Tribe, Class, and Murder
Is ethno-nationalism a modern disease? Is it an inevitable product of human nature subjected to modern conditions, and therefore something we have to accommodate, despite the ugly costs it imposes? A necessary evil? The most reliable foundation for an enduring polity in a post-dynastic age? The plague of the 20th century?
Sadly, yes.
To all of the above.
I read Jerry Muller’s perceptive article in Foreign Affairs, and Daniel Larison’s thoughtful response, just as I was finishing Niall Ferguson’s elegantly written and wrenchingly sad The War of the World—which documents the human cost in the 20th century of class struggle and ethno-nationalism. (I think Muller is right to add “ethno,” since there are forms of nationalism which focus on something other than perceived biological kinship—see the African colonials who fought so heroically for France in both World Wars, not to mention black Americans in those conflicts.) In his long, scrupulously researched book, Ferguson lays out the astonishing ethnic patchwork which made up central and eastern Europe in 1914—a loosely knit tapestry of Germans, Poles, Jews, Croats, Turks, Serbs, Ukrainians, Ruthenians, Gypsies, Magyars… and list goes on and on. The internal loyalties of each group—which I’ll call, without prejudice, “tribalism”— existed in tension with some degree of allegiance to the dynastic states in which these various folk resided. Of course, such loyalties varied according to how well each minority thought it was being treated by the monarchy and dominant ethnic group; Russian Jews were rightly disaffected from the Tsar, while German Jews were rather devoted to the German and Austrian Kaisers. Croatians were called “black and yellows” for our famous loyalty to the Habsburgs, while the Poles were rightly disaffected from each of the monarchies that had subjected them. The tension was fragile, but it seemed likely to hold—and perhaps to lead in the long run to greater decentralism, and the gradual enfranchisement of the most important minorities. That was, at any rate, the plan of Archduke Franz Ferdinand....
Who knows? It might have worked—had the decentralization been undertaken seriously. The only hope of long-term ethnic peace in central Europe would have combined large-scale land reform (land to the tiller, taken from aristocratic domains) and a radical push towards local sovereignty. The model of the Swiss (today the only example of a thriving “multicultural” state), might have offered a little hope, had anyone heeded it. (It’s too often forgotten that Wilhelm Röpke championed such decentralism for postwar Germany, with real results; his arguments in The Solution of the German Problem [1944] helped persuade the Western liberators to make West Germany far more federalist than either France or England.)
Instead, the First World War destroyed two liberal monarchies and one creaky autocracy, and unleashed two forces which quickly proved themselves demonic—in action, if not in theory: fanatical class-consciousness shaped by a shallow if drearily consistent ideology, and hypertrophied, intolerant tribalism.
Marxism in arms, which claimed the mantle of the whole Western tradition (as the final development of the last great synthetic philosophy of Europe, namely Hegel’s) and the trappings of “science” and economics, repeated the butchery and tyranny practiced by the Jacobins. And not just in Russia, a backward land almost inured to pogroms and political intolerance. “Red” regimes would prove themselves equally bloody-minded in Hungary and in Spain before World War II—and across Eastern Europe afterward.
In response, many on the Right adopted a neo-primitive ideology of the Volk, as a counterforce to the magnetism of class, and pulled from the 19th century hodgepodge that was liberal nationalism the elements needed to form mass movements of equal or greater appeal than Marxism internationalism. Instead of capitalists and kulaks, their scapegoats of choice were Armenians, Gypsies, Serbs, the handicapped, and most famously Jews.
These movements’ victims—counting only civilians murdered or starved in peacetime from China to Gibraltar—numbered in so many millions that historians simply cannot count them. And it’s impossible for us to imagine their scale, the starvation camps and crematoria, the killing fields and starving Chinese villages. But we ought at least to try. The most vivid images most of us have of mass murder in peacetime are still those of September 11, 2001, when nearly 3,000 people died. A conservative estimate of the civilians killed outside of direct combat in the 20th century by government is 60 million. So to visualize the human cost of these two ideological movements, you need to imagine the attacks of 9/11 happening once a day, every day, for 54.79 years. That was the 20th century.
Ferguson’s catalog of the crimes committed along the way to constructing the “ideal communities” favored by each ideology, and appalling intellectual degradation which many brilliant men cheerfully embraced as they jumped on various bandwagons, makes for a stomach-churning read. By the end, one is strongly inclined to reject in toto both ethnicity and social class, treat both of them as evil fetishes which must thrown on history’s scrap heap—in favor of liberalism, whose bloodiest outrage is legal abortion, and state capitalism, whose worst historic outcome was the Great Depression.
And yet, as anyone who follows even campus politics knows, socialism and Marxism have not been wholly discredited by the crimes committed in their name. (I’ve written satirically on this subject here .) Democratic politicians such as John Edwards feel perfectly free to engage in the rhetoric of class warfare with little fear of being associated with the crimes of Lenin (much less Stalin). Thinkers who took up the cudgels for murderers like Trotsky, Stalin, and even Mao, are routinely assigned to English graduate students for their insights into lyric poetry. (I used to argue for including Pol Pot in our course syllabi, with no success.)
The converse is not the case. In Western Europe and America, politicians and even conservative polemicists must tread carefully indeed if they wish to make even the slightest claim on behalf of defending the interests and integrity of ethnic majorities. If the memories of the Gulag have faded, those of Nazi depredations have not. Reading Ferguson’s account of the elaborate pseudo-science of race invented in Germany (with eugenics laws imported from America), of the moral and intellectual degradation of Europe’s most advanced nation, is stomach-wrenching—and enough to give me a little more imaginative sympathy with neoconservative paranoia on these subjects. I can see why words like “alien” and “deportation” provoke outsized, irrational fear among commentators whose not-so-distant relatives were victims.
But this will not do. As we see from the rise of Islamist communities in Europe, and fiercely tribalist movements among Mexican immigrants to the U.S., liberalism is not enough. While some might hope that the acid of consumerism and secularism will break down these incoming cultures--as they have destroyed our own--time is not on our side. The breakneck birthrate of European Moslems, and the almost unbounded desire of Mexicans to move to the U.S., promise radical transformations with political implications. If Europeans rightly fear sharia, Americans who treasure some measure of economic liberty ought to worry as well; to libertarians who blithely reject the notion of national borders, one ought to point out that the people moving in across the border are used to kleptocratic socialism, and likely for generations to vote for more of the same. How sacred are property rights today in Mexico? Where will they stand in Texas in 20 years?
Some respectability has survived for socialism because our economic system produces such radically disparate outcomes for different people—often apparently unconnected to personal virtue, hard work, or even talent. A market system is messy, modern individualism undermines the former supports of community and family, and poor people can vote. The combination of the three will always amount to some degree of socialism—as Röpke, a great champion of market economics, understood. (To counter socialism, he favored a gently induced form of distributism, which promoted small businesses, small farms, and decentralized government. It’s the one great idea of the 20th century which has virtually never been tried. It could hardly do worse than its rivals.)
And tribalism survives. It does so because it’s inherent to human nature (partly fallen). We naturally feel more empathy with our kin than with strangers who look very different, especially if we haven’t yet gotten around to intermarrying with “those people.” This is not intrinsically evil. (If it were, then everyone would rightly condemn it in Mexicans and Moroccans, Jews and Gypsies alike.) But it’s also incomplete. Abstract notions of justice (leave aside for now the Gospel) cut across such extensions of “healthy narcissism” and demand that we act against our instincts. Sometimes you really have to side with that odd-looking Sikh down the block against your brother—for instance, when your brother is in the wrong.
