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Alt-right Claims that would put the Soviets to shame The alleged conspiracies of conservative reformers like count Coudenhove-Kalergi and the Bilderberg Group de Bruin, R.

Publication date 2017 Document Version Final published version Published in EuroVisie License Unspecified Link to publication

Citation for published version (APA): de Bruin, R. (2017). Alt-right Claims that would put the Soviets to shame: The alleged conspiracies of conservative reformers like count Coudenhove-Kalergi and the Bilderberg Group. EuroVisie, 13(2), 28-31.

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December 2or7Iwww.ses-uva.nl/ [email protected] The alleged conspiracies of conservative reformers like count Coudenhove• Kalergi and the Bilderberg Group.

Robin de Bruin

he mother of all modern European theories Twas the idea, propagated by the Nazi leaders during the Second World War, that Nazi Germany was at war with "the Jews" in both the United States and the Soviet Union. The answer to the pressing question why American "capitalist plutocracy" and Soviet communism, by their very nature antagonistic, had allied against Germany was obvious, according to Nazi propagandists. Hitler did not acknowledge the class struggle between the propertied class and the workers. The emergence of "capitalist plutocracy'' and the reaction to it, in the form of Soviet communism, were linked to "pernicious Jewish materialism". In this line of reasoning the omnipotent Jewish foe (supported by the "artificial division" of "the people" under the parliamentary system of the Weimar Republic) tried to break the natural ethnic solidarity between people of the same German "race". According to the Nazis, the Third Reich had overcome class society, and therefore global Jewry wanted to annihilate it. The antagonism manipulated into submission. planned economy across the globe. between liberal capitalism and communism was their tool to "divide For me as a historian, it is striking However, in fact the Bilderberg and rule". Global free trade, the gold that many of today's conspiracy Conferences started in 1954 standard and communism were theories under the umbrella as informal meetings of West seen as part of the same Jewish of "cultural Marxism" attribute European and American non• conspiracy for world domination. imagined conspiracy theories communist politicians, business retroactively to conservative or even leaders and trade union officials Similar conspiracy theories, organisations, groups called together with the purpose including a secret hierarchy of and individuals of the past. People of removing sources of friction controllingJewish influences, still that actually strived for reform between the United States of endure - today as part of a revolt America and its West European of "angry white men" against military allies in the Cold War contemporary, post-1960s elites. against global communism. The first The response to these angry Bilderberg Conference was held theories that circulate online, show in hotel De Bilderberg in the small a naïve confidence in the power of "Global free Dutch town of Oosterbeek and was politicians, namely the conviction trade, the gold organised by Prince Bernhard of that society could be changed standard and the Netherlands. He would be the overnight if only sitting politicians . organiser of many more Bilderberg would want to do so. This leads to communism Conferences to come. This is why disappointment in these politicians the archives of the Bilderberg - who apparently do not care too were seen as Group are kept at the Dutch much for change - and to hopes for part of the National Archives in The Hague. a messianic saviour. same Jewish Everyone has free access to these . archives . Many of today's conspiracy theories conspiracy on Twitter and Facebook accuse The very first question that was "cosmopolitan elites" of, for for world raised at this first Bilderberg example, secretly orchestrating domination" Conference of 1954 was how economic crises for political to guard against developing purposes. According to conspiracy a system of social security in theorists linked to the Alternative western countries which eventually Right (Alt-Right) movement, political would destroy free enterprise. elites in the West have had a secret in order to preserve: preserve After the Second World War, "cultural Marxist'' agenda for more the market economy, preserve Western European democracies than fifty years. These elites are European colonial domination, were under pressure to provide assumed to be subordinate to preserve Christianity, preserve higher levels of prosperity and secret puppet masters who are the family values, preserve the rural social security for their citizens. enemy from within in the global areas, etc. At first sight, many of States wanted to prevent their clash of civilisations. They would these "conservative reformers" own citizens from becoming not only replace "honest capitalism" could be regarded as kindred spirits receptive to communism due to with socio-economic serfdom, but to the sympathisers of the Alt-Right material poverty. However, most would do away with traditional movement. political elites despised the idea of values as well. Some followers of economic planning that perhaps these theories argue that mass One example is the Bilderberg would bring in the totalitarian to "the West", the Group. It is accused on social communist state power through subsequent multi-racial integration media of trying to form a New the back door. The main question and "gender neutralism" are being World Order, made up of the for the Bilderberg Conference was, promoted in predominantly "white" leaders of banks and multi-national in other words: how to maintain countries. This is intended to corporations. Some Alt-Right "economic freedom" in times of replace the strong, self-conscious propagandists have accused this state-guaranteed social security? populations of these countries with Bilderberg Group of trying to The accusation that the Bilderberg passive subjects that have been impose a world government and a Group itself tried to impose a

29 planned economy is based on blatant misinformation.

