Eric Voegelin (7)

Transcendence vs. Christianity

Here is a passage of Voegelin's (from chapter 9 of Plato and Aristotle), comparing Aristotelian "empiricism" unfavourably with Plato's refusal to fall prey to the illusion that the Absolute can be found in the material world:

Curious as it may sound . . . , Plato is the better empiricist; Aristotle, who wants to find form in reality at all cost, can find it only at the price of losing such parts of reality as do not fit the pattern of his evolving form. The [theory of the] polis is a premature generalization from insufficient materials.

Plato is satisfied with transcendent Ideas that are imperfectly manifested on the inferior material plane; this paradoxically makes him a better student of the material world.

It strikes me that while this observation may well be accurate as far as the history of empirical science is concerned, it reflects rather badly on Plato from the point of view of later Christian philosophy. At the core of Christian thought is the idea that the world is created by an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent God, and therefore in some sense perfect, or as perfect as is possible without logical contradictions. Admittedly, this idea is obscured by the notion of the Fall of man through the abuse of free will. Nevertheless, God created man in the knowledge that this abuse would take place as a consequence, and so even the Fall must ultimately be part of the perfect Divine plan. The world ultimately is an unmarred reflection of the Divine; appearances to the contrary only indicate our own limited consciousness. Plato, on the contrary, saw no reason to believe ours to be "the best of all possible worlds"—or so I gather from Voegelin. Perfection had to be reserved for the transcendent.

This pantheistic idea of a hidden perfection in the world is itself rather dangerous. Voegelin does not talk about this idea (as far as I know); his focus, rather, is the problematic nature of the "gnostic" belief in the coming manifest perfection of the world. Naive pantheism, the refusal to acknowledge the existence of evil, is a distinct heresy which has also become prominent in the last couple of centuries. (The danger of a premature pantheism, notwithstanding the truth of pantheism in an ultimate sense, was a theme of the early-20th-century "Sufi universalist", Hazrat Inayat Khan.)

Eric Voegelin (6)

Bawer on European multiculturalism

Front Page Magazine has a striking interview with Bruce Bawer, author of While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within. Bawer describes the rise of culturally separate Islamic enclaves within most large Western European cities and the appeasement of Islamic extremists by European leaders. He also emphasizes how greatly mainstream Western European society differs from American, and in particular, how European attitudes encourage (if any encouragement is needed) such Islamic cultural separatism.

. . . Western Europe has been admitting huge numbers of immigrants for decades, most of them Muslims.  But the way they’ve handled them has been disastrous.  The European elite hates America so much that instead of recognizing the U.S. as a model of how to integrate newcomers, they rejected the American approach entirely.  They chose to view immigrants as members of groups rather than as individuals, as dependent children rather than adults who are potentially self-sufficient and responsible, and as exotic alien creatures who should remain exotic rather than as Europeans in the making . . . .

Bawer implies that beneath its liberal veneer, Europe, unlike America, is deeply xenophobic, indeed, racist. He goes as far as to claim that the Jews faced extermination in Europe precisely because they were eager to assimilate into European society. Contemporary Muslim immigrants in Europe do not wish to assimilate, on the other hand, and so gain the reflexive respect of the European elite.

In Europe, the elite prefers its minorities unintegrated, and the supposed reason is that it respects differences.  But the real reason is a profound discomfort with the idea of “them” becoming “us.”  Anyone can become an American; but an immigrant to Norway or the Netherlands will never really be thought of by anyone as Norwegian or Dutch . . . .

It would seem that the exaggerated European insistence on cultural tolerance is a kind of neurotic reaction-formation against a repressed hatred of foreigners. Doubtless liberal North Americans share a similar neurosis, but it does not seem to be nearly as pronounced. The European case is a recipe for disaster, as such hatred is liable to break out explosively—in neo-fascist political movements.

A Europe torn between nativist fascism and Islamofascism is a grim prospect, all too reminiscent of the situation in Europe in the 1930s.  Some days it feels avoidable.  Other days it feels inevitable.

