American Renaissance magazine
Vol. 12, No. 9	September 2001

CONTENTS

Can Europe Learn the Lesson of Yugoslavia?
Report from France
Report from Britain
God, Glory, and Gold
O Tempora, O Mores!
Letters from Readers

COVER STORY

Can Europe Learn the Lessons of Yugoslavia?

Or will it continue to build societies destined to explode?

by Tomislav Sunic

The drama of the former Yugoslavia is a text-book example of how multiculturalism leads to chaos. If three quite similar East European peoples went murderously to war against each other, one can imagine what will happen when intercommunal wars in multiracial cities of Western Europe gather steam. To anyone not completely blinded by “anti-racist” propaganda, what has happened in Yugoslavia casts a very dubious light on the viability of multiracialism.

Events are forcing themselves into public notice, and the first cracks in the belief in multiethnic conviviality are beginning to appear. For years, local turf wars between young Germans and Turkish gangs were seldom reported by the German media. Now even journalists in the ultra-liberal Der Spiegel can no longer avoid reporting on the “ticking ethnic time bombs” in the suburbs of European capitals. Street battles between native Britons and East Asians that leave scores of injured can no longer be hidden or underreported. News about muggings of whites in Brussels, and beatings of elderly Parisians have crept into the local papers, though they are still on the sixth or seventh page.

The racial profile of Europe has changed dramatically over the last 30 years. A visit to any large town in Western Europe will turn up staggering numbers of uneducated non-whites, mostly Muslims. Just as in the United States, any criticism of these newcomers is branded as “racism” or “fascism,” but in private, there is much resentment of Third-World immigration.

What brought about this influx? Germany, which has been the economic locomotive of Europe, still suffers from an almost pathological national masochism and the hovering stigma of inborn fascism. This is behind the pathetic German wish to buy forgiveness through “checkbook diplomacy,” financial handouts to immigrants, and open arms to the downtrodden of the world. The Catholic Church also peddles Hollywood-style sentimentalism about immigrants and multicolored brotherhood.

When racial turf wars break out — whether in Berlin, Marseille, or Oldham — the liberal media and ruling elites still focus on unpleasant consequences rather than on causes. They persist in that incoherent but fashionable panacea: The remedy for xenophobia and multiracial friction is to let in yet more non-Europeans rather than expel the ones who are already here. Since the arrival of relatively small numbers of non-whites causes friction and tension, the solution is to bring in millions more!

As in the United States, there is a growing tendency among European whites towards sullen political apathy and flight from non-whites, punctuated by sudden outbursts of hostility towards foreigners. That supra state, the European Union (EU), is a volcano waiting to explode.

Russia and Eastern Europe have been largely spared the immigration onslaught, and are now the last major white enclaves on the planet. According to statistics on the number of Third-World residents in Western Europe compiled in 1995 by the Catholic relief association “Caritas,” Western Europe has over 19 million foreign immigrants while Eastern Europe has practically none.

At the same time, in one of the great ironies of our time, East and West have swapped places in terms of freedom of inquiry. During the Communist terror it was forbidden to question Marxist dogma. Today, it is in Western Europe that criticism of racial or historical dogma can end the career of a scholar or politician, and even send him to prison. By contrast, in the bookshops of Moscow, Budapest or Zagreb one can find plenty of books about race or historical revisionism. It is not to be ruled out that Eastern Europe will become the safe haven for Western dissidents, just as the West was once a haven for dissidents from the East.

What is more, despite the horrible legacy of communism and continuing poverty, it may be in Eastern Europe that we will eventually find political transparency and efficient democracy. For democracy to work, losers in elections must be willing to bow out gracefully. They do this only if they believe the winners share the same fundamental understanding of national goals. In multiethnic societies, where political parties form along ethnic lines, and every ballot is a racial head-count, elections are not just political choices; they become expressions of national identity. With stakes this high, democracy collapses, just as it did in the former Yugoslavia.

Likewise, now that Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union have broken apart, most citizens of Eastern European nations speak the same language. As Steve Sailer of the Human Biodiversity Institute points out, people can monitor their government’s performance effectively only when everyone has a common tongue. “In a multilingual polity with an activist state such as the EU,” he writes, “it becomes impractical to follow what is going on. Thus power flows to a multilingual elite.” This observation has relevance for the United States, too, as its Spanish-speaking minority begins to reach critical mass.

