Millionaire Goldsmith supports the Left and the extreme Right
All over Europe New Right ideologists are seeking contact with Left wing activists to build together on a movement against, for instance, the destruction of nature or against "globalisation". (1) In this way the extreme Right also hopes to become accepted again. The British ecologist Edward Goldsmith supports them at that. He sponsors and works together with dozens of progressive organisations and is one of the driving forces behind the international campaign-networks against "free trade". At the same time he is becoming a more important factor within the extreme Right.
Being mentioned together with Leftist intellectuals and activists, is the first step in the New Right strategy. This spring the extreme Right celebrated the many Left wing signatures on their nationalist petition against the Kosovo war. (2) Around the same time Goldsmith also joined the Left and the extreme Right on a petition: his "Ecologist's declaration on climate change". (3) In the Netherlands the petition was signed by members of organisations like A SEED, Aktie Strohalm, Corporate Europe Observatory en Stichting Aarde.
By signing they came out shoulder to shoulder with co-signer Philippe de Villiers, the leader of the French extreme Right party Mouvement Pour la France (MPF). This rigidly catholic of noble blood is a prominent member of the French New Right. He wants to completely close all borders, forbid abortion and reintroduce the death penalty. The MPF was founded in 1994 with 3,5 million dollar donated by the late James Goldsmith, Edwards extremely rich brother. (4) De Villiers succeeds in making the extreme Right attractive to the rich, who still consider it somewhat indecent to vote for Le Pen's Front National. At the Euro-elections in 1994 and 1998 De Villiers got around 13% of the votes. Nowadays De Villiers shares his party leadership with ex-minister Pasqua, famous for his completely inhuman anti-migration policy making. (5)
Goldsmith regularly introduces extreme Right activists in all kinds of initiatives, as if they represent one of the accepted political ideologies. He actively breaks through the anti-fascist cordon sanitaire that has in many countries been laid around the extreme Right. Two recent examples. Goldsmith is owner and chief-editor of the magazine The Ecologist, which organized a congress on the May 26th, 1999, together with the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC). Goldsmith allowed the British New Right ideologist Roger Scruton to join the recommending committee. Scruton is the editor of the New Right magazine Salisbury Review, which this spring published an article by Alexandra Colen. (6) She is a leader of the Belgium extreme Right party Vlaams Blok.
The Ecologist also monthly prints an advertisement for the Australian antisemitic conspiracy fanzine Nexus. There is even a "special offer" for Ecologist readers subscribing to Nexus. (7) This spring Nexus published a very long article on "jewish capital" and the powerful position it is supposed to have had in the history of Europe. (8)
Visiting the New Right
Edward Goldsmith not only promotes the New Right, he also likes to visit them. He is by now a very welcome guest in New Right circles in Belgium and France. On November 27th, 1994, he gave his first lecture at a colloquium organized bij GRECE, the think tank connected to the French Front National. (9) This 28th GRECE-colloquium was in fact a 25th birthday party of the organisation, and Goldsmith was the guest of honour. GRECE-director Alain de Benoist and Goldsmith really got along well and the British millionaire became a regular visitor to De Benoist's meetings. (10) "A good guy, this Benoist, there's nothing wrong with him", says Goldsmith. (11) He read a lot of Benoist's "very interesting" books and articles and believes the ideas of GRECE "have changed very much these last dozen years". (12) With this type of comments Goldsmith actively supports the extreme Right aspirations to be accepted.
On November 11th, 1997, Goldsmith was the main guest on the third TeKoS-colloquium in Antwerp, Belgium. TeKoS is a daughter organisation of GRECE, and closely connected to the Vlaams Blok. "How are we going to survive decadence?", the discussion was named. Fellow lecturers were De Benoist and TeKoS chief editor Luc Pauwels. Pauwels was among the Founders of the Vlaams Blok.
