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“When the Saxon Began to Hate”
You may think you recognize the phrase in the post title. You’ll search your memory and think, “Hmm, Kipling?” And you will be close, but not correct. It is an adaptation of a repeated line in Kipling’s 1917 poem The Beginnings:
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late
With long arrears to make good,
When the English began to hate.They were not easily moved,
They were icy-willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the English began to hate.Their voices were even and low,
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show,
When the English began to hate.It was not preached to the crowd,
It was not taught by the State.
No man spoke it aloud,
When the English began to hate.It was not suddenly bred,
It will not swiftly abate,
Through the chill years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the English began to hate.
The word “English” has been replaced by “Saxon”. Who did this? The New Zealand shooter (NZS).
I don’t remember his name and I am not bothering to look it up. It was a heinous act that all should reject. But how do I know about this phrase and his adaption/appropriation of Kipling’s poem? It is included in his 74-page manifesto. And why has he done it? That is a larger question.
NZS wants us to understand him. He claims to have written a 240-page manifesto and then deleted it in frustration. But as the date of his planned attack came closer he crafted a 74-page version that, no doubt, plums the same themes. So what are these? The best I can determine is he sees himself as a 2019 version of a Hitler Youth with a twist. He wants a world with fewer people so that they are further apart. He wants a return to a more agrarian, less industrialized world with less global marketing. He is fine with all ethnicities and races living in their own distinct geographies and none dominating one another. In that sense he is not a white supremacist, he is a racial purist. He believes it is inevitable that white people will be oppressed when they are put into minority status. And as a racial purist he sees the largest enemy as the United States of America — a society that gives the “illusion” that a plurality of races, ethnicities, religions, and politics can actually coexist and build a strong and happy nation. He wants to destroy that. He wants to give strength to the identity politics of the Left as a means of awakening white populations in the United States and elsewhere to their peril and spur them to act to protect themselves against the tyranny of democracy that precedes the oppression of the white race.
What strikes me as I read NZS’ manifesto is not that he is crazy, it is that he argues and reasons like the Left, but only as a mirror image. The Left argues that whites cannot be victims, NZS argues that whites are victims just like everyone else. The Left argues that “diversity is our strength,” NZS argues that diversity is our weakness and that homogenous societies like China should be emulated, not pluralistic societies like the USA. The Left argues that things should be managed centrally by a diverse elite since local control is just a dog whistle for “white supremacy,” NZS argues that the races should be separated and managed centrally within a racially and ethnically homogenous society.
Many of NZS’ ideas are in conflict with each other. This may have been the reason why he deleted his 240-page manifesto because he was struggling with the incoherence. But when faced with the time pressure, he dashes off a shorter version figuring that if he survived his attack on the mosques and consequent police response he will have plenty of time to polish it later. If he didn’t survive, he at least wanted it out there.
Taking NZS’ statements at face value he is not formally educated at a high level. His learning is mainly from the internet — the only trusted source for information anymore. He is not stupid. His vocabulary is pretty sound if not startlingly erudite. His manifesto is dotted with sarcasm and humor at points which likely the Left will take deadly serious.
And this brings us back to Kipling’s poem and NZS’ replacement of “English” with “Saxon.” NZS sees the modern English as a mongrelized and weak people. Like the Hitlerian ideal of the early 20th Century, NZS invokes the ancients — the people who possessed the lightly populated lands of northern Europe. If NZS were running for office his slogan might be “A Stag in Every Pot,” No doubt his favorite beverage would be mead.
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I came across the Saxonized version of the poem just a few months ago, though I don’t recall where. The below thread suggests it goes back at least a few decades (though w/o evidence).
https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/3215/did-rudyard-kipling-write-the-wrath-of-the-awakened-saxon
What a thoughtful post, @rodin! It shows, too, that both extreme ideologies are about power and control. In that way, they are the same. And frightening. Thank you!
Yes, that’s true, although I’m not sure how long ago it was. It’s been appropriated and altered by white supremacist groups. as shown here also. http://compositionawebb.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/119831298/Rudyard%20Kipling.pdf referenced on the second page.
Doesn’t alter the main point of the OP, thought. Ugh.
@joshuabissey, thanks for that. NZS probably found that version in his “internet education” program. I debated whether to amend the OP in light of this. But in re-reading my post I still think it is an accurate opinion of why NZS would prefer “Saxon” over “English” even though NZS was not the originator of the change. Unlike the reference at the link, NZS correctly identifies both the original poem and the fact that “Saxon” was an alteration. Thus even if he did not have the original idea he was deliberate in his inclusion of the altered version.