Sloppy journalism from Amir Taheri

Iranian expatriate journalist Amir Taheri wrote an article alleging that the Iranian government was going to require Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians to wear identifying symbols, though he made it clear that the law would not come into force without further consensus on its details. The truth of this has since come into question, and since the allegation is highly controversial in nature, with every interested party weighing in with charges of "hoax" and the like, it has become difficult to find out the facts of the matter. We can at least look at Taheri's own statements for consistency, though. In the article just mentioned, he implies that there was already (unofficial) agreement among the policymakers that the religious minorities would have to wear the zonnar:

YELLOW LABEL FOR JEWS AS CHILLING DRESS CODE ECHOES THE HOLOCAUST

New York Post, May 20, 2006

. . . Although the final shape of the uniforms is yet to be established, there is consensus on a number of points. The idea of adopting an Arab-style robe (known as dishdash) for men has been rejected along with a proposal that men wear a form of turban. [Taheri then describes a lack of consensus over jackets or waistcoats.]

On color schemes, however, there seems to be consensus. Islamic legislators are unanimous that Islam is incompatible with "gay, wild, provocative colors" such as red, yellow and light blue (which are supposed to be favored by Satan). The colors to be imposed by law are expected to be black, brown, dark blue and dark gray . . . .[There is then some discussion of a lack of consensus regarding wearing green.]

Religious minorities would have their own color schemes. They will also have to wear special insignia, known as zonnar, to indicate their non-Islamic faiths. Jews would be marked out with a yellow strip of cloth sewn in front of their clothes, while Christians will be assigned the color red. Zoroastrians end up with Persian blue as the color of their zonnar . . . .

The question of zonnar for religious minorities seems to have been resolved, judging by that description. But here is Taheri's press release two days later, claiming to stand by his story:

. . . The law has been passed by the Islamic Majlis and will now be submitted to the Council of Guardians. A committee has been appointed to work out the modalities of implementation. Many ideas are being discussed with regard to implementation, including special markers, known as zonnars, for followers of Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, the only faiths other than Islam that are recognized as such . . . .

It seems that Taheri has here watered down his initial statement in a rather significant way while claiming not to have changed it.

Dangerous science

"Did humans and chimps once interbreed?", asks the New Scientist.

IT GOES to the heart of who we are and where we came from. Our human ancestors were still interbreeding with their chimp cousins long after first splitting from the chimpanzee lineage, a genetic study suggests. Early humans and chimps may even have hybridised completely before diverging a second time. If so, some of the earliest fossils of proto-humans might represent an abortive first attempt to diverge from chimps, rather than being our direct ancestors . . .

Does anyone appreciate what political dynamite these researchers may be playing with here? What would happen if it were found that some ethnic groups had more chimpanzee DNA than others? (N.B.: I'm not familiar with the details of this work, or of human evolutionary theory more generally, and this possibility may already have been ruled out. For example, ethnic differences may have arisen only at a later stage in human evolution.)

I don't much like chimpanzees, I'd rather have had gorillas or bonobos for family members.

Postscript:Judging from the interesting Wikipedia article on race, there seems to be no rational basis for any political problem of the kind just suggested. The genetic difference between human beings and chimpanzees is about 20 times that between one randomly chosen human being and another. More importantly, only something on the order of 10% of the genetic variation among human beings is "racial" (that is, associated with ancestry from a different continental-sized area of the globe). Added to which, it does indeed seem highly unlikely that interbreeding with chimpanzees occurred recently enough to affect some present-day human populations more than others.

Eric Voegelin (6)

Was Plato a fascist?

As noted before, Voegelin puts a very high value on individual freedom, and for him it is completely illegitimate to impose an idea of the good on anyone by force. He also loves Plato. This might possibly be why Voegelin refuses to believe that Plato could ever have been an advocate of theocratic tyranny, appearances notwithstanding. One of Plato's imaginary states featured, for example, the Khmer-Rouge-like deportation of the adult population to the countryside in order to create the New Man out of the uncorrupted younger generation; indeed, it is not inconceivable that the Khmer Rouge got this idea from Plato, since several of their leaders are said to have studied at the Sorbonne. At any rate, Voegelin's explanations of how Plato did not mean what he seems to mean strike me as uncharacteristically circular and unconvincing.

