print“Why Do WASP Societies Wither? South Africa As A Case Study” was the title of my address to the 3rd Annual Meeting of the HL Mencken Club, on October 23, 2010. It is now up on VDARE.COM. (http://www.vdare.com/mercer/110126_south_africa.htm) Here is an excerpt:
“… Often called ‘The White Tribe of Africa’, Afrikaners are perhaps the toughest tribe in Africa. They had a 350-year history on the Continent—as long as their American cousins have been in North America. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the Sherlock Holmes character, dubbed the modern Boer ‘the most formidable antagonist who ever crossed the path of Imperial Britain.’
So why is it that the Afrikaners, unlike their Israeli allies, failed to endure as a nation-state? Why did the modern Boer burn bright for a relatively short while, and then, despite superior military prowess, simply, as Hermann Giliomee put it in a 1997 journal article, ‘surrender without defeat’?
I earlier mentioned General Viljoen, the former Chief of the South African Defense Force. ‘You and I and our men can take this country in an afternoon’, Viljoen famously said to the Army Chief, General George Meiring, as President De Klerk was preparing to cave into ANC demands, forgoing all checks and balances for South Africa’s Boer, British and Zulu minorities.
Why on earth did the formidable SADF capitulate to Mandela’s ragtag ANC? And the very same people, in the very same spirit, went on to dismantle the six nuclear devices they had built at Pelindaba, west of Pretoria.
Why did the Afrikaner give up his birthright for a mess of pottage?
Since it all makes so little sense, my conclusions are more philosophical than factual” …
The complete address, “Why Do WASP Societies Wither? South Africa As A Case Study,” is now on VDARE.COM.
UPDATE I (Jan. 27): To “Sioux”: This address is hardly about race. Only crazy, race-obsessed people would construe it thus.
UPDATE II: JIM was not man enough to post his comment to the blog, so I will do it for him. It’s the “nudge nudge, wink wink” “Jewy” angle I’ve come to expect:
“Why no mention of Slovo and his handiwork behind the scenes that led to the collapse of SA? LOL, no need to answer that one.”
Joe Slovo is mentioned in the actual book with derision. There are many other culprits one doesn’t mention in an address lasting half an hour, and no allotted Q & A time.
“The Characters” chosen for the address were ones that inspired me; the “Culprits” selected comport with an analysis that focused on major, international movers-and-shakers that brought South Africa to it political knees. This reader implies that because I’m Jewish, I chose not to focus my address on a relatively minor figure in the grand scheme of things.
UPDATE III: From my address: “… as President De Klerk was preparing to cave into ANC demands, forgoing all checks and balances for South Africa’s Boer, British and Zulu minorities … ” For the idiots and ignoramuses who are blinded by race and ignorant of the South African landscape: who do the “Freepers,” who removed this address from their generally tedious threads, think the aforementioned Zulus are? Whites? One of my heroes (“Characters”) in this address is the Zulu chief Dr. Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, a conservative gentleman who wanted—and deserved—self-determination for his people. He got the deracinated communists of the ANC to call his lords and masters!
Exceptional address, from the ‘dark art of rule’ to ‘thanatotic urges’. Here’s hoping the dark arts are stayed and Into The Cannibal’s Pot soon sees the light of day.
That was an excellent speech. It’s fantastic that thinkers like you are pointing out the self-destructive nature of “WASP societies”; awareness of this problem may help other WASP societies resist decline.
However, I would add that this isn’t just a problem for Protestant nations; Catholic and Orthodox nations are exhibiting the same rot, albeit in different ways. Nations in the EU are a prime example of this, surrendering their identity and self-determination to the gods of multiculturalism and civic nationalism. Russia to date is the only European nation that shows any active resistance to this self-destruction, but even their determination to keep Russia for the Russians is breaking down. President Medvedev has called for Russians to embrace multiculturalism; a disturbing trend for those of us who have been hoping that Russia would turn out to be the European nation to help turn back the tide of Western decline.
So, considering the similarities between European nations of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox background, is there something else at work besides Puritan religious values? Is it broader Christian values at fault? Or is there something even more deeply ingrained in the people of Europe that is causing this withering from within?
Observing the ancient history of Greece and Rome, we find similar cases of European societies losing the will to live, and gradually disappearing and being replaced by their vassals and subjects of their imperial conquests. We can also observe examples of Indo-European civilizations in Central Asia, that gradually declined, and ultimately withered away, replaced by Turkic societies.
Is this history repeating itself? Is this a continuation of some age-old pattern of Indo-European growth, imperial conquest, decline, and voluntary extinction? If so, what lessons can we draw from this? Is this something wired in European people, and is there a way we can rewire ourselves so we don’t fall into that pattern?
Maybe it is because peeps are impressed by the orator of the words
Instead of the meaning of the words the orator delivers ?
I appreciated this column very much and your blog in general. I posted it on FreeRepublic and it lasted for a few hours before the administrator pulled it. No discussions about race survive in in the freeper world. Crike!
Ilana, many people treat race and ethnicity as the same thing, despite the truth of them being different concepts. And so it’s no surprise to me that the Freepers would ban your article, since you describe Afrikaners as being an ethnic people rather than a propositional idea that the whole world can aspire to. As you know, the propositional nation is a sacred cow in conservative orthodoxy, and any organic view of national identity is to be denounced as “racist”.
Truth be told, I think having an article pulled on FreeRepublic is a badge of honor. It means you’re saying something that the PC orthodox conservatives do not want to hear.
So why is it that the Afrikaners, unlike their Israeli allies, failed to endure as a nation-state?
