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Wednesday, 2 July 2008

A racially-inclusive nationalism?

Are the BNP confusing race with nation? Their name and membership policy suggests that they think race is nation when we all know that race can be discerned visually while nationhood is an abstract concept of national self-consciousness that transcends race, rather like the Muslim concept of 'umma'? If nationalism is the religion of the nation, then surely it would have more adherents if it were not so self-limitingly all-white?

Discuss and comment.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

True, but only if the non-ethnic Britains see themselves as British.

Jeff Marshall said...

Some non-ethnic Britons certainly see themselves as British - those ethnic minorities who serve in the armed forces for example.

Such people could most easily be recruited into a multi-racial nationalist party.

On the other hand, many nationalists (in the BNP & other groups) are primarily concerned with the survival of the White-British race.

To them the idea of a nationalist party which simply discounts ethnic origin is unintelligible.

You cannot really say they are wrong. Their position is at least clear.

The worst you could say of them is they are almost certainly destined to remain on the outer fringes of politics - unless perhaps economic conditions here start to become rather extreme, so that we are literally fighting one another for food, because of the shortage of oil, for example.

In fact this is not too unlikely a scenario, since the indications are that have now passed 'peak oil'.

A nationalist party based on racial differences might be a lot more successful then.

There was never, after all, any mandate to import millions of blacks, Asians & others.

The British people basically know they have been betrayed and lied to.

If conditions become extreme, we shall not tolerate these reverse colonisers stealing our last crumbs.

Battle lines are more easily drawn on the basis of race, after all.

On the other hand, a nationalist party based only on the idea of the nation is far less clear.

Ideas about the nation are like lines drawn in the sand; your idea of it may be very different to mine.

Many liberals, for example, see our nation as pluralist and 'multicultural'. And looking around at the scene today, who is to say they are wrong. For in practice today, it certainly looks pluralist and multicultural.

The best argument a non-racial nationalist can muster is that he prefers yesterday's nation to today's - yesterday's reality instead of now.

Not a particularly convincing argument.

Claire Khaw said...

Surely it is open to any white British who wishes to remain racially pure to say to his or her children that they will be disinherited if they "marry out"?

If that is what white people are worried about, then this is the very obvious solution I suggest.

Since many BNP members are "race-mixers" themselves, I see that they are in a difficult position to say this sort of thing.

But surely an alternative just as viable is: "If you marry someone I disapprove of, you will be disinherited." Or indeed, "If you have a child outside wedlock, you will be disinherited."

I cannot understand why any person concerned about the racial purity or the quality of the next generation or the cancer of single-parenthood that has such a deleterious effect on behaviour, aspiration, educational standards and achievement in this country would need the help of the BNP on this matter.

Are even the middle classes so infantilised and supine they cannot think for themselves in this way?

Perhaps the BNP's natural supporters - mostly single parent council house tenants who have nothing to leave behind and are in no position to influence their children's behaviour anyway - is the problem itself.

If that is how it is, then there seems little point in cultivating these people as supporters or representatives of the typical British national, is there?

The BNP needs middle class support to influence events.

The middle classes are not going to risk their livelihood over obviously supporting a party that has a racist membership policy and is in denial about the racism of its belief that non-white citizens could ever be British nationals.

It is often the case that its middle class members and speakers often do not give their real name for fear of social and economic repercussions.

To succeed, the BNP needs to be respectable and I am very glad that we live in a country where racism has no prospect of becoming respectable in the foreseeable future.

Like homosexuality, racism should only be tolerated provided it is not flaunted!

Jeff Marshall said...

It would be open to any white Brit to disinherit his children if they were to 'marry out'; although an older generation increasingly deep in debt in money-lenders’ economy would be denied this tactic.

Indeed, the children in question might refuse to take care of their elderly & infirm parents, or neglect to bury them in revenge.

A sequel to the once-famous comedy show, 'Till Death Us Do Part', showed the (by now) disabled Alf Garnett in his wheelchair being attended to by a black nurse - to whom he no doubt showed appropriate politeness.

Outwardly - at least - he had amended his views on race – as many of us do.

I would dispute that the BNP’s natural supporters are not mostly single parent council house tenants – these are exactly the sort of people who usually seem most hostile to BNP canvassers - especially the female single parent who was no doubt impregnated by a coloured to begin with - which is why, no doubt, she’s currently bringing up her children alone.

You can rely on her sort to spout –& normally shout - the usual brainwashed nonsense about ‘racists’ & ‘nazis’.

The BNP’s natural supporters are working-class families – decent people who have been betrayed by various governments in recent years.

Second, ‘most’ BNP members are not "race-mixers" - although a few of them are; this no doubt softens their attitudes to ethnic minorities to some extent.

Nevertheless, don’t forget that all these people have still elected to join an ethno-nationalist party.

Like homosexuality, certainly – although not like racism quite yet – the attitude in the BNP is rather not to boast about - or flaunt - race mixing.

Lastly, I believe there is every chance that racism will become increasingly more respectable., as people grow more & more sick of politically correct bullying on this subject, as well as feeling growing despair at the establishment’s failure to deal with crime & mass immigration.

These are not racial issues, you might say. Perhaps not. But if a ‘racist’ party is prepared to engage with these issues while the 3 major parties are not, the non-racist angle will not be listened to the same extent.

You shouldn’t forget that the ‘racist’ BNP recently beat Labour into fifth place in Henley-on-Thames.

The candidate there seemed respectable enough to win over local voters.

I am personally in favour of lifting the colour bar - because I believe it would enlarge the BNP’s support base.

But there is not really a lot of point in a pursuing a strategy which would simply surrender all the BNP’s ‘hard’ working class supporters in order to try & replace them with ‘soft’ middle class supporters.

(By ‘hard’ I mean those that will vote BNP in election after election; by ‘soft’ I mean short-term protest voters who will change their vote in the next election)

A former East End organiser told me recently he thought middle class voters were basically not worth bothering with.

‘Once the Conservatives look like they’re going to get into power again, they’ll all be off home,’ he said.

He had a point. UKIP, after all, mostly represent the Conservative Party in ‘temporary’ exile.

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