Nation Revisited # 201, July 2023

Free Speech

The UK government is using the Race Relations Act, the Public Order Act, and the Anti-Terrorism Act to restrict free speech. These Acts were brought in to protect us, not to silence legitimate dissent, but many people have been fined or sent to prison simply for expressing their opinions, and many more have been censored by the self-appointed guardians of the Internet.

The denial of free speech in the UK is not as bad as countries like China or Iran, but it's much harsher than the United States. Alison Chabloz (pictured) was jailed for singing allegedly anti-Semitic songs by Tory Home Secretary Suella Braverman. Remember that the modern Conservative Party was founded by Benjamin Disraeli who borrowed the money to buy shares in the Suez Canal from his friend Nathaniel Rothschild.

Ashley Sharp, a 42-year-old truck driver from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, has been charged with owning a book called The White Resistance Manual, and for posting details of his White Stag Athletics Club on his Telegram channel. William Tyndale (an ancestor of John Tyndall) was bunt at the stake in 1536 for translating the Bible into English, but it's hard to believe that in the 21st century a man can be imprisoned just for owning a book!

The Tories will probably be thrown out at the next general election, but the Labour Party will be no better at upholding free speech. Their previous leader Jeremy Corbyn was falsely accused of anti-Semitism and expelled from the Party for supporting the Palestinians in their struggle against Israeli occupation.

Veteran left-wing MP Diane Abbot has been suspended from the Party for daring to suggest that the transatlantic slave trade was worse than the Holocaust.

And the Guardian newspaper pulled a cartoon by Martin Rowson that poked fun at Richard Sharp the former chairman of the BBC who is Jewish.

Within the broad spectrum of the so-called far-right there are all sorts of eccentric opinions. In a democracy people should be free to believe what they like, even if their views offend others. The Tories are right to clamp down on promoters of violence and racial hatred but they shouldn't pick on misguided minorities, dissident writers, cartoonists, and singers.

Human Rights

The Emir of Qatar was criticised during the 2022 FIFA World Cup for his country's poor health and safety record and his strict legal code. This is unfortunate because the UK is a major exporter of arms to Qatar and a good customer for their liquified gas.

Many pundits thought the tournament should only be held in countries with good Human Rights records; but very few countries fit that description and political dissidents face imprisonment all over the world; Russia and Iran are particularly sensitive to criticism, the USA runs the infamous Guantanamo detention camp, and the UK is holding Julian Assange in prison pending his extradition to the USA on trumped-up charges of espionage.

But its not just politics that can get you into trouble. Indonesia has banned sex between unmarried couples and many African and Asian countries have laws against homosexuality; as did the UK as recently as 1967.

Then we have countries that ill-treat their minorities. China persecutes the Uighurs, Myanmar persecutes the Rohingyas, Israel persecutes Palestinians, Mauretania and Tunisia persecute black Africans, the Dominican Republic persecutes  Haitians, and so on.

All crimes against humanity should be condemned but If we cut sporting and diplomatic links to states with less than perfect records on human rights we would have no one to talk to, except the Scandinavians.

We aggravate the situation by allowing our national football team to make fatuous gestures such as 'taking the knee'. Perhaps they would be more successful if they forgot about politics and concentrated on their game? 

Whether it's sport or world affairs we should mind our own business. We are constantly reminded by our politicians that the UK is one of the richest country in the world, but we have people living in poverty, sleeping in doorways, freezing because they can't afford to keep warm in the winter, and waiting months for urgent medical treatment. When we have sorted out these injustices we might be in a better position to lecture the rest of the world on Human Rights.

The Late Richard Edmonds' speech banned by the German Police. Posted on Facebook by Lynda Mortl.

Friends, my name is Richard Edmonds. I am British and I have travelled here to Dresden to say that the bombing of Dresden in February 1945 was a crime, a crime that was committed by the British government.  As we know, in the final weeks of the Second World War, hundreds of British bombers mercilessly attacked this city. The blood of the victims stains and besmirches the hands of the government that ordered this dreadful attack.

It was Churchill's government which ordered the attack on Dresden. And it was Churchill's government which started the bombing war: the bombing war which deliberately rained terror, mutilation, fire and death onto the homes of millions of defenceless civilians, women, mothers, children and old folk. And the British government openly and shamelessly confirmed in the official history of the British Royal Air Force that it was Britain that started the dreadful and pitiless bombing war. I quote from the official history of the Royal Air Force.

"It was we British who started the bombing war which aimed deliberately to target civilians." End of quote.

Fact: it was British bombers which deliberately bombed the German city of Muenchen Gladbach as early as April 1940; in the early summer of 1940 British bombers repeatedly bombed the towns of the Ruhr district. The reaction of the German government  against these repeated bombing attacks on German towns and cities came only months later. For example; the notorious attack by the German Luftwaffe on Coventry came as late as November 1940.

