Europe’s Hard Right: Differences and Similarities

As promised, I have taken a hard look at the big march in Poland and compared and contrasted it to what we are doing here in the American South. My sense of it is that there are major differences between the South and Central and Eastern Europe, but that we could learn a lot from what is going on overseas to create a more religious version of racial and ethnonationalism.

Area

The American South is roughly the size of Western Europe or Eastern Europe. Poland is about the size of Arkansas and Missouri combined. France is slightly smaller than Texas. Hungary and Slovakia could fit inside Louisiana. Bulgaria and Romania could fit comfortably inside Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. Ireland is approximately the size of South Carolina.

American South compared to Europe in area pic.twitter.com/pPCnj8iKTQ

— Hunter Wallace (@occdissent) November 16, 2017

American South compared to Eastern Europe in area pic.twitter.com/5RZYzHwpWs

— Hunter Wallace (@occdissent) November 16, 2017

Population

While there are 9 million people in Arkansas and Missouri, there are 38 people people in Poland. There are 28 million people in Texas and 67 million people in France. There are 4.6 million people in Louisiana and 15.2 million people in Hungary and Slovakia. There are 18 million people in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia compared to 26.7 million in Bulgaria and Romania. There are 4.9 million people in South Carolina compared to 4.7 million in Ireland. Generally speaking, there are far more Europeans who are packed more densely into smaller countries than in the United States.

Race

Obviously, one of the biggest differences between the American South and Eastern Europe is that tens of millions of non-Whites live here and are a majority (Texas) or near majority (Georgia and Florida) in several Southern states. In contrast, 95% of Poland is ethnically Polish. There is an enormous racial divide that exists in the American South which has no parallel in Eastern Europe. France and several other Western European countries have large non-White populations though.

Jews

There are only 5,000 to 20,000 Jews left in Poland which is down from 3.3 million before the Second World War. Poland used to be the epicenter of Ashkenazi Jewry, but today that is New York and Israel. There are approximately 1,218,095 Jews in the American South over half of whom live in Florida which is about 17% of American Jewry. They are less than 1% of the South’s population, but their effect on our culture is vastly greater primarily due to their control of the mass media in New York and Los Angeles. Jews don’t have to live in close proximity to us to have a great impact on racial and cultural attitudes.

Religion

76% of Southerners are Christians. 60% are Protestants, 15% are Catholics and 19% are Unaffiliated. In contrast, 87.5% of Poles are Catholics. Both the American South and Poland are relatively religious except the South is Protestant while Poland is Catholic.

Economy

The American South is a wealthier place than Poland and has changed tremendously since the Second World War. It has a more advanced capitalist economy. We have a larger middle class. In some ways, Poland reminds me of the poorer, culturally stronger Jim Crow South. The lesson that Poles should take away from the New South is that nothing rots the moral fiber of a nation like prosperity. Once a nation becomes obsessed with money making, it can lose its own identity and cohesion.

Ethnicity

As we have already seen, 95% of Poland is ethnically Polish whereas the American South is has a large black and Hispanic population. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of Southerners are descended from settlers from the British Isles whereas Eastern Europeans come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. We have one dominant ethnic group dispersed over a wide area whereas Eastern Europe is divided into several nations many of which have been bitter historical rivals. There is no Southern equivalent to Bosnia or Kosovo either which are Muslim.

Recent History

The recent history of the American South and Eastern Europe couldn’t be more different. Ever since the War Between the States, we have been Washington’s largest and oldest colony. We have been subjected to long running experiments in Northern liberal democracy and capitalism. We were unscathed by World War I, World War II and the Cold War whereas Poland was at the center of these conflicts. These 20th century ordeals with the Nazis and the Soviets remain fresh in Poland’s historical memory.

Ideology

Southerners have largely bought into the mid-20th century redefinition of Americanism as a “proposition nation.” We believe in civic nationalism now. Anyone with two legs can be an American regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, culture, ideology, etc. Traditionally, White Southerners believed that Dixie was a White Man’s Country, which was a combination of Anglo-conformity and white supremacy. In Poland, Poles continue to cling to the more traditional definition of the nation state as being based on ethnicity and religion which is the source of recent clashes with the European Union.

