Xenophobia on the March

As 1992 approaches, Western Europe, we are told, is on the road to unity; the barriers between nations are breaking down. And yet, at the same time, the entire “Old World” is in the grip of xenophobia.

This ailment has always been endemic in Europe, but was of little consequence until recent times. Before the twentieth century, the antagonisms among different nationalities were prevented from affecting the European political order to any significant degree by the dominance of the old nobilities, which were notoriously international. But now, apart from the USSR, multinational empires no longer exist. Everywhere we find national (i.e., ethnically more or less uniform) states, a development that started in the nineteenth century, gained momentum in 1918 (above all with the destruction of the Austro Hungarian monarchy), and reached a sort of apotheosis with Hitler’s quest for ethnic purity and Stalin’s attacks on non—Great Russians within his purview. In this respect, as in so many others, the International Socialists were indistinguishable from the National. Socialists.

EK

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Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

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As 1992 approaches, Western Europe, we are told, is on the road to unity; the barriers between nations are breaking down. And yet, at the same time, the entire “Old World” is in the grip of xenophobia.

This ailment has always been endemic in Europe, but was of little consequence until recent times. Before the twentieth century, the antagonisms among different nationalities were prevented from affecting the European political order to any significant degree by the dominance of the old nobilities, which were notoriously international. But now, apart from the USSR, multinational empires no longer exist. Everywhere we find national (i.e., ethnically more or less uniform) states, a development that started in the nineteenth century, gained momentum in 1918 (above all with the destruction of the Austro Hungarian monarchy), and reached a sort of apotheosis with Hitler’s quest for ethnic purity and Stalin’s attacks on non—Great Russians within his purview. In this respect, as in so many others, the International Socialists were indistinguishable from the National. Socialists.