In die literatuur van die 20ste eeu word daar dikwels na die groot blanke bevolkings in Europa, insluitende Brittanje, en Amerika verwys. Dan word daar ook melding gemaak van kleiner blanke bevolkings elders en die standaardlys was vier statebondslande: Kanada, Australië, Nieu-Seeland en Suid-Afrika. Klaarblyklik is aan hoofsaaklik Engelstalige lande gedink, want Argentinië, Chili, Uruguay en Brasilië het ook substansiële blanke bevolkings, al is blankes besig om ‘n minderheid in Brasilië te word en is daar in Suid-Amerika geen duidelike onderskeid tussen wit en nie-wit mense nie. Mario Vargas Llosa skryf goedkeurend van ‘n “mestizo continent” (Duchesne, bron hier onder, Kindle 1815). Die groot blanke bevolking van Rusland is gewoonlik onvermeld gelaat omdat daardie land destyds as nie-Westers en as kommunisties en agter die ystergordyn beskou is. Rusland is “homeland to the most numerous European group in Europe” (1779), vandaar “Guillaume Faye’s vision of a Euro-Siberia federation” (1793).
Wat in die literatuur opval, is dat Suid-Afrika sedert die grondwetlike ramp van 1990/94 nie meer as ‘n blanke enklave genoem of gereken word nie. In globale perspektief het Suid-Afrika se blankes ‘n vergete minderheidsgroep geword. “Australia’s Asian population is soaring as immigrants from across the region – particularly China and India – enter the country” (1847). Minder bekend is dat blankes in Kanada, soos in Amerika, vinnig besig is om ‘n minderheid te word. In Amerika is die situasie nie heeltemal so benard as wat dikwels voorgestel word nie omdat baie van die Hispaniste, wat met die oog op “regstellende” bevoordeling amptelik as nie-wit gereken word, in werklikheid eerder blank is (G Cristina Mora, Making Hispanics: How activists, bureaucrats, and media constructed a new American, University of Chicago Press, 2014, 252p; Amazon Kindle $18,81). Soos die bruin bevolkingsgroep in Suid-Afrika is Amerika se Hispaniste ‘n politieke konstruk. (Volgens die HAT is die woord kleurling rassisties.)
In Kanada is Hispaniste nie so ‘n beduidende faktor soos in Amerika nie. Oor die situasie in Kanada het Ricardo Duchesne in Augustus 2017 die volgende boek gepubliseer: Canada in decay: Mass immigration, diversity, and the ethnocide of Euro-Canadians (Black House Publishing, 2017, 374p).* Vóór dit het die volgende boek van Duchesne verskyn: The uniqueness of Western civilization (Brill, 2011, 527p). Albei hierdie boeke is nog nie as e-boeke beskikbaar nie maar is op my leeslys.
[* “As late as 1971, when official multiculturalism was introduced, Eurocanadians still made up over 96% of the population. Projections by Statistics Canada (2010) now estimates that one-third of Canada’s population will be a visible minority by 2031, ‘whites will become the minority in Toronto and Vancouver over the course of the next three decades'” (1847; ook 919). “As of 2011, non-Whites or ‘visible minorities’ constitute the majority in Vancouver, 51.8%, whereas Eurocanadians have been drastically reduced to 46.2% of the population, with projections showing that they will constitute only two out of five residents by 2031” (463). “The non-European immigrants arriving into Canada were interested in assimilating only to those aspects of Canadian culture that allowed them to keep their ethnic identity and advance their own ethnic interests” (476).]
Sedert Maart 2017 is die volgende boek van Duchesne maklik bekombaar: Faustian man in a multicultural age (London: Arktos, 2017, 262p; Amazon Kindle $11,39). Die outeur is ‘n dosent in sosiologie aan die University of New Brunswick in Saint John, die oudste Engelstalige universiteit in Kanada; maar dit lyk asof Duchesne veral as historikus bedrywig is. Faust is die legendariese towenaar wat sy siel aan die duiwel verkoop het en die skepping van talle literêre en klassieke musiekwerke geïnspireer het. Vir die doeleindes van hierdie rubriek is die volgende definisie voldoende: “’Faust’ and the adjective ‘Faustian’ imply a situation in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success for a delimited term” (Wikipedia).
