Note by Sean Gabb: I prefer to avoid commenting on foreign affairs that do not immediately concern my own country. One exception is things that happen in the United States, which is our imperial overlord. Things that happen in other member states of the European Union are another partial exception.
The disruption of the NPI Conference in Budapest is an outrageous violation of rights that should be taken for granted in a civilised country. This was a peaceful gathering of philosophers and publicists from all over the world. The right to hold such gatherings is apparently protected under the Hungarian Constitution. It may also be protected under the various human rights laws of the European Union that the Hungarian State has accepted. This was a lawless use of state power for ideological purposes.
The Libertarian Alliance also condemns the French State for cooperating with the Hungarian authorities to prevent Philippe Vardon from travelling to Budapest. For reasons given above, we make no comment on the cooperation of the Russian State regarding Alexander Dugin, but will note that anyone who sees Mr Putin and his Government as enemies of Western political correctness needs to think again.
What has happened in Budapest is wrong in itself. It also sets a sinister precedent that may be used against other ideological communities such as traditionalist Christians, climate change realists and libertarians. It is a practical warning of what will happen in this country if the British State is given the powers to control “non-violent extremism” it is currently demanding.
I could take a mealy-mouthed approach to the issue – “These are fascist scumbags, but even they have rights,” etc, etc. But I will not. I know Jared Taylor. Just because we may not completely agree in our opinions does not stop us from being friends. There is, or should be, a fellowship among civilised men that runs deeper than matters of opinion. Here is Jared’s report of the disruption. SIG
Report from Budapest (Updated)
Jared Taylor, American Renaissance, October 5, 2014
A full report on the “forbidden” NPI conference.
Editor’s Note: The ending of this article has been updated.
It was a bold idea from the beginning. The National Policy Institute (NPI), an American organization, was to hold a conference in Budapest on “The Future of Europe.” In addition to well-known identitarians such as Philippe Vardon of France, Markus Willinger of Germany, and myself, the controversial Russian academic Alexander Dugin, was to take part. Hungary’s Jobbik party would provide essential support on the ground, and one of its elected representatives was to address the meeting.
However, about two weeks before the conference, Prime Minister Victor Orban came under pressure from the Hungarian Socialist Party and condemned the conference. His statement mentioned Prof. Dugin by name, and characterized NPI as a “xenophobic and exclusionary” organization. Those of us scheduled to take part began to worry that pressure would build on the Larus Event Center to cancel its contract to host the conference.
Things got worse. A little more than a week before the conference, the Interior Ministry issued a statement forbidding the meeting, and warning that all speakers would be stopped at the border or deported if found within Hungary. Again, Prof. Dugin was cited as a particularly offensive speaker, but others were cited as “racists” who might violate the Hungarian fundamental law that forbids “violating the human dignity of others.”
I arrived on September 29, the Monday before the weekend of the conference, and had no trouble with border control. Others were not so lucky. William Regnery, the NPI board chairman, was scheduled to fly in for a Tuesday meeting with the general manager of the Novotel City Center hotel, where a number of conference events were planned. Mr. Regnery had asked me to attend the meeting with him, but when I got to the hotel, I was dismayed to learn that Mr. Regnery had not arrived. The hotel manager confirmed that the Larus Center had canceled its contract. He also said that many people attending the conference were booked at the hotel and that since the meeting was now forbidden, he had to make a decision about whether to hold the rooms.
Later that day I later learned that Mr. Regnery had been stopped at the Hungarian border by the police, put in a detention cell overnight, and deported to London. That same day, the hotel manager unilaterally canceled all the room reservations and planned events.
Likewise on Tuesday, I was shocked to learn that Jobbik support had completely melted away, and that no one was looking for an alternate venue. I knew that Jobbik representative Marton Gyongyosi, who had been scheduled to speak, had withdrawn, accusing the organizers of “racism,” but I assumed we still had some local Hungarian support. I was wrong. We had no one. Mr. Regnery telephoned from London and asked me to find a suitable venue. We were also in contact with Richard Spencer, the director of NPI, who asked me to find a private room in a restaurant for a dinner–for an estimated 70 people.