Goldsmiths lecture was translated for TeKoS magazine by Guy de Martelaere, probably Belgiums biggest Goldsmith fan. Before he already translated a lot of Goldsmiths articles published in The Ecologist, and even Goldsmiths magnum opus The Way. In his own New Right ecology magazine Gwenved De Martelaere publishes often on Goldsmith. (13) In the spring of 1998 the millionaire also gave an interview to De Martelaeres collegues of the Flemish-nationalist and ecologist magazine Vrijbuiter. (14)
Visiting the Bushmen
On January 11th, 1998, Goldsmith gave a lecture in Paris at the first colloquium of the New Right ecology organisation Le recours aux forÍts, titled: "L'ecologie contre le progrËs?" Among the other lecturers were again Alain de Benoist and also members of De Villiers' MPF. (15) "Le recours aux forÍts" means "return to the forest". Many extreme Right ideologists believe that "the Indo-Germans" (meaning: Aryans) are "by nature forestdwellers", whereas "the Semites are desert peoples". Le recours aux forÍts was founded by GRECE. The think tank wants to use the ecology and neo-pagan movements to make Blut-und-Boden (Blood-and-soil) popular again.
Le recours aux forÍts-director Laurent Ozon is also head of the ecology branch of GRECE, called La nouvelle Ècologie. (16) Just like Front National leader MÈgret, Ozon is a product of De Benoist's New Right education institute La nouvelle Ècole. He regularly writes in De Benoist's magazines Krisis and Elements. (10) Ozon has become a faithful follower of Goldsmith and quotes him continuously in his own writings. (17) He also interviewed Goldsmith and published numerous articles of the millionaire in the Le recours aux forÍts- magazine. Every issue of this magazine also contains articles by De Benoist and several members of the Front National. (18)
Laurent Ozon and Goldsmith became good friends. Together they regularly visit the meetings organized by De Benoist. (10) Ozon asked Goldsmith to run at the European elections in june 1999 by way of the Mouvement Ecologiste Independante (MEI), a Right wing ecological party with about 1.000 members. (9) Goldsmith made Ozon his spokesman en let him handle the negotiations with the MEI on his participation. Goldsmith voiced only one condition: his old pal Antione Waechter was to head the party's list.
Goldsmith and Waechter go back a long time. They have known each other since a meeting in 1973, when Waechter started Les Verts, the French Green Party. (19) He left the party again in 1994, finding it too much turned to the Left. His new habitat became GRECE. He wrote several articles in Le recours aux forÍts (15) and was one of the lecturers on the second Le recours aux forÍts colloquium on January 24th, 1999. (9)
The governing board of MEI quickly gave in to Goldsmiths plans, hearing that the millionaire would bring a lot of money. (10) Goldsmith swiftly delivered an European election programm. (19) However, after some turmoil in the French press on Waechter's extreme Right ideas, Goldsmith withdrew from the party on February 16th, 1999. "A compelling speaker", the editors of the Dutch New Right magazine Studie, Opbouw, Strijd (study, organize, struggle, SOS) wrote, after witnessing a lecture by Ozon at the 1997 GRECE summer university. In the next issue they published an article by Ozon and advised their readers to get to know his other works, and that of Waechter and Goldsmith, and also the magazines Le recours aux forÍts and The Ecologist. (20)
An European wide fanclub.