Dit is algemeen bekend dat Europese beskawing hoogs suksesvol was en wêreldwyd groot mag uitgeoefen het, maar dat daardie aansien en mag skynbaar aan die kwyn is en dat die tradisionele moraliteit van hierdie kultuur deesdae ingevolge kulturele marxisme* bevraagteken word. Duchesne ontleen sy gebruik van die begrip “Faustian” aan veral Oswald Spengler (1880-1936): “the irrational Faustian spirit of Western creativity” (114). Ek het voorheen oor Spengler geskryf (Praag 12 November 2016).
[* “The standard definition of cultural Marxism is that, unlike classical Marxism, it is an ideology preoccupied with the transformation of Western culture generally rather than the replacement of Capitalism with Communism. Cultural Marxists are dedicated to gender equality through the abolition of male and female traditional roles in society; to sexual equality through the downgrading of heterosexuality and the celebration of polymorphous sexual relations; to the replacement of Christian morals with politically correct morals; and finally to the abolition of ‘white supremacy'” (536). “We can talk about ‘racialised’ minorities or non-whites, and about black pride and Asian identity, and … about different medical diagnoses for different races, but never about white pride and white identity” (557).]
Aavanklik was ek ietwat skepties oor Duchesne se oriëntasie vanweë daardie goedkeurende verwysing na die irrasionele. Aan die ander kant toon die temas van sy boeke dat sy hart ongetwyfeld reg klop. Duchesne is “a subject of controversy with numerous complaints filed against me to the president of the university where I was working” (919). Hy skryf: “race is a factor that must be taken … seriously” maar “I am not a race determinist” (121), wat redelik klink omdat ras nie alles-bepalend is nie. Na aanleiding van James Burnham se boek, Suicide of the West (Praag 1.10.2016) skryf Duchesne: “There was something wrong about the nature of contemporary liberalism and rationalism” (114). Maar hy skryf ook: “I don’t view liberalism itself, as some in the Alt Right do, in negative terms as a form of ‘rationalism’” (129). “Liberalism is inherent to Western identity” (136). Liberalisme doen hom in talle gedaantes voor, waarvan sommige myns insiens afgewys behoort te word, al is seker alle mense positief ingestel teenoor sommige soorte vryheid.
Om rasionalisme af te wys, is egter problematies, maar Duchesne verheerlik irrasionalisme slegs in soverre hy dit assosieer met bv die impulsiewe kreatiewe en weetgierige gees van Europeërs. Byvoorbeeld, die destydse ontdekkingsreise van bv die Portugese en Spanjaarde vanaf die 15de eeu bevat ongetwyfeld ‘n beduidende skeut irrasionaliteit, maar dit is hierdie soort ondernemingsgees wat Europeërs/blankes wêreldwyd op die kaart geplaas en hulle prestasiegewys duidelik bo ander rasse laat uitstyg het. “Almost all the explorers in history were European” (3689).
In Charles Murray se boek, Human accomplishment: The pursuit of excellence in the arts and sciences, 800 BC to 1950 (New York: HarperCollins, 2003, 688p; Amazon Kindle $10,53), word aangetoon “97% of accomplisment in the scientific inventories occurred in Europe and North America” (4007). Murray “notes that the sheer number of ‘significant figures’ in the arts is higher in the West in comparison to the combined number of the other civilisations” (4015). Die prestasies wat Murray in ag neem “come only in the form of ‘great books’ and ‘great ideas'” (4023), terwyl daar ook baie ander prestasies was, bv in “warfare, voyages of discovery, and heroic leadership” (4015). Vir die positiewe dinge wat diesulkes vermag het, word hulle nasate deesdae kwalik geneem.