The forbidden conference was now big news. The press was full of stories about Russian extremists and American “racists” about to converge in Budapest. I was afraid it would arouse suspicions if an American phoned up restaurants trying to book a last-minute dinner for 70. I decided to wait until the next day, when I knew a Hungarian-American would be arriving, who could make calls in Hungarian.
We finally got to work on Wednesday, and found a charming, traditional restaurant that was willing to serve as many as 100 people in a private room. We took a taxi to the restaurant, worked up a menu, and made a down payment. We had a venue!–so long as we could keep it secret. We scouted the neighborhood and established a redirection point nearby so that we could tell people to meet there and be taken to the restaurant rather than reveal its name and address in advance. Mr. Spencer was thus able to send e-mail messages to everyone registered for the conference, telling them that the event was still on, and that they were to meet Saturday evening at the redirection point.
Mr. Spencer was to arrive the next day, and we were all worried he would get the same treatment as Mr. Regnery, but he slipped across the Austrian-Hungarian border by train without attracting attention. He gave a number of interviews to the press, and he and I met Thursday evening to toast to the success of the conference.
Disaster struck the next day. Mr. Spencer had sent a message to a number of supporters inviting them to meet him informally at the Clock Café in Budapest that evening. Late that night, an estimated 40 police officers descended on the café and locked it down for two hours, while they asked for identification papers and grilled people.
Some 20 people who did not have papers were taken outside for interrogation. Mr. Spencer, who did not have his passport with him, was arrested and asked police to let everyone else go. He was detained along with French-American journalist James Willy, whom the authorities appear to have thought had some role in organizing the conference. We have since heard from Mr. Spencer that he is safe and unhurt, but is likely to be in detention until Monday, when he will be deported. Fortunately, I was not at that gathering; otherwise, I suspect I would be sharing a cell with Mr. Spencer.
The arrest was a terrible blow. We don’t know how the police knew to go to the Clock Café, so we didn’t know how much our security was breached. I felt sure the police did not know about the restaurant, but did they know about the redirection point? This was a forbidden meeting. Would they arrest everyone who showed up?
Mr. Regnery had planned to come back to Hungary at the last minute for the dinner but after Mr. Spencer’s arrest, he decided that would be foolish. On Saturday morning we consulted by phone and had to make some hard decisions. Cancel for fear the police would break up the meeting? Tell only trusted people the name of the restaurant and tell everyone else the dinner was off?
I met with a trusted associate of Richard Spencer. We looked over the list of 65 or so people who said they planned to come to the redirection point and recognized only about 20 names. It didn’t make sense to have a small dinner for people we already knew. We sent them a message with the name and address of the restaurant, but told everyone else to go to the redirection point. I went directly to the restaurant, and another man went to the redirection point early, to keep an eye out for the police. If there were no police, he was to bring people to the restaurant. How much did the police know? I packed a change of clothes and a toothbrush in my briefcase in case I had to spend a night in a cell.
As it happened, there were no police at the redirection point, and people went skillfully in groups to the restaurant. Before long, we had 76 people in all–more than half the original number of registrants–including guests from Sweden, Germany, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, Australia, Slovakia, Britain, Ireland, Croatia, the United States, Spain, Canada, Russia, and even Mexico and Japan. To my disappointment there was only one Hungarian. He explained that the conference had been virtually unknown in Hungary until the scandal broke, and that a few others who had registered dropped out when the police prohibited the meeting.
We admitted three journalists who had been cleared in advance by Mr. Spencer, but kept out half a dozen more who showed up but had not been cleared. I stepped outside and answered their questions for 20 minutes, but decided not to let them cover the event.
Jared Taylor held an impromptu press conference outside the restaurant. He asked the cameras not to show his face for fear he would later be recognized and arrested.
Back at the restaurant, I welcomed everyone in the name of NPI. After an excellent dinner, I apologized for the thin program–only two scheduled speakers–but pointed out that speakers had been expressly forbidden to enter the country.
I explained that at least two other speakers had been directly intimidated. The Hungarian government had prevailed on the French to send the police to tell Philippe Vardon that since he was a “notorious racial activist” he was unwelcome in Hungary and would arrested if he tried to come. The Russian police told Alexander Dugin the same thing: He would be expelled immediately if he tried to come to Hungary.
