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The New Nazis: The rhetoric of Durban.
National Review Online ^ | September 4, 2001 | Michael Ledeen

Posted on 09/04/2001 12:27:37 PM PDT by LibertarianLiz

The Nuremberg Rally at Durban, South Africa, could hardly be more perfect, because it marvelously dramatizes the rot that has taken hold of the Western world. Back in the 80's, when the Lebanese Christians were under armed assault from their Muslim compatriots, their leader — whose name escapes me — stood up in his foxhole and said, "the Western world should either defend us, or change its name." It didn't defend them (indeed, in recent weeks the Syrians and their puppets in Beirut have been rounding up Christians in the latest round of religious purges), it didn't change its name, and it hasn't learned a thing.

The diminishing number of people who seriously study human history know, as Machiavelli put it so neatly, that man is more inclined to do evil than to do good. Precisely because some great leaders fully understood our malevolent impulses, the Western world has established a set of rules to protect mankind from the unfettered fulfillment of our darkest desires. We call that civilization, and it is a thin veneer atop the explosive forces of human nature, which constantly threaten to destroy it. The rules of civility are not widely accepted, and they require constant vigilance, and not a little brute force, to survive. That is why, in one of the little paradoxes that make the study of history so fascinating, those who talk "peace and love" all the time invariably open the door to war and hate, far more than those who, recognizing our evil inclinations, insist on rigorously imposing virtue.

Durban was to have been a celebration of goodness, a condemnation of our worst practices (from racism to xenophobia), and a call to arms to the entire world. In practice, it is the very opposite: a celebration of hatred, an embrace of racism, an orgy of xenophobia, with the Western world as the prime object of xenophobic and racist hatred. And the Western world, in Durban as in Beirut, dithers and apologizes, and finally the United States and Israel took their marbles and went home.

This is what happens to the Western world after years of political correctness and idiotic revisionism, blaming us for all the sins of the others. Indeed, in the rhetoric of the Durban rally, it is only the West that bears responsibility for evil in the world. Slavery, which for centuries was a universal human practice, and which endures today only outside the West, is blamed on the West and on no one else, even though it was the West that first abolished slavery. The ultimate absurdity of the Durban rhetoric is that the Jews — the first people on earth to condemn slavery and to proclaim that all men were children of God — have been singled out for the harshest condemnation, and it was a pleasure to hear the Israeli delegate remind the racists of Durban of this fact.

To be sure, not all the delegates are totally ignorant of human history. The president of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, is a descendant of African kings, and he dryly observed that his ancestors owned slaves. Who, then, should pay reparations to the Senegalese? And there was hardly a dry eye in the house when they heard the life story of Mariama Oumarou, from the village of Tambeye in Nigeria. There, in keeping with a tradition that has endured through the centuries, the "white Tuaregs," that is, the rich traders, enslave the "black Tuaregs" from the poor villages. Mariama Oumarou is the descendant of slaves, and is herself a slave, in a country governed by black people in which slavery is formally forbidden. Who will save her from slavery? And who should pay reparations to the black Tuaregs of Nigeria?

You will not hear these questions — real questions about the real world — from the organizers and the spokesmen at Durban, because their agenda is quite different. They are on the attack against the Western world, because our success, based on egalitarian values (no matter how imperfectly practiced) and free enterprise, threaten their cozy arrangements. If Mr. Thabo Mbeki, the Qosa ruler of South Africa, were an honest man, he would have dropped to his knees in gratitude to the West for having forced the end of the apartheid regime in his country, and enabling a great Qosa prince, Nelson Mandela, to become its president. Instead, Mbeki has given the prestige and the wealth of his country to the racist predations of Robert Mugabe, the vicious and corrupt president of Zimbabwe. Perhaps Mbeki does not want to hear Western delegates ask why members of other South African tribes rarely rise to high positions in the South African Government.

He need not worry. Jesse Jackson has not one harsh word for the Durban xenophobic anti-Semites. The misnamed American Leadership Conference on Civil Rights regrets some of the expressions of anti-Semitism, but condemns the United States for walking out, fatuously claiming that we deprived ourselves of the chance to get the language toned down (not mentioning that we had already tried, but failed). The NAACP website has not a single word of condemnation of Durban racism. Entire gaggles of self-proclaimed black "leaders" embrace Durban, and insist on reparations for American slavery.