And this is very difficult. Which is why multicultural states are tricky balancing acts, which lately tend to collapse. They especially tend to fall apart when modernity has broken down basic units such as the family, transformed people in communities into individuals facing the State. Cosmopolitanism gets less tenable with the rise of democracy, with its fiction of popular sovereignty, and unlimited claims to dispose of private property as the majority sees fit. Once property is politicized—as always happens in centralized democracies—it only makes sense to fight for your share of the loot. And who is going to fight on your side? The people who look like you. Skin color and language then serve as markers of loyalty—like team jerseys in a soccer riot.
All of which is to say that Americans ought to be very skeptical of importing more diversity—not because there’s anything wrong per se with the people who want to move here. Rather, it’s because mass diversity is perilous, runs against the grain of human nature, and typically ends in tears. In the absence of durable, shared loyalties, large numbers of “ethnics” can tempt men to try “cleansing” them. That is one unlearned lesson of the Holocaust.
Comments
JZ,
You wrote the following:
“And this is very difficult. Which is why multicultural states are tricky balancing acts, which lately tend to collapse. They especially tend to fall apart when modernity has broken down basic units such as the family, transformed people in communities into individuals facing the State. Cosmopolitanism gets even hard with the rise of democracy, with its fiction of popular sovereignty, and unlimited claims to dispose of private property as the majority sees fit. Once property is politicized—as always happens in centralized democracies—it only makes sense to fight for your share of the loot. And who is going to fight on your side?”
Basically, you’ve just admitted that our modern multicultural U.S. will inevitably fail (as a political state).
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I am a gringo living in Ciudad Juarez, just across from El Paso, TX. Mexicans I know do indeed have too great a tolerance for corruption and little respect for property rights, yet in many ways, thet are more American than us. First, Mexico actually has a functioning multiparty democracy as opposed to the closed system Republicrat duopoly in the Satates. Second, the Peso has been a more stable currency than the U.S. dollar over the past year. Third, one in five Mexican speak English while only one in twenty gringos speak ANY foreign language.
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John Zmirak,
The highest human tie is a mother’s love of her child, and I can’t for the life of me see why similar blood ties are so inherently evil if good is done to one’s own kin and order preserved upon such a structure. One may love one’s own, just as the mother loves the child, without believing in supremacy. And one may belong to a greater nation-state without wishing to expand or centralise it, though even today Switzerland seems to be en route to being digested by the EU identityless mass.
And just as the woman is justified in stealing to feed her child, so too is a tribe justified in stealing from another tribe out of necessity.
Hearthstone has a relevant article up which you might find of interest</a>.
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I must say, I’m pleased to read this post of yours though. I had suspected you of being, ah, different. Though you’ll not care, I now have a lot more respect for you. I also like decentralisation and distributism only… I’m far less inclined to trust other tribes who are wholly different from my own.
I still think you’re mistaken to value abortion more highly than concerns of the future political and social order of the US, however, your positions are more reasonable than I’d suspected.
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Forrest,
Since Croats are less racially distinct than more Western and Northern Europeans, they don’t tend to care as much about race, even denying that it exists. However, I think it important to acknowledge that new racial divisions should arise over time, and that we all did originate with Adam and Eve.
Mr. Zmirak,
once this tiresome debate is resolved, as if it ever will, I’ll get into eugenic concerns since the genes given us by our Creator do seem to be degrading. If a natural, humane solution is not found, then an unnatural solution might be found in genetic engineering and designer babies, reducing man’s worth to that of a machine imo. I’ve read Chesterton’s writing on this, but I think this issue ought to be faced nevertheless. More than even the loss of my own people, I’m concerned with GE and the resulting destruction of all of humanity which I think it would inevitably bring.
And this might be an issue on which I might gain useful moral insight from you Catholics, though such might also be too taboo for even takimag to discuss…
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Mr. Zmirak,
You might be ignoring me after I called that stance of yours loony in response to a previous post of yours…
If such offended you, then I do apologise for my poor choice of words. It was not meant as a personal attack.
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Mr. Zmirak,
Thanks for being so bold as to write on this topic. It’s so basic to our lives. When we see someone who looks like us, we know we are not alone; it’s just heartening.
As to “necessary evil”, how could their be such a thing? Love of one’s brethren is a delight. Hating strangers is certainly evil but hardly necessary in a nation where all are loved, but some are loved best.
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To reply first to Mr. Z:
I had a college professor, a man as wide as tall, who began his first class by standing on two stool, bending over and looking at he class through his legs, and saying “Don’t trust people with big butts.”
Let me assure Mr. Z that I do trust him as an honest and a wise man, with no hidden agenda. I share many of his loyalties: love of Middle Europe, love of the Habsburg dynasty, love of Italy, love of The Faith, love of the Traditional Mass. AND when I read his article today – an article that presented on one hand an overwhelming prosecutor’s brief against that evil called Nationalism, BUT on the other hand calls it a “necessary evil” – I was amazed!
To consider definition. Mr. Z is quite correct that much Nationalism isn’t ethnic. All the same, such nationalisms are fake attempts to imitate ethnic and racialist nationalism but asserting the existence of a super ethnos or super race – all covert attempts to grant the centralizing State some legitimacy. In fact Delcassé, Treitschke, Joseph Chamberlain, and Mazzini told lies. There are no people called “Frenchmen”, “Germans”, “Britons”, “Americans”, “Canadians”, and “Belgians”.
In distinction to this fake Central-Statist Nationalism, only “real” Nationalism is ethnic (“race” also being a fake concept). I put “real” in quotes because even with ethnic nationalism, there is something unreal. Here a more subtle distinction is needed between putative Nation and real Patria. I can understand Mr Z taking the Middle European view that decentralization means devolving into ethnic “Nations”. But the Burkean/Tory view is different. Patriotism is loyalty to a particular region and a particular people who share a common history (the key Burkean concept), not the bonds of consanguinity. A region and a people may be of many different ethnic and physiological groups, but the key is that they all share a common history. So my own country, North Carolina. So Switzerland. And Patria is always a small area. Nationalism, in contradistinction to Patriotism, is a “romantic” myth that envisions a purified “race” or “ethnos” free from “polluting” effects. To the extent that Nationalism is interested in history at all, it is a fictive history of some supposed Golden Age. Cf. Roger Griffin on palingenetic ultranationalism and Richard Sennett on retribalization. Nation almost always leads to expansionism and war.
Mr. Z is correct that as the bonds of religion weaken and as liberalism and statism disintegrate, nationalism raises its ugly head. He is also correct that there are other alternatives to Nationalism. One is loyalty to a dynasty. Another is Catholic Social Teaching, embodied in earlier Christian Democracy. And one ought to ask why Switzerland, a poly-ethnic and poly-sectarian order, does so well.
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To reply to writebackers:
“Frank” and “Forest” have made mistakes by confusing family, tribe, and “race”. “Race” we can dispense with, because it doesn’t exist. Family never ever extends beyond a very small group, which the ancients called “clans” (gens), and which lives in a village. The tribe exists only because of the incest taboo. They are a people with connubial rights, and nothing more, though a fiction is often created to make the tribe seem to be of common birth. When the polis comes into existence, the tribe becomes at best vestigial, and soon disappears. All this is basic Social Anthropology - and an anthropology with which Aristotle would agree.
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Thanks, Frank. I’m not ignoring anyone--I’m writing my blog for tomorrow!
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To All:
Those who support Nationalism—racialist, ethnic, central-statist—spit (I pray unintentionally) on the graves of Blessed Karl von Habsburg and Blessed Pius IX, two men conspicuously the victims of Nationalism, and repudiate (also I pray unintentionally) Piux XI’s Mit Brennender Sorge. They also are ignorant of history. In the 19th C and much of the 20th, the Real Conservative parties (eg Tory, Carlist, Jacobite, and Legitimist) and Ultramontane Catholic parties were not the Nationalist Parties, and for good reason. The French Radicals in 1906 and Bismarck before them persecuted Catholics as being “un-French” and “un-German” respectively. Real Conservatives and Real Catholics should be today equally anti-Nationalist.