I then introduced the only other scheduled speaker who was able to attend: the author and academic, Tom Sunic. Mr. Sunic lives in neighboring Croatia, and took real risks to come to Budapest. Croatia is not in the free-travel Schengen area of the European Union, and there was a good chance he would be turned back or even detained at passport control. It would be a considerable professional liability to have been officially rejected as an undesirable by a neighboring country.
Mr. Sunic spoke on the failure of the European Union. He pointed out that it was originally established as an economic community, and criticized the role of capitalism in dissolving ethnic and racial bonds: “Merchants have no country.” He spoke of the guilt that seems to be part of Catholicism and that causes Europeans to welcome Third-World immigration. Mr. Sunic urged all Europeans to rise above old antagonisms left over from past conflicts and to embrace a larger destiny. He stressed the dangers of petty nationalism that resulted in the terrible bloodshed in his own country, the former Yugoslavia, and concluded with a rousing call for all Europeans to work together to preserve their common culture and heritage.
My talk (full transcript here) was called “Towards a World Brotherhood of Europeans.” I argued out that it is not only on the continent of Europe that we find Europe but in all those places overseas where Europeans have built new societies. I said that I speak for many Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians, and Afrikaners when I call myself a European and refer to Europe as my spiritual and cultural homeland. I said that only Europeans–white people–could defend Europe and carry its heritage forward in a meaningful way, and that our people and civilization are under threat everywhere. I argued that the genetic and cultural effect of alien immigration is no different from armed invasion, and concluded that although the crisis is not sharp, nor the lines so clearly drawn, the struggle of our generation to defend Europe is no different from Marathon, Poitiers, the Siege of Vienna, and the Battle of Blood River.
Jared Taylor speaking at the restaurant
We had booked the restaurant from 6:00 to 11:00 p.m., and the crowd was thick and exuberant until 11:30 when the management politely sent us out the door to catch the last subway trains home.
Walking tours of Budapest had been planned for Sunday, but we had no information on where to go to take the tours. At the end of Saturday evening, an enterprising young American approached me with what turned out to be a real inspiration. He asked me to send an e-mail notice to all registrants, inviting them to gather at Heroes Square on the Pest side, from which we could break into groups and visit the city’s historical attractions in pleasant company. About 40 people gathered at the square, and walked to such places as the Museum of Terror and the Museum of Fine Arts.
The American also organized a gathering at a pub that evening. Forty or 50 of us turned up, and joined in humorous and patriotic toasts to the many countries represented by conference guests. This was a jovial and even raucous evening that some considered the highlight of the weekend.
We all left Budapest filled with a renewed sense of commitment and camaraderie. The conference–abbreviated and cobbled together though it may have been–was a brilliant success in the face of outrageous police-state tactics.
And what did the United States government think about all this? The charge d’affaires in Budapest André Goodfriend did manage to say that “under U.S. law their right to express their views would be protected under the First Amendment,” but stopped just short of endorsing Richard Spencer’s arrest: “We’re glad to see that the government of Hungary shares our concerns that messages that a group like this promotes are abhorrent. We’re pleased to see that the government of Hungary is speaking out to reaffirm that it does not support those who promote racial or ethnic intolerance.”
Mr. Goodfriend makes us all proud to be Americans.
We look forward to future meetings with our European brothers.
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“I could take a mealy-mouthed approach to the issue”
Condemning evil while supporting the rights of evil’s supporters to advocate their preferred evil is not “mealy-mouthed.”
It is when the people allegedly advocating evil are victims of state persecution. I refused to do this with the Emma West case. I also refused to do it 20 years ago with another case that now brings me a certain number of Brownie points. In 1991, 15 homosexual men were prosecuted under the offenced Against the Person Act 1861 for consensual sado-masochism in private. When I wrote the case up, I refused to say that I thought there was anything untoward about having a four inch nail banged through your penis. Nowadays, everyone agrees that this was an outrageous persecution. At the time, I had to face down any number of funny looks, often from people who at least imply nowadays that they agreed with me.