I refer, for example, to the opening of chapter 4 in Plato and Aristotle. The program of deportation, Voegelin says, is "ingenious and eminently practical"; unfortunately it obviously "cannot be executed by true philosophers", because "any attempt to realize the order of the idea by violent means would defeat itself. The authority of the spirit is an authority only if, and when, it is accepted in freedom." (Though this seems to disregard the likelihood that the children of the deportees would "freely" accept the Order of the Idea once their corrupting parental influences had been removed.) Therefore, Plato, being the true philosopher par excellence, could not have intended the passage discussing deportation as a "program for political action in the historical environment." But the only internal evidence for this, as opposed to deductions from axioms about true philosophers, is that the passage in question is put in the form of a third-hand report (that is, it is effectively buried within layers of quotation marks). Why, then, did Plato report it at all? The only function of the passage, Voegelin says, is "to show that technically it is not impossible to translate the idea into reality, and to forestall the facile assumption that the Socratic politeia is an impractical daydream. The idea can be realized if the people want to realize it; the philosopher-king is present in their midst, waiting for their consent. Beyond this appeal, however, no attempt either will or can be made to force the consent". I confess to finding this confusing. The Socratic politeia is a practical proposition—but only if a lot of people can be deported to make way for the New Socratic Man. But such an imposition by philosophers would be self-defeating. How, then, is it practical? If, on the other hand, it is a matter of near-universal acceptance of rule by philosophers by the common people (impractical though this may seem), why bring mass deportations into the picture?

Strangely enough, Voegelin himself then goes on very interestingly to provide a reason why Plato might well have been prepared to commit what are now considered to be political atrocities. In short, he might have viewed the ordinary corrupted Athenians of his own decadent time as sub-human. This does not mean that Plato was a monstrous anomaly: it was a natural consequence of the dissolution of society in the pre-Christian era. The dissolution of society into the corrupted mass and a handful of truth-seekers, Voegelin suggests (p. 141),

engenders a tension of such sharpness that the common bond of humanity between the lost souls and the manic souls is almost broken. The difference between the souls tends to become a generic difference between a lower type of human [being], close to animals, and a higher type of semi-divine rank. This divinization, which seems absurd in the realm of Christian experience, is inherent in the logic of the myth of nature. If the particle of substance which animates a particular human individual happens to be of high quality, there is no objection to recognizing its semi-divine character. The obstacle to such recognition which in the Christian orbit stems from the experience of creaturely equality before a transcendent God, does not exist in the Platonic experience.

If nothing else, this ought to be a useful reminder of what we owe to Christianity.

Eric Voegelin (5)

The course of social and political corruption

Two excerpts. The first is from World of the Polis, p. 363:

. . . When the corrosion of reason has reached a certain degree in depth and has befallen a sufficiently large proportion of the people, effective leadership in terms of reason becomes difficult and perhaps impossible, even if the man at the head under more favorable conditions could exert such leadership; in a further degree of corrosion a man of such qualities will, precisely because he possesses them, find it impossible to reach the position of leadership; and in a final degree the society by its corruption may prevent the formation of a man of such qualities even if by nature he should not be lacking in such gifts.

The second, from Plato and Aristotle, p. 57, refers to the older generation in a rapidly decaying society, who are sympathetic figures because of their genuine virtues, yet also slightly contemptible because they practiced those virtues out of the force of habit or tradition rather than any love of wisdom. When tradition breaks down, they are unable to muster any arguments (or other forces) in its defence.

. . . And in a crisis they have nothing to offer to the younger generation which is already exposed to more corruptive influences . . . . For the men of [their] type are the cause of the sudden vacuum that appears in a critical period with the break of generations. All of a sudden it appears that the older generation has neglected to build the substance of order in the younger men, and an amiable lukewarmness and confusion shifts within a few years into the horrors of social catastrophe.

With regard to the first quotation, it is important to note, however, that Voegelin sees corruption not only as a social phenomenon that infects politics, but also (or even primarily) as something with political sources. In the case of Athens, Voegelin says, a fatal but inevitable decision was made to hold on to her empire by force after winning the Persian war had catapulted the city to wealth and Greek leadership. The alternative, a return to Athens' previous modest peasant existence, would have been politically unthinkable. "The process, spreading from the public to the private sphere, begins with habituation to unjust action in the affairs of state and ends with the dissolution of honesty, loyalty and shame in personal relations" (World of the Polis, p. 362).

Eric Voegelin (4)

The Christian Science Monitor on Mid-East peace

Here's what Google News was serving up earlier today: A Christian Science Monitor editorial that began,

EMBRACING  PALESTINIANS  BUT  NOT  HAMAS

The Monitor's View

Try as they might not to talk of a peace deal, Israel and the Hamas government of the Palestinians can't ignore a world desire for them to find peace. With an apology to Shakespeare, some achieve peace and others have peace thrust upon them.