Are Paleoconservatives really nothing but Neoconservatives who distinguish themselves only by their belief in Race, Tribe, Nation, or Judeophobia? [note the “or"]
Mr. Z:
Please while in Rome go to San Lorenzo fuori le Mura and pray at the graves of Bl. Pius IX and Alcide De Gasperi. San Lorenzo will be the station church Easter Wednesday.
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I deal with people of different “races” every day in my work, so don’t tell me race doesn’t exist. In some pseudo-intellectual fantasy world maybe, but not in the real world in which we actually co-exist (and what else matters?). Ideologues who spout such nonsense - despite all empirical and scientific/genetic evidence - always reference the Nazis and blame race conciousness on the innate racism of whites (the one “race” today that has the least race consciousness. Compare whites to blacks, who obsess about race and virtually nothing else. They make the KKK seem like model multiculturalists). The motive of these ideologues, many of whom make a good living off of race, is to instill guilt in whites and extort money and privileges - to transfer the products of the productive race to the unproductive one. Their “science” is always race-based.
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I wonder how many of the really Neanderthalic racists and anti-Semites here are simply agents provocateurs, working for the Southern Poverty Law Center, or some other anti-Western hate group.
Not all of them, I fear.
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Mr. Cundiff, I beg to differ:
Aristotle. Politics 5.1303a
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Forrest,
it’s a mistake to criticise alien immigration on the grounds of IQ since surely Chinese immigrants are no more wanted, however nice the ones already here might be.
Some even argue the more intelligent aliens are more dangerous since they potentially become a rival elite.
I’ve the highest respect for the Japanese nation, as do most on the, ah, far right I think, but I wish it to remain in Japan or at least not in my land.
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Kevin MacDonald article courtesy of Mr. Savage of the Brave New World Watch blog (wordpress.)
Quote: “Apparently, many restrictionists, far from feeling they were members of a superior ethnic group, worried that their people could not compete with Japanese and Chinese.”
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I know G. Zmirak has a PhD in creative writing or some such, but if he’s gonna write history, or about nationalism, he should get it right. The national movements in his beloved Empire can be traced to at least 1782, the year of the imposition of official German on the Magyars, Croats, and all other of the constituent nations of the empire. Indeed when the great Croat printer and linguist Ludevit Gaj went to Hungary in the early 1800s he found the Magyar revival in full swing, and thus brought back the idea of a Croat national revival to Zagreb. He also instituted the movement to unify south slavs in so-called Illyrianism, long before the Marxist/Fascist bialect that Zmirak describes.
Look, you guys seem to really want to get into this subject, leave off dabblers like Lukac, Muller, etc and get to the social scientists who know something about this. Recomendations, Gellners Nations and Nationalism, Hobbsbwm, Walker Connor, van den Berghe’s The Ethnic Phenomenon (oh, Sid, might want to avoid that, meantions biology(). The real ‘Romantics’ here are those pining for a long dead, psuedo-Catholic empire.
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Mr. Zmirak,
Since we are discussing the topic of ethno-nationalism, tribe and so forth, and since yourself alluded to your Croatian roots, I have a few questions on which I would genuinely value your viewpoint:
Both Serbs and non-Serbs have been perplexed at the society-wide complex that exists amongst so many Croats as regards their almost fanatical hate for Serbs, particularly given their close ethnic roots. Where does this stem from in Croatian society? The reverse does not seem to be as true with regards to Serbs. Yes, there are some that hate Croats, particularly those who lost family to the Ustasha, but this is mainly a reaction on an individual level as opposed to a societal phenomonon amongst Croats. Let me emphasize - there are individual Croats who bear no resemblance to this description, but the phenomenon amongst the society as whole is quite present as observed by “friends” and “foes” of Croatians.
I recall that the admirable Ante Markovic, the last prime minister of a federal Yugoslavia, a Croat himself, encountered extraordinary resistence from Zagreb as he tried to save the state by confederalizing it and freeing its market. To be sure, he encountered resistence from Belgrade as well, but it was Zagreb that saw no possibility to save the state and avoid civil war because they were so enthralled with hoisting the checkerboard flag (and, as was later divulged from recordings made of President Tudjman’s cabinet meetings) purging the Crioatian Republic of all Serbs.
One heard of more than a few Croatians (in Croatia) who rid themselves of Serbian spouses during the 1990s. On the other hand, here in the US and Canada, I have known the children of Chetniks (Serbian Royalists) to marry Croatians and remain happily married. I never heard of a Serb (in Serbia or abroad) that shed his/her Croatian spouse. This is by no means a statistical survey, merely my observations.
It seems to me that Croatians would rather raze the Orthodox church in their Croatian neighborhood and erect a mosque in its place than live with Orthodox Serbs. This perplexes me.
I will admit that I am a Serb, though born of Serbian immigrants to the US. I visited Yugoslavia often (including Croatia) and found no where other than with Croats this obsessive hate for Serbs.
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Dear Eagle,
I don’t understand it myself. I find this hatred disgusting, and it’s one reason I think the Croatians were better off as part of a tolerant empire than as heads of an intolerant republic. Indeed, reading the history of Croatia 1941-45 is one of the things that made me suspicious of any but the most moderate nationalism.
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For those interested in why the Croats have a dislike for Serbs, you can check out this website:
http://www.churchinhistory.org/default.htm
The author details the persecution of Catholic Croats in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
between the wars. Several Croatian members of parliament were murdered *in parliament*
by extremists several years before the assassination of the Yugoslav king. The author
is *not* an apologist for the Ustashe, but rather for the actions of the Catholic Church.
http://www.churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/croatia.pdf
The same website also explains the actions of Msgr. Tiso, the head of wartime Slovakia.
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I quote the website listed above:
“Although Catholics formed 40% of the population in 1921, she recieved only 7% of the government’s subsidy for Churches ((SH 47)). In 1924 the government encouraged lapsed Catholics to make a final break with their church by morally and financially helping the ‘Old Catholic Church’ ((TB 29)). Privileges were offered to young Croats who joined the pro-Serbian Sokal youth association ((TB 11)). Of 670 senior officials in government departments 80% were Orthodox Serbs ((TB 14)). Of 117 Army generals, 115 were Orthodox and one a Catholic ((CF 268)). Croatian children were forced to write with Cyrillic charactors ((TB 11)). The aim was to make everyone Serbian.
The ethnic struggle became one between centralism and federalism, with the Croatian Peasant Party acting as the mouthpiece of the Croats. On 19th June 1928 a Serbian member of Parliament, Punisa Racic, with suspected government support, shot five Croatian members from the rostrum of Parliament ((TB 9)). The Croatian leader, Stjepan Radic, and three others died. The remaining Croats withdrew from Parliament. Many Serbs hailed the assassin as a hero ((TB 9-10)). He received a light sentance in an open prison ((CC 14)) and allegedly given financial aid ((MB 120)).
