Barend Vlaardingerbroek: The new European ‘hipster right’ and the question of identity

They want to preserve the racial and cultural identity of Europe. They want to deport non-European immigrants. They want to close down the mosques. They want to reassert Europe as being of, and for, Europeans.

No, we’re not on about some bunch of old closet Nazis grumbling into their beards. They’re young, they’re bright, they’re well educated and brimming with worldly savvy. They are referred to as the ‘hipster right’ – the Identitarian Movement.

Watch their ‘Declaration of War’ on https://www.generation-identitaire.com/generation-identity/ and listen to what they have to say on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJbmv1P_4Bc

They started in France and the movement has now caught on strongly in Austria and Italy where they grabbed public attention when members tried to stop a MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières) ship from leaving port to ‘rescue’ illegal migrants. They have vowed to get out to sea in their own boats and shadow NGO craft with the intention of disrupting ‘rescue’ missions. They raised the funds to acquire their own ship through ‘Fundme’ in record time – an indication of the way their message resonates with many Europeans.

“Soon we will be a minority in our own country”

I can understand it if your initial reaction is “What terrible people these are, they will be responsible for the death by drowning of thousands.” But think again, please.

The Identitarian case is that those NGOs are the ones largely responsible for the massive migration invasion and the deaths associated with it by providing a shuttle service for illegal migrants, thereby encouraging the ‘people smugglers’ to increase the flow – now a torrent. And if the NGOs concerned know that (despite their emphatic denials), that makes them culpable.

This is not just an anti-immigration lobby group talking. An Italian public prosecutor conducted an inquiry earlier this year into the activities of NGOs involved in ‘rescuing’ illegal migrants as they have clearly broken Italian law relating to the aiding and abetting of illegal entry into the country. According to Reuters on 3 May this year, he had reported that he “had evidence of phone calls between people smugglers and aid groups, but … had no proof that could be used in court.”

As for the argument that runs “If we don’t rescue them, they’ll drown”, the Australian approach of towing them back out into the high seas or dumping them in some wholly unappealing place like Manus in PNG resulted in the closing of that invasion route and the concomitant decrease of deaths by drowning to zero. The Mission: Defend Europe site  (http://defend-europe.org) puts it this way:

We demand the implementation of the “Australian model” in Europe. Frontext has to prevent the human trafficking across the Mediterranean Sea in cooperation with the Libyan coastguard. All illegal migrants have to be picked up, rescued and brought back to Northern Africa.                                 (I wonder whether the use of the verb ‘rescued’ is being a tad sarcy….)

The Mediterranean migrant crisis is not about refugees because 99% of the illegal migrants coming in from Libya are not refugees. This year’s crop have mostly been sub-Saharan Africans seeking a better life (i.e. European welfare services and payments). There are still some Middle Easterners among them but with ISIS on the ropes it is difficult to make a case for them being refugees. Other groups include Bangladeshis – I didn’t realise there was any civil war, or pogroms, there.

“Close the borders”

We need to have a long, hard look at the motivation of groups that encourage the influx of illegal migrants into their countries – the sort of crowd that stands at railway stations with ‘Migrants Welcome’ banners. They portray themselves as being driven by humanitarianism. But are they, given that they are pandering to economic opportunists?

There is an ideologically-driven agenda at work behind the scenes. It is fuelled by contempt of the West, its heritage and values. Its world view is a neo-Marxist one in which the White races are the bad guys and now have to do penance through racial and cultural self-negation. This damning description does not apply to them all – many are just naïve little do-gooders who think they’re doing the right thing. But one does not locate the ideology driving a movement by looking at what its minions believe. 

Hollow-eyed and hollow-headed little PC-groupies.

But OK, let’s do that…. so that means we can send the other 99% back to where they came from, right?

Even where the neo-Marxist paradigm is not at the forefront, White guilt certainly plays a major role. Angela Merkel personifies this misguided driver of the open-door policy. In so doing she is bringing about the ruination of her own society and people – something she will hopefully pay for dearly at the polls in the foreseeable future.

Identitarianism is about the European identity, which is necessarily tied to being ethnically European. Yalda Hakim asked Lorenzo Fiato, the Italian organiser of the movement, a personable young man of around 30, whether he thought that to be Italian required being White. This question strikes me as being in the same league as asking whether becoming the Pope requires being a Catholic. A Nigerian or a Somalian may carry an Italian or Dutch passport and even have been born in Italy or Holland but s/he will never be Italian or Dutch. In case that sounds awfully racist, exactly the same applies the other way around – an Italian or Dutchman carrying a Nigerian or Somalian passport who may have been born there will never actually be a Nigerian or Somalian. One can not take ethnicity out of this equation.

There is a fundamental difference at work here between Europe and immigrant societies such as the US, Canada, Australia and NZ. Interestingly, when 19^th-century writers used the label ‘New Zealanders’ they were referring to Maoris. ‘New Zealander’ later came to mean ‘someone of British origin who regards NZ as his/her home’ (Incidentally, NZers like to claim Ernest Rutherford as a NZer but he was as British as a Devonshire Tea and the fact that he was born in NZ did not change that an iota at the time, hence the Poms claim him as theirs!) What does it really mean to be a NZer today? Bear with me a little longer…

The rise of the Identitarian movement has given me new hope for Europe. I foresee it becoming a major political force, perhaps not as a party in its own right but as wind in the sails of established parties such as the Front National, the Dutch PVV, and other nationalists.

The light at the end of the tunnel: “Europe’s Future – Identity, Love for Country, Patriotism”

There will be major obstacles. The real fascists – the ones on the Left – will pull out all the stops to silence them. The charges of ‘racist’ and ‘xenophobe’ are already flying thick and fast, but those epithets have been so overused that they are losing their clout. John and Jane Q. Public are not entirely daft and are starting to see them for what they are – smokescreens to detract attention from the insidious agenda of those levelling them at those who dare to stand in their way. Besides, this is no bunch of intellectually challenged skinhead thugs we’re dealing with but mostly tertiary-educated, well-informed, intelligent and articulate young people – those who will populate the professional classes and contribute to tomorrow’s intelligentsia. The Lefty-fascists must be starting to quake in their boots.

Societies made up largely of immigrant groups tend to create their own unique identity, although the ties to the motherland of the dominant group are invariably obvious. With increasing ethnic and cultural diversity, this connection may become weakened and a truly unique national identity that transcends immigrant origins emerges. The US is an excellent example: an American is an American first and foremost, and of European, Chinese, African, Arab or whatever descent as a subsidiary level of identity. Much the same can be said for Australia.

NZ has a problem in that its ‘identitarianism’ has been commandeered by the bicultural lobby. This involves a coercive amalgamation of selected aspects of the two cultures being merged and freezes out a plethora of other immigrant groups. It is high time we asked ourselves exactly what it means to be a 21^st-century New Zealander. We hear about ‘the NZ way of life’ and use the term ‘Kiwi’ as though it had a standard meaning, but when the chips are down there is no ‘NZ identity’. Until we sort out exactly what that entails, we will continue going down the road of make-believe bicultural hybridisation by diktat.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek BA, BSc, BEdSt, PGDipLaws, MAppSc, PhD is an associate professor of education at the American University of Beirut and is a regular commentator on social and political issues. Feedback welcome at bv00@aub.edu.lb