Yup, our world is just so darn nice that under the soothing emanations of International Public Opinion it's pretty much impossible for anyone to keep up their squabbling for very long—even those ornery ol' Palestinians and Israelis. Just like on Barney and the Teletubbies. What's that you're muttering? "Rwanda, Congo, Darfur"? Haven't heard of 'em, must be places in some kind of nasty parallel universe where nobody really gives much of a shit about ethnic cleansing, etc., although everyone's eager to display how good they are by making pious pronouncements. . . . CONTINUE

The editorial continues on a similarly high level of intelligence, taking scrupulous care (for the most part) to avoid hinting that either the Israeli or Palestinian side might be more to blame for their dispute. It concludes with these paragraphs:

The images of desperation among Palestinians were something the Bush administration could not ignore, as it yielded to a European request to give humanitarian aid. Letting the Palestinian territories fall apart might only kill off the young democracy...

(And we wouldn't want that. If the delicate young democracy were killed off who knows who might come to power. It might even be a terrorist group!)

...and allow Hamas to stay in power.

In supporting a temporary flow of aid, President Bush partially backs away from Israel's siege mentality, and may help reemphasize the long-held US stance that Israel cannot unilaterally define its borders in the West Bank and ignore Palestinian concerns about a viable state.

(Oops, Israel is coming in for some unbalanced criticism here: for some reason it has a neurotic "siege mentality". Though perhaps that's because the country is under siege?)

The aid also sends signals to Palestinians that the US will ultimately support them but not an anti-Israel Hamas, and that they should do likewise.

Neither Hamas nor the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert can ensure stability and prosperity for their respective peoples without coming to terms with each other. At some point, the use of force or the threat of it in claiming land must give way to the deep aspirations for peace among both Palestinians and Israelis.

The new flow of aid will touch those aspirations, and perhaps touch the hearts of each side's leaders.

Throw in a few warm hugs all round, and the problem will be solved. Thanks, Christian Science Monitor.

Poll: Are 19% of Iraqis lunatics?

A January 2006 opinion survey, "What the Iraqi Public Wants" (PDFs here), produced a bizarre result: large numbers from all three major ethnic groups approved of attacks on the U.S.-led forces, but a substantial proportion of these patriots did not want the US-led forces actually to leave the country, or at any rate, not just yet. The overall result was that of the 47% of respondents who supported such attacks, 41% (that is, 19% of the total) did not favour a withdrawal of US-led forces within six months. The breakdown by ethnic group was given as follows (the first two columns seem the most important):

	Approve of attacks	withdraw forces within 6 mos.	withdraw gradually over 2 yrs.	reduce forces only as security improves
Overall	47%	35%	35%	29%
Kurd	16%	13%	28%	57%
Shia	41%	22%	49%	29%
Sunni	88%	83%	11%	4%

Thus, while the Kurds seem to be fairly consistently pro-US-led-forces and the Sunnis seem to be fairly consistently anti-US-led-forces (assuming that the "pro-attacks" and "withdraw within 6 months" groups in each case represent essentially the same set of respondents), there is a high proportion of Shia who favour killing members of the US-led forces and at the same time wish them to stay in the medium or long term. One can't tell how large this group is from the table. It must be at least 41%−22% = 19% of the Shia; but it is probably considerably more than that, because there should also be a substantial number of Shia who, not unreasonably, would like the US-led forces to leave quickly, but who are nevertheless not prepared to endorse killing them in the meantime. Judging by the overall figure quoted in the first paragraph, one might estimate the "bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you" group to be roughly 25% of the Shia.

The table also indicates that even among the supposedly wholeheartedly pro-American Kurds, there is a significant group (16%) which is against the US-led forces to the extent of being prepared to support military attacks on them. It is not clear whether this represents Kurdish minorities living in Arab areas, for example.

One wonders how the 19% of Iraqis reported to favour attacking US-led forces, but not an immediate withdrawal of those forces, would react if the Americans and British suddenly decided they'd had enough, and went home. Would they see this as a "betrayal" of their sweet selves? There may be rational reasons behind the apparent inconsistency of this group: the survey also reports that few Iraqis believe that the Americans will ever leave unless they are driven out, so attacking them may be viewed as a long-term pressure tactic. Nevertheless it would seem highly perverse to support killing people whom one recognizes to be (even inadvertently) doing one a service.