“The West had in fact been far more creative than all the other civilisations combined, and … it was the aristocratic heroic culture of the ill-reputed ‘Aryans’* which had initiated the West’s creative dynamic” (265). “Non-Western countries needed to Westernise in order to modernise” (302) maar “modernisation was not identical to Westernisation” (309). “What made the West unique was its rise to modernity before other civilisations” (342). [* Aryan: “The hypothetical parent language of an ancient people believed to have lived between Central Asia and Eastern Europe and to have reached Persia and India in one direction and Europe in another, some time in the 2nd century BC, diversifying into the various Indo-European language speakers of later times” (Collins World Encyclopedia, 2003, p 55).]
Dwarsdeur sy boek kwalifiseer Duchesne sommige van die standpunte wat hy in sy 2011-boek ingeneem het. Dit kan die leser se vertroue in die outeur ondermyn omdat dit kan lyk asof hy nog nie weet wat om te dink nie. Sedert ek hierdie boek klaar gelees het, is dit egter vir my duidelik dat hy gesoek en al hoe meer gevind het; dat hy ongetwyfeld op die regte pad is. Dit gaan vir hom nie soseer om Westerse mense nie as om “the Europeans whom I identify in this book as a sub-race of the White race” (129). Duchesne en Spengler gebruik egter afwisselend (maar ongelukkig inkonsekwent) sowel die enger begrip Europees as die breër begrip Westers.
Die kern van Duchesne se boodskap is: “What is really troubling today about the relative decline of the West is mass immigration, race-mixing, and the permanent marginalisation of Europeans as a race in the world, and for this we should blame cultural Marxism rather than liberalism” (136). “The ‘ultimate’ factors in Western decline were not cultural, economic or even evironmental, but the complete control of Western nations by elites dedicated to mass immigration and the dissolution of the racial interests of Europeans” (904). Oor rasionalisme bring Duchesne homself spoedig ook in die reine: “Ethnocentrism is a rational and healthy human attribute explainable in Darwinian terms. Europeans are uniquely rational, and this disposition is itself a component of their Faustian psychology” (143).
Oor massa-immigrasie skryf Duchesne: “Could Europe really be identified as ‘Western’ once ‘a fifth of Europeans’ were designated as Muslim ‘by 2050’?” (387). Guillaume Faye stel dit soos volg: “Islam corresponds to nothing in the European soul and temperament. Its massive introduction into Europe would disfigure a European culture already damaged by Americanization. An assertive dogmatism, an absence of the Faustian spirit, a fundamental denial of humanism (understood as the autonomy of the human will) in favor of an absolute submission to God, an extreme rigidity of social obligations and prohibitions, a theocratic confusion of civil society, religion and the political State, an absolute monotheism, a profound ambivalence towards artistic freedom and scientific inquiry – all these traits are incompatible with traditional European patterns of thought” (395).
Oor rasvermenging die historikus Niall Ferguson “surmises that race mixing represented the fulfilment of Western egalitarianism; that the emergence of a ‘homogenised humanity’ through the ‘democratic’ blending of races, religions and cultures, is the ultimate end of history” (364). Ferguson het sy deel bygedra deur van sy blanke vrou (met drie kinders) te skei en met ‘n Somaliër te trou (712). “Race mixing is being promoted by the media, universities, textbooks, and politicians” (1854) – ook in Suid-Afrika. Edmund Burke (1729-1797), daarenteen, beklemtoon “the particular customs and folkways of different cultures” (372). “The core of Burke’s conservatism is fear of rootlessness, and revolutionary agendas that disregard ancestry and hierarchy, loyalty and duty, inherited habits and prejudices” (378) – dalk eerder voorkeure as vooroordele.