The multiethnic fray in Yugoslavia and the potential for similar eruptions in Europe are in perfect accord with what people like Noble prize-winner Konrad Lorenz and Robert Ardrey have taught us about human nature. Likewise, the well-known German scholar and ethologist Irenaus Eibel-Eibesfeldt points out that one can learn to respect the Other, only when the Other lives on his separate turf, or under his own jurisdiction. The closer one is to the Other, the greater the risk of conflict. Prof. Eibel-Eibesfeldt writes that fear and hostility are common reactions to the “foreigner” in all races and cultures. Human beings form close-knit communities that exclude foreigners.

Assimilation and integration of the foreigner is possible if he looks like a native, but it becomes difficult if he does not. As Prof. Eibel-Eibesfeldt concludes, “with side-by-side living of mixed ethnicities, the prognoses for the maintenance of harmony look bleak. Each ethnic group feels itself under threat by the other ethnic group. The majority ethnic group fears being overwhelmed by the foreign ethnic group, and the minority ethnic group fears the domination of the majority. History teaches that in such an environment, conflicts are bound to occur sooner or later.” (Krieg und Frieden: Aus der Sicht der Verhaltungsforschung, [War and Peace: From the Perspective of Ethology, published 1984 by Piper Verlag, expanded version, 1997]).

People who differ from each other appreciate each other best when they live apart. When they are forced together into an unnatural union, intercommunal violence is bound to erupt into a never-ending spiral of incrimination and hatred. The proponents of multiculturalism refuse to understand this, and continue to trumpet their belief in utopia, particularly to brain-washed young whites.

It has now been abundantly proven that multiracialism is academic nonsense and works nowhere in the world. The safest, healthiest, and most prosperous countries are those that enforce strict immigration laws, and whose citizens are homogeneous and proud of their roots. Scarcely-populated Iceland and densely-populated Japan are good examples of viable states.

Multiracialism under different names and slogans and in different legal forms has for decades provided the intellectual fodder for leftist intellectuals forced to abandon Communism. It is intolerable for them that the multicultural experiment in Yugoslavia failed, and Western countries have spent billions of dollars trying to force Balkan peoples that hate each other to live together. Now that the multiethnic states — Czechoslovakia, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia — are gone, left-leaning EU officials have doctored up a new multiethnic role model, the European Union itself.

The small yet growing number of nationalist, anti-multicultural young people all over Eastern and Western Europe may yet put an end to this dangerous fantasy. At the same time, unlike in the United States, there are influential political parties like the National Front in France, the Freedom Party in Austria, and the Vlaams Blok in Belgium, whose leaders fully understand that the future of Europe lies in the balance. Whatever one may think of the merits of pan-Europeanism, there might have been some hope for a union that was racially and culturally European. Now, with more than 15 million immigrants in its midst, it is questionable whether the European Union can even call itself European. How to come to terms with its own inefficient and terrified bureaucracy, and how to weather the storms of its own impending racial balkanization? These are the questions on everybody’s mind — and on no government agenda.

Mr. Sunic is a professor, author, translator, and a former Croat diplomat. His recent book, Cool Croatia, is a collection of satirical essays. He lives in Europe.

Foreigners in Europe (1995)

	Resident Foreigners	Percent of Population	Percent that are non-EU
Austria	723,500	9	84.6
Belgium	909,800	9	40.4
Denmark	222,700	4.3	77.6
Finland	68,600	1.3	77.7
France	3,596,600	6.3	63.3
Greece	200,300	1.9	71.3
Ireland	96,100	2.7	25.9
Italy	991,400	1.7	80.7
Luxembourg	138,100	33.9	9.4
Netherlands	168,300	1.7	75.4
Portugal	728,400	4.7	75.1
Great Britain	2,060,000	3.6	59.3
Spain	499,800	1.3	53.1
Sweden	531,800	6	64
European Union	18,109,300	4.9	79.6
Data courtesy of Caritas Roma, Eurostat and Sopemi.

ARTICLE

Report from France

Soviet-style Super-State?

