem here is that all of this only serves to reinforce the idea of a community separated from Society at large.

Now I’m not making excuses for these people. But it has to be said, that there are some deep divisions in this country when people feel they can go out and just take what they want. The bottom line is nobody loots their own communities. People don’t rob their friends, and they certainly don’t attack the very people they live with day in and day out.

In some cases this is just blatant opportunism. But in many cases, it’s angry young men, with nothing better to do and nothing to feel part of, who are taking their anger and frustration out on a society which they feel rejects them. Granted, nobody can justify the wanton criminality which has taken place over the past four days. But it has to be said, that if we are to prevent a reoccurrence of these events in the future. Something has to be done to address the very problems which alienates and destroys the very communities that Society has chosen to ignore.

DL