Sunday, January 24, 2010

The Islamist Right in France and Russia

The Islamist Right is an unfamiliar concept in Western Europe, but one we may hear more of. How else to describe "LLP," a French video-blogger who rails against Freemasonry--which he seems to associate with the Jews--and republican laïcité (secularism) while mentioning that everyone now knows that 9/11 was a "false flag attack" and that no Muslim may ever, ever become a Freemason? And quotes Guénon explicitly on laïcité and implictly on Freemasonry?

I am told that LLP "is having quite a terrific success on internet." His "Maçonnerie et Laïcisation de l'Islam" had only attracted 1,460 views over six months when I viewed it, so I'm not sure, but it is certainly an interesting example of a particular genre.

And then there's voxnr.com, "le site des résistants au nouvel ordre mondial" (the site for those resisting the new world order), still going strong after seven years (it started in 2002), with its companion journal, Résistance. This site is New Right rather than Islamist, but reports news of Dugin and friends, and is certainly positive towards some varieities of Islam and Islamism. Interviews posted towards the end of 2009 dealt with Mircea Eliade and Guénon as well as the good relations between the Arabs and Fascism. And then there was also an interview with Edward Limonov of Russia's National Bolshevik Party, entitled "Every Day I feel closer to Islam."

Limonov reports that he first learned about Islam from Gaydar Jamal, and admired it more after what he saw in jail in 2002-03 (where he had a Chechen cellmate, the rebel Aslanbek Alkhazurov). Asked why some Russian rightists were converting to Islam, he replied:
I think that National Bolsheviks who convert to Islam are looking for both protest and discipline in Islam. Islam clearly states how to behave in everyday life, something which is not taught in other religions . . . In Islam, an individual finds precise rules.

4 comments:

Lord Bassington-Bassington said...

I always feel uncertain when I try to judge how much popular conspiracy theories are. Many people consume conspiracy material as entertainment - how many of David Icke's readers, for example, take him seriously? And how many of the 1400-odd clicks on this guy's video are from people who think he's an entertaining loon and tip their friends about him?

Unknown said...

I'm suprised about there being only 1400 views of the videos. The one on thebanks and freemasonry atracted avec 6000 (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbsqyp_la-face-cachee-des-banques-llp-12_news). The video on the vaccination was veiwed by over 12000. (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbdrqo_grave-le-vaccin-de-la-grippe-contie_news).

Okay, it doesn't concern Islam in its self. But LLP is most obviously a traditionalist (from some of his statements) applied to the anti-NWO movement. He is also a muslim (although I never heard him say so on a video). Guénon also conceiled his Islam i public, in the early years.
LLP is giving more and more conferences. He is linked to muslims (Kemi Saba) and he is antisionist, and connected to the French politicial Antisionist movement (led by Dieudonné). This party has plenty of anti-imperialist anti-sionist muslims. I was invited to one of LLP's conferences a few weeks ago, in the popular suburbs of Paris. I kindly declined.

Yours,

R. Macnamara

Jacob Senholt said...

[edited repost]
Hi Mark

Yes - this is indeed an interesting phenomenon, which I will look into in my thesis. Christian Bouchet is not mentioned in your post, but is editor on VoxNr and Résistance, and is a prominent voice in the attempt to bring the New Right and Islam closer to one another, or at least attempt to form some form of alliance. Bouchet however remains a Catholic.

For more intellectuals and their discussion of Islam and the New Right see this special issue of Junges Forum dedicated to that topic: http://www.regin-verlag.de/shop/product_info.php?info=p521_Junges+Forum+3%3A%3Cbr%3EDer+Islam+und+die+Rechte.html&XTCsid=aabadef51fb38997d45e208dd8bc869a

Which also features an article by Martin Schwartz who is well known for his pro-Islamist views http://eisernekrone.blogspot.com/

There is a lot more to be said on this, but I will elaborate in my thesis.

François Gravel said...

@Lord Bassington-Bassington
Indeed, Rudy Reichstadt’s website ConspiracyWatch.info recommends by way of unintended comedy an LLP Dailymotion video on the subject of "John Lennon the satanist", complete with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band’s cover art featuring the ultimate counter-initiatic figure of Aleister Crowley (http://www.conspiracywatch.info/Humour-John-Lennon-sataniste_a94.html). The video has also been uploaded on YouTube where it attracted 14,589 views (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COBmE7ljJ0c). Judging from their comments, some viewers at least seem to have found it hugely entertaining. There is even a whole Facebook page, Le Laïboscope - Salim Laïbi fan club sandwich, dedicated to making fun of the Guenonian dentist, with photoshopped pictures like this one:
https://www.facebook.com/le.laiboscope/photos/a.1528943507392884.1073741828.1528929897394245/1538191796468055/?type=1

@Jacob Senholt
Christian Bouchet "remains a Catholic"—really? No small feat, to be sure, considering Bouchet’s writings deal first and foremost with Aleister Crowley, George Gurdjieff, occultism, Wicca, neopaganism and Islamism. Also sexual magic, given Bouchet’s self-description as being spiritually "at the confluence of Western occultism and Shaiva Tantra"(C. Bouchet, "L’anti-tradition et moi", in David Gattegno & Thierry Jolif (dir.), Que vous a apporté René Guénon?, Paris : Dualpha, 2002, p. 137-138; quoted in Stéphane François’ thesis Les paganismes de la Nouvelle Droite (1980-2004), p. 414).

Interestingly, LLP has attacked on his website his former associate Alain Soral on account of ties with "satanists" like Bouchet and Alexander Dugin (http://www.lelibrepenseur.org/christian-bouchet-fn-soral-et-satanisme/). To be fair to LLP, I wouldn’t bet on Bouchet’s Guenonian orthodoxy, although I will leave that question to Pr. Massimo Introvigne. It would also be interesting, or amusing anyway, to know LLP’s opinion on voxnr.com’s numerous contributions from Claudio Mutti—some of them quite recent, some dating back to the 1970s—on themes such as "Nazism and Islam", "Islam seen by Julius Evola", "Evola and Nasser", "Maoism and Tradition"(!), and the list goes on.

What’s most fascinating about the Guenonian far right is how it seems to become increasingly marginal while splitting into an ever-growing number of rival factions, the "transcendent unit" of which remains far from obvious to the uninitiated.