In 1929 king Alexander established a personal dictatorship, with General Zivkovic, veteran of the 1903 regicide, as Prime Minister ((FCL 111)). The name ‘Yugoslavia’ was adopted in October 1929 ((CC 13)). Political and cultural groups were banned and, following killings, the Serbian police came to be hated in the Croat areas. ((SH 120-122)). As the Orthodox Church was seen as a sign of Serbdom, the pressures on Catholics to convert were intensified.
a. On 4th December 1929 Catholic and other independent youth groups were dissolved. Only the state controlled non-Catholic ‘Sokols’ were permitted ((SCB 179 and SSJ 53:29)).
b. New Catholic schools were not allowed and efforts were made to close those already existing ((CF 268)).
c. Falsifications and insults regarding the Catholic Church were incorporated into school textbooks ((CF 268)).
d. Ukrainian refugees of the Catholic Eastern rite, from the Soviet Union, had their churches, at Prnjavor, Lisnja and Hrvacani, taken and Serbian Orthodox priests appointed ((CF 267)).
e. Orthodox army officers were stationed in Croatian towns so as to encourage mixed marriages. These officers were bound by a confidential circular to marry in an Orthodox church and bring up all children as Serbian Orthodox ((CF 268)). Young Catholic women teachers were posted to Serbian villages with a similar aim ((CF 267, AHO 10)).
f. Catholic settlers In Macedonia and Dalmatia were favoured by the state if they became Serbian Orthodox ((CF 267)). Areas were systematically colonised. As a result of one agrarian reform In a Catholic area, land was allocated to 6,394 Orthodox families and 286 Catholic ones ((CF 268)).
h. Large imposing Byzantine style Orthodox churches were constructed in areas entirely Catholic so as to stress that the Serbian Church was the leading religion of the state ((CF 267)).
i. Catholics, including children, were expected to honour St. Sava as the symbol of national unity ((RJW 37)). The Serbians claimed he had founded their Serbian church in the 13th century ((RJW 32)).”
Is it as bad as what the Ustashe did? No. But it is worse than what the Croats had suffered
from Bosniak Mohammedans (as opposed to Turks) in recent memory, so the Croats came to despise the
Serbs with a greater vehemence than they did Bosniak Mohammedans
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Zmirak,
Defend your liberal PC dogma about race or stop smearing people who hold a different position from yours. That’s the modus operandci of the SPLC. You’re afraid of race and the issues it engenders - understandable but still inexcusable for a conservative. Someday, calling people (whites, that is) racists for disagreeing with you will be seen as the act of racism it is.
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So some Croats prefer to live in the company of Bosniak Mohammedans as opposed to Serbian
Orthodox. And at times the Serbs fought *with* the Mohammedan Turks *against* the Christian
Hungarians and Hapsburgs. So both Croats and Serbs have been in positions where they
perceived a greater threat coming from fellow Christians than from the infidel.
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“Frank”:
Give me the Greek word for “race” that Aristotle used which has been translated “race”. Then prove to me that he meant the same by it as Gobeneau and Co.
Then take a look at Fusel de Courlange, who proved that different folk from different poleis didn’t mix well because of religion.
For Aristotle, there are two natural human societies: the household (oikia) and the polis, and the latter is the telos for human beings.
Caper does a good job, IF his information is correct, that no one has clean hands in the Balkans.
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Mr. Zmirak,
Thank you for the reply. Contrary with popular media opinion, many Serbs share your sentiment. Moderate nationalism may be acceptable. My father has always stressed a dislike for nationalism. It goes beyond any “brotherhood and unity” he picked up from socialist Yugoslavia; he does not trust a vehement tribal association.
Caper,
What are your credentials on the matter other than a google search? Would you care for me to produce my own google search detailing Croatian abuses, the statistical decline in Serbian populations in Croatian areas? I may even ask what is your age?
In light of all this abuse you list, how would you explain the rather peaceful coexistence between Slovenes and Serbs? As I recall, Catholic Slovenes were in the Yugoslav Kingdom and thereby subject to these same alleged abuses.
You clearly betray a shallow understanding of Yugoslav dynamics in your use of Bosniak Mohammedans. The ethnic strife in Bosnia was almost entirely concocted and maintained by Washington. You may not know a single Bosnian Muslim, I suspect, since your invocation of that people is laughable.
Contrary to to the tone of your response, my original question to Mr. Zmirak was not intended in anyway as a taunt, but, rather, a real and legitimate question which he politely answered.
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I like Sid’s way. “’Race’ we can dispense with, because it doesn’t exist.” Let me guess your occupation, teacher.
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Re: Eagle:
I do not understand the hostility of your post. You asked what the basis for an animosity
was. I provided some of the reasons Croats claim to explain why they dislike Serbs. Yes,
you could quote things that Croats have done that anger Serbs. But you asked about the Croats,
and those are the things Croats say. Why be defensive or hostile?
“In light of all this abuse you list, how would you explain the rather peaceful coexistence between Slovenes and Serbs?” Um, well, generally speaking, don’t the Croats live between the Slovenes and the Serbs?
They didn’t live next to one another, or in the same villages, so it seems it would have been
rather difficult for the Serbs and the Slovenes to run afoul of one another as opposed to Serbs
and Croats. I wasn’t saying that Croats have clean hands, and I specifically said that nothing
the Serbs did was as bad as what the Ustashe did during WWII—far from it. But, as you point
out, both sides have historical bases for anger with the other. I don’t see how that’s controversial.
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“I suspect, since your invocation of that people is laughable”
I didn’t mean to “invoke” anything. You would know the history better than I do—readily
conceded. You wrote the following: “It seems to me that Croatians would rather raze the Orthodox church in their Croatian neighborhood and erect a mosque in its place than live with Orthodox Serbs. This perplexes
me.” Well, I tried to point out that the Croats perceived a greater cultural threat coming
from the Orthodox than from the Moslems. For the Serbs, the greater threat has always been
from the Moslems—or, for four horrible years during WWII, from the Croats. I rather think
that some Irish Catholics would prefer a mosque next door to them as opposed to one of the
Presbyterian churches subject to Ian Paisley. Not because Islam is superior to Eastern Orthodoxy or to Protestantism—not at all, but rather because, historically speaking, the greater perceived
threat came from the Serbs or the Scots-Irish Protestants, respectively. I am not trying to
say that un-Christian resentment is Christian, only to chart the offenses that generate the
grievances.
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Mr. Cundiff…
7.1327b:
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Caper,
If I mistook your tone, my apologies.
But I will maintain that you do not understand the details of (ex-) Yugoslavia. Your list is partially lies and partially out of context.
According to the logic of the list you supplied, Slovenes should hate Serbs as much as Croats hate Serbs. The Slovenes have some 100K+ Serbs among them in Slovenia (the precise number is difficult to assess due to intermarriage and citizenship records without ethnic identification). I may be mistaken, but it was pretty well known amongst Yugoslavs that Slovenes got along BETTER with Serbs than with Croats...as judged by polictial arrangements, business arrangements, marriages, etc. And Serbs feared not an independent Solvenia like they did an independent Croatia (in the 1990s) precisely because there was no history of dislike with Slovenes.
I do not wish to re-hash Catholic-Orthodox battles of the past. I think they were/are stupid and don’t serve the purposes of a rejuvenated Christendom, which requires a close cooperation bewteen the two if such a civilization is to sutvive in any shape or form.
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“The Slovenes have some 100K+ Serbs among them in Slovenia (the precise number is difficult to assess due to intermarriage and citizenship records without ethnic identification).”
Still, am I correct in saying that the Serbian populations and the Slovenian ones are not
in as much contact as the Serbs and the Croats? Are there more Serbs in Croatia than in
Slovenia? It makes sense that the Slovenes and Serbs would get along fairly well—the
Slovenes feared being absorbed into a Greater Croatia, as did a great many Serbs. The
Croats feared being absorbed into a Greater Serbia, which was not as great a fear for the
Slovenes, who had Croatia between them and Serbia. The fact that the French got along
better with the Russians than either side did with the Germans has more to do with strategic
geography than it does with the innate character of the Germans, Russians, or French. Until
someone proves to me otherwise, I’ll assume that geography was a major factor (not the
only one, but a major one) for why the Slovenes got along with the Serbs better than,
apparently, either side got along with the Croats.
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Caper,
With regard to Bosniak Muslims - the explanation is too long to go into here. But here are a few key points:
1. Bosnian Muslims and Croats do not get along. They sought a temporary arrangement in the 19990s as a means of thwarting the salvaging the Yugoslav state.