I’ve said it a hundred times, the C4SS mob are not libertarians; they are leftists with a thorough drenching in progressivist ideology who redefine every word associated with liberty to mean its exact opposite in order to justify their using the term. Thomas and his friends are in the bully pulpit of the new moralist tyranny, and it’s a waste of time thus trying to get any reason or sense out of them.
I disagree. They are fellow libertarians who just don’t happen to agree with people like us on every point. Even if they don’t always practise it themselves, I propose to show them the fullest consideration and tolerance. The first libertarian text I read was Mill on Liberty. It has probably had the most influence on me.
Ian B. is certainly right about their bulk and audience. Roderick Long and few others, even the nutjobs, may actually be libertarians. But most of them are not, and for reasons that their ideology is pretty much at war with Western European history and culture which includes, at least in part, radical libertarianism and radical capitalism. They are anti-capitalist because they are anti-West and they take the liberties and standards of white Europeans for granted while vilifying the very people who developed them. C4SS libertarians aren’t just a weird subculture of libertarians, they’re more like Republican fake-libertarians who always blame ‘criminals’ for the irresponsible thuggishness of the police.
You say a lot of things that aren’t true. Saying them a hundred times won’t make them true.
Here is one of the articles in question:
http://www.seangabb.co.uk/?q=node/130
It may deserve posting on the LA Blog. Certainly, it shows my general approach. When I first published it, taking the approach I did was still very unfashionable.
‘Evil’
Take your 21st century Christian relativism somewhere where it might have have them nodding in the pews. Perhaps a Sunday School?
Take your evil racist bullshit somewhere where it might gain acceptance. Perhaps a klan rally?
Ho ho. TLK, MLK, seems to be the naming convention / rhythm with religious charlatanry. Saying a thing and that thing actually existing in the real world, outside of your head (racist bullshit) are not the same thing, you dig?
I challenge you to find an invocation of religion in my state beliefs on the subject. Quite the opposite in fact: “Race realism” is to racism as “creation science” is to religious fundamentalism — that is, in each case the former is the latter masquerading as reason/science/fact.
Colonel, you categorised Mr Taylor, not just as a racist (whatever that means in the context in which you are using it) but as evil. Then without exploring my views, you apply it to my comments too. You come across like a southern Gothic novel. Anyway, on the subject of evil, it’s the witching hour here and I have spells to cast.
1) I was never promoted past sergeant;
2) Good luck with your spells.
Well, the Progressive belief system is a faith system; akin to religion, if not professing faith in the supernatural. It’s a matter of labels really.
Race realism? It depends what that means. It seems to vary from what I can see to people professing the separation of races, to people professing that races have particular genetically inherited mental characteristics (intelligence, etc), to people simply stating that races exist at all; the latter of which is simply a statement of fact. The curious thing is to compare that to the faith position of Progressives, who claim that races do not exist, and yet seem to think there is significance in a white police officer shooting a black teenager. I do not think that anyone in Ferguson believes that races do not exist. Maybe you could go there and advise them otherwise, Thomas.
“Well, the Progressive belief system is a faith system”
Yes, it is.
It also has nothing whatsoever to do with C4SS except to the extent that C4SS’s writers, Carson in particular, are vociferous critics of progressives and progressivism.
And yet adhering to its central tenets. Funny that. Perhaps we mean different things by the word.
I doubt that you have any inkling of the central tenets of progressivism. If you did, you certainly wouldn’t accuse C4SS of adhering to them. You’re ignorant of progressivism, or of C4SS, or both. My guess is both and a lot more.
Well stated Ian. The duplicitous nature of ‘liberals’ / ‘progressives’ is there for all to see.
Mr Knapp does not sound to have the first idea of what the people behind NPI conference are actually about – and not does he really care, seeing as there are snide comments about ‘Klan rallies’ soon dripping into the comment section.
He has made up his moral judgements, he seems to know everything there is to know about everything and obviously all of these people and their concerns are nothing other than ‘evil’ to him.
There is a whole post about the shocking lack of freedom to hold an academic meeting and the threat it poses to many countries in Europe and in Britain, yet all Mr Knapp seems concerned about is parading his non-racist credentials by sneering at the organisation and people seeking to hold the conference in the first place, I think being a bit disgusted that libertarianism should be letting such “evil” people get away with this kind of thing under their banner.