Knuckleheads.
The Saxons were invaders. The Angles were invaders. The Romans were invaders, and they brought with them riff raff from all over Europe. The Scoti were raiders, some of whom just never went home. The Celts and the Picts were there before all the others, but they came from somewhere. The Danes, the Normans (Normans were Vikings that had learned French) — so what is the point of picking just one segment of that polyglot people who eventually degenerated to the point where they drink warm beer with their cold roast beef? On purpose!
Bah. Your “master race” just can’t be all that masterful if you’re an exemplar of it, no matter who you are.
According to (non-academic) histories of the Celts that I’ve read, one widely-accepted theory is that the proto-Celts originated from near the headwaters of the Danube. Regardless of their origin, pockets of Celtic civilization eventually stretched from Ireland to Anatolia. The Galacians of the New Testament were Celts.
Futhermore, since the religion and culture of the ancient Celts is remarkably similar to the Hindu religion and culture, it’s fair conjecture that the proto-Celts were the most direct descendants of the proto-Indo-Europeans.
This is all just a more long-winded way of agreeing that everybody came from somewhere.
And the Celts wiped out the Beaker culture people in England, and before that the Beaker folks wiped out the neolithic peoples who built Stonehenge (the big version, not the Spinal Tap one).
I might.
The MSM doesn’t want you to read the manifesto because in it, he says he doesn’t like Trump and that his personal politics align most closely with Communist China.
I don’t get the Candace Owens stuff. Is she the evil-doer the left is making her out to be?
Not to mention the environmentalism.
Here is the specific reference:
The specific reference is:
I frankly have no clue what he is talking about. Yes, Candace is asking blacks to examine their relationship with Democrats and the claimed benefits they get from supporting Democrats, but I am unaware of anything she has said that promotes violence.
Specific references include:
Frankly, from your description of his manifesto (and honestly I don’t think it a good idea for such ramblings to be made generally available to the public, since it serves as a kind of promotion and validation for these wakos) it sounds like much of the same Neo-Neonazi BS that the modern white supremacists now employ. All supported by a very shallow and self serving reading of history.
My assumption is that he was just trolling. At least with the Candace Owens stuff. Although if anyone can point me to her writings on how the white race needs to increase it’s birth rate to keep up with the rest of the world I’m prepared to revise my opinion.
Again with the simplest explanation, I’m thinking he’s replacing one group with another in order to encompass more white folks. If you assume ‘white’ means English/Germanic/Northern European types then it’s hard to come up with a good two syllable word to describe them. When the White Man began to hate? Seems a bit off. Also for all the reasons it’s terrible.
While I’m at it, his taste in poetry reinforces my opinion of the merit of the poem Invictus.
It’s not the only criticism of Candace I’ve read.
@randywebster, could you elaborate?
Sorry, I didn’t pay that much attention. But I thought her CPAC speech got some criticism. I just think it’s weird, because she seems to be on our side.
I don’t follow her either. But when the freak says “I find some of her ideas too extreme, even for me!” and then goes on a politically motivated shooting rampage, well, one has to wonder what views exactly he would balk at, and if someone prominent espoused such views then there ought to be a record of such things from the shock alone.
I just reviewed the CPAC speech and a different thought struck me. NZS may well have been trolling Candace, but it also may be that he was “radicalized” in the sense that he saw Candace’s message as a threat. His view is not racial harmony based on individuality; it is racial separation organized under socialistic but racially homogenous societies. That is the opposite of what Candace is promoting and to the extent it is effective it will defeat his plan.
We don’t seem to be a strong and happy nation right now.
I utterly reject the ideology of racial purity. However, I am not optimistic about the prospects of a nation characterized by wide diversity of ideology (broadly defined to include philosophical, theological, political, and moral conceptions).
I think that e pluribus unum got it right. Right now we’re heading toward more and more pluribus, and not much unum. I don’t see how you hold a country together without a common culture, and if you broaden the culture enough to accommodate all ideologies, I am concerned that it will end up a mile wide and an inch deep.
By the way, I think that the explanation of, and the remedy for, our current problems are contained in another Kipling poem, The Gods of the Copybook Headings.
Nazis have always loved environmentalism.
@henrycastaigne, just so. I don’t think a lot of people are aware of many of the aspects of utopianism that the Nazis believed in. Their world view was a perfect agrarian society of perfect and healthy bodies with healthy minds untouched by what they saw as filth genetically or in any other way. And, the sun always shone. Hitler truly was a loon. But he was not alone.