(Via commenters at Daimnation)

Eric Voegelin (4)

The World of the Polis

Voegelin's multivolume Order and History seems to be an effort to write a universal history at the deepest possible level, the level of the history of the development of human self-consciousness. This attempt can be likened to the Catholic historian Christopher Dawson's works, in which history is built up around the influence of ideas more than of material factors. Like Dawson, Voegelin puts the "Great Books" in their historical contexts, which have evidently not been adequately appreciated in the past, and so apparently manages to deepen our understanding of these works in a rather dramatic way. The two authors are probably somewhat complementary, since Dawson (without neglecting philosophy) emphasizes Christianity and the key importance of the "Dark Age" of Western culture, during which Christian influences were acting as a ferment, while Voegelin (without neglecting Christianity, or denying that it constituted an advance in consciousness) concentrates more on the role of ancient Greek philosophy. . . . CONTINUE

Voegelin calls upon the evidence of both artistic and philosophical works, as well as of more conventional historical sources, to which the historian may restrict himself only if he assumes that human consciousness is unchanging. One important result of this kind of investigation is that it becomes apparent that there can be abrupt losses of the ability of cultures to grasp profound truths. One generation's greatest writer can become essentially incomprehensible to even the leading minds of the next generation. This occurred, Voegelin claims, in the generation after the great Greek tragedian Aeschylus, whose leading representative Herodotus was already unable to fully grasp Homer. Voegelin saw his own generation, that of the first half of the twentieth century, as recovering some of the wisdom lost by the shallow materialists of the nineteenth century, but I think that he would now perceive a similar process of cultural impoverishment at work in the West. The good news about this is that history demonstrates that such declines can be unexpectedly reversed. Plato and Aristotle, for example, succeeded in recovering wisdom that seemed to have disappeared from the Greek world.

The World of the Polis is the second volume in this work, and deals with Greek culture up to the appearance of these great philosophers (who are the subject of the subsequent volume). Unlike in much of Voegelin's work, the style is quite readable. Nevertheless I did not become really engaged with it until the chapter on the sophists. These itinerant teachers have had a justifiably bad reputation ever since Plato's condemnations of them, but at the same time, Voegelin points out, they were essential to the education of Athens, which had been a backwater within Greece until her victory in the Persian War; and some of the ideas credited to Plato actually derive from sophist sources.

Here is Voegelin finding a parallel between the age of the sophists and the modern Enlightenment (p. 275):

[Gorgias's] essay On Being is a priceless document because it has preserved one of the earliest, if not the very first, instance of the perennial type of enlightened philosophizing. The thinker operates on symbols that have been developed by mystic-philosophers for the expression of experiences of transcendence. He proceeds by ignoring the experiential basis, separates the symbols from this basis as if they had a meaning independent of the experience which they express, and with brilliant logic shows, what every philosopher knows, that they will lead to contradictions if they are misunderstood as propositions about objects in world-immanent experience . . . .

If we assume [this] tract to be representative of the sophistic attitude . . . and if, furthermore, we define enlightenment by the type of philosophizing just characterized, we can arrive at some clearness with regard to the question whether the sophistic age can justly be labelled an age of enlightenment. We may say that the age indeed has a streak of enlightenment in so far as its representative thinkers show the same kind of insensitiveness toward experiences of transcendence that was characteristic of the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century A.D., and in so far as this insensitiveness has the same result of destroying philosophy—for philosophy by definition has its center in the experiences of transcendence.

(Frithjof Schuon would probably agree with Voegelin here.)

See also: Eric Voegelin (3).

Forgiveness (4)

Pope John Paul II on forgiveness and capital punishment

From a comment at Carrie Tomko's blog:

"If you want to know where [John Paul II] was coming from on this issue, see his thoughts on mercy in the encyclical Dives in Misericordia.