For some 30 years Goldsmith has been promoting the same totalitarian ecological worldview. (21) The last couple of years more and more prominent New right ideologists are embracing his ideas, including Robert Steuckers. This Belgian is the driving force and secretary general of the European network of New Right think tanks called Synergies EuropÈennes (SE). Starting in 1981, Steuckers was assistant and assumed successor to De Benoist. In 1993, after an internal disagreement he left GRECE together with a small group of followers and founded SE. Steuckers thinks that the New Right should not only discuss ideology, but also engage in the reality of politics and power. (22) Nowadays he is trying to break, European wide, the cordon sanitaire by stimulating alliances between nationalist groups and old communist parties and trade unions. SE already build sections in France, Belgium, Portugal, Russia, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Yugoslavia, Italy and Germany. The political projects of De Benoist and Steuckers seem to really enhance each other, and their organisations do work together regularly. SE member Robert Cousty, for instance, was cofounder of Le recours aux forÍts, which is mainly a GRECE project. (23) The international sections of SE are really getting into Edward Goldsmiths thinking. (24) His book The Way is becoming almost compulsary in those circles. (25) All sorts of ecological, regionalist and spiritual groupings are also merging into the SE network these days. (26) Examples are the ecofascist Unabh”ngigen ÷kologen Deutschlands and the Arbeitskreis Gr¸ne Trommel from Hamburg. They also see Goldsmiths work as fundamentally important. (23) Steuckers is also very active in the pagan movement and also feels attracted to Goldsmith because of his propaganda for pagan religions. "The time of the cross has gone. The sun wheel will return, and we will be liberated from the jewish God, and our people will get back its honour", says Steuckers. (27)
Eric Krebbers
De Fabel van de illegaal September 1999
Notes: (1) Krebbers, Met "nieuw-rechts" tegen de globalisering?, October 1998. In: De Fabel van de illegaal 31. (2) Krebbers, Nieuw-rechts anti-oorlogscomitÈ verleidt linkse intellectuelen, July 1999. In: De Fabel van de illegaal 35. (3) The Ecologist, Declaration on Climate Change, March 1999. (4) Van der Velpen, Zwarte horizonten, 1995. (5) Bresson, Pasqua et Villiers unissent leurs maigres bataillons. In: Liberation, April 10th, 1999. (6) Colen, A cry for help. In: Salisbury review, spring 1999. (7) Special offer to Nexusreaders. In: The Ecologist 3, May 1998. Nexus-adds are also in The Ecologist 3 & 4, May and July 1999. (8) Carmack, Central Banking and the private control of money, part 1, December 1998-January 1999. In: Nexus 1. Part 2, February-March 1999. In: Nexus 2. (9) Silence, Waechter, Goldsmith etc, April 1999. In: Silence 243. (10) Chombeau, La dÈrive extrÈmiste d'Antoine Waechter. In: Le Monde, February 18th, 1999. (11) Remark from Goldsmith, speaking to the author by telephone. (12) Letter from Goldsmith to Silence, July 6th, 1999. (13) De Martelaere, Nieuws en korte beschouwingen, January 1998. In: Gwenved 23. (14) Van den Broele, Edward Goldsmith: menselijk, al te menselijk, spring 1998. In: Vrijbuiter 3. (15) M.P., L'autre sensibilitÈ Ècologiste, January 1999. In: Silence 240. (16) Schmid, Der Krieg der Petitionen, April 1999. In:Jungle World 15. (17) Ozon, Ecologie et liberalisme, December 1998. In: Silence 238. (18) Lipietz, Virage nouvelle droite?, February 1999. In: Silence 241. (19) MEI internet-site. (20) Ozon, De inzet van de ecologie, 1997. In: S.O.S. 12. (21) Krebbers, Goldsmith en zijn Gaiaanse hiÎrarchie, August 1999. (22) Speit, Schicksal und Tiefe, March 1999. In: Jenseits des nationalismus. (23) A.K., Waechter le vert-brun, November 17th, 1998. In: Charlie Hebdo. (24) Cremet, "Neue" Rechte: jetzt generationen¸bergreifend, June 1997. In: AK 403. (25) De Zutter, Terug naar de "racistische" natuur. In: De Morgen, May 27th, 1999. (26) Cremet, F¸r eine Allianz der "Roten" und der "Weissen", March 1999. In: Jenseits des Nationalismus. (27) De Zutter, "Politieke soldaten tegen de multi-raciale maatschappij". In: De Morgen May 26th, 1999.
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Goldsmith and his Gaian hierarchy
For some 30 years now the British millionaire Goldsmith has been promoting the same totalitarian ecological worldview. Dozens of west-European organisations on ecology, indigenous peoples, biotechnology, nuclear energy and "globalisation", have nevertheless cherished their good contacts with him. Five years ago Goldsmith became active in New Right circles, among the intellectuals who want to renew their extreme Right ideology. There, Goldsmith's writings have by now become compulsory. Just like Goldsmith, they want to "restore the natural social order" and the "traditional relations between people".
Confronted with Goldsmith's extreme Right activities, some of his Left wing contacts in the Netherlands said the millionaire had become "old and senile". However, Goldsmith wrote his hunderds of articles and books from the same, very consistent New Right point of view. His choise to also work together with fascists is a logical consequence to his thinking. The model of the general Basic to all of Goldsmith's work is his fascistoid longing for a "stable society". That would have to be organized according to "the natural laws of Gaia", or "Mother Earth". To Goldsmith there exists but "a single order" and "a single set of laws, whose generalities apply equally well to biological organisms, vernacular societies and ecosystems and to Gaia herself." Of which the most important law is "that a natural system is organized hierarchically", writes Goldsmith. This law should also be central for society: "All behaviour, including the evolutionary process itself, must be controlled with the aid of a dynamic model analogous to that used by the general".