Identity

The American South existed as an independent nation for only 4 years. The great majority of White Southerners also identify as Southerners, but consider themselves to be “Americans.” In the US Census, we call ourselves “Americans” rather than Italian-Americans or some other hyphenated category. In Poland, Poles consider themselves Poles and Catholics first and Europeans a distant second. Comparatively, the level of ethnic consciousness among White Southerners is extremely low.

These are only the most striking differences between the American South, Poland and other Eastern European nations. Truth be told, we are not very similar peoples. The greatest similarity between the South and Poland would be the loss of independence to a more powerful neighbor. In the War Between the States, 1 out of every 4 Southern White men died in that conflict and our infrastructure was destroyed. The poverty lasted for generations and we were exploited as a resource colony by the industrialized North. The memory of that experience, however, has faded over time.

Could Southern Nationalists build a Polish-style nationalist movement in Dixie? There are significant differences, but I not so pessimistic for the following reasons:

1. Polish Nationalists and other Eastern Europeans are using White Nationalist slogans and iconography. The Celtic cross has nothing to do with Poland. It is more associated with Britain and America, but it hasn’t stopped Poles from using it though. The same is true of the skinhead look of shaved heads and black jackets which spread from Britain to Eastern Europe. The calls for a White Europe aren’t that different from calls for a White America.
2. The Independence Day March in Poland has always attracted other ethnonationalists from Hungary, Sweden, the UK and other European countries. It has attracted counterprotesters from Germany. The large scale clashes have been between nationalists and Antifa. We’re already starting to see the emergence of that here on a smaller scale. Is it really that different when White Nationalists and Antifa come to the South from the North or the West to support local ethnonationalists in a big clash in a place like Charlottesville, Virginia?
3. If you watch the videos of the Nationalist Marches in Eastern Europe, you will see the same mixes of flags. National flags are used alongside a variety of organization flags used by fascist groups. In Ukraine, nationalists have marched with tiki torches. Again, how different is this from the South?
4. What are the resentments that inspired the march in Poland? It was nationalism and the resentment of refugees, immigration, political correctness and a distant federal government in Brussels. More than anything else, it was a desire to stay Polish and Catholic and a fear of being swamped by a tidal wave of Muslim refugees. How is this any different from the resentments of Hungarians or White Southerners? Shelbyville was about refugee resettlement.
5. Nearly half of White Southerners feel like they are under attack. As we have already seen, 6% to 10% of Americans identify with the Alt-Right or White Nationalism. In Poland and the American South, there is a similar dynamic where there is a hardcore cultural vanguard and a larger swath of the population which shares the same resentments and feelings, but which isn’t as radicalized.
6. Poland has laws against hate speech and racism. In the American South, we have fewer legal obstacles to organizing. We also don’t have Antifa on anything like the same scale. There has been some censorship of our social media, but it is still much easier for Americans to get our message out.
7. In Poland, the fear of being overrun by refugees and illegal aliens is inspired by what has happened to Western Europe, but this has already happened in the South. It has generated a similar backlash, but it has all been channeled into Trump and mainstream conservatism.
8. Fascism has always been an international ideology. It took root in Germany and Italy, but it also took root in Spain. There were fascist movements in the UK, France and Romania. Poland would seem like an unlikely place for fascism to make a comeback. It is worth noting there are parts of the United States like Appalachia which aren’t that different from Poland in terms of poverty and homogeneity.
9. For better or worse, we live in a globalized world. Nationalism has also been globalized. We interact with our peers in Europe on social media on a daily basis. Ideas spread across social media at the speed of a tweet. Geography isn’t a barrier to cultural exchange anymore. The proof of this is that we are reacting to the nationalist march in Warsaw while Europeans reacted to Charlottesville.
10. The Alt-Right overreacted and misinterpreted Charlottesville:
11. The clashes between nationalists and Antifa in Europe have been much more violent. Far more nationalists have gone to jail in Poland after fighting the police at previous marches in Warsaw. It hasn’t stopped the Independence Day March from ballooning from 10,000 people to 30,000 people to 60,000 people. It sucks that a handful of people went to jail in Charlottesville, but these things happen. If we continue to grow as a movement, we are inevitably going to have to deal with such obstacles. Vlaams Belang in Belgium was banned in a previous incarnation. National Action in the UK was banned. The leadership of Golden Dawn has been arrested in Greece. What are we bitching about in the United States compared to that repression?
12. The bitching about the obstacles we have to deal with here is rich considering the fact that we have an easier time getting our message out than anywhere else in the world.
13. Even if we all lost our middle class jobs tomorrow in the United States, we still wouldn’t be as poor as nationalists in many of these European countries. It is not so much doxxing and fear of job loss that holds us back as it is our own American individualism and materialism.
14. The optics debate that arose out of Charlottesville and Shelbyville is a retarded American obsession. Neither of these mass events looked that different from similar events in Europe. The biggest difference was the suburban polos and khakis combination which isn’t a European look.  We only see that in America. Instead, the problem is Identitarianism being the measuring stick of nationalism. The obsession with optics keeps our events small and introduces an unnecessary class divide. A nation isn’t a fraternity or Chad Nationalism or a subculture. It includes old people and women and fat people and people with tattoos.
15. Finally, there is this idea that we have to disavow or expel the more hardcore elements. It is worth noting that those people are having events in Europe which dwarf Identitarianism. Those people are organizing marches of 60,000 people that obviously “appeals to the normies.”