2. The Muslims referenced in #1 are a minority. Most were (and maybe/probably are) Yugoslavists. The Alija Izetbegovic’s and current clones in “office” over there are Amero-Saudi fabrications whose own people dislike and don’t look to for gudiance. Note the recent riots in Sarajevo against the “government” (American installed stooges).
3. While it is true that the Croats have sided with Bosnians and Albanians in both WWII and recent civil wars, my invocation of the mosque was more for illustrative and civilizational purposes. In other words, the Croat mindset (societally and not individually) had been to risk wider disaster at home just to not be associated with Serbs.
The wider public does not know that economic standrads of living are not only lower in Serbia, but Croatia as well, since the disintegration of Yugoslavia. This speaks volumes considering we hear the often repeated lie that Serbs “kept the Croat economy down”. The truth is that both Serbs and Croats would be better off today if they had found a way to make Yugoslavia work - as a confederation or whatever - rather than go to war.
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Caper,
You are missing my point regarding the Croat societal mindset.
They weakened their own economy, enagaged in war that destroyed towns and villages, delayed their entry into the EU, and would poke their own eye out if they were told it was a Serbian eye. There is no “strategy” in this obsession that is extreme, chauvanistic, and irrational nationalism.
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Race doesn’t exist! Race doesn’t exist! *twitch* Purge the browns! Purge the browns! *twitch* *twitch*
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Rainman,
I fear all I will accomplish is causing Mr. Cundiff to toss Aristotle in the trash, haha.
Part of the disagreements here are simply between those of different ethnicities, though Mr. Cundiff claims to be of Scots-Irish as I recall. And as such he ought to be in my camp if identity was all that mattered…
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“Bosnian Muslims and Croats do not get along. They sought a temporary arrangement in the 19990s as a means of thwarting the salvaging the Yugoslav state.” I meant that they got along better with each other
than with the mutual enemy, which you pointed out here.
Thank you for informing me that the Mohammedans of Bosnia are in the minority, and other facts
about Bosnia.
“In other words, the Croat mindset (societally and not individually) had been to risk wider disaster at home just to not be associated with Serbs.” This may well be true. As I pointed out, this has also been
true with different ethnic groups in the Balkans at different times, who preferred religious autonomy and
Turkish Mohammedan rule to rule by or reliance upon Christians of other sects or nationalities, which they regarded as a more
imminent threat (and they too could cite a list of abuses, including some major real ones, in
order to explain their choice). So though a preference for bearing grudges that harm the
common good may be a part of the current Croat mindset, it is not exclusive to the Croats (not
that you claimed as much, but it seems fair to mention it). You’re right, conflict between the
Catholics and the Orthodox gets in the way of defending Europe from the Turk.
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“Modern racial egalitarians can’t bear to look at the evidence from comparative anatomy and molecular genetics that now prances before their eyes, and they have to resort to the most grotesque ideological and linguistic contortions to preserve the egalitarian myth that “race doesn’t exist"." ---- Sam Francis, “New Lies for Old” (1997)
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Unsurprisingly, John Zmirak is silent about the famines, wars, poverty, disease, infant mortality, and ignorance that ravaged Europe for over a thousand years in the glory days of Roman Catholicism (when France was a tenth world country by modern standards), but instead focuses on the extreme tail end of these horrors in the twentieth century, when they became less common and were finally eliminated under ... secularism, atheism, and big government.
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Caper,
Yes, indeed. Cooperation is called for now more than ever.
Sadly, I fear what we now have are growing divisions among Christians and unity in a materialist secularism.
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“There is no “strategy” in this obsession that is extreme, chauvanistic, and irrational
nationalism.”
In determining the answer to the question “Is it rational,” you must consider also the
question “Is it worth it?” That gets very subjective. If the Yugoslav govt. and the Serbs
had acted differently in recent years, they too could have gained greater support from the
outside, which the fault the Croats for delaying (i.e. in putting off EU membership, etc.). You
might reply, “It wasn’t worth the sacrifice to toe the aggressive U.S. line.” And the Croats
might be happy to have delayed EU entry and to have suffered some economic losses: “It wasn’t
worth the sacrifice of toeing Belgrade’s line.” I think that as a Serbian-American, Croatian
goals and priorities simply will win less sympathy in your eyes than an outsider might apply.
And for a Croatian, those priorities will probably seem higher than an “objective” outsider would rate them. . In
the evaluation of worth, there is this
subjective element.
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My point was *not* to equate the choices of the Croats and of the Belgrade govt. vis-a-vis
U.S. and NATO bombing. I only meant that the question “Is it worth it” will inevitably
be answered differently by outsiders and by neighbors with some grievances than by the
people engaged in the actual struggles.
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Sid,
Checking my calender, I notice that “conservatism” is set to expire within the next 10 years. The cause of death reads as follows:
1.) Deflationary spiral. (Round One)
2.) Global aging. (Round Two)
3.) Hydrocarbon depletion. (Round Three)
4.) Shifting racial, cultural, and religious demographics. (Round Four)
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So my own country, North Carolina
What if North Carolinians are displaced by outsiders migrating to the state? (It seems to be already happening) If the locals resisted their displacement would that make them dreaded nationalist bigots who are intolerant of newcomers?
“Race” we can dispense with, because it doesn’t exist.
Only people who are too old and stuck in their ways to reconsider their views in light of scientific evidence could possibly say that.
JZ,
According to John Lukacs Croatians wanted out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They may have been loyal to it in the distant past but weren’t they initially very enthusiastic about the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes?
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I wonder how many of the really Neanderthalic racists and anti-Semites here are simply agents provocateurs, working for the Southern Poverty Law Center, or some other anti-Western hate group.
The Neanderthals were probably creationists.
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I have no idea how high infant mortality has anything to do with Catholicism. Of course, Prozium
is not taking into account the high mortality of unborn infants. The Catholics certainly did not
desire for children to die in infancy. The secularists definitely do want babies to die in the
womb.
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I’m reminded yet again of the reasons why I could never be a conservative:
1.) Conservatives have nothing of relevance to say about the pressing sustainability issues now confronting the West: changing racial, ethnic, religious demographics, the global credit crunch, global aging, and hydrocarbon depletion. In fact, in many ways, they have worked to exacerbate these problems, as in deregulation of the banking industry, support for amnesty for illegal aliens, and years of opposition to alternative energy. In the future, we will pay dearly for these mistakes.
2.) Conservatives are responsible for surrendering the American Southwest to Mexico, Western Europe to Islam, and the U.S. economy to China and Arab SWFs. The major legacy of conservatism is that future generations of Americans will be poorer and worse off in countless ways than their parents.
3.) Conservatives are liars. For decades they have presented themselves as champions of important causes (opposition to illegal immigration, multiculturalism, affirmative action, etc.), but in fact they have merely been exploiting these concerns in order to build electoral support for their pro-business agenda, which is what they really care about and consistently pursue once safely in elected office.
4.) Conservatives are too wrapped up in religion. They seek to inject their religious views into sensitive areas of public policy where they have no business. There are numerous examples of this: the onesidedness of our support for Israel, our belligerent foreign policy in Iraq, opposition to embryonic stem cell research, and dabbling in science education. It disturbs me that End Time Dispensationalists who seek to literally embroil America in Armageddon have the ear of the President of the United States.
5.) The conservative movement is seemingly devoid of substantive ideas, and compensates for its intellectual poverty by crude moral exhoration, parsing various irrelevancies, patriotic chest beating, and demonization of foreigners. This is done to distract attention away from their embarrassing public policy failures both here in the United States and abroad.
6.) Conservatives eagerly reinforce the mainstream taboos surrounding intelligent discussion of racial differences and Jewish influence in our culture. They constrict our discourse. As a false opposition, they extend indispensible legitimacy to political correctness, in the absence of which it could not possibly function. White Americans are left declawed, confused, and worse off with each passing year.