Their aggressive self-confidence reflects the timorous self-doubt of the West, brainwashed by a generation of cultural relativism, multiculturism, structural deconstructionism, and simple hatred of whitey, into paying hush money and hoping the whole bad dream will go away. Israel went through a similar phase, and much of the Durban rhetoric can be found in the essays and textbooks produced by the State of Israel itself during the dark years of self-doubt that brought the Israelis to the brink of national suicide. On the steps to the scaffold, they seem to have realized their error, acknowledged that their enemies would not be content with words or even limited quantities of land and lucre, and have begun to fight for their survival and their noble traditions.

We must do the same. Congress should applaud the president for having the courage to give the back of our national hand to the Durban thugs and fools, and should condemn those Americans who refused to stand up for our national honor and our civilized values. And the president should take the opportunity to remind the American people of our uniqueness, which is the wonder of the world, and which drives the enemies of freedom to such grotesque excesses as we are witnessing on the shores of the Indian Ocean.


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Tough article, I like it. I have actually been surprised by Congressman Lantos of CA. He has been very harsh in his criticism of this conference and I had always had him pegged as being right there with the likes of Maxine Waters.
1 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by LibertarianLiz
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To: LibertarianLiz
That's because they're critisizing Jew in South Africa. If they were praising Isreal and condeming the US alone, he'd have no problem.

He's a typical Democratic Jew: Hands off Israel.....bash the US.

2 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by zarf
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To: UN_
UN_list: For United Nations articles
3 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by RippleFire
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To: MLedeen
Good article
4 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by vrwc54
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To: DistantVoice , Lent , NorthernRight
FYI
5 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by vrwc54
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To: LibertarianLiz
bump
6 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by Red Jones
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To: vrwc54
Thanks. In fact, the American who has been best on this sort of thing, hands down, is Jesse Helms, and I should have said that. I will, next time.
7 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by MLedeen
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To: LibertarianLiz
Hate to say it Liz, but Zarf is right.

Except on matters dealing with Israel and Jewish issues in particular, Lantos IS right there with Maxine Waters.

He is on record for repartions. Here is a quote of his:

"I and a large number of other people were excited that we are leaving behind the century of Holocaust (and) genocide.... All of us came here with unclean hands but we (the US) were ready to admit our collective guilt and materially redeem the wrongs of the past.

By the phrase "materially redeem", he could only have meant to pay reparations.

Lantos, has the all-too-common vision problem of kneejerk Jewish Democrats, when it comes to racism. He has no problem seeing anti-semitism, but just cannot detect any other form of anti-white racism. He's a big backer of all the usual anti-white discriminatory programs like affirmative action and contract set-asides.

People are growing sick of hyprocrits like him.

8 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by bulldog905
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To: LibertarianLiz
The Nuremberg Rally at Durban, South Africa, could hardly be more perfect, because it marvelously dramatizes the rot that has taken hold of the Western world. Back in the 80's, when the Lebanese Christians were under armed assault from their Muslim compatriots, their leader — whose name escapes me — stood up in his foxhole and said, "the Western world should either defend us, or change its name." It didn't defend them (indeed, in recent weeks the Syrians and their puppets in Beirut have been rounding up Christians in the latest round of religious purges), it didn't change its name, and it hasn't learned a thing.

Big bump for mentioning the Christians in Lebanon who are systematically, under the guidance of the Syrian occupying regime, being dismantled by the now Muslim majority. Again, this is a case where Syria, which country is being petitioned by some sponsors to be part of the Security Council, gets a free ride at this conference with its Arab Islamic friends. They come out smelling like roses and paragons of virtue while Israel has now been branded as "apartheid."

9 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by Lent
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To: zarf
I agree. Lantos is about as slimey an individual as you can run across in our congress. He thought the torturing and illegal gassing of the children at Waco was a-okay.

A nasty piece of work.
10 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by wheezer
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To: bulldog905
Except on matters dealing with Israel and Jewish issues in particular, Lantos IS right there with Maxine Waters. He is on record for repartions

Okay, so his rhetoric on this matter is self-serving. That sounds about right from his prior behavior. I had only heard what he was saying about the "Zionism is racism" stuff; nothing being said about his views on reparations.