“Mass immigration by non-Europeans involves ethnic displacement by people with different genetic interests. The greater the genetic distance between the native Europeans and the immigrants, the greater the genetic loss to the nation” (881). Volgens Frank Salter “the ultimate interest is not happiness, nor liberty, nor individual life itself, but genetic survival” (896). “It is the preservation of the racial distinctiveness of Europeans and other races in the world. Salter calls for a ‘universal nationalism’ in which all ethnics have a right to self-determination and all ethnics learn to co-exist peacefully … Globalisation is consistent with ethnic national self-determination” (896). Maar Michael Polignano skryf: “I fear that Salter’s universal nationalism, like all forms of unreconstructed liberalism, will only prove a disadvantage to Whites. Moralistic abstractions about fairness and rights will not secure our survival if a ruthless, predatory, and amoral race gains the power to make ultimate decisions about the destiny of life on this planet” (936). Dink aan wat in die nuwe Suid-Afrika as mikro-kosmos gebeur.
“Western nations, as Salter observes, are ruled by both corporate and liberal-minded elites who have little identification with their own people, live cosmopolitan lifestyles, intermarry across ethnic lines, and are committed to open borders, cheap labour, and diversification. The problem is not immigrants per se, since they are simply coming to lands welcoming them as cultural enrichers where they are encouraged to affirm their ethnic and religious identities” (912). Duchesne skryf: “The West was declining by being colonised demographically” (927). Byvoorbeeld: “In ‘n stadium het ongeveer 20 000 Britse burgers in Zimbabwe gewoon, terwyl minstens 112 000 Zimbabwiërs in Brittanje gewoon het” (Die Burger, 17.02.2018, p 10).
Pierre L van den Berghe, ‘n sosioloog en volkekundige wat voorheen aan die Universiteit Natal verbonde was, beweer: “Preference for individuals of the same ethnicity (Irish, German, Chinese, Mexican), or of the same race (White, Black, Asian) is part of our human nature. Ethnocentrism is simply a ‘propensity’ to favour kin, and this propensity, as actualised in politics, is a form of nepotism” (491); eerder groeps- of volksgebondenheid as nepotisme – dit klink beter.
Dalk kom nepotisme eerder by nie-wittes as by blankes voor. “Europeans tend to be more individualistic, less collective in their ethnic awareness, for complex historical reasons, combined with the reality that non-Europeans are more collective and racially aware. These non-Europeans practice ethnic nepotism and engage in the highly threatening practice of free-riding ethnic behaviour by utilising welfare services, schools and national infrastructure created and sustained by Europeans, whilst at the same time being cheered on by a cultural Marxist establishment that prohibits whites any racial awareness” (888).
Sowel rasvermenging as multikulturalisme word deur kulturele marxiste gepropageer ten einde blanke, Westerse of Europese kultuur te verdun en uiteindelik te vernietig. “Multiculturalism was an asymmetrical system in which Europeans, and only Europeans, were expected to celebrate other cultures, feel guilty about their own ethnic identity, and behave as universal altruists; while at the same time non-Europeans inside the European homelands were being encouraged to practice their in-group ethnic interests. It became obvious that multiculturalism was not simply about ‘understanding’ different cultures but about accepting mass immigration into European lands” (844).
In hoofstuk 1 redeneer Duchesne dat “the cycles of civilisational rise and decline have been a natural phenomenon in the history of cultures but never has a decline come along through the existence of a hostile elite breaking up the racial identity of a people, which would mean permanent decline and extinction” (151). Hy verwys hier na kulturele marxisme. “Spengler believed that in his time the West had reached old age and had already actualised its unique Faustian soul” (196). Maar: “In his later writings, Spengler saw new forms of Faustian expression in modern industry and science … He remained however a pessimist in anticipating the eventual exhaustion of the West’s energies” (205).
Duchesne is meer optimisties as Spengler: “The historical record shows that a civilisation need not disappear completely, nor suffer permanent death. According to the theory of cycles, what civilisations experience are temporary downturns followed by renewals, unless they are conquered outright by stronger ones, absorbed within larger and more dynamic civilisations, or utterly destroyed” (205).