Morality and “evil” can be different things to different people. Mr Knapp may consider “race-realists” (like myself) to be “evil”, but I would consider his anti-white, genocidal, racial-nihilist and anti-human outlooks as being evil due to the destruction and tyranny they bring.
But if there is one thing I have learnt here, it is not to bother engaging with such people because it is a complete waste of time. It is a one way street, they are not interested in other points of view and usually cannot stand to not have the last word.
The important point is not whether you agree with these people, but whether you are happy to see them banned. I think we can all agree that they should have had the right to hold their conference.
Absolutely. The only thing I was taking issue with was your implication that noticing the people whose rights you are defending are evil is somehow “mealy-mouthed.”
The Nazis have every right to march in Skokie or meet in Budapest, but nobody has any obligation to pretend they aren’t Nazis.
Then we have nothing to argue about
[…] By Sean Gabb […]
Thomas, I hope we won’t get into an argument about historical meanings of words again. I suspect that is where you are heading with this. I am using “Progressive” to mean the current hegemonic beleif system extolled by those who currently call themselves “progressive”; focussed on opposition to discrimination (defined as demographic class struggles) including Feminism, anti-homophobia, anti-racism, etc; Environmentalism; public health and other puritanisms (anti-smoking, anti-drinking, etc); anti-capitalism characterised as anti-corporatism (particularly in the USA).
*
If you (as is your usual thing) object to the label, then feel free to choose another, or invent one. I’ve better things to do than argue about words.
“the current hegemonic beleif system extolled by those who currently call themselves ‘progressive’; focussed on opposition to discrimination (defined as demographic class struggles) including Feminism, anti-homophobia, anti-racism, etc;”
There’s a diversity of thought within C4SS on those issues, ranging from complete opposition to identity politics (me) over to an (in my opinion) unseemly attachment to Frankfurt School critical theory and postmodernist crap. The distinguishing feature at the latter end of the scale is that we don’t support state enforcement of such things.
“Environmentalism”
Guilty — but once again opposed to the state as instrument of environmental deliverance.
“public health and other puritanisms (anti-smoking, anti-drinking, etc)”
We’re exactly the opposite of that. To the best of my knowledge most of us drink, at least some of us smoke, one or two of us are current or former drug fiends and all of us oppose any state impositions whatsoever on such things. Quick sample by yours truly:
http://c4ss.org/content/23060
“anti-capitalism characterised as anti-corporatism (particularly in the USA).”
I’m not sure what you mean by “corporatism.” Are you referring to Mussolini-style “everything within the state, nothing outside the state” stuff or to crony capitalism? In any case, C4SS supports free markets (“free” to include not just an absence of state regulation and not just an absence of state subsidy but an absence of state, period).
Just to add; the part I forgot is the Neo-Progressive[1] desire to impose these values by a technocratic managerialist State. I think you probably object to that part, and would prefer they be imposed by action by individuals and activist groups etc. But so far as I can tell you and Kevin and the rest of C4SS are fully signed up to the (moral) value system described above. As in this thread, where you keep screaming “racist” at everyone.
[1] We can use that if you prefer.
Some C4SS writing on “progressives,” for those tempted to a false believe that C4SS is “progressive” —
The Thermidor of the Progressives: Mangerialist Liberalism’s Hostility to Decentralized Organization, by Kevin Carson:
http://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Thermidor-of-the-Progressives.pdf
If “Progressives” Didn’t Exist, Big Business Would Have to Invent Them, by Kevin Carson:
http://c4ss.org/content/14992
To Hasten the Demise of the State, by David S. D’Amato:
http://c4ss.org/content/28790
Progressivism: The Other Pro-Corporate Movement, by Kevin Carson:
http://c4ss.org/content/26908
Taylorism, Progressivism and Rule by Experts, by Kevin Carson:
http://c4ss.org/content/22244
Infrastructure is not “Progressive,” by Kevin Carson:
http://c4ss.org/content/22021
Anyone who thinks C4SS is “progressive” is flattering themselves by calling whatever it is they’re doing “thinking.”