An even more bizarre conspiracy claim that would probably even put the Soviets to shame is the theory that today's political elites in Europe, like the German right-wing Christian Democrat Wolfgang Schäuble, supported by the European Union, would encourage and welcome an "invasion" of "refugees" and "migrants" from Africa and the Middle East in order to cause a "white genocide".

Many conspiracy theorists see this alleged conspiracy as the spiritual successor of what they call the "Kalergi Plan". After the First World War, the Austro-Japanese count Richard Nicolaus Coudenhove• Kalergi, a fervent anti-communist, published his famous book Pan• Europa (1923, translated into English as Pan-Europe in 1926), which contained a plan for the political and economic unification of Europe. In Coudenhove-Kalergi's eyes the European continent, together with its overseas colonies, would have to form one large economic entity. Pan-European agriculture and industry had to be protected from cheap imported products. This European economic unity would lead to rationalisation, increased production and lower prices, whereby prosperity would become greater and more widespread. The "class struggle" would be prevented by European unity, and as a result communism would lose its appeal. Poverty, after all, was the breeding ground for communism.

According to the historian Marco Duranti, conservative elitist 'romantic internationalists' like Coudenhove looked back nostalgically to an idealised past as a basis for a new Europe that would overcome the drawbacks of modernity. In his recently published twitter that the European political it. Another goal was to maintain as book, The Conservative Human response to today's refugee crisis much influence as possible over Rights Revolution (2017), Duranti, for apparently was meant to bring the Europe's colonies. instance, reinterprets the origins of aims of this "Kalergi Plan" to fruition. the Council of Europe's European The supporters of the Alt- Convention on Human Rights The real target of conspiracy Right movement see European (ECHR) of 1950, arguing that its theorists is, of course, today's integration as a catalyst for, not conservative inventors envisioned European Union. Federica as a response to, processes of it as a means to halt the expansion Mogherini, the EU High neoliberal globalisation, which they of the bureaucratic authority of Representative for Foreign Affairs think of as a cultural and socio• the British Labour government and Security Policy, has been economic threat. However, this over Britain's economy, or to called the 'EU minister for White does not explain why the Alt-Right safeguard the autonomy of Catholic Genocide' in an article on the movement directs its arrows to institutions in France. website altright.com. The EU's the aforementioned conservative predecessors, like the European reformers of the past. A Dutch In his book on Pan-Europa, Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) historian, Han van der Horst, has Couden hove had written that and the European Economic argued that this is not despite the Europe's culture was that of the Community (EEC), are depicted as fact that there are some similarities, 'White Race, which sprang from the but because of it. According to Van soil of Antiquity and Christianity'. der Horst, the New Right cannot The reformist nature of his plan for live with the fact that outspoken a Pan-Europe went hand-in-hand "In conservatives like Coudenhove with the maintenance of European Coudenhove• drew the conclusion that colonial dominance around the Europeanisation was a good idea. globe. However, as the son of a Kalergi's eyes Japanese mother and an Austro• I think the roots may run deeper. Hungarian father, Coudenhove was the European In many ways, today's Alt-Right, certainly not a white supremacist. continent, with opinion leaders like Milo In his 1925 book Praktischer together with Yiannopoulos, can be regarded /dealismus, he wrote that racial as the mirror image of the 1960s groups, like the Jews, and social its overseas provocative counter-culture. Partly classes would gradually disappear colonies, as a result of the discontent of in the future and that personalities the 1960s, the paternalistic state would remain. Moreover, the mixing would have that made decisions for groups of of different racial groups would to form one people was replaced in the 1980s replace the diversity of peoples with and 1990s, not by direct democracy a variety of personalities who would large economic as the New Left had wanted, but by look outwardly similar to the ancient enti. ty. " market mechanisms as conditions Egyptian. for individual free choice. The fact that today's neoliberal society is not Today, phrases about these as meritocratic, as we often like to expectations for the future are instruments in the hands of sinister think, causes resentment that has being mixed up by representatives left-wing eiites who would want to to be redirected. Lower-educated of the Alt-Right movement in an establish a planned economy. If one people in particular feel orphaned. attempt to prove that Coudenhove, repeats this nonsense a thousand At the same time, any sign of of course with the help of a Jewish times, one probably starts to "left-wing" political paternalism is banker (no effective conspiracy believe it. However, the ECSC and regarded as an obnoxious form of theory can do without ), the EEC were basically attempts for hypocrisy. Facts cannot be trusted had developed a plan for a so• a conservative reform of Western and every claim to authority is called White Genocide. Earlier this Europe in order to restore the West suspect. Undermining all authority, year, even a former member of the European market economy after even the authority of the New Dutch Lower House for the WD, the economic beggar-thy-neighbour Right's kindred spirits of the past, now an adviser to Thierry Baudet's policies of the European states in is the heart of today's New Right Forum for Democracy, stated on the 1930s and the war that followed revolution. •

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