Increasingly, the European Union under the tutelage of Brussels has come to resemble the Comecon run by Moscow [the one-time Communist equivalent of the Common Market]. In fact, it has the same goals: to wipe out all identities, to bend all minds to the “party line,” and to internationalize all national economies even if this means there is only poverty and failure behind the sparkling shop windows . . .

Europe is at a turning point: It cannot continue to add members without growing poorer, but if it wants to grow at all costs under the illusion it will thereby count for more on the world scene, it must undergo a wrenching change. Europe must provide leadership and, above all, inspiration — not be the source of conflict and coercion it has become as it has increased its membership. The more Europe strives to become a copy of the United States (and this will raise up against it all the anti-one-world forces, which still haven’t figured out which is the right target), the more it begins to bear an uncomfortable resemblance to the Soviet Union. This, too, was an artificial construction in which each socialist republic was theoretically equal, but in which the real power was held by industrial interests backed by the army and by the political apparatus. The Soviet Union crumbled in the space of just a few months, leaving its people exhausted and desperate.

We need a cultural and moral revolution. Without this, our societies, already weakened by non-white immigration and a lack of common ground, can look forward to revolution plain and simple. It will be a revolution the like of which has never been seen, and will leave no country untouched. After all, what would the charming month of May, 1968 [month of extensive street and student protests in Europe] have been like in Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris and Milan if Europe had had the mixed population it has now?

[Excerpted and translated from “The Europe of 15, is it Turning into a “Soviet-style Super-State’?” Rivarol, June 22, 2001, p.1.]

ARTICLE

Report from Britain

Rioting continues, with no end in sight

by Derek Turner

Americans learning about race riots in British cities like Bradford and Oldham may have the impression that disturbances of this kind are new to Britain. In fact, the history of British race relations is littered with riots. During the 19th century, there were several race riots in port cities, where small numbers of black immigrants were concentrated. In 1919, during violent disturbances in Liverpool, several black people were killed and hundreds moved to police stations for their own safety. It was only to be expected that the massive increase in the numbers of non-white immigrants after 1945 would mean yet more rioting, but such elementary reasoning seems to have been beyond most senior politicians in the post-war period.

Since 1958, when large numbers of blacks rioted in London’s Notting Hill, there have been racial disturbances somewhere in the UK every year. Many incidents are small and covered only in local newspapers, but some get national attention. During the 1980s, there were large-scale riots in Toxteth (Liverpool), Handsworth (Birmingham), Brixton and Broadwater Farm (both in London). The Broadwater Farm riot became infamous when enthusiastic blacks chopped Police Constable Keith Blakelock to death with machetes — a tragedy the local Labour MP dismissed as the police getting “a bloody good hiding.”

So far this year, the northern towns of Bradford, Oldham, Leeds, Accrington, Burnley, Manchester, and Stoke-on-Trent have all had race riots, but with a new twist: the rioters are Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims rather than young blacks. Increased diversity has brought a diversity of rioters.

The most serious violence took place in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley — all bleak, depressed towns that depended on the now-vanished textile industry, and have large Asian populations. In his 1933 English Journey, the socialist writer J. B. Priestley, a Bradfordian himself, wrote that “a few were rich and a great many were very poor, working from morning to night for miserable wages, but they were all one lot of folk.” This could not be said now.

In modern Bradford, about 16 percent of the population are what the race relations industry sometimes refers to as British of Sub-Continental Origin — although the relatively small Hindu quotient was involved in the rioting only as victims. Like many other towns in this blighted region, Bradford is segregated, with a white underclass in the suburbs and a Muslim underclass in the inner city. There are no fewer than 63 private Muslim schools attached to Bradford’s mosques, and the local government is about to open Britain’s first state-run Muslim secondary school.

There has been tension for some time. Race riots in 1995 were bad enough to prompt a now-forgotten government-sponsored report. In 1998, Bradford was in the headlines again when Muslim vigilantes expelled white prostitutes from Manningham, the Muslim part of town. Manningham does not seem to have improved; it was at the center of the recent violence. Tensions had been high since April, when a fight at a Hindu wedding sparked rumors of general attacks on Muslims.