Om die “geographical boundaries and histories of the West” vas te stel, moet die geldigheid van die begrip ras, volgens Duchesne, noodwendig erken word (233). Voorheen kon die grense van die Weste makliker as tans vasgestel word. Weens massa-immigrasie word die Weste op die oomblik gekenmerk deur “a thoroughly mongrelised geography” (1862). Volgens Ted Sallis is ‘n ras wesenlik “a genetically distinct subpopulation that is characterised by a suite of heritable (genetic) phenotypic* traits distinguished from other such groups” (866). “The West was a civilisation developed by ethnic Europeans and … immigration posed a threat to this ethnic identity” (240). Aan Amerikaanse universiteite word die studente anders wysgemaak: “Every student is taught right from the start that race is not just a construct but that discussions of white identity violate the very liberalism we have come to identify with the West” (248). [* Phenotype: “In genetics, visible traits, those actually displayed by an organism … The phenotype is … modified by the effects of the environment” (Collins World Encyclopedia, 2003, p 721).]
“The current official policy of the American Anthropological Association is that ‘any attempt to establish lines of division among biological populations [is] both arbitrary and subjective.’ This is also the policy of the American Sociological Association: ‘race is a social construct'” (255); “the term ‘race’ should be used as a way of identifying and measuring ‘racial inequalities’ in society … the American Anthropological Association released a ‘statement on race’ (May 7, 1998) forbidding academic anthropologists from any notion that there are biological differences between population groups categorised as races” (625). Maar sedert 2003 is dit gekwalifiseer met “allowing academics to use data categorising Americans in different racial groups as long as the intention was to show certain groups were being discriminated and racialised” (625).
“What concerned me above all was challenging the leftist idea that the historic West was a social construct without any cultural boundaries. I rejected the view that a proper liberal attitude required an egalitarian view of world history” (272). Wat Europeërs histories gemeen het is “Greco-Roman humanism, Christianity, Indo-European languages, and the European high culture” (295).
“Chapter 2 looks at the evolution of a European ‘sub-race’ (within the Caucasian race)* … and how this sub-race evolved” (151). “European peoples constitute a distinctive subrace within the Caucasoid race that is unique to the continent of Europe. This subrace evolved in this continent, and is the one directly responsible for the development of Western civilization” (998). Volgens Carleton Coon is daar “three main sub-species of races (Caucasoid, Mongoloid en Congoloid)” (1020), dus die wit, geel en swart ras. Michael Hart definieer ras as “a large group of individuals – all of them members of the same species – who have formed a partially or completely isolated breeding population for a significant period of time, and who consequently differ statistically from the rest of the species in various heritable traits by which they can be recognized” (1036). [* Koukasies: “Van, betreffende die blanke tipe mens” (HAT).]
“It was not until about 5800 years ago that light-skin genes, as well as other genes for blue eyes and blonde hair, started to show up at a high frequency among the inhabitants of Europe” (1097). “The Aryans … started coming to Europe 4800 years ago after they had evolved white traits” (1278). “The aristocratic culture of Indo-Europeans constituted the original foundation of the West’s far more creative and dynamic path … [It could be that] this lifestyle left an imprint on the genetics of Indo-Europeans, producing personality traits, such as a greater willingness to take risks and to be aware of oneself as an individual rather than being completely submerged within one’s group” (1346). “Europeans have remained a very cohesive subrace through their entire history, apart from some Caucasoid input from the Near East” (1421), bv “the Etruscans [8th to 2nd centuries BC] were the only non-Indo-European people in the Italian peninsula” (1636).
“Chapter 3 examines how the teaching of Western civilisation has been replaced by multicultural histories aimed at downplaying Western achievements, demonising Western actions, elevating the achievements of non-Western peoples” (157). Westerse beskawing as vak is by feitlik al die Amerikaanse universiteite met wêreldgeskiedenis vervang (2094). Die unieke historiese dinamiek van blankes word deesdae in die akademie algemeen ontken (2101). “Students are being indoctrinated to believe that Europeans were unique mostly in the ‘windfall’ profits they obtained from the Americas, the ‘lucky’ presence of coal in England, and the blood-stained manner they went about creating a new form of international slavery combined with ‘scientific’ racism” (2115). Daarteenoor verwys Duchesne na Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) “who observed that ‘so fundamental is the difference between these two races of man [ie Black and White] …as great in regard to mental capacities as in color'” (2796).