Goldsmith says he gets his inspiration "from the world-view of vernacular societies". "By seeing his body, his house and his settlement as reflecting the same critical order, which is also that of his society of the natural world and of the cosmos itself, it becomes clear to vernacular man that his life is subject to the same single law that governs the cosmic hierarchy."
The millionaire regrets the "progress" by which this knowledge is getting lost, because "traditional man" knew very well "that the world is hierarchically organized" European medieval and feudal times also inspire Goldsmith. The "stable society" at that time was governed, according to Goldsmith, by the "natural principle" of "hierarchical mutualism". That almost all people were enslaved at the time, doesn't bother him. "Medieval serfs were bound to their land, but their relationship to their lord was one of mutual obligations rather than of sheer economic expediency, and in exchange they normally had security of tenure." So, also nobility had their obligations, the millionaire assures us, "noblesse oblige". The feudal system was following the "generalized natural law", that says that "the relationship between things and beings at different echelons in the hierarchy of the cosmos is not symmetrical. Vital power flows downwards to vitalize and hence sanctify things and beings at the lower echelons, though it will only do so if the latter fulfil their obligations towards the higher echelons and hence towards the cosmos a a whole."
Abhorring unnatural colours
Now and again Goldsmith quotes the anarchist Kropotkin. At the beginning of the century he said: "Nature is the first ethical teacher of man". Just like Goldsmith Kropotkin also tried to extract his political ideals from nature. His books, with beautiful titles like "mutual aid", inspired millions of anarchists all over the world. But, fascist or anarchist, it cannot be liberating for an ideologist to project his political ideals and analysis on "nature" trying to win political arguments, and aquire power.
One can probably find analogies in nature to every type of human society and behaviour. So this type of argument proves nothing. But it does promote analysing the world using nonsense dualities like between "the natural" and "the artificial". Goldsmiths trick is to simply attach eco-labels saying "natural" or "natural law" to his extreme Right preferences. He is very honest about that: "There is no reason to suppose that ecological knowledge - in its different variants - is any more objective, less value-laden or less purposeful. It is, or should be, designed purposefully to rationalize the world-view of ecology and the associated ecological society geared as it must be to maintaining the critical order of the cosmos."
The ecologist Goldsmith doesn't only think about the destruction of nature. He writes about almost every part of society. According to him the same laws apply to "all natural systems, such as the family, the community and the eciological system". Sometimes he draws conclusions from his analysis which - on first sight - seem liberating to society. For example, he argues against nuclear energy and the bio-industries, and also wants to take medical science out of the hands of capitalism. This might explain why some people on the Left do not recognize Goldsmith as the New Right ideologist he is. Most of the time however, his conclusions and recommendations for a new society are very clearly extreme Right. In some cases, he seems afraid to openly draw the inescapable extreme Right conclusion from his own reasoning, and leaves it the reader to conclude.
His rapidly growing following in extreme Right circles do not really need more than that. They know where Goldsmith is heading. For example, they probably immediately start dreaming of the nazi-culture ministry during World War 2, when Goldsmith writes that "a Gothic cathedral, for instance, is beautiful; for its vault is that of the forest, its pillars the forest trees. On the other hand, we abhor what is foreign to nature: unnatural colours, the straight lines of modern buildings." It is not accidental that Goldsmith recently sproke on a New Right congress, entitled: "How can we survive decadence?"
The elimination of mutations
"Natural systems are not geared to change but towards the avoidance of change. Change occurs, not because it is desirable per se, but because in certain conditions, it is judged to be necessary, as a means of preventing predictably larger and more disruptive changes. This must be true of social evolution as well as biological evolution." Goldsmith's "stable society" is clearly geared against the Left-revolutionary politics of a combined anti-capitalism, anti-racism and anti- patriarchal struggle. "Nature" has even told Goldsmith that "persistant conflicts" should not be allowed.