Bradford is described by its town council as “vibrant, diverse and full of surprises.” Thousands of naïve journalists, politicians and vicars were certainly surprised when the vibrancy and diversity reached new heights over three nights in early July, resulting in over “25 million worth of damage, 65 arrests (with more likely to follow), and over 200 police officers injured.

Why did this happen? According to the editor of the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, who probably knows the city as well as anyone, Muslims have a “fundamental and deep-seated hatred of white people and of authority in general.” Even the Times noted that not all is well: “white shopkeepers, Hindu families and Ukrainian émigrés . . . know through bitter experience that they are not welcome to trade, live or meet socially in predominantly Asian inner city suburbs “policed’ by young Muslims who are prepared to back threats and intimidation with violence.”

Oldham Uproar

But it was Oldham that probably received the most attention from panic-stricken journalists and politicians. It has an Asian population of approximately 11 percent, which is expected to increase to 17 percent by 2011, and trouble has been brewing all year. In January, the Oldham Chronicle publicized police figures that showed six out of every ten racial attacks in the area were carried out against whites. Given the relatively small percentage of Asians, these figures mean that any given Asian is about 12 times more likely to assault a white for racial reasons than the reverse. The Chronicle published several factual stories about race attacks against whites, and made an understandable fuss in April when young Asians beat up a 76-year-old D-Day veteran, Walter Chamberlain. Later in April, there were skirmishes between local Asians and an unpleasant group of white football fans from out of town. Oldham began to attract national interest. In May, the Home Secretary banned rallies by both the anti-immigrant National Front and the communist Anti-Nazi League.

Tensions finally boiled over in three nights of rioting from May 26 to May 29, with approximately 500 Asians fighting police and firebombing buildings, including the offices of the Oldham Chronicle. This might have remained a regional news story except that in the Parliamentary elections on June 7, the British National Party achieved unprecedented results in the two Oldham constituencies. In Oldham East & Saddleworth, the BNP candidate won 11.2 percent of the vote, while the party’s leader Nick Griffin polled 16.4 percent in Oldham West & Royston. Neither candidate won a seat, but both finished quite respectably in three- and four-way races. This was the signal for a frenzy of politically correct outrage.

Naturally, everyone wanted to blame the BNP — even though it ran candidates in Oldham only because riots had already broken out there — and there were calls from Labour MPs for the party to be banned. People also blamed the police for being “heavy-handed” and having “racist attitudes.” Others blamed the Conservatives or “social deprivation” or “Islamophobia.” A few Asians said their young people were just copying the white underclass and that “Western culture” was the real problem.

Some people said the Oldham Chronicle should never have publicized the initial anti-white attacks. Others said the problem was self-segregated schools. An article in the Times Educational Supplement blamed the two Church of England secondary schools because prospective pupils must get references from their vicars, which is not convenient for Muslims. Ritualistic and predictable denunciations continue, as Leftists tie themselves in knots trying to avoid the real issue, which is the intractable fact of multi-racialism.

Proposed ‘Solutions’

So how is Britain to avoid more riots? In a report, Community Pride — Not Prejudice, that had been commissioned by the Bradford Council prior to the riots and was published hurriedly on July 12, the former head of the Commission for Racial Equality described the city as “the ultimate challenge in race relations in Britain,” and agonized about “virtual apartheid.” Sir Herman Ouseley’s proposed solutions to the “ultimate challenge” were the usual nonsense: Promote special skills in “intercultural awareness and interaction;” set up a Centre for Diversity, Learning and Living; count how many minorities work for local government. This sort of thing will only antagonise whites and do little to assuage Asian feelings of alienation. As the Yorkshire Post put it: “Bradford desperately needs inward investment, but the only industry to gain from Lord Ouseley’s recommendations will be the race relations industry . . .”

Others had equally unhelpful ideas. These ranged from Home Secretary David Blunkett’s proposal of more sports and arts frestivals, to the suggestion of Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s council that Bradford should copy a feel-good festival they call “Love Parade.” David Blunkett has also set up a “special ministerial team,” a classic way for Whitehall to defer action on a problem until everyone has forgotten about it.