Die oogmerke is “to downplay Western uniqueness, equalise the achievements of all races in world history, blame Europeans for the backwardness of other civilisations, while emphasising the connections of the West with the rest of the world in order to make non-European immigrants feel that they have contributed as much to the making of the West as Europeans. In this way, they wish to create a historical account that is suitable to a heterogeneous race-mixed Western culture consistent with the protocols of diversity enrichment” (2101). Wat gepropageer word, is “the imagined merits of a multiracial society inside European-created cultures” (2146). “The scholarship promoted by our current elites demands a view in which Europeans don’t exist except as hybrids, borrowers, and imitators” (2889). Soos Tim Whitmarsh dit stel: “In this story of interconnectedness and hybridity … there lie enormous intellectual and humanist opportunities” (2938).
Met groot finansiële ondersteuning lei Patrick O’Brien aan die London School of Economics ‘n navorsingsprojek, “Useful and reliable knowledge in global histories of material progress in the East and the West.” Dit kom onder meer neer op “rewriting the history of Europeans in accordance with the principles of cultural egalitarianism and racial inclusiveness” (2203), asook, na bewering, “transcending ‘the myopias imposed by the frontiers and chronologies of continental, national or local histories'” (2217). Dit is ‘n poging “to dissolve Europe’s identity and sense of accomplishment” (2226). Dit gaan om “useful knowledge” toegespits op materiële oorwegings, waarmee Europa se onoortroffe kulturele prestasies geïgnoreer word (2233).
O’Brien se Global Economic History Network (GEHN) “promotes England to the world and to potential international students as an ideal cosmopolitan place for the mixing of cultures and races against the ‘parochial’ identity of the British past” (2468). “The central premise of multiculturalism – that all cultures are equal in achievements and merit – is accepted ab initio. GEHN takes it for granted that Engeland’s (and Europe’s) intensified globalisation ought to come with multiculturalism (and mass immigration), without making it a subject of research. Nor is there any interest in asking whether Asian nations, too, should be experiencing globalisation while undermining their own national identities and inviting their countries to be flooded by immigrants” (2490).
“Chapter 4 makes a case for the importance of Spengler’s concept of a Faustian soul for the understanding of Western creativity, with the intent of showing that the Indo-Europeans were the original Faustian men of the West, in a way that set them apart from all other peoples, Huns, Mongols, Turks, and other groups, from the Steppes” (157) – “the Pontic-Caspian steppe, which is in present day Ukraine” (1772; ook 3442). “Spengler’s idea that the West was driven by a creative and expansive psyche is indispensable to the understanding of European history. The word ‘Faustian’ captures the multifaceted character of Western creativity in all the spheres of life better than such commonly used terms as ‘individualism,’ ‘liberty,’ ‘rationalism,’ ‘separation of church and state’ or ‘representative democracy’… the Indo-Europeans were the original Faustian men and the most historically significant nomads of the steppes” (3257).
“‘Faustian’ is the word Spengler used to designate the ‘soul’ of the West. He believed that Western civilisation was driven by an unusually dynamic and expansive psyche” (3271). “Each culture contains a unique spirit of its own” (3357). In Europa en die Weste was kreatiwiteit die dinamo vir dinamiese handelinge. “My view … is that the Indo-Europeans were a highly special people” (3538). “Starting from their homelands in present-day Ukraine, the Indo-Europeans successfully colonised the entire European continent” (3617). “The West can reassert itself, unless the cultural Marxists are successful in their efforts to destroy this Faustian spirit permanently through mass immigration and miscegenation” (3809). Kan die plaaslike blankes, veral die Afrikaners, ten spyte van kulturele marxisme, weer opstaan en hulleself laat geld? ‘n Deurslaggewende vereiste vir ‘n suksesvolle nuwe Suid-Afrika is ‘n herwaardering van blankes.