Goldsmith does not want to end capitalism, but wants to "try to come to a series of losely knit economies, geared to the local community, and led by smaller firms, which foremost, although not exclusively, produce for the local or regional market". Alternative money systems like LETS can therefore count on his support. But, a young Belgian nazi once asked him, "do you really think that your ideas can be realized within these crowded peoples?" Goldsmith: "To be honest, no. However, I fear that we will be speaking of much smaller populations." Afther which he started to explain that the current "overpopulation" will be reduced by "epidemics" and other natural desasters. Whether the millionaire will be sad about that remains a question. However, he did once write that "humanity is a parasite".
Goldsmith often uses the words "population explosion". He probably took the idea from the racist population professor Paul Ehrlich, his old friend, who got world wide fame with his book "The Population Explosion". In the beginning of the 70's Goldsmith paid for the translation of the book in Dutch.
When his "stable society" is finally realized, Goldsmith thinks "forces" should be developped, that keep the population stable, just like the "forces that keep the bodytemperature stable". A "council of men" could operate "population control" by some system of "licensing marriage" for young men. And women can still always become a nun. The Afghan Taliban are going to be jaleous. In Goldsmith brave new world also "asocialized and delinquent inhabitants of urban slums" will not be tolerated anymore.
"Social abberations" will be disposed of. Who is included in this category remains still unclear, but "a society, by means of its specific cultural pattern, is capable of maintaining itself on its path by correcting any diversions from it." Just like in nature, where "once mutations do occur, special mechanisms, that are perfected during the course of evolution, exist for assuring their elimination." Frightning? "But what is so special about the individual organism?", Goldsmith asks rhetorically.
Excluding foreign bodies
Goldsmith's small societies will "in essence be exclusive". "Indeed, one cannot build a community with thousands of people", the millionaire admits willingly. "It is not surprising that systems which are sufficiently differentiated, such as biological organisms and societies, will tend to develop mechanisms that will enable them to exclude foreign bodies likely to menace their integrity. At the biological level, such devices are known as rejection mechanisms. Experience with organ transplants was revealed that to suppress these mechanisms is to increase one hundredfold the patient's susceptibility to cancer, i.e. to the anarchic proliferation of cells. Mechanisms of this kind are essential at all levels of organization.
Of the 3,000 simple societies so far examined by anthropologists, all appear to have laws of exogamy and endogamy. Marriage is forbidden within a restricted family circle, but also ouside the cultural group, the object being to avoid cultural hybridization and hence the production of sub-systems that are differentiated parts neither of one system nor of another. What is today regarded as prejudice against people of different ethnic groups is a normal and necessary feature of human cultural behaviour, and is absent only among members of a cultural system already far along the road to disintegration. The notion of the universal brotherhood of man is therefore totally incompatible with the systemic approach to human cultural systems. It is as absurd as the notion that the cells, making up a vast number of different biological organisms, can be shuffled and still give rise to viable biological systems. Industrial countries tend to develop labour shortages and to import labour from elsewhere. In this way quite large ethnic minorities are being built up in many countries. In addition, economic development is tending towards the development of ever-larger political units, which often embrace ethnic groups with little in common with each other. All this is creating a very unstable situation, one which can only lead to civil wars and to the massacre of minorities singled out as scapegoats when inevitable economic and social crises occur." Says Goldsmith, in his typical way reasoning.
Apartheid and forced migration
Goldsmith usually writes about political conflicts as if they are "natural" or "ethnic" problems. He says that "different ethnic groups" cannot live together in one country. "The only way to do this is for the different national groups to be allowed to develop seperately". Goldsmith believes for example, that Rwanda's Tutsi's and Hutu's "should quite clearly be separated". Except for apartheid, Goldsmith also considers forced migration a solution. He admires Ataturk, who "separated Greeks and Turks very succesfully, although there was a terrible outcry at the time and it undoubtedly caused considerable inconvenience to the people who were forced to migrate. But should we not be willing to accept measures of inconvenience in order to establish a stable society?"