Aside from a few lonely voices on the “extreme” right, virtually no one is prepared to admit publicly that the real problem is large-scale, non-white immigration combined with aggressive multicultural indoctrination that discriminates against the English. A gaping, possibly unbridgeable social fault line has opened where none existed before, thanks to foolishness and misplaced “humanitarianism” on the Left, and cowardly acquiescence on the Right. No one is prepared to point out the obvious: Race riots happen only in multi-racial societies. Immigration has made Britain multi-racial. Immigration must therefore stop or be slowed to a socially beneficial trickle.

Yet, amid all the patent nonsense about the riots, there were glimmers of light, even in Labour circles. Both Prime Minister Tony Blair and David Blunkett said the problem had much more to do with “thuggery” on the part of Muslim youths than anything else, presumably including “racism.” A Yorkshire Labour MP, Ann Cryer, actually suggested language tests for Asian immigrants (except for elderly relatives). The Asian Labour MP for Bradford West, Marsha Singh, who in the 1980s defended young Asians who stockpiled petrol bombs, said the police should blast rioters with water cannon. A prominent Bradford Hindu was at least partly right when he said mosques are “less religious centres, more like training grounds for the Taliban.” One can only hope such glimmers of light gather strength as the “rainbow coalition” continues to unravel.

On June 30, the left-of-center Independent newspaper wondered about yet another part of the depressed Northwest: “Is Nelson another town ready to blow?” The same question could be asked of many other British cities, and if the country fails to grapple with the underlying problems of immigration and multiracialism, the question is likely to be answered sooner rather than later — and in the affirmative.

Mr. Turner is editor of Right Now! He can be reached at P.O. Box 2085, London W1A 5SX, England.

ARTICLE

God, Glory and Gold

The astonishing saga of the Spanish conquest of Southern America

History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843); History of the Conquest of Peru (1847), William Hickling Prescott, 681 pp., $27.95; both volumes reprinted by Random House, 1998

reviewed by H. A. Scott Trask

Without question, the 16th-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires is one of the great achievements of Western man. One can only marvel at how a few hundred conquistadors marched through unmapped and unknown lands into the hearts of empires containing millions of subjects, defeated armies that numbered in the tens of thousands, and successfully ruled territories many times larger than their native Spain. They won for their country the largest empire since Rome and helped establish her as the richest and most powerful state in Europe. They won for themselves gold and glory. They toppled despotic and barbarous empires whose oppressed subjects were sunk in the darkest idolatry and superstition, and whose religious practices included human sacrifice, torture, and cannibalism. By their victories, they extended the light of Christianity and European civilization to the southern half of the New World.

The contrast between these brave Castilian cavaliers and their modern European counterparts could not be more striking. The conquistadors were tough, brave, and self-confident to a degree beyond the imagination of most modern whites. Their physical ordeals alone are almost beyond belief. On the same expedition, they had to endure two different extremes of climate. When they were in the coastal tierra caliente (land of heat), they endured a burning tropical sun, swarms of insects, stifling heat, torrential rains, and debilitating disease. In the mountains, they endured freezing winds, sleet, and even snow. They faced these extremes without modern high-tech outdoor clothing. They also endured repeated and sustained periods of hunger and thirst.

Both combat and long marches were physical feats few modern soldiers could match. Only a small percentage of the Spanish forces were cavalry. The rest marched on foot through the rugged fastness of the Sierra Madre in Mexico and the formidable cordilleras of the Andes. After long marches, they had to engage in exhausting hand-to-hand combat — sometimes for hours — over rough terrain.

What is even more remarkable is the fear these men had to overcome. They were marching deep into enemy territory whose geography and climate were unknown, and where they would face countless thousands of enemy warriors. Once in the interior, there could be neither resupply nor reinforcement. If they were defeated, retreat was almost impossible. They knew that if they were captured they would be tortured and killed, most likely by sacrifice. Fear of the unknown can be the most debilitating fear, and these men faced it constantly.

Needless to say, the conquistadors now have a prominent place in the rogue’s gallery of the politically incorrect. That there was a dark side to the conquest, no one can deny. The conquistadors inadvertently introduced diseases; some committed atrocities, including rape and murder; and while they liberated the native peoples from one form of tyranny, they substituted their own in the form of a religiously sanctioned system of forced labor. The Spanish crown, with the formal approval of the Catholic Church, granted Spanish landowners the right to the labor of a certain number of Indians, as long as they cared for their spiritual and physical well-being. The Spanish colonists did not shrink from exercising their rights, but they were not as diligent in discharging their obligations.