“Chapter 5 uses the Faustian idea as part of an effort to show that almost all the explorers in history were European and that the driving motivation for European exploration was Faustian rather than economic” (164). Kulturele marxiste probeer egter om al die prestasies van Europeërs, Westerlinge en blankes te verkleineer. Desnieteenstaande “universities cannot ignore altogether the cultural achievements of Europeans, otherwise they would have little to teach – all the disciplines, after all, were created by Europeans – the emphasis tends to be on the evolution of ‘progressive’ ideas, framed as if they were universal ideals by and for humanity. Egalitarians particularly enjoy teaching how these ideas have been improved upon, and continued to be, through the ‘critical thinking’ of teachers and activists. They envision themselves as activists fighting for the welfare of non-whites and females. This has entailed not just an emphasis on non-European experiences, but an outright depreciation and steamrolling of European greatness” (4036).
Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) se dekonstruksiebegrip “has taught thousands of students to suspect anything that was held in high esteem or deemed to be great and noble in the past, as nothing more than ‘Eurocentric’ prejudice that needs to be brought down. This, in order to open the way for the ‘full expression’ of human talents leading to the democratic validation of all peoples” (4054). “Ernst Breisach writes, that deconstruction, in principle, calls for each culture to be challenged and eroded from within, since each culture engages in exclusions and hierarchical judgments; yet, as he adds, ‘so far, Derrida and other post modernists have focused exclusively on the deconstruction of the West’s understanding of the world and history” (4740).
Die herskrywing van die geskiedenis is ‘n belangrike deel van kulturele marxiste se agenda. “‘History from Below’* directed attention to the important roles the masses had played politically, in bringing about major revolutions. It argued that history was not an affair of the upper classes only, using the French Revolution as an example of how even its ‘bourgeois’ phase was driven by the action of peasants and artisans, and how the proletariat was destined to be the main agent of history in ushering Communism. This approach, advanced by Marxist historians, would be extended by feminists and cultural Marxists generally into a call for a new history that would include the ‘indispensable’ roles and achievements of a whole host of ‘minorities’ neglected by traditional academics (ie gays, transsexuals, lesbians, blacks, etc), all of which contained a corresponding assault, and inevitable devaluation of the one agent that stood out as unoppressed, as ultimate oppressor: white hetero males, the very beings responsible for almost all the greatest works in Art and Science” (4077). [* ‘n Voorbeeld van voetsoolvlak-geskiedenis is die karaterisering van Afrikaans as ‘n kombuistaal en die verheerliking van die slawe en Khoi-San se bydrae tot die ontstaan van Afrikaans.]
“The argument by World Systems Theory* is that the ‘core’ countries of the West had achieved their status as advanced cultures by exploitation and holding down the ‘periphery’ and that a true historical narrative entailed an appreciation of the morally superior ways of Third World peoples struggling to liberate themselves from a world system controlled by white owned multinationals. This too has had an immensely negative impact on students, leading them to believe that the West only managed to modernise by extracting resources from the Third World and enslaving Africans and Natives. This highly influential school has missed the far more important role of modern science and liberal institutions in the industrialisation of Western European nations” (4084).
[* World Systems Theory, soos GEHN, is marxisties van oorsprong en sterk op ekonomiese oorwegings ingestel. Wêreldstelsels eerder as individuele lande word beklemtoon. Volgens die wêreldkaart wat daaroor by die Wikipedia-artikel gepubliseer is, was die stabiele lande in die tydperk 1975 tot 2002 Amerika, Kanada, Wes-Europa, Japan, Australië en Nieu-Seeland. Op die rand van ekonomiese stabiliteit was Mexiko, Brasilië, Uruguay, Chili, Argentinië, Tunisië, Suid-Afrika, Turkye, Israel, Iran, Maleisië, Singapoer en Suid-Korea. Hiervolgens was dit oorwegend blanke lande wat ekonomiese voorspoed beleef het.]
