Evola becoming mainstream in Italy?

A recent article in La Repubblica wonders whether Evola is becoming mainstream (Alessandra Longo, "Per il trasloco An aggiorna la libreria accanto a Evola anche Whitman e Vasco," 19 March 2009).

The main reason for wondering this is the references to Evola in Ffwebmagazine, published by the Fondazione Farefuturo, which is run by Gianfranco Fini, president of Italy's Chamber of Deputies and a former minister of foreign affairs under Silvio Berlusconi, pictured here with his then American counterpart. Fini leads the Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance), a major political party generally described as "post-fascist" (it has its roots in the MSI of Giorgio Almirante).

Perhaps Evola is becoming mainstream. Or perhaps the mainstream is shifting? This is what happened in Russia.

Fez festivals

Faozi Skali, the Boutchichi Traditionalist Sufi who started the now well-established Fes Festival of World Sacred Music, no longer directs it--but has started a new annual festival, the Fez Festival of Sufi Culture.

The aims of the festival are "to allow Moroccan people to discover or re-discover how the Sufi brotherhoods have mainly succeeded in preserving a message of universal spirituality that irrigated the whole of the Muslim culture and nourished its artistic, literary, and even social and economic forms of expression" and "to allow people from other cultures to discover another face of Islam" and "show how Sufism, as a school of spiritual and civic education, can be a means of human development and a peace mediator."

The 2009 festival is the third, runs from April 18 to April 25, and mixes concerts with round-table discussions involving Sufis, academics, a French senator and the president of the Hermes foundation.

Strongly recommended.

Job vacancy in Amsterdam

The Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam has a job vacancy for an Assistant Professor "History of Western Esotericism in the Early Modern Period." For all information: seehttp://www.amsterdamhermetica.nl/UD_Vacancy_2009.php?id=21.
The deadline for applications is Monday, 23 March 2009.

Boutchichiyya and Maryamiyya at UCLA

The Maryamiyya and the Boutchichiyya will be two of the four Sufi orders discussed during a colloquium organized by the Center for Near Eastern Studies at UCLA on February 12, 2009.

The colloquim is entitled "North African Sufism in Global Context." Four Sufi orders will be considered: the Jazuliyya, the Tijaniyya, the Boutchichiyya, and the Maryamiyya. The Maryamiyya is described as "a modern international Sufi order based on the Darqawi-Shadhili tradition of Morocco and the philosophy of the Transcendent Unity of Religions;" some sections of the Boutchichiyya are also influenced by Traditionalism, of course.

Participants include Vincent Cornell (Emory), Cheikh Anta Babou (University of Pennsylvania), Abdelilah Bouasria (American University), and H. Talat Halman (Central Michigan University).

The colloquium should be well worth attending.

Khoj-Ahmed Noukhaev

Announcing a 73-page paper by Philippe Botto, Khoj-Ahmed Noukhaev et le nationalisme tchétchène, just published by a French think tank, R2R.

Noukhaev's "Barbarism" is, in my view, one of the most remarkable recent manifestations of Traditionalism. What Guénon would have thought of it, I cannot imagine!

The paper is in French, but has an abstract in English:

With regards to the fullness and complexity of his biography, Noukhaev is an emblematic figure of this chaotic sequence of history that saw players from organized criminality enter the Russian political and entrepreneurial scenes. Prosperous businessman, Noukhaev is also the author of numerous papers and essays on the “Chechnya matter”. The ideology that he promotes outlines a nationalist, tribal fundamentalist and “barbarian” utopia. Although his ideology reaches only a marginal range – that close to intelligentsia – it clearly gives us an opportunity to gain knowledge of certain aspects of the Chechnya nationalist discourse. Noukhaev’s work is all the more worthy of interest as he has tried, in his own way, to throw his weight around the evolution of the Russo-Chechnya conflict by promoting a complex and original roadmap to peace.