"The church has always placed capital punishment in the category of 'justice.' JPII remained within that tradition (Evangelium Vitae recognized its legitimacy, even while exhorting its limited use), while offering these thoughts in Dives in Misericordia, which certainly must have colored his understanding of the capital punishment issue:

Christ emphasizes so insistently the need to forgive others that when Peter asked Him how many times he should forgive his neighbor He answered with the symbolic number of "seventy times seven," meaning that he must be able to forgive everyone every time. It is obvious that such a generous requirement of forgiveness does not cancel out the objective requirements of justice. . . . CONTINUE Properly understood, justice constitutes, so to speak, the goal of forgiveness. In no passage of the Gospel message does forgiveness, or mercy as its source, mean indulgence towards evil, towards scandals, towards injury or insult. In any case, reparation for evil and scandal, compensation for injury, and satisfaction for insult are conditions for forgiveness.

Thus the fundamental structure of justice always enters into the sphere of mercy. Mercy, however, has the power to confer on justice a new content, which is expressed most simply and fully in forgiveness. Forgiveness, in fact, shows that, over and above the process of "compensation" and "truce" which is specific to justice, love is necessary, so that man may affirm himself as man. Fulfillment of the conditions of justice is especially indispensable in order that love may reveal its own nature. In analyzing the parable of the prodigal son, we have already called attention to the fact that he who forgives and he who is forgiven encounter one another at an essential point, namely the dignity or essential value of the person, a point which cannot be lost and the affirmation of which, or its rediscovery, is a source of the greatest joy. -DM, 14 (emphasis [commenter's])

"The entire encyclical is full of insight, and definitely worth a read. It puts into perspective the rationale why he would say in Evangeilum Vitae that capital punishment is legit, but that choosing to use it as little as possible would 'better correspond with the dignity of the human person.'"

Remarks: Broadly speaking this seems compatible with William Temple's concept of Christian forgiveness. Forgiveness does not abolish the need for restitution (at least in those cases where restitution is possible). One must ask, however, on what grounds the state can claim the right to forgive someone for an offence committed against some private person, as John Paul II seems to be suggesting it can, judging from these short excerpts. (Also, how does submitting to capital punishment amount to restitution, except in some purely symbolic way?)

See also Forgiveness (III).

More BNP background

Here is a list of criminal convictions of prominent BNP members (see preceding post). It comes from Black Country Boy, where it it apparently does not have a permanent link address, which is why I'm reproducing it here. (One should note that Tyndall, referred to below, is actually no longer a BNP member, for example, if I'm not mistaken. Still, the general impression seems fairly clear.)

Who says today's politicians lack convictions. The British National Party is brimming with them -- all of a criminal nature. "The BNP will crack down on crime and restore public safety and confidence," its website states. But despite claiming to be a party of law and order, the BNP is home to criminals, racist thugs and football hooligans. The ranks of the criminals extend to the very highest level of the party. . . . CONTINUE They include:

Nick Griffin (Party Chairman) Received a two-year suspended sentence in April 1998 for inciting racial hatred. His magazine The Rune carried obscene anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial material as well as crude racism.

Tony Lecomber (Group Development Officer). In 1985 he was convicted on five counts for offences under the Explosives Act, including possession of homemade hand-grenades and electronic timing devices. Sentenced to three-years imprisonment. In 1991 he was sentenced to another three years imprisonment for unlawful wounding for his part in an attack on a Jewish schoolteacher whom he caught trying to peel off a BNP sticker at an underground station. He has a total of 12 convictions.

Colin Smith (South East London organiser). Has amassed a total of 17 convictions for burglary, theft, stealing cars, possession of drugs and assaulting a police officer.

John Tyndall (founder of the BNP). Six convictions. In 1962 he was jailed for organising a paramilitary organisation. Four years later, he was again sent to prison for possession of a loaded gun. In 1986, he was convicted for incitement to racial hatred under the Public Order Act and sentenced to 12 months imprisonment.

Warren Bennett (Chief Steward). Supposed to keep order in the party yet has convictions for football hooliganism. In 1998, he was deported from France with over 50 other Scottish hooligans, including several BNP members.

Steve Belshaw (East Midlands BNP organiser). Was convicted in 1994 for assaulting a lawyer in his home-town of Mansfield. At the time, Belshaw combined his BNP membership with Combat 18 activity.

Kevin Scott (North East Regional Organiser). Was convicted in 1993 for hurling a glass at a black customer in a pub.

Alan Gould (Waltham Forest Organiser). Was convicted in 2000 for racially abusing people in a local pub. He told the court that it was the drink getting the better of him.