I’ve given this a great deal of thought and it seems to me the biggest obstacles to doing similar to Poland in the American South are three things:

1. White Southerners are dispersed across such a vast area and the same is true of our supporters. In Poland, everyone lives within a space the size of Arkansas and Missouri. It would be much more easier to have large events if that was true of the South. It is more expensive to organize here and it involves more driving. That’s something we will have to deal with at first.
2. White Southerners have bought into civic nationalism. The ideology is clearly failing and has created massive problems for us, but our sense of nationalism has been perverted since the 1960s. Previously, White Southerners had a strong sense of racial, cultural, ethnic and religious identity. This is why I have said Poland reminds me of the Jim Crow South.
3. White Americans are more individualistic and materialistic than Poles. In Poland, the middle class isn’t nearly as large as it is here. We convert people to our ideas, but they don’t want to take the next step and become activists because of their careers. In Poland and Eastern Europe, there is much less to lose by being an activist because the social ladder is shorter.

My final observation: until around 2007, this sort of activism wasn’t common in Poland. The first march in 2009 only attracted 500 people. It might have been smaller than Charlottesville. It ballooned from 500 people to 10,000 people to 30,000 people to 60,000 people. This was the biggest event of the year, but there has been countless smaller events in other cities. ONR seems to be very active in the real world and appears to have bused people into Warsaw from cadres all over Poland.

Golden Dawn has a march every January to commemorate the Greeks who were killed in the Imia crisis in 1995. It is an annual event that attracts thousands of people. I don’t believe it has ever reached the size of the Warsaw march, but it looks very similar which shows the style of doing these things is the same but varies across Europe. The Poles adapted it around their Independence Day.

If we did something similar to Poland’s Independence Day March, it would have to be some kind of annual march in the South. The League of the South could use the Confederate Battle Flag, the Southern Nationalist Flag and our state flags. If other organizations came to participate with their own flags or normies turned up with American flags, it shouldn’t be a big deal. Mainly, I think if we were more active that we would grow and the biggest obstacle is just an unwillingness to be active.

There’s a lot more to say about the subject and this is only the first stab at it. I want to become more familiar with other nationalist groups in Europe before comparing and contrasting differences in ideology and activism in greater detail. In both Europe and the United States, there is Identitarianism which coexists alongside White Nationalist groups, National Socialist groups and ethnonationalist groups. I think I have already identified the most important different differences above.

At some point this has to go beyond bantzing, memes and It’s Okay To Be White fliers. When tens of thousands of people are gathering in the streets to express a grievance, it sends a much more powerful message. That’s not something that can be dismissed, laughed off or deleted from social media. As long as this stays purely anonymous and online, it can be wiped out on the whim of a CEO. It will also be distorted by trolls and shit stirrers who don’t any investment in our long term success.

Note: Here’s a recent example of what Nordic Resistance Movement has to put up with in Sweden. It illustrates how much easier it is to organize and do activism in Dixie.