Of course, modern historians and teachers are not interested in a fair assessment of the Spanish conquest. They caricature the past to use it as a weapon against Western civilization and the European peoples. They ignore the virtues of the conquistadors (or treat them as vices), transfigure their accomplishments into crimes, and exaggerate their vices to blacken their place in history. It was not always so. There was a time when the educated elite could admire them and acknowledge the achievements of the conquistadors without ignoring their faults.

William H. Prescott

William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859), one of America’s first great historians, came from a distinguished Massachusetts family. His grandfather commanded the New England militia at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775, and his father was a respected state judge. After learning Greek and Latin, he entered Harvard in 1811 at the age of 15 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in just three years. With initial financial support from his father, he decided to become a scholar and man of letters. He chose to study Spain, which was then a neglected subject. Both his History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and his History of the Conquest of Peru (1847) were critical and commercial successes.

Prescott’s histories are beautifully and vividly written, and are generally reliable records of the events he describes, although subsequent scholarship has added immensely to our knowledge of both the Indian civilizations and the details of the conquest. Prescott was by no means an uncritical apologist for the Spaniards. While he considered Hernando Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, a Christian and a man of honor, he considered Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, little more than a brutal adventurer. He was critical of the barbarities and tyranny of the Aztecs, but was sympathetic — even excessively so — to what he considered the mild and benevolent despotism of the Incas.

While Prescott did not mourn the fall of either Indian empire (he considered their fall decreed by “Providence”), he was not certain the conquest was an unalloyed triumph for European civilization or for Christianity. He praised the selfless missionaries and Catholic priests who came to spread the light of the true religion, but condemned colonists who exploited the native populations.

As for the role of race, he never doubted the superiority of the Spanish, as representative Europeans, over the Indians. On the other hand, he failed to examine the two most important racial issues posed by the conquest: How could the Spanish transmit their civilization when they were a minority in their new possessions; and what were the consequences of their willingness to breed with their Indian subjects?

The Conquest of Mexico

In 1519 the Aztec empire was at the height of its power. It extended from just west of the Yucatan Peninsula northwestward to the great Valley of Mexico, and from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Its total area was about 125,000 square miles, or a little over one-third the size of Spain. Estimates of the total population range from four million to thirty million, but all figures are educated guesses. The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, was in the center of the Valley of Mexico on an island in Lake Texcoco. It had two to three hundred thousand inhabitants, which would have made it the most populous city in the New World. Mexico City now stands on its ruins.

Hernando Cortes set out from Cuba on February 18, 1519 at the head of an expedition of 11 ships, 50 sailors, 530 soldiers, 16 horse, 14 pieces of artillery, and some smaller breech-loading cannons. His purpose was exploration and conquest. His men were adventurers and professional soldiers armed with steel swords and lances, 30 crossbows, and 12 muskets. For body armor, they wore thick cotton mail that the Spanish had learned was cool enough to wear in a tropical climate but tough enough to stop arrows. The aristocrats among the expedition (the cavaliers) carried Spanish steel armor.

Sailing along the coast just west of the Yucatan Peninsula, Cortes encountered and fought two battles against Mayan Indians whom he routed. Boarding his ships and continuing to the northwest, Cortes soon learned he had crossed the border into a wealthy and powerful empire whose capital city was located about 200 miles inland. He also learned that the subject peoples of the empire were not content under the rule of the Aztecs, whom they regarded as cruel and rapacious overlords. Cortes astutely perceived that their help could be the key to a successful conquest. He decided his most valuable potential allies were the Tlascalans, a tribe of fierce warriors who maintained an independent republic in the heart of the Aztec empire. If he could form an alliance with them, he would gain a secure base deep in the interior, and brave warriors to supplement his forces. He would then move boldly on the capital city of Tenochtitlan and capture it, thus toppling the empire with a single blow.