11 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by LibertarianLiz
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To: LibertarianLiz
Why be surprised to discover that the modern liberal is a racist Nazi?

140 Hard Truths About Liberals

12 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by moyden
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Comment #13 Removed by Moderator

To: Joseph Psychology Jr.
This article is retarded. Isn't it trite and pathetic by now to claim that your opponent is a "nazi" holding a Nuremburg rally?

It is not trite, when you correctly understand what the Nazis actually advocated--which has been grossly misrepresented by the propagandists of the Left. Hitler's own propaganda film, Triumph of The Will, shows a demagogue establishing a Socialist Monolith, based upon a form of enforced egalitarianism, almost as extreme as the Communists'. Hitler's first major action, after seizing power had been to sweep away the sovereign rights of the individual German States; rallying popular support for a totalitarian future by the skilled use of scapegoats, and demonization. By September, 1934, he was ready to share more of his "vision" for the future.

The farce in Durban appears to be a similar type of effort; the only difference the promoters are not able to consolidate power over anyone. It is posts such as this that help people make certain that they never do. (For more on where the Nazis stood in the political spectrum, see The Lies Of Socialism.)

14 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by Ohioan
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Comment #15 Removed by Moderator

To: Joseph Psychology Jr.
This article is retarded. Isn't it trite and pathetic by now to claim that your opponent is a "nazi" holding a Nuremburg rally?

If it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and looks like a duck IT IS A DUCK!

These junior-league nazis holding their Nuremburg Rally in Durban are just Nazis with lower IQ'S!

16 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by bulldog905
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To: Joseph Psychology Jr.
Hitler didn't "sieze" power, he came to power legally and had an approval rating over 90%

Hitler formed a coalition Government, with the approval of the terminally ill President Hindenburg. But after the staged fire in the German Parliament, Hitler had himself voted unlimited power, and proceeded to suspend the traditional rights of the German States, as well as to rule by decree. That is seizing power.

That he was the most successful politician of the 20th Century is a given. That he was a Leftwing demagogue, forging a monolithic structure, is also a fact. In Germany by the start of 1934, you had to accept Hitler's social views--including the nonsense that race among the Germans was more ideological than biological--or you were in deep trouble. If the organizers of the farce in Durban have their way, we will all have to accept their own racial theories--including the myth that Europeans have held the rest of the world back--or we will be in deep trouble.

The organizers in Durban are trying to use the White World in general--or at least those parts of it that are not apologetic--much as Hitler used the Jews. We are the scape goats for all of the Third World's frustrations and failures.

No, the analogy is far from perfect, because Hitler was in power by Nuremberg; whereas the rabble in Durban are merely coveting the ability to enforce their theories. But in both cases, you witness a form of The Compulsion For Uniformity.

Neither Hitler nor the group in Durban ever showed any tolerance for the idea that some of their premises were flawed. Neither showed any willingness to accept the fact that others chose not to live by their dogma. It is this lockstep mentality, that makes the analogy apt.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

17 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by Ohioan
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To: LibertarianLiz
I think President Bush's decision to give the Durban conference "the back of his hand" is giving courage to American politicians across the political spectrum to speak out against the virulent racism of the conference.
18 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by WaterDragon
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To: LibertarianLiz
Congress should applaud the president for having the courage to give the back of our national hand to the Durban thugs and fools, and should condemn those Americans who refused to stand up for our national honor and our civilized values.

Don't count on the Democrats backing W on this or anything else.

19 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by aculeus
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To: LibertarianLiz
This is a letter in The Spectator (UK):

From Michael Smith

The squishy-minded Democrat panderers to trendy white guilt here want reparations to their water-carriers; very well, only deduct the free room and board of the millions of vicious violent black criminals, that are now government guests in jail. Deduct from the reparations just compensation to the millions of white victims of black crime annually. As black males do 46 percent of the murders in the US annually, while numbering but 6 percent of the population, deduct just compensation for the pain, suffering and terror they cause to white Americans. I believe the remainder would be far in the negative numbers.

It would never be printed in a US mag.

20 posted on 12/31/1969 4:00:00 PM PST by aculeus
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