Senior White House adviser Stephen Miller is an immigration hard-liner. He engineered the Trump administration’s family-separation policy and its travel ban on people from some Muslim-majority countries.
But last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center detailed leaked emails in which it says Miller encouraged far-right website Breitbart to promote white supremacist ideas. In one message, Miller references a book of fiction: “Someone should point out the parallels to Camp of the Saints.”
The Camp of the Saints is a 1973 French novel by Jean Raspail that has become a key inspiration within white nationalist circles. It portrays a dystopia, or perhaps an apocalypse: a flotilla of South Asian people who invade France and effectively overthrow Western society.
“The key themes are actually white supremacy and the end of white civilization as the West knows it — infestation, invasion, hordes of nameless, faceless migrants who come to indeed invade the West and bring about its end,” says Chelsea Stieber, professor of French and Francophone studies at Catholic University of America.
A feast of rich color and detail, the far wall of the exquisite burial chamber in the Tomb of Seti I (KV17) depicts the journey of the dead pharaoh, as described in the Book of the Dead.
New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, reign of Seti I, ca. 1290-1279 BC. Valley of the Kings, West Thebes.
So, this post about extinction rebellion led to a conversation about how eco-fascists can infiltrate climate movements that claim to ‘welcome everyone’. So I thought I’d also make it a separate post about ecofascism.
Ecofascism comes in roughly two flavors: identitarian and openly racist.
Identitarian fascism generally calls itself ‘nationalism’, or ‘localism’ or ‘protecting our culture’ just identitarian. When dealing with the climate, it often connects ‘the people’ to ‘the land’ and claims that only
those that have lived on a piece of land for generations can properly
care for it. So it will claim that immigrants pollute more, etc. It draws parallels between nature and society, claiming that anything ‘foreign’, be it a plant or a person, upsets
the harmony of nature/society and so the best way to protect both is to keep foreigners out. A very prominent defender of this idea is
Marine Le Pen from the french far-right Front National.
Now, those are the ecofascists that run for elections. On the more
extreme violent side of this same ideology you’ll find the openly racist, who sometimes call themselves fascists or strategically hide that word, depending on their audience. When dealing with the climate, these fascists will claim that the
earth’s population should be very much reduced to restore the balance
between humans and nature.
They’re often primitivist,
romanticizing a world without technology, where manly men chop
wood in the forest while obedient women have white babies etc. You get
the idea.
They often infiltrate deep ecology spaces and conversations. They’re also often involved in paganism…
but like… a very conservative gendernormative all-white interpretation of it.
Generally focused on nordic/viking traditions. They’ll use the words ‘nordic tradition’ and ‘boreal culture’ as code for white/’ayran’. When they’re being less subtle, they’ll use the term völkisch and the term ‘blood and soil’ (your race ties you to the land, everyone should live in the same place forever, foreigners should die, etc.)
Once you’ve accepted their view of depopulation and are hooked by their romantic images of man in harmony with nature, they’ll reveal that of course this means that only the best white genes should be allowed
to survive the great dying of climate change. A common claim is that the ‘ship’ of humanity is sinking and there is only one lifeboat, so the best people should get on it and they should, in the words of eco-fascist Pentti Linkola:
take the ship’s axe and sever the
extra hands that cling to the sides.“
Which is what they’ve of course wanted all along:genocide.Even if they genuinely believe their own eco-fascism, the main thing they were always warming you up for is genocide. To them, the
fact that climate change is mostly killing people of color is exactly
what should be happening and if it doesn’t all happen naturally, it
should be carried out by mass murder. And ecofascists are already putting these plans into action: The Christchurch and El Paso
schooters were both ecofascists who believed this.
Recognize ecofascism within a movement:
The idea that those born in a place are more motivated to care for it than those that moved there
An obsession with people as being ‘rooted’ in a place where they have lived for generations
Anti-import and export as a way to cut carbon emission (but really they just don’t want anything to cross borders)
If
you mention meat eating, they’ll probably change the topic to Muslim
traditions of halal meat.
Localism
Paganism, but like… a very conservative all-white interpretation of it.
Primitivism + gender norms.
A love of things ‘nordic’ or ‘boreal’
The term völkisch
The term 'blood and soil’
The idea of white people being replaced by immigration
Don’t be fooled if you have some things in common. Some ecofascists are vegans, some ecofascists are squatters, some ecofascists live zero-waste lives, some love organic gardens and DIY green energy projects. They’re still fascists whose ultimate goal is genocide.
What you can do:
Make your climate activism loudly anti-fascist.
Make your climate activism loudly anti-racist.
Prioritize the voices of indigenous people and people of color from the regions hardest hit by climate change, which are directly experiencing the impact of climate change in ways that white people couldn’t imagine. If you want to have a climate movement that isn’t shit, you should be doing this anyway, but the fact that it’ll also make your movement less attractive to fascists is a nice bonus.
Address fascist talking points for what they are. Talk to those that don’t know what they’re reproducing and kick out those that continue to sympathize with fascism.
Don’t participate in calls to ban ritual slaughter of animals. This is just another way in which fascists push their bigotry into climate activism. Recognize that the meat industry is violent at every stage and don’t single out religious minorities. Be suspicious of people in your movement who support this.
Resist the normalization of the ‘overpopulation’ narrative.
Make sure everyone knows that the richest 10% are responsible for 49% of
CO2 emission while the poorest 50% are responsible for 10%.
If you see someone romanticizing a future in which most of the world
population is dead, don’t give that an inch of space.
Make it very very clear that the 'population control’ narrative lays the
foundations for genocide. Destroy those foundations wherever you find
them.
If you’re involved in paganism, make your paganism
loudly anti-fascist.
Know which symbols and practices are most popular among fascists and be ready to kick out fascists in your communities.
Correct me if i’m wrong but another thing is that while they’re really keen on the idea of being 'rooted’ in a place and belonging to a place, they also don’t give a fuck about indigenous people in western colonised countries, like Australia, NZ and the Americas. They want them gone, and think only white people deserve to live on that land. So watch out for anti-indiginous rhetoric about 'primitive’ people and references to issues that disproportionately affect indigenous groups like alcoholism and incarceration as 'evidence’ that they’re not the right people to care for the land.
Jup, they tend to contradict themselves here a lot, claiming that you must be 'rooted’ in a land for generations to live in harmony with it and that we should return to the 'world as it was’ with all humans and nature in their rightful place, (obvious such a time has not existed and is a fascist white supremacist fantasy) which just means ‘migrants go home’.
At the same time they think that since white people are superior, they can take root anywhere. In fact, they need 'living space’ (a literal classic nazi term) to realize their low-population-density we’re-all-farmers-and-forest-dwellers fantasy. And of course inferior races need to be murdered and replaced to achieve that.
So according to this fascist way of thinking white primitivism is 'rooted’, 'natural’, 'a return to as it should be’ and good for nature’, while people of color living in nature are 'inferior’, unfit to care for the land and probably the ones that left that trash over there. They’re also likely to target indigenous hunting practices while glorifying white hunters.
This is a retro horror blog, but given the situation in Hong Kong… Some of you might want to know the kind of state the protesters are fighting against.