Before marching inland, Cortes burned all but one of his ships. He understood that in an operation as perilous as this, hesitation or doubt among his soldiers could doom their chance for victory. If they met with a great setback or hardship — as they surely would — they might well think of retreating. By burning the ships, he gave his men no choice but to concentrate on advancement and victory. His preparations made, on August 8, 1519, he set out at the head of an army of 300 conquistadors including 40 crossbowmen, 20 men with muskets, 15 horse, and four pieces of artillery. He also brought with him some 800 auxiliaries drawn from the coastal Totonac tribe. When Cortes reached Tlascala, he was met not by the friendly embassy of welcome he had expected but by the whole Tlascalan army in full battle array. Only after he defeated them in three terrible battles did they agree to an alliance. The Tlascalans became his most important and faithful allies, and with an army augmented by 1,000 Tlascalan warriors, Cortes resumed his march on Tenochtitlan.

For Prescott, Cortes’ victory over the Tlascalans held an important lesson. While he was effusive in his praise for Tlascalan valor and admitted that “with the same weapons” an individual Tlascalan “might have stood his ground against the Spaniard, yet the Spanish triumph established the superiority of science and discipline over mere physical courage and numbers. It was fighting over again . . . the old battle of the European and the Asiatic.” Prescott compared the Spanish victory to that of the Greeks over the Persians at Marathon. It is a common theme in Prescott’s histories not only that the Spanish represent the Occident, but that the historical preeminence of the latter over the Orient represents a superiority of mind.

Cortes received unexpected help from an ancient Aztec prophecy predicting the eventual return of the god Quetzalcoatl. The generous and benevolent Quetzalcoatl had taught the Indians agriculture, metalwork, and government, but had been forced to leave the country as punishment for some divine transgression. Promising his followers he would one day return, he boarded his “wizard skiff, made of serpents’ skins, [and] embarked on the great ocean for the fabled land of Tlapallan.” Aztec tradition described Quetzalcoatl as “tall in stature, with a white skin, long, dark hair, and a flowing beard.” Every circumstance of the Spanish arrival — their physical appearance, their seemingly magical ships, and their arrival off the gulf — seemed to fulfill this ancient prophecy. What is more, the Spanish had arrived in the Aztec Year One, the anniversary of the god’s birth.

Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, was filled with dread at the approach of the Spanish. Reports of the terrifying Spanish horses (the Indians at first thought they were centaurs), their supernatural weapons that seemed to breathe fire, and their shining armor all struck terror in the Indians and sustained the belief that the Spanish were divine beings. Paralyzed by indecision and dread, Montezuma let the Spanish enter his capital uncontested, and soon found himself a royal captive.

Cortes was not yet the master of the empire. His rival and personal enemy, the governor of Cuba, sent an expedition to arrest Cortes for insubordination. When Cortes marched to the coast to counter this threat, the Aztecs rose up in rebellion and besieged the small garrison he had left behind in the capital. Having won over the troops sent to arrest him, Cortes returned to Tenochtitlan at the end of June 1520 with 1,000 conquistadors and 2,000 Tlascalans. By now, the Aztecs were in a pitch of fury over Spanish efforts to extirpate their religion, and no longer suffered from the illusion that Cortes was a god. Moreover, Pedro de Alvarado, whom Cortes had left in charge of the garrison, had further poisoned relations with the Indians by massacring the Aztec nobility, whom he suspected of a plot. The Aztecs soon had Cortes under siege as well. Running short of food and ammunition, he made a desperate fighting retreat across one of the narrow causeways from the capital to the mainland. In the battle, which took place in a heavy rain on a pitch-black night, Cortes lost half his army, all but 20 of his horse, and all his artillery, muskets, and crossbows. It was a catastrophic defeat.

The hundreds of Spaniards captured on la noche triste (the sad night), met a hellish end. Over the next few weeks, the Aztecs led their prisoners one by one to the altars of sacrifice on their high temples in the center of the city. They pinned them down and cut their hearts out of their living bodies. They threw the corpses down the steps, beheaded and skinned them, and ate the flesh as part of a continuous victory celebration. Meanwhile, Cortes led his exhausted troops toward the safety of Tlascala, but the Aztecs were determined to prevent escape.