The role of Churchill's government in initiating the bombing war and its increasing barbarism is clear. For example the leading British official and Secretary of State at the British Ministry of War, James Spaight, described in his official book, "Bombing Vindicated," and I quote:

"We British started the bombing war which was aimed deliberately at civilians living in homes hundreds of miles behind the fighting front-lines." And the British Secretary of State, member of Churchill's wartime government said that "we are proud of what we did": quote from "Bombing Vindicated." These are the words of the British Secretary of State and member of Churchill's wartime government. Hundreds of thousands of civilians fell victim to the British and American bombing war. It is of course a war crime for a soldier to aim his weapon at a civilian. The British and Americans gave themselves permission a million times over to commit this particular war-crime. And Churchill's Secretary of State was "proud" of what they had done. One sees the source of the cold-blooded barbarism.

In wartime Britain there were principled individuals who publicly spoke out and condemned Churchill's merciless bombing war. One of these brave individuals was the British academic, Charles Percy Snow, and I quote:

"The British plans to bomb and to destroy German working-class residential areas, were plans motivated by a deep sadistic impulse to kill thousands of women and children." And Charles Percy Snow continued, "What will future generations think of us Britons? Will future generations that we British forswore our humanity, they will have the right to say so." End of quote.

As a British person in the centre of Dresden here on this day of mourning, I would like to say that with all decency, the present British government should apologise to the German people for the crimes committed by Churchill's government and in particular for the sadistic impulse of Churchill's government to murder defenceless civilians, mothers and children.

Pan Europa and Practical Idealism

Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi is hated by the far-right for founding the Pan Europa movement and for allegedly promoting race mixing. He is certainly guilty of the first charge. He wrote ‘Pan Europa’ in 1923, a hundred years ago, soon after the First World War when empires were collapsing, and the map of Europe was being redrawn. He is not guilty on the second charge. In his 1925 book ‘Practical Idealism’ he predicted that the Europe of the future could have a mixed-race proletariat ruled by a Jewish aristocracy.

Coudenhove-Kalergi put culture before race, as befits a man of Japanese and Austrian heritage, but he didn’t promote race mixing. Europe in1925 contained very few non-Europeans. France deployed Senegalese troops to occupy the Rhineland, Berlin was home to a substantial Turkish minority, and Britain had a thriving Chinatown in London and an African community in Cardiff. Apart from that Europe was overwhelmingly European, and nobody expected the mass migrations from Africa and Asia that came in the second half of the 20^th century.

In ‘Pan Europa’ RCK lists the adversaries of European unity, and one hundred years later they are still the same; Chauvinists, Communists, Militarists, and Industrialist protected by tariffs. The disaster of the Second World War, the rise of global capitalism, and the IT revolution have not altered this list.

The British Empire was effectively ended when General Percival surrendered Singapore to General Yamashita in 1942, but the façade of empire lingered on until British and French troops were ordered out of Egypt by a furious American president, Dwight Eisenhower, in 1956.

The Soviet Union has been replaced by the Russian Federation, but the Cold War mentality persists, and Russia’s intervention in Ukraine has revived Western hostility.

Most of the Western nations have increased their defence budgets as retired generals and hawkish politicians talk irresponsibly about putting ‘boots on the ground’.

In the run up to the 2016 referendum we were promised lucrative trade deals with the rest of the world and protection for our farmers, fishermen and industrial workers. Unfortunately, none of these things have happened.

Pan Europa was the right idea in 1923 and it’s still right in 2023.

RCK is remembered because of a quotation from his book ‘Practical Idealism’.

“The man of the future will be a mixed-breed. Today’s races and castes will fall victim to the increased overcoming of space, time, and prejudice. The Eurasian-Negroid race of the future, similar in its features to the ancient Egyptians, will replace the diversity of nations with a diversity of personalities.”

His prediction is becoming a reality, but his critics fail to remember his devotion to Europe:

“Europe is the hero of the world; on every battle front of humanity, it is at the top in hunting, war, and technology, Europeans have accomplished more than any other culture in history. They have almost eradicated all dangerous animals; conquered almost all dark-skinned nations, as well as, through science and technology achieved such total domination over nature as never has been possible. Asia’s world mission is the salvation of humanity through ethics – Europe’s world mission is to liberate humanity through technology.”

‘Practical Idealism’ was only translated from the German by Dimitra Ekmektsis in 2019. Far-right writers have been condemning RCK for years, but few of them speak German and hardly any of them have read his book. It is published by Omnia Veritas which specialises in ‘revisionist’ material. The blurb on the cover reads: “The Kalergi Plan to Destroy European Peoples” - a claim that can’t be justified.

Both books are available from Amazon.

Fascio Newsletter https://fascio.substack.com 

European Outlook  https://europeanoutlook.blogspot.com 

Nation Revisited

All articles are by Bill Baillie unless otherwise stated. The opinions of guest writers are entirely their own. The editor reserves the right to shorten or otherwise amend articles submitted for publication. We seek reform by lawful means according to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19:

"We all have the right to make up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think, and to share our ideas with other people."