It is sad to see an educated person like Charles Villet of the Australian Monash University failing to distinguish between extremism and reasonable quests for sovereignty by marginalised cultures. Instead he mistakenly, but nonetheless deliberately, demonises them as the ‘Far-right.’(M&G, February 24).
Nazis and Fascists have been on the fringes of the political Right for decades, just as communists and socialists occupy the fringes of the political Left. Thus, it is insulting and downright wrong for the likes of Villet to attempt to brand everyone to the right of centre as somehow linked to the totalitarian ‘Far-Right.’
Conservatives, courteously and correctly, do not associate left of centre liberals with the totalitarian Left.
The term “white victimhood” is one that the political Left has manufactured which deliberately distorts and disparages what is as old as history itself: defence of cultural and sovereign identity. Conflict in history has always resulted from attempts to impose imperialism and its corollary, colonisation.
The growing opposition in Europe to the deluge of migrants is valid and reasonable particularly as those migrants have no intention of assimilating the culture of the countries in which they seek refuge. No self-respecting people and culture voluntarily surrenders its heritage to aliens. The resurgence of national sovereignty in Eastern Europe since the collapse of the USSR testifies to the resilience of cultural homogeneity.
For the white farming community in South Africa that numbers 35,000, the ongoing murders of farmers is more than just ”problematic,” as Villet claims. More than 1,600 white farmers have been murdered since 1990 – a figure without parallel in the modern, civilised world. Given the incendiary rhetoric of Malema, Winnie Mandela and the late Peter Mokaba in urging the killing of white farmers, reference to terms such as “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” is not inappropriate.
But if Villet finds such terms as constituting “hyperbole,” then he should be wary about attempting to consign all those who are prepared to defend culture and heritage as “Far-right.” Given his association with an Australian institution, it will be interesting to see how he describes Australian resistance to the ongoing influx of Chinese into Australia and their indifference for the icons of Aussie culture – cricket and barbeque.
Published in The Mail & Guardian and sent to The Daily News
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