7.) Conservatives are militarists who seek to rule the world. They yearn to prosecute further destructive wars which have already destroyed the lives of countless millions of people and tarnished the image of our nation in the eyes of the world. This is in addition to maiming and sending thousands of our own young people to their graves unnecessarily. They suck capital out of our economy from productive enterprises and redistribute the largesse to a parasitic caste which has an institutional conflict of interest with peace.
8.) Conservatives are consistent in one thing alone: their defense of privileged, propertied elites, at the expense of the common good. They sanctimoniously dress up the rankest exploitation in the clothes of morality. Conservatives are against racial prejudice, not because of the damage it does to non-whites (through denial of opportunity), but because it suits them to have an endless supply of cheap labor perpetually flowing into the United States from all ends of the earth.
These gigantic hypocrites ramble on about “class warfare,” as if they are in anyway above this, while ruthlessly pursuing policies calculated to undermine labor unions, hollow out the middle class, enrich investors at the expense of average citizens (letting Wall Street run wild with Social Security), and shift the burden of taxation onto the shoulders of the poor. They gorge themselves at the trough of corporate lobbyists, and invoke the nation only when it suits their latest wealth redistribution scheme, as in the Iraq War, a $3 trillion dollar bonanza which we will be paying interest on for generations at the expense of social services.
9.) Conservatism delays the formation of a true resistance movement to liberalism, and diverts the energies of good people in ways that prop up, perpetuate, and worsen the status quo, as we saw with the business community in the immigration debate.
10.) The prescriptions that conservatives offer to mitigate the damage caused by social liberals - cultural and economic laissez-faire - are precisely what has enabled them in the first place. As a matter of principle (or, shall we say, of profit), they seek to cripple the one tool (government) that could conceivably be used to reign these subversives in.
11.) Conservatism is centered on a rank individualism that is both dishonest and self-defeating. They discount the intricate ways that genetic inheritance and environment interact to construct the individual. By exaggerating the importance of the individual out of all proportion to reality, the communities and social structures that the individual is immersed in are weakened and soiled, and the individual is atomized, left to his own devices, and easily dominated.
12.) Conservatism is an apology for capitalism. It is the engine of the capitalist economy which has been driving many of the most sordid cultural changes over the past half century, from our abhorrent consumer culture to suburbia, which has demolished real communities from coast to coast and devalued the family, in turn setting the stage for the demographic wipe out approaching on the horizon.
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Caper,
Yes, but recent conversations with Croatians verify that some of them, in retrospect, agree. It was not worth it. A lot of Serbs may even disagree with me for saying so now, but a Yugoslav state reconstituted somewhat to accomodate a freer market and local cultural interests could have survived if not for Croat intransigence because of a sort of obsession driven by nationalism and anti-Serb chauvinism. And, American meddling to disintegrate Yugoslavia, of course....
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Caper,
I am afraid our exchange has been interupted by the aetheists.
And, I guess a major argument around race has erupted around us.
I will disengage and wish all a good night and thanks for the discussion.
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Awe come now. One atheist posted only…
And surely my quoting of Aristotle isn’t that unbearable.
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@Caper:
“And at times the Serbs fought *with* the Mohammedan Turks *against* the Christian
Hungarians and Hapsburgs. “
Perhaps you should research what the term “Vojna Krajina” means and how did it come that Serbs have settled in parts of Hapsburg empire. Than you should weigh that against the term “vassal state” and try to figure out a distinction between a “Serb” and a “Serbian state”.
@Eagle
As for institutionalized “hate” that Croats express toward the Serbs I think it is more a matter of perception than reality. At work I have contacts with lots of people of different nationalities. As recently as yesterday I have been asked about a Croatian person that fought in war in Croatia, whether he would even speak to me. I was honestly perplexed at idea that he MUST hate me. This is exactly the same attitude that Caper shows: Serbs and Croats go to war simply because they hate each other, unlike “civilized” nations that go to war for the reasons of national interest, to address grave injustice etc. If anyone states that US went to war in Iraq because US and Iraq hate each other and soldiers returning from Iraq MUST feel hate toward Iraqis he would be quite right dismissed as a loony, yet similar statements have been circulated around vis-a-vis Serbs and Croats.
It is amusing (if you can suppress gag reflex) to watch Europe grow into Yugoslavia on steroids (EU) believing that they have transcended nation, race and religion. Well, good luck on that one, but somehow I doubt that you are all that different from Serbs and Croats as you would like to believe…
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“This is exactly the same attitude that Caper shows: Serbs and Croats go to war simply because they hate each other, unlike “civilized” nations that go to war for the reasons of national interest, to address grave injustice etc.”
Goodness, I did not say that they “simply” go to war for hatred, nor did I say they were
“uncivilized.” Nope, I didn’t say that. Please don’t put words in my mouth. I explicitly
compared the Slovenes, Croats, and Russians to the French, Germans, and Russians, and the Serbs
and Croats to the two sides in Ireland. I didn’t imply that those peoples fought simply out of
hatred or that they were uncivilized. I tried to provide real reasons why animosity might have
arisen; I was trying to *avoid* the conclusion that either side of being so irrational/chauvinistic/
etc., etc. as Eagle said the Croats were.
Yes, I am aware of the Great Migrations. Yes, I know that a Serbian patriarchate was set up
in the North, in the Hapsburg lands. Thank you for drawing the distinction between the
Serbian state and the “Serbs.” I am under the impression that at one point (the turn of
17th/18th Century) the Austrians made advances into Turkish-held Serbia and then could not
hold onto the territory because the local Serbs preferred Turkish rule to Austrian—*unlike*
their countrymen who chose to migrate to Hapsburg lands. And the vassal state of Durad Brankovic
opted to intercept Skanderbeg, which is part of the reason the Turks won the *Second* Battle of
Kosovo. That *does* not mean that all Serbs were pro-Turkish, or that any were pro-Turkish
in their hearts, nor does it mean that Serbs today are suspect. It simply means that today’s
Croats are not the first Balkan people to see a more imminent threat in their Christian
neighbors than in the infidel outsider.
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@Caper
“And the vassal state of Durad Brankovic
opted to intercept Skanderbeg, which is part of the reason the Turks won the *Second* Battle of
Kosovo. That *does* not mean that all Serbs were pro-Turkish, or that any were pro-Turkish
in their hearts, nor does it mean that Serbs today are suspect. It simply means that today’s
Croats are not the first Balkan people to see a more imminent threat in their Christian
neighbors than in the infidel outsider.
“
Perhaps that’s the reason why Serbs of “vassal state of Durad Brankovic” or today overwhelmingly Christian and “Skanderbeg” Albanians are overwhelmingly Moslem? You seem to be aware of many facts from Balkan history, so how would you describe the life of Serbs under medieval Turks? A picnic? That must be why “the local Serbs preferred Turkish rule to Austrian"… Term “Vojna Krajina” implies much more than simple migration to Christian held lands. I think you are aware of that but somehow you are not finding that important enough to include it into your “fact-book”. Also, in a spirit of previous post I beg to make a a distinction between an “Austrian” and an “Austrian (Hapsburg) empire”. For all you know it could have been Serbs from Vojna Krajina and Vojvodina (interesting name also) that have spearheaded advance of Hapsburg empire and not “Austrians.”
In any case, trying to rationalize today’s events by something that happened hundreds of years ago deserve the same response that I got from my Montenegrin father when I asked him about what tribe we are from:” This is 20th century.”
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Very interesting post and I think that I have found a blogger to replace Andrew Sullivan as an interesting, libertarian-leaning Catholic.
Do you not think that religious community - specifically the institution of the Catholic Church - bridges that gap you speak (absence of durable, shared loyalties) between new immigrants and established ethnic groups?