“Michel Foucault [1926-1984] and the postmodernist currents swept the academic world in the 1970s and 80s with the claim that truth was a matter of which discourse held power rather than a question of ‘objectivity’. This has been used to bring down any ‘metanarrative’ that prioritises the role of Europeans in history, in the name of discourses expressing multiple voices. This discursive assault has led students to believe that there is no way to ascertain the achievements of cultures, since reality is a construct of the discourses within which said reality is evaluated … the rise of the West was no more than a preoccupation with the deeds of ‘dead white males'” (4091).
“Meanwhile, ‘ethnomethodology’ afforded a method by which to bring out the voices of the marginalised in society, the ones who had been silenced by the official discourses of ‘Western social scientists’. Students were obligated to hear their folk-ways, their forms of expression, ‘the silences or absences’ of marginalised criminals, drug addicts, black lesbians, the mentally impaired, on the grounds that there was as much to be learned from their ‘voices’ than from the now sterile and biased works of the Western Canon.* Of course, the ones in charge of hearing these voices have generally been well-off academic whites, and non-whites looking to profit from white-created countries” (4099). [* Byvoorbeeld, Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: The books and school of the ages (London: Papermac, 1995, 578p). “We are destroying all intelletual and aesthetic standards in the humanities and social sciences, in the name of social justice” (p 35).]
Felipe Fernández Armesto se boek, Pathfinders: A global history of exploration (2006), word voorgehou as “an excellent example of how someone committed to egalitarian cultural achievements in history reacts in the face of persistent European greatness in exploration” (4139). Ruimte ontbreek om in besonderhede te vertel van die briljante manier waarop Duchesne sy mede-historikus Armesto aan die kaak stel. “Armesto’s mindset is paradigmatic of what is going on in academia today in the face of the great achievements of European males” (4626). “The most glaring expression of Armesto’s contempt for European achievement is his cynical and cowardly account of Robert Falcon Scott’s tragic expedition to the South Pole in 1911-1912” (4635). “Armesto’s book is a complete travesty and a direct testimony of the deceitfulness of academics determined to spit on the greatness of European history, solely for the sake of enforcing a make-believe world of equality and racial mixing in the West. The history of the West has been virtually banned in academia, and nowhere is the history of exploration being taught other than as a history of imperialism and ‘othering'” (4693).
Die ontaarding van die werklikheid, gelei deur blanke Westerse elite, soos hierbo geskets, is in baie opsigte goed aan ons bekend. Hierdie werklikheid is wesenlik ‘n weerspieëling van die destruktiewe gevolge van kulturele marxisme, met die nuwe Suid-Afrika, soos ons hom daagliks ervaar, as ‘n sprekende voorbeeld. Byvoorbeeld, die herskrywing van die geskiedenis om die politieke bewindhebbers te pas, is nie tot buitelandse historici, soos Armesto, beperk nie. Hermann Giliomee skryf dat “die mees wydgelese algemene geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika” is Rodney Davenport en Christopher Saunders se South Africa: A modern history. In die 5de uitgawe (2000, p 674) word “geargumenteer dat sowel die Eisenlen-verslag [1951] as die wet [op Bantoe-onderwys, 1953] gegrond was ‘op die veronderstelling van die Afrika-verstand se minderwaardige potensiaal’ en dat die wet ‘uitdruklik ontwerp is om die swart mense vir ‘n minderwaardige plek in die samelewing voor te berei.’ In die vorige uitgawe (1987) is daar geen verwysing na sulke veronderstellings of idees nie [p 375]. Die 2000-uitgawe maak ‘n kniebuiging na die feit dat ‘n nuwe regering, behep met rassisme, aan bewind gekom het. Apartheid is nie meer as ‘n onreg of misleide beleid beskou nie, maar as die boosheid self” (Die laaste Afrikanerleiers, Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 2012, p 69-70).
Terug by die opskrif van hierdie rubriek. Ons moet onsself eerlik afvra: Wat het geword van die kreatiewe, dinamiese ondernemingsgees wat so kenmerkend van die Afrikanervolk was? Apatie gaan ons nie uit die gat bekend as die nuwe Suid-Afrika kry nie.