"Practically all the European states of today are artificial creations made up of nations whose seperate identity is largely ignored", Goldsmith writes. He thinks that peace will only be possible in Europe once its "territory were split up into its natural ecological and ethnic regions". The nationalists in former Yugoslavia have already started this grand project. "In Europe, people are now slowly beginning to see the light. In Belgium for instance, a new project is being studied to devide the country into four regions, one Walloon, one Flemish, one German and one composed of the ethnically mixed population of Brussels." By claiming that Flemish and Walloon people constitute different biological "ethnics", Goldsmith positions himself even more to the right than the extreme Right Vlaams Blok.
But for Goldsmith, nothing goes too far. He also considers the Northern Irish catholics and protestants as "two distict ethnic groups, of different origin, with different manners and traditions and different motivations and capacities". Was Goldsmith thinking of Ataturk when he concluded that "the only remaining solution is to seperate them territorially"?
More statues of religious leaders
To Goldsmith the family is, just like the small community, a "fundamental, we might even say just as natural unit of social organisation". Everybody should "naturally" be at home within "a family, within which the mother is the most essential member." Goldsmith: "A mother looks after her children; a father provides for his wife and also helps bring up the children." Single mothers are "far removed from the norm", and Goldsmith even considers male extramarital relationships bad for the "Gaian hierarchy". According to him, women have " a very important rÙle, in the social cohesion, as well as from the viewpoint of the conservation of the natural environment. They haven't got machismo and competitiveness, those typical male traits. You know, one should accept the differences between man and woman, just like the differences between ethnics and cultures". Goldsmith doesn't feel much for feminism.
Goldsmith's political project is not based on science or rationality. "I do not believe in a society based on reason or the contract", he says. On this issue he agreeingly quotes Alexis Carrel: "Scientific civilisation has destroyed the soul of the world". Already in 1935, Carrel called for euthanasia institutes, in which "anti-social people" could be eliminated using "appropiate gases". This ideologist got a high position in fascist Vichy-France. Nowadays National Front leader Le Pen sees Carrel as a guide to social and political thought and tries to rehabilitate the man and his ideas. By quoting Carrel positively, Goldsmith is assisting Le Pen.
Inhabitants of Goldsmith's future "stable society" will not be influenced rationally, but rather more religiously and "emotionally motivated". "It is only within the context of a cosmic or ecological religion that people can be made to realise that the destruction of God's creation is a sin." In this way Goldsmith want to turn everyone into a sinner, in the hands of a totalitarian religion. For every living being will inescapably destroy little pieces of nature. The new man will get to fill his time with "ritual activities", so that "everyone is properly imbued with the worldview" and "mythology" of society. And to get us proud of our own community again, Goldsmith wants to fill all squares up with statues of religious and other leaders.
Eric Krebbers
De Fabel van de illegaal September 1999
Literature: - Goldsmith, De ecologische krisis, oorzaak en aanpak, 1970. In: The Ecologist 1. (Translation in: TeKoS 85, 1997.) - Goldsmith, Basic principles of cultural ecology, 1971. In: The Ecologist 5. - Goldsmith, Limits of Growth in Natural Systems, 1971. In: Goldsmith (ed.), Can Britain Survive?, 1971. - Goldsmith, Ethnocracy: The lesson from Africa, 1980. In: The Ecologist 4. - Goldsmith, The Way, 1996. - Ullrich Melle, Verscheidenheid, verbondenheid en zelfverwerkelijking, 1996. In: Voeten in de Aarde, Janssens en Melle, 1996. - Goldsmith, Letter to George Monbiot and others, 1997. - Goldsmith, Tegen de "vooruitgang": gezin gemeenschap, demokratie, 1997. In: Pauwels (ed.), Hoe overleven we de dekadentie?, 1997. - Goldsmith, Ultimate freedom, 1998. In: Fourth World Review 92. - Van den Broele, Collier, Edward Goldsmith: menselijk, al te menselijk?, 1998. In: Vrijbuiter, spring 1998. - Goldsmith, Letter to Silence, 1999. - Paul Gimeno, Een interview met Goldsmith. In: Oikos 3. - <http://www.syllepse.net/livres/Carrel.htm>http://www.syllepse.net/liv res/Carrel.htm - Krebbers, Millionaire Goldsmith supports the Left and the extreme Right, August 1999.