Philippe-Joseph Salazar wrote a very interesting book on the ultra-right and their identitarian objectives. Here he sits down with noted journalist, Erwan Seznec, to talk about his findings in the context of the recent riots in the UK.
(This interview comes courtesy of Le Point).
Erwan Seznec, Le Point, writes, “What comes next won’t be for the squeamish. See you in twenty years, or much sooner.” Thus ended Suprémacistes, published in 2020 by Plon, authored by the academic, Philippe-Joseph Salazar, a Frenchman living in South Africa and distinguished professor of rhetoric at Cape Town Law School. From the USA to Croatia, via France, he went to meet “these young intellectuals who devour Foucault as well as Plato,” convinced that “the white race is an integral reality whose genetic, cultural and political disintegration they have made it their common mission to halt.”
Chilling but courteous characters, the antitheses of the neo-Nazis of folklore: “bikers with potbellies who claim to be models of athletic Aryan heroes, and whom Himmler would probably have sent to a camp for ‘asocials,’” writes Philippe-Joseph Salazar. Perhaps because he was more interested in describing and understanding than in incantatory denunciation, his book flew under the radar. Today, as Ireland has seen impressive anti-immigrant demonstrations in the spring of 2024, and the UK is experiencing a period of rioting of an undeniably ethnic nature, Philippe-Joseph Salazar looks on, with no real surprise. Against the backdrop of current events, he returns to familiar themes and familiar figures. An interview with a precursor.
Erwan Seznec (ES): Who do you think are the leaders of the current violence in the UK?
Philippe-Joseph Salazar (PJS): There isn’t one. You’re making the usual mistake. Fascism marching behind its leader no longer exists, and it’s time to admit it. The cult of the strongman is a cliché that prevents liberals from understanding the ultra-right. Its thinkers are metapolitical. Their goal is not the march on Rome, but the slow spread of their ideas. The publisher and writer Götz Kubitschek, whom I met in Germany, inspires the Alternative für Deutschland, undeniably, but he’s not a man of parties or pyramid hierarchies. These people have read Gilles Deleuze—they know what a rhizome organization is.
ES: Would you call them intellectuals?
PJS: We’re not talking lowbrow. They are perfectly adapted to the new technological situation. They’re good orators; people trained in speeches, like the Trotskyites, whom I knew well. The Briton Mark Collett comments on current events in his country on Odysee, against a backdrop of “war game” type images. This has enormous appeal with millennials. It’s not dissimilar to the way the Islamic caliphate has used the Web. Collett chooses a format suited to his audience, but on the other hand, he writes very well. He’s cultured, just like the Irish Keith Woods, whom I sort of caught budding in 2020.
ES: How would you sum up their thinking and what would you call them?
PJS: Labels are changing. In the U.S., “alt-right” is less used today, in favor of “deep-right,” “ultraright” or “conservative,” but not at all in the British sense of the term, exemplified by the Conservative Party. An American like Nick Fuentes calls himself a traditionalist conservative Christian, which in his mind refers more to the Crusades than to Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet. He’s a Catholic. In the United States, Catholicism is now present on the ultra-right, which is a novelty in a country with Protestant roots. In the UK, Mark Collett defines himself as a white nationalist, but English, not even British. Conversely, the Spanish ultra-right denies the existence of Catalan and Basque identities.
ES: Who are their theorists?
PJS: Read the American magazine, Counter-Currents. There are references common to several countries, such as Jared Taylor, Julius Evola, René Guénon, or Guillaume Faye. Not to mention the classics, such as Plato. As they are all nationalist identitarians, there are also bound to be strong differences between them. Götz Kubitschek, for example, is very anti-French. When I met him, his opening line was blunt: “In 1940, we beat you in two weeks!”
ES: What are the hallmarks of their thinking?
PJS: “Proud to be white.” Diversity and multiculturalism are seen as outdated ideas. They certainly don’t believe in miscegenation. For them, the dawn of humanity is white. They see other races as irrelevant anthropological debris. They adhere to the universality of values, but with the conviction that only Whites embody this universalism. Altruism, for example, is the hallmark of the white race, in their view. Humanity has deep, ancestral, transcendental spiritual frameworks, essentially European, they believe.
ES: Being white… what else?
PJS: There’s a debate about Latinos and Jews, in particular. On the Latino side, Argentinians and Chileans are rated very high, with noble Spanish blood running through their veins. Peruvians and Colombians are below them. As for the Jews, there’s an idea that they pretend to be white, but they’re not. That doesn’t mean there aren’t Jews in the ultra-right.
ES: So, it’s a racial sentiment that unites the movement?
PJS: In Ireland, recent demonstrations, some of them very violent, have seen the Republican flag and the Unionist flag side by side. White identity takes precedence over past struggles. In the UK, identitarians remain monarchists, but they despise King Charles III when he declares himself the defender of all religions. Harry’s marriage to a mixed-race woman did not go down well. For them, the monarchy has weakened the kingdom’s profound identity through colonial enterprise. They are anti-capitalist. The United Kingdom as a world trading power was the worm in the apple, the circulation of goods and people. There’s a big difference here with the American ultras, who are convinced that only capitalism can defend the white race. “We are a nation of traders,” said Prime Minister David Cameron. A prosperous nation, where a son of immigrants turned millionaire like Rishi Sunak has his rightful place. Let’s not forget that there is another impoverished, declassed United Kingdom, which still sees Rishi Sunak as an Indian.
ES: How do they perceive Russia?
PJS: As an interesting novelty. Russia is emerging as the only white power worthy of the name. Alexander Dugin sees Russia as the vertical pole of the universe. Moscow, the third Rome. This theme has enormous appeal for the American ultra-right. It contemplates an empire, still suspect because it was formerly Soviet, but white.
ES: What do they want?
PJS: To defend themselves. They don’t see themselves as aggressive or violent. In their vision, they are resisting the invasion of alien elements, introduced by liberals. They are convinced that they live in an “anarcho-tyrannical” regime, very strict with ordinary white citizens and lax with delinquents of color. The clock on the demise of the white race is ticking somewhere—it’s online on the Web!—and we have to slow it down, by spreading ideas.
ES: Are they succeeding?
PJS: The Guardian, of which I’m an avid reader, has realized, much to its chagrin, that today’s young men are voting right-wing. It has been coming for years! A generation of thirtysomethings has consolidated its convictions. In the United States, the “proud to be white” movement has won the battle of the campuses.
ES: Yet all we hear about is the Woke influence on these campuses.
PJS: Affirmative action in favor of Latino and Asian immigration to American universities is over. Implemented in the 1960s, it was abolished by the Supreme Court last year. For them, it’s a victory.