Rather than argeu about words, Thomas, can you propose a term I can use as a descriptor for that cohort of persons who subscribe to the value system I described above? That way we can in future discuss the issues, rather than waste time throwing dictionaries at each other.
IanB,
Well, the value system you describe above sounds a lot like “progressivism.”
The value system of C4SS is “libertarianism” (sometimes called “left-libertarianism” to distinguish it from libertarians in error and/or non-libertarians pretending to be libertarians) or “market anarchism.”
Less effing and blinding, if you please. This blog hasn’t yet been banned by Starbucks
Sorry about that.
You are forgiven
Speaking personally, if an organisation has some sort of satanic greeny-brownish sneering “mermaid” as its logotype, and this even in the 21st century, I would wish our blog to be banned by it on principle. It must buck up its ideas and think about its branding in the Coming Times.
Such a logostyle was always going to be a bad and pre-capitalist-barbairan idea, seeing that the direction of human improvement is always upwards, and is never downwards.
For it is to be hoped that ageing coffee-drinking hippies will not be prevailing, in full-speaking ideo-culturalo-philosophical-terms, for very much longer, now.
However, since influential people need to be seen inside Starbuck’s’s portals – and more importantly – carrying in public conoids of coffee, about, which is to say: in public – and who might also have accessed our pages inside there, then I will relent, just on this occasion.
I am going chance the risk of offending everyone by offering a defense of both the National Policy Institute and C4SS.
I spoke to an NPI gathering a few years ago, and I am personally acquainted with many of the individuals who were involved in the brouhaha in Hungary. Describing the NPI as “Nazi” is like referring to all leftist thought as “Communist.” Leftists usually do not recognize the diversity of rightist thinking. The participants at a NPI gathering would include a wide spectrum of political opinions, including ideologies very few Americans have even heard of. When I have been to meetings sponsored by NPI or other overlapping groups I have encountered libertarians, paleconservatives, national-anarchists, national-bolsheviks, Nietzscheans, Catholics, evangelical Protestants, Orthodox, nationalists, identitarians, monarchists, Jewish conservatives, pan-Europeans, radical traditionalists, neo-pagans, fascists, race realists, and others too numerous to mention. The only common thread is usually disdain for the Left and a desire to preserve traditional Western civilization against mass immigration and demographic displacement. Whether this is a worthy goal or not may well be an individual value judgment, but it is hardly synonymous with Hitlerism.
As for my relationship with these people, some of them are interested in my critique of totalitarian humanism, some my advocacy of pan-secession, some my promotion of decentralized libertarian populism, and some all of these.While most of them are not philosophical anti-statists, they are most certainly enemies of the existing states we presently have in the Western world as the incident in Hungary demonstrates. Just as libertarians like Murray Rothbard and Karl Hess aligned themselves with Marxists and other leftists during the 1960s and 1970s against the excesses of democratic states at the time, so it is now often necessary for libertarians to align themselves with rightists to oppose certain present day excesses.
As for C4SS, I don’t agree that “progressive” is an apt label for them. Historic progressivism was for Americans what the Fabians were for England, i.e. forbears of the managerial public administration state. The classical progressives in the U.S. often worked in collusion with big capital for the ostensible purpose of enhancing the scientific management of society. Ironically, the class American progressives were usually quite racist, and were advocates of not only segregation but eugenics. They merely did an about face on this question after World War Two for obvious reasons (see Thomas Sowell’s work on this history). Today, most people claiming the label “progressive” for themselves are statist liberals and social democrats. I certainly don’t think is a fitting description for C4SS. However, C4SS and actual progressives do share much of the same cultural leftist outlook (e.g. disdain for traditional religion, a generally egalitarian outlook, regarding social conservatism as a primary evil, the view that illiberal opinions about race, gender, sexual orientation. etc. are the ultimate sins). Rather C4SS is a libertarian-leftist hybrid that sees libertarianism as a means to leftist ends, or vice versa.
Before anyone sets to work on commenting, I propose to move this to the front page.
[…] [Moved from the comments of Hungarian State Goes Totalitarian Humanist] […] Placed on front page of the Blog