Robert Bennett. A leading activist in Oldham BNP during the 2002 elections campaign, Bennett has served five years in prison for the gang rape of a woman. He has also served seven years for armed robbery and has over 30 convictions in total.

Mick Treacy. The Oldham organiser has five convictions for violence, theft, and handling stolen goods

Darren Dobson. Found guilty of racially aggravated assault at Oldham magistrates in November 2001. Fined 300 [pounds]. Connected to football hooligans in the Oldham area, and has links to the nazi terror group Combat 18

Darren Hoy. April 2002, the BNP supporter was sent to prison for 3 months for racially abusing people as they left an anti-fascist rally in Oldham.

In spite of this imposing list, when pressed by the BBC Panorama team in September 2001 on the convictions of its leading members, party leader Nick Griffin just lied. He claimed Tony Lecomber, his deputy merely had a conviction for handling fireworks. He also claimed that party chief steward Warren Bennett had a minor conviction "some 15 years ago" but had not been in trouble since. The truth is that Bennett has been named in the Scottish press for violence as recently as 2002. Griffin also tried to claim that Colin Smith had no convictions.

Update (05/29): See also 'Senior BNP official suggested assassinating prominent politicians' (Sunday Herald, Scotland).

Update #2 (06/06): Here is an impressive investigation by the blogger Ministry of Truth into the real beliefs of one BNP councillor, who it seems has been posting under an alias at the neo-Nazi site Stormfront. (See also subsequent posts at Ministry of Truth. Ministry has a somewhat alarming home page, and I'm not sure about his own politics, as I didn't go through his other material.)

Update #3 (06/08): BNP leader Nick Griffin gets kid glove treatment from Srdja Trifkovic in a Chronicles interview which is nevertheless worth reading, if only because it demonstrates that Griffin is very smart.

Update #4 (06/11): (a) From the "Keighley" video of a Nick Griffin speech against Islam, available from the BNP site: Griffin anticipates that once the BNP wins power at Westminster,

...then we make the laws, then we control the television and the newspapers, and we can make sure that what has been happening in Keighley is on television, in documentaries, night after night after night after night, until the British people really realise the evil of what these people have done to our country, until they say right, now we really are going to sort it out.

(I may have mistranscribed a word or two.)

(b) I just came across what is presumably the original source for the list of BNP convictions above, at the site of the British anti-BNP group Searchlight. This is a left-wing outfit with "alleged links with the British security forces", according to a disputed Wikipedia article. I have not verified the information on this list from other sources. (In the comment section at the end of the Chronicles interview linked to in Update 3 above, Frank B. Lee points out a discrepancy between the Sunday Herald and Searchlight(?) descriptions of Tony Lecomber's conviction for assaulting a Jewish sticker-peeler. Searchlight says he was taking down a "BNP sticker", the Sunday Herald says it was "Neo-Nazi stickers". One does not expect the mainstream media consistently to draw fine distinctions between the BNP and neo-Nazis, and one should regard media reports with this in mind. The Searchlight version, which I suppose reflects somewhat less badly on Lecomber, sounds more plausible to me.)

Next post on the BNP ("The BNP and a controlled media", 06/15).

Peter Hitchens on the BNP

In a few days' time there will be local council elections in Britain in which it appears that the anti-immigration, get-tough-on-crime British National Party may make some significant gains—though probably largely thanks to protest votes rather than genuine support. The leader of this party has only recently distanced himself from earlier anti-Semitic and other neo-fascist statements and associations, so it is far from clear that the relatively moderate face he is now presenting is anything more than an opportunistic move to win votes from a broader social-conservative base. That base is in despair over the general breakdown of the rule of law in England, the admission of ever larger numbers of apparently unassimilable immigrants, and the attempt by the entire ruling élite to demonize anyone who questions their disastrous social-engineering policies. The disconnection from reality of the major British parties has produced an incredible state of affairs in which many moderate voters may be voting for a (possibly) neo-fascist party. Were such a party ever to gain power nationally, one might add, the present British political system, lacking in any kind of constitutional checks, would offer little resistance to being converted into a dictatorship.

Peter Hitchens has a Daily Mail article which seems to assess the situation more or less accurately, as far as I can make it out. The comments are worth reading too. H/T: Relapsed Catholic.

Update: Here's an allegation that party leader Nick Griffin (who has a farm in Wales) has named two of his pigs "Anne" and "Frank".