Some time ago I posted on Google+ a small item about ‘the groans of the Britons’. This was a request sent by Romano-British aristocrats to the Western Roman Emperor in the year 446. The Roman Army had been withdrawn from Britannia in 407, some 39 years before. The text we have is this:
“To Agitius, thrice consul: the groans of the Britons. [...] The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians; between these two means of death, we are either killed or drowned.”
It was a plea for assistance. And the Romans had responded to such pleas twice already, with military aid. This time they did not come back. There is no record of a reply, but they had definitely abandoned Britannia by now.
I find that fragment deeply moving somehow. Even though current evidence suggests that the text was exaggerating the situation, and that immediate post-Roman Briton was more stable than was previously thought, it nevertheless speaks of a kind of desperation. A world that they had known was folding up underneath them.
In my darkest moments I sometimes feel like they must have felt. A world I have known is under great threat, serious threat. We in Europe have no Empire to call on. Once upon a time I would have placed the USA in that sort of a role. But America is not what she was. In fact America puts me in mind of the Western Roman Empire on its last legs. The lunatics are running the asylum.
Because make no mistake, we are at war.
A bald statement that requires some explanation. When I say ‘we’ I am not referring to a particular country, I am referring to a whole culture, a whole way of life and a set of values that are worth defending, that are worth fighting for. With ‘we’ I mean those of us who stand by these values, who love these values and who are prepared to fight for these values. The values in question are the core values that define Western culture and Western civilization.
I will come to those in a moment.
If we are in a war, who are we fighting? Who is the enemy? As an initial generalisation I would argue that we are fighting an ideology, or two wings of a core ideological mode of thinking. The fighting is taking place on real battlefields in the Middle East, but also in Universities, colleges, public spaces, in the media. It is a sprawling war with many fragments. It is, mostly, a guerilla war. It is a war that those of us who appreciate Western values must fight.
The values that I label ‘Western’ are these:
“Rationalism, self-criticism, disinterested searching for truth, separation of church and state, the rule of law, equality before the law, freedom of conscience and expression, human rights, liberal democracy …”
http://www.westminster-institute.org/articles/the-superiority-of-western-values-in-eight-minutes/
These are precious things to believe in and to guide one’s actions and decisions. They have been very hard won over 2000 years, or more. They have been hammered out in conflict and battles and wars. They define, I believe, Western Culture and Western Civilization. They have produced some of the greatest works of art, literature and music. They have formed and shaped the lives of people, giving people more and more control over their own destinies. They have produced the wonder of modern science and the technology that arises from it. They have unleashed humanity’s productive potentials. They have assisted us in the great escape from poverty and short nasty lives. It is a superior cultural heritage and we must not throw it away.
I, personally, have a problem with the concept of democracy, which I may discuss another time. I agree, though, with Churchill’s remark:
“Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Speech in the House of Commons (11 November 1947)
The enemy who we face is a form of fascist ideology. I say that because they manifest several key elements of fascist ideologies – totalitarianism and anti democratic thinking; one-party statism; zero-sum, black-and-white, thinking, and, in its extreme form, militarism. There are other elements too, and some differences and variations. However, I hold that we are in a war over something really fundamental. Like all fundamental conflicts in essence it boils down to the question posed to Alice:
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master— that’s all.”
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) Lewis Carroll
This fascist ideology takes two main forms, I feel. On the one hand there is Islamism, or Islamo-fascism. Islam is, at heart, a fascistic political ideology. This wing is represented in its most extreme form by ISIS. But ISIS is only the most extreme manifestation of this ideology. The other wing of this ideology is social-fascism, as represented by the Social Justice Warriors, modern ‘third wave’ feminism, Black Lives Matter movements, and the various forms of identity based ideologies and ‘gender’ based ideologies.
The aim of all of these is very similar – to police the thinking of everyone who disagrees with them. To enforce their particular ideology by using the power of the state. And the power of a state always rests on force.
Other bloggers and vloggers cover all of these issues in more detail than I am doing here. I will recommend some at the end.
There is a slight glimmer of hope I think. ISIS does appear to be slowly losing ground and, as it does so, it is losing support. In the West our own fifth columnists are showing some signs of weakness. The claims of, for example, feminism are sounding more ludicrous by the day. And now that Black Lives Matter appears to be prepared to use extreme violence maybe this will turn people away from them.
However, we must never stop in defending our civilization and attacking the enemy wherever possible. Just to be clear, I am not advocating violence, but I am advocating that we should be prepared to stand up for our values, defend them and positively argue for them every day. Stand up and be counted, or else we stand to slide into the most nightmarish dystopia this world of ours has ever seen.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
¤
Carthago delenda est
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDmCBKaKOtOrEqgsL4-3C8Q
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-yewGHQbNFpDrGM0diZOLA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT9D87j5W7PtE7NHOR5DUOQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsjJvehvV00&list=PLrWS5lcEmbnvTFb6rgm9rM49t6HpSEzXE
http://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/no-more-martyrs-now-civil-society
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
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