Would the same process that happened to the Irish in the NY/NJ happen here?
I hope so.
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It might be profitable if we all considered describing the self-amalgamating tendencies of people as SECTARIANISM, whether describing race, tribe,class, nation or religious affiliation. This is defined as a natural perception and identification with a specific group.Which self accepted group designation, or the driving force behind it probably cannot be determined as by a fixed social LAW. During certain periods and under certain pressures, various group identifications will become paramount. We cannot explain precisely how, why and what: but we can predict that the process will occur.
Modern genetic research has revealed that compared with DNA of human groups existing thousands of years ago, humankind is now MORE genetically group distinctive.
While the Occidental might have an average IQ level less than East Asians, the variability both above and below to extremes is greater hence the “genius” as well as the imbecile is more numerous. Displayed on the Bell Shaped Curve, while we have far lesser percentages populating the “normal range” resulting in a slimmer and slightly shifted “body” of the bell, we have many, many more inhabiting the flanges. That is why a case can be made that though a small minority on this planet, we are indispensable for the species.
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“Perhaps that’s the reason why Serbs of “vassal state of Durad Brankovic” or today overwhelmingly Christian and “Skanderbeg” Albanians are overwhelmingly Moslem?”
I am aware that the Albanians today are overwhelming Mohammedans. Many of the native Catholics
fled to Italy and Sicily. They might never have been conquered if Durad had decided to join the
Hungarians and Albanians at Kosovo instead of obeying the Sultan. Balkan power could have been
broken. It seems that such a failure should be remembered alongside the Sack of Constantinople
of 1204, as an example when Christians fell upon one another instead of uniting for the common good
There was the glorious First Battle of Kosovo in 1389, and a much sadder one in 1448. The threat of swift and brutal retaliation (genocide) probably dissuaded Brankovic. My point is to say, Balkan history is complex, and not
everything went in one direction. You yourself say that much of Croatian hatred of Serbia is
perception—not all of it, but much of it.
Yes, the Serbs were on the Military Frotier, where they were great fighters against the Turk.
Here is where I got my info (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13732a.htm): “The first hope of deliverance from the Turkish yoke came from Austria which, under Charles of Lorraine, repeatedly defeated the Turks in the years 1684-86 and took possession of several provinces. When, in 1690, the Emperor Leopold I issued a proclamation declaring that he would protect the religion and the political rights of all Slavonic peoples on the Balkan peninsula, and called upon them to rise against the Turks, about 36,000 Servian and Albanian families, led by their patriarch, emigrated from Servia. After Leopold had given them the desired guarantees they crossed the Save and settled in Slavonia, in Syrmia, and in some of the Hungarian cities, where their descendants now form a considerable portion of the population. Their rights have always been protected by the emperor, and the see of a Servian patriarch was established at Carlowitz. The victories of Prince Eugene of Savoy forced Turkey to surrender all of Servia to Austria by the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718). But the Austrian Government was not able to win the sympathy of its new subjects, and, after the unsuccessful war of Charles VI against Turkey (1738-39), Servia was retroceded to that power.
Although the Serbs themselves had contributed largely to the restoration of the Turkish supremacy, their loyalty was ill repaid by the cruelties of the Janizary revolt. At the request of the Greek Orthodox Church, the Patriarchate of Ipak was again suppressed, in 1766, and the Servian Church was placed directly under the patriarch of Constantinople, who sent as bishops to Servia almost exclusively men of Greek nationality, who were hostile to Servian efforts for liberty. During the war against Turkey carried on by Joseph II and Catherine II in the years 1788-1790, rose in favour of Austria. In 1804 a general revolt was provoked by the atrocities of the Janizaries. The head of the rebellion was George Petrowitch, who was also called Karageorge (Black George).
“
You may dismiss that as a hostile source; it certainly isn’t favorable to Serbian Orthodoxy. But
all the other facts seem consistent with what the secular sources say. So I figured that the
claim that local Serbian resistance to Hapsburg advances in the 1730s really did favor the Turks.
Either it’s true or it’s false. The article does not say that the Serbs who manned the Military
Frontier were party to the ultimately pro-Turkish activities.
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“Balkan power could have been
broken.”
I.e. Turkish power in the Balkans.
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Prozium,
whom are you addressing? This conservative/Prozium divide is not accurate here I think.
It’s expected that old stock Americans such as you and I would view politics differently than Eastern European Catholics.
And if immigration isn’t halted immediately, our voices are going to grow increasingly irrelevant.
Not to group all Eastern Europeans into a basket, but such a divide explains much of this. Each side seems to view reality through a different historical prism.
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Here’s what I read here (http://www.kosovo.net/socheng2.html): “During the following Austro-Turkish war of 1737-1739 Serbs, unfortunately, suffered a similar fate. Patriarch of Pec Arsenije IV Jovanovic-Sakabenta (1728-1737, Yovanovich Shakabenta) prematurely hoped that final freedom could be achieved soon and consequently decided to lead his people to revolt against the Turks. Austrian support fell short and he was forced to lead yet another great wave of refugees north of rivers Sava and Danube. This time Turkish revenge was even more ruthless than before. Monasteries and churches were torched, Bogorodica Ljeviska of Prizren was turned into a mosque, monastery Manasija church was turned into a horse stable, and great numbers of Serbs were taken into slavery to be sold in slave markets of Europe and Asia. There also occurred another great wave of forcible conversions to Islam …”
That would go against what I read in the other article.
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Forrest,
I wasn’t aware of Chinese eyesight problems. Northern Europeans and Asians, and especially Jews, seem to all suffer genetic defects, albeit while also enjoying higher intelligence.
I want high wages really.
Much of our problems today can be explained by giving into temptation: that of greed and lust. Were men more virtuous, we wouldn’t be in such troubles. If given a second chance, I hope we’ll design a society that encourages virtue, albeit honestly and openly not in an underhanded manner… A civilisation to endure for thousands of years! A man can dream…
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It looks like the author of the Catholic Encyclopedia article may have confused the local
Bosnian Moslem support for the Turks during the Third Austro-Turkish War with Serbian support. So, with apologies, I withdraw
that claim. In a way I’m lucky I advanced it, for otherwise I wouldn’t have been corrected.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War_(1735–1739)
“Russo–Turkish War of 1735–1739, a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, caused by intensified contradictions over the results of the War of the Polish Succession of 1733–1735 and endless raids by the Crimean Tatars. The war also represented Russia’s continuing struggle for the access to the Black Sea.
Russian diplomacy before the war
By the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war, Russia had managed to secure a favorable international situation by signing a few treaties with Persia in 1732–1735 (which was at war with Turkey in 1730–1736) and supporting the accession to the Polish throne of Augustus III in 1735 instead of the French protégé Stanislaw I Leszczynski, nominated by pro-Turkish France. Austria had been Russia’s ally since 1726.
The course of the war in 1735–1738
The casus belli were the raids of the Crimean Tatars on Ukraine in the end of 1735 and the Crimean khan’s military campaign in the Caucasus. In 1736, the Russian commanders envisioned the seizure of Azov and the Crimea.
In 1735, on the eve of the war, the Russians made peace with Persia, giving back all the territory conquered during the Russo-Persian War.
On May 20, 1736, the Russian Dnieper army (62,000 men) under the command of Field Marshal Burkhard Christoph von Munnich took by storm the Turkish fortifications at Perekop and occupied Bakhchisaray on June 17. However, lack of supplies coupled with the outbreak of an epidemic forced Munnich to retreat to Ukraine. On June 19, the Russian Don army (28,000 men) under the command of General Peter Lacy with the support from the Don Flotilla under the command of Vice Admiral Peter Bredahl seized the fortress of Azov. In July 1737, the Munich army took by storm the Turkish fortress of Ochakov. The Lacy army (already 40,000 men strong) marched into the Crimea the same month, inflicting a number of defeats on the army of the Crimean khan and capturing Karasubazar. However, Lacy and his soldiers had to leave the Crimea due to lack of supplies.