Does that question really need an answer? If the old South Africa had received a free trade agreement with the US, billions of dollars per year in direct aid, billions more in loan guarantees, access to the latest weapons, and a security council member who vetoed any negative resolutions, I’d guess they’d still be around. In short, if they had a tenth of the influence with the US government that Israel does, we’d still have a South Africa.
In response to “JIM”, it should be noted that Joe Slovo was an ardent opponent of Zionism and railed against the “Axis of Racism” that included Israel and Old South Africa. Joe Slovo may have been a Jew by birth, but he cast it aside to embrace Marxism. Many hard-leftist Jews , like Slovo, are indifferent or hostile to Jewish identity and nationalism. So the idea that Jews as a people are working against European interests is discredited when these facts are taken into account.
I agree, but whether we like it or not, everything ends up about race these days – I understood your speech as a prophecy of what could happen here very soon in the USA. Everything that made this country strong and free is under assault.
I don’t think that FR pulled it because of what Ilana said, but the flaming comments that follow. That’s what I have been told this before that the moronic feedback is also a reason for the yanking.
Just to clarify – the responses on FR were not racist rants IMO, so think it must have been a pre-emptive strike on FR administrator’s part. No one here has ever been told the truth about South Africa, just demonization. We have only had the Rev. Tutu as the “moral” authority in the Media… Much like having Lefties Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton speaking for the Blacks here.
Thanks for your speech Ilana. As an ex-South African, now living in Australia since 2008, I can relate to what you are saying. I was born in 1970 in Cape Town so grew up under Apartheid. Looking back I had a wonderful upbringing until my late teens when the ANC was unbanned and we all knew the writing was on the wall. De Klerk – the traitor – negotiated with the wrong Blacks. He now says he didn’t have a choice but he did! He had Buthelezi and the various Black chiefs. All he had to do was stand strong and say loud and clear that he wouldn’t negotiate with terrorists. Instead he sided with his international liberal buddies and decided to back the ANC for self-glory. He sold the minorities down the river for 30 pieces of silver. He had ample opportunity to secure a homeland for the Boers and White South Africans – exactly as we did to the various Black South African tribes under Apartheid. Instead, the world got their new hero Mandela (who still has not renounced violence) and everyone could feel good about their new pet project, the Rainbow nation. Of course, as they do, the liberals have moved onto their next project – climate change – forgetting the anarchy they’ve unleashed on the people of South Africa. I do get bitter about our traitor de Klerk and I believe ‘die weel draai’ (the wheel turns). In any case, Israel has my strongest support because of how they supported South Africa. We had an ally and a powerful one – pity we didn’t have men of honour to match it. I’m not talking about the liberal Jewish people who inhabited South Africa, who continued to have a go at our lifestyle – after all, they were the first out of the country when their Black heroes took over. No, I’m talking about the real Jews who have integrity and are fighting for what they believe is right. I back them 100%. I now sit in Australia, content but still angry at what has become of my beloved home country. Too scared to return and worried about friends and family. This is what we; the once proud White South Africans have been reduced to. I also agree with you about the WASP mentality. I have long believed that our Christian principles have led to the White race’s demise. We are miles too forgiving and instead of turning the other cheek, we should have been taught to hit back. Instead our priests preach love and forgiveness whilst our enemies laugh at us and political correctness to bring us down. It’s time to get tough, like the brave Boers were!
[Heartfelt letter; thanks. I hope you post here in the future.]
My first comment is that anyone who knows the meaning of and can use words like thanatotic should sneak in and take the English SAT as a ringer for my daughter! [WORD does not recognize thanatotic!]
More seriously, I think of Brooklyn and Queens of the 1950’s full of (white ethnic) middle class families – most of whom fled to suburbs and beyond AFTER they voted time and time again for self-destructing political idiots who taxed, spent, discouraged investment, expanded rent control, brought in welfare recipients, redlined slums, allowed infrastructure decay, school “experimentation” of all sorts, public “union” dictates and other Lindsay Fun City idiocies. By 1980, my uncle commented on neighborhoods that “looked like postwar Berlin” [he served in WWII] after the New York blackouts, riots, looting, etc. – – resulted in abandoned buildings, mounting trash, broken windows…. The destruction was self-inflicted politically and many of the same people who voted for the self-destruction are in denial about the consequences of the faddish leftism that they espoused.
http://www.thirteen.org/lindsay/about/
And what of the Europeans, Israelis, Americans, etc. who prefer to import Turks, Filipinos, Latinos, Martians, etc., rather than pay a wage premium for their own “native” blue collar labor?
Sorry, forgot to mention that I’ve posted your VDARE entry on my blog:
http://www.ozziesaffa.blogspot.com/
Limelite, do you think Christianity itself is to blame, or just a particular interpretation of the faith? If the religion itself is problematic, do you think whites should convert to another religion, or become secular?
Also, there is a more constructive approach that serves as a good alternative to fighting and “hitting back”. Look up the township of Orania and the work of the Freedom Front Plus party.
@ John McNeill on 01.28.11 3:29 pm – Christianity is not to blame – it’s the intentional misinterpretation of Christianity that’s to blame.
The Bible says that God “changes not”, and David was a “man after God’s own heart”…how did David deal with the Philistines, Amalekites, Syrians, etc. ? – when they attacked Israel, he hit them hard. Good lesson for the pacifist “Christians”.
Ditto throughout the whole Bible, you see the initiation of force being met with force, and God smiles on it…because it’s not violence, it’s self defense.
Oh, and to those pacifists who say “that was the old testament”…Jesus said “I Am not come to destroy the law or the prophets, I Am not come to destroy, but to fulfill”. Further, the Bible quotes God as saying “I Am the Lord, I change not”.
Sorry about the long post…but this issue is near and dear to me.
Thanks Ilana for the article, it educated me alot about South Africa, which heretofore never got much of my attention.