On the plain of Otumba, Cortes’ wearied army of 400 conquistadors was met by an Aztec army numbering in the tens of thousands. Without firearms, they were soon fighting for their lives in exhausting hand-to-hand combat that continued for hours. All seemed lost when Cortes decided to make a bold strike against the Aztec commanding general, who could be seen directing the battle from a distance, dressed in brilliantly colored feathers and standing in front of the imperial standards. Cortes called five other cavaliers to his side, and together they smashed through the Indian lines. Cortes ran the commander through with his lance, and the Spaniards seized the Aztec standards and flung them to the ground. Deprived of their leader and their standards, the Indian force was thrown into consternation and confusion. Cortes had won his most desperate and hard-fought battle.

Prescott drew lessons from the Spanish victory:

Yet it was, undoubtedly, one of the most remarkable victories ever achieved in the New World. And this, not merely on account of the disparity of the forces, but of their unequal condition. For the Indians were in all their strength, while the Christians were wasted by disease, famine, and long protracted sufferings; without cannon or firearms, and deficient in the military apparatus which had so often struck terror into their barbarian foe — deficient even in the terrors of a victorious name. But they had discipline on their side, desperate resolve, and implicit confidence in their commander. That they should have triumphed against such odds furnishes an inference of the same kind as that established by the victories of the European over the semi-civilized hordes of Asia.

Cortes immediately prepared a new expedition against Tenochtitlan. He summoned supplies and reinforcements and led his men on yet another brilliantly resourceful campaign. He sent men to climb the volcano Popocatepetl — then active — and extract sulfur from its crater to make gunpowder. He ordered construction of 13 brigantines for use in his assault on the island capital. Indian porters would carry them over the mountains in pieces to a river emptying into Lake Texcoco. Cortes’ new army was composed of 550 infantry (including 80 men with muskets and another 80 with crossbows), 40 horse, nine cannon, and ten thousand Tlascalan auxiliaries.

One by one, he reduced the Aztec forts and garrisons outside the capital, and soon the Aztecs found themselves surrounded by the Spanish army and its Tlascalan allies. Cortes then brought up his brigantines. After a brutal 75-day siege, which witnessed the physical destruction of the city, the slaughter of tens of thousands of warriors, and the starvation of the inhabitants, the few remaining Aztecs surrendered on August 13, 1521. Two years after he first marched into the interior, two and a half years after leaving Cuba, Cortes was now the complete and undisputed master of the former Aztec empire.

The Conquest of Peru

Francisco Pizarro’s expedition is in many respects even more remarkable than that of Cortes. While Mexico was not very far from Spanish settlements on Cuba and Santo Domingo, Peru was almost a world away, on the other side of the continent and far to the south. Moreover, the Inca Empire was enormous, stretching 2,500 miles from the northern border of what is now Ecuador to the river Maule in central Chile. In width, it ranged from 200 to 600 miles, from the Pacific coast to the peaks of the Andes. The nearest Spanish settlement was at Panama, where rumors circulated of a rich and powerful kingdom to the south.

Francisco Pizarro, a professional soldier and one of Balboa’s former lieutenants, set his mind on exploration and conquest. In 1526 he sailed south with two ships and made contact with Indian traders loaded with enticing Peruvian goods. Here was proof of a kingdom worth conquering. Pizarro halted, made camp on an island off the coast of Columbia, and sent his ships back to Panama for reinforcements. The governor, angry that Pizarro did not return himself, sent ships only to bring him and his men back to Panama. Pizarro refused to go. He called his men together, drew a line in the sand with his sword, and addressed them as follows: “Friends and comrades! On that side are toil, hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death; on this side, ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its riches; here, Panama and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south.” Thirteen brave men elected to remain with Pizarro; the rest returned to Panama.

Pizarro’s stubbornness paid off, for five months later a ship arrived from Panama with supplies and permission for him to continue his exploration. Pizarro sailed south and soon reached a wealthy and populous Indian city named Tumbes at the northern edge of the Inca empire. Here was proof of the existence of an empire whose riches rivaled that of the Aztecs. Leaving two men behind, he sailed north for Panama to spread the news and recruit an army.

In January 1531, he again left Panama with three ships, 180 men, and 27 horse. After a lengthy wait for reinforcements — 100 men commanded by Hernando de Soto — Pizarro sailed for a second time into Tumbes harbor. To his surprise, he found the inhabitants suspicious and hostile, in