In July 1737, Austria entered the war against Ottoman Empire, but was defeated a number of times. In August, Russia, Austria and Ottoman Empire began negotiations in Nemirov, which would turn out to be fruitless. There were no significant military operations in 1738. The Russian army had to leave Ochakov and Kinburn due to the plague outbreak.
The final stage of the war
In 1739, the Munich army crossed the Dnieper, defeated the Turks at Stavuchany and occupied the fortress of Khotin (August 19) and Iaşi. However, Austria was defeated by the Turks once again and signed the separate Belgrade Peace Treaty with the Ottoman Empire on August 21. This, coupled with the imminent threat of the Swedish invasion, forced Russia to sign the Treaty of Nissa with Turkey on September 18, which ended the war.”
So I am to believe “Catholic encyclopedia” that Serbs have defeated Austria “a number of times” and that the war has nothing to do with “pro-Turkish France”, “threat of the Swedish invasion” and so on? Serbs fighting “sweet orthodoxy” Russia? Please forgive me if I am somewhat skeptical of your interpretation of what has transpired…
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Mr. Djurovic: No, that is not what you should take away from that article. It seems that the
author either confused Bosnian support for the Turks with Serbian support, or else he misunderstood
an historical account about a premature rebellion by the Serbs against the Turks which the Hapsburgs could not
support. The Orthodox source I cited says that the Serbs miscalculated and rebelled too soon
and the Hapsburgs couldn’t support them. The Catholic Encyclopedia author, who seems to have
gotten most of the rest right, may have written “Although the Serbs themselves had contributed largely to the restoration of the Turkish supremacy” because he misunderstood that the Serbs contributed to
Turkish domination only by acting prematurely to get rid of it. I don’t know.
Whatever: even before your last post, I noted that I couldn’t find any corroboration for the claim so I withdrew it.
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Furthermore, you are creating a straw man. The Catholic Encyclopedia article did not say
that the Third Austro-Turkish War was *all about* Serbian actions. The author simply made a
claim (as far as I can tell uncorroborated and probably mistaken) about Serbian loyalties being a factor in why the Hapsburgs
surrendered Belgrade to the Turks. So this statement: “So I am to believe “Catholic encyclopedia” that Serbs have defeated Austria “a number of times” and that the war has nothing to do with “pro-Turkish France”, “threat of the Swedish invasion” and so on? Serbs fighting “sweet orthodoxy” Russia? Please forgive me if I am somewhat skeptical of your interpretation of what has transpired… “ is an unfair characterization of the article, except that yes, it would be strange for Serbs not to act in concert with Russians. But for an article about “Servia” only
Serbian actions in the war were relevant, not commentary on the French, the Russians, or the
number of battles the Turks won.
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@Caper
“The Catholic Encyclopedia author, who seems to have
gotten most of the rest right, may have written “Although the Serbs themselves had contributed largely to the restoration of the Turkish supremacy” because he misunderstood that the Serbs contributed to
Turkish domination only by acting prematurely to get rid of it. I don’t know.”
I am really tired of this discussion. If you think that above statement reflects the truth on the matter so be it. It also reflects on you and the author. Nothing more to say on the subject.
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In any case, my point about Durad Brankovic was sufficient to prove my point: in the Balkans,
there have been instances when groups other than the Croats acted in narrow national or sectariann interests
against the interests of the greater common good of the Christian West. I am thankful that I
have been corrected for having believed an historical error, but the point remains. And it’s not
even all that big of a point realy, as it says nothing about who’s thinking and acting accurately
at the current moment.
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Mr. Djurovic: Wow, I have been trying to say, several times now that I *do not* think that the
Catholic Encyclopedia article “reflects the truth on the matter.” “What reflects on me” is the
fact that I did further research, realized that my initial source probably got it wrong, corrected
my mistake, and then tried to find someway to explain how my initial source fell into his error.
It could be he really just goofed, or was bigoted, though I’d rather not invoke the latter in the first
instance. It reflects on the author that he did not do his work very well, or else he somehow had access to sources we no longer have. More likely the former, I think. I don’t know. “Nothing more to say on the subject.” Well, if you are going to misrepresent what I say and to imply that I have been stubborn in error when I’ve tried to do the opposite, then I hope you will have nothing more to say on it. I’m sorry I wasted time
trying to account for the evidence, although I am still thankful you corrected me.
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Actually, I do not know if Sasha is a male name or female. I wrote “Mr.” above, yet all the
Sasha’s I know are female. I guessed wrong about a Kari on this site, so sorry if I goofed.
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Any of the “respectable” Conservatives here gotten ‘round to explaining why support for Jewish ethnonationalism (Israel) is kosher (practically written into Conservatism), but support for European or European-American ethnonationalism is “beyond the Pale”?
Inquiring minds want to know. What’s with the chirping crickets, guys?
“Frank” and “Forest” have made mistakes by confusing family, tribe, and “race”. “Race” we can dispense with, because it doesn’t exist.
I’m going to need more than your assertions on that. People self-identify racially with 99.8% accuracy (Racial groupings match genetic profiles, Stanford study finds). Pretty good for a shared hallucination.
If you want more I can give you reams, e.g:
Gene Study Identifies 5 Main Human Populations
Please try dealing with questions of science via science, not assertions, semantics, or philosophy.
Family never ever extends beyond a very small group, which the ancients called “clans” (gens), and which lives in a village.
Semantics. The basic mechanics of family extend right out to the racial level, beyond to the species level, and all the way to the level of all biological life (btw, if anyone knows the biological term for “all life on Earth” please let me know!).
The tribe exists only because of the incest taboo. They are a people with connubial rights, and nothing more, though a fiction is often created to make the tribe seem to be of common birth.
“Tribe is just another word for “group.” Ethny or ethnicity seem pretty interchangeable with tribe, though tribe is more overarching, with overtones of governance. How is a group’s acknowledgement of its own common ancestry necessarily a “fiction”?
When the polis comes into existence, the tribe becomes at best vestigial, and soon disappears.
Then how do you explain Jewry, that most cosmopolitan of groups, still calling itself a tribe after 3,000 years? That aside, what is the relevance? Seems in context you’re suggesting that when one method of governance ascends, the one preceding it descends; not much of a revelation there.
All this is basic Social Anthropology - and an anthropology with which Aristotle would agree.
The first thing you should do is ditch the vast majority of that drek. Most of it is deliberately hostile to Europeans.
it’s a mistake to criticise alien immigration on the grounds of IQ since surely Chinese immigrants are no more wanted, however nice the ones already here might be.
How so? Pointing out the downsides of one group doesn’t preclude pointing out the different downsides of another. E.g., I don’t want black or mestizo serfs, any more than I want yellow overlords.
Some even argue the more intelligent aliens are more dangerous since they potentially become a rival elite.
There you go! :)
John Z, this “sadly” thing of yours has to go. Can’t you reconcile your faith and human nature? Shouldn’t any well-informed Christian find a way to make human nature work within his cosmology? Or is your God so capricious as to give us a basic human nature, only to demand we oppose it? Clearly our tendency toward “sectarianism” is inborn. Not going the Naturalistic Fallacy route, just suggesting that ordering human societies ought to begin and end with due attention paid to human nature, enthusiastically. In other words, it isn’t sad that human nature conflicts with your faith, it’s sad that your faith conflicts with human nature. The same goes for liberalism, conservatism, etc., etc. Surely God doesn’t want to steamroll my reason?
You see a way forward to improving global and local stability in the long term, and all you can come up with is “sad”?
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Empire is but an expanded version of fiefdom
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