Paris, France, May 21, 2013
In October of 2010, Angela Merkel said that “the approach
[to build] a multicultural [society] and to live side by side and to enjoy each
other ... has failed, utterly failed.” Of course, individuals and groups can apparently
assimilate fairly well here and there, but it appears to bode poorly for
democracy in general when large numbers of immigrants who strongly identify
with Islam occupy a significant percentage of their host country and continue
to grow. As the tragic evidence of this builds, most of the media pretend it’s
not so and continue to adhere to an ideology and political philosophy that
might sound good in theory but in reality is undermining the West’s ability to
provide for and protect its citizens. If residents (legal or not) of a country
continue to take much more from that country than they contribute to it their
system will collapse. Many Western countries have allowed poor immigrants into
their homelands who contribute very little if anything to the wealth of the nation,
but they consume much of their resources (like welfare and health care). Poor
immigrants are also the highest unemployed, and and when
people don’t work for long stretches of time they get anxious for change. The
recent riots in Sweden
are a case in point: the under-skilled immigrants are unemployed at a rate of
3:1 compared to natural-born Swedes.
“I chose a highly symbolic place that I respect and admire.”
That is what Dominique Venner wrote to his colleagues at
Radio Courtoise before he put a Belgian-made 9mm gun in his mouth and pulled
the trigger at the alter of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Most of the radio
broadcasts I heard called him a “far-right historian”, but Venner apparently
just referred to himself as a “French-speaking European.” I was curious. What
would lead such a man to take his life so violently and what was it about Notre
Dame that Venner respected and admired so much that he forever wanted his death
to be associated with it? Was it because he was Catholic? The New Yorker
confirms this: “He was a traditionalist Catholic, ostensibly protesting France’s
legalization of gay marriage, last month.” As seemingly does The Daily Beast,
“While Venner chose the tensions surrounding mariage pour tous (marriage for
all) as the stage for his dramatic exit, his act was less about gay marriage
and more about an ideology with a long history in French politics and thought.
It has roots in Catholic monarchism, long hostile to any sort of egalitarian
politics.” But, Counter-Currents sets the record straight: “Venner has even been described as a traditionalist Catholic,
although a traditionalist Catholic would not commit suicide at all, much less
at the altar of Notre Dame. Beyond that, Venner makes it clear in his final
writings that he was an atheist and a cultural pagan”.
It is not surprising that left-leaning media outlets would try to closely link
a man with Venner’s strong nationalistic characteristics with the Catholic
Church, an institution they despise, but if Venner really did identify himself
as a pagan, the question is even more perplexing: why did he want his final
living act tied to the Catholic Church?
In the same letter he sent to his colleagues at Radio Courtoise, Dominique Venner characterizes his suicide as a rebellion “against
pervasive individual desires that destroy the anchors of our identity,
particularly the family, the intimate base of our multi-millennial society.”
That would seem to imply his suicide was due to his opposition to gay marriage,
but as Wikipedia states: “Only hours earlier, he had left a post on his blog,
on the subject of forthcoming protests against the legalization of same-sex
marriage. In the post, Venner approves of the demonstrators' outrage at an
"infamous law", but expresses doubt as to the efficacy of street
protests to effect social change. He rebukes the protesters for ignoring the
threat of “Afro-Maghreb immigration”, which he predicts will lead to a “total
replacement of the population of France,
and of Europe.” He warns, “Peaceful street protests will not be
enough to prevent it. It will require new, spectacular, and symbolic actions to
rouse people from their complacency. We enter into a time when words must be
backed up by actions.”
Marrakesh, Morocco, April 1990
I didn’t like it. I was between two Moroccan men in the back
seat of the old Mercedes taxi and my companions, a German and Austrian, were
similarly bookmarked in the front seat. The driver was supposed to be
transporting us away from the hustle and bustle of Marrakesh
to the quiet mountain village
of Imlil, but I was
nervous we might be going for another kind of ride. I ran scenarios in my mind
of what I could do if things started going badly for us. Even though Morocco doesn’t
have a reputation for terrorism I didn’t want to be part of that exception.
The several hours passed uneventfully as the car slowly made
its way to our destination: with a number of stops and passenger changes along
the way. Finally, and with relief, we exited the crowded car - away from the
tourist peddlers of the big city - and into the rural mountainside. The valleys
below us were green with vegetation, but that quickly gave way to brown and
barren mountain rock. The land above the valleys was terraced in many places. I
didn’t know what they grew, but I’m sure it was all cultivated by hand. We didn’t know
where we were going or where we would stay, but we always found a place. As it
turned out, one of our companions from the car invited us to his home. Mustafa
lived a simple life. A teacher, he lived in what I refer to as a cell: a
windowless, rectangular, cinder-block building. He didn’t have many belongings
or furniture to speak of so we sat on the floor. There was no running water and
for a bathroom he shared a smelly outhouse with neighbors. It didn’t have a
toilet but did have footrests on either side of a hole in the concrete floor.
Inside his cell, Mustafa made tea and provided us with local
sweet snacks. An educated and well-spoken man, Mustafa talked to us while we
consumed some of his offered food: feeling somewhat guilty and eating sparingly knowing he had very little. He neither ate nor drank. It was Ramadan, an as an
observant Muslim he was bound to refrain from both until sunset and the cry
from the minaret that ended the fast.
The next day we left Imlil and made our way back to Europe, but I have never forgotten the good company
of Mustafa and the generosity he exhibited by sharing his home, food, and drink
with three foreigners.
Today
Dominique Venner has been called many names, including Islamophobic, fascist, anti-communist, and anti-modern. People
can read about him and learn for themselves who he was and who he was not, but his
most ardent critics would have to concur that he loved France and his
identity as a Frenchman. It appears he performed his last desperate act because
he saw his own people willingly committing cultural suicide. In an editorial,
Venner once commented that "The Japanese, the Jews, the Hindus and other
peoples possess that treasure that has permitted them to confront the perils of
history without disappearing. It is their misfortune that the majority of
Europeans, and especially the French, are so impregnated with universalism that
this treasure is lacking."
I am looking for Mustafa. I am not referring to the good Moroccan
man who shared his home and his food with an American, a German, and an Austrian, but what Mustafa
represents. For me, Mustafa represents the openness and the hospitality in
which one culture, one people, and one faith should share with other cultures,
people, and faiths. I want people like Mustafa to build their societies into
the best they can offer themselves and the rest of the world.
Mustafa and his brothers and his sisters have a choice to
make. If the religion in which they believe is not that of an inherently flawed
and violent ideology that many among them are expressing through their actions,
then they need to prove that it is indeed a great religion by strongly
condemning those actions. And they need to do it often and loudly. The words of
a president or a prime minister of a Western country telling their countrymen
that Islam is a religion of peace after a soldier has been run down by a car
and butchered with knives, or people have been killed and maimed after bombs
exploded at a marathon, or in cases of “workplace violence” when soldiers are
being gunned down in a dining hall while their mental health specialist is
proclaiming that “God is Great”, are ringing very hollow to many citizens.
This words need to be spoken not by politicians to their western audience, but
by Imams in mosques in countries throughout the world. And they need to be shouted
from minarets. And they need to believe those words. Muslims need to turn a
bright light on those who would do harm and make them wilt under the glare.
But this is not happening: certainly not in any meaningful
way. Would Dominique Venner be consoled if it were? Perhaps to a point if
Muslims started to better assimilate, but it still wouldn’t address his most
pressing issue. The fact is that Europeans are procreating themselves into
extinction while a foreign people, culture, and language take claim to their
history and their future. As Europeans continue to drown in the quicksand of
multiculturalism, the ‘voices of inclusion’ are passing laws that undermine the
most powerful institution that can protect them: the family. And they are doing
it, of course, in the name of equality.
So the question remains: why did Dominique Venner want his
final living act tied to the symbolism of Notre Dame Cathedral? Only Dominique
Venner could answer that question, but I think it is because there is no other
institution in the world with the history, tradition, intellectualism, and
influence that is better equipped to be a stumbling block to many “modern”
ideas, including gay marriage, than the Catholic Church. The western family is
already in peril due to low birth rates and high divorce rates, and redefining
it will only cause the institution to further hemorrhage. This is especially
true for the Europeans. We know who their heirs will be.
“I give myself over to death to awaken slumbering
consciences. I rebel against fate. I protest against poisons of the soul and
the desires of invasive individuals to destroy the anchors of our identity,
including the family, the intimate basis of our multi-millennial civilization.
While I defend the identity of all peoples in their homes, I also rebel against
the crime of the replacement of our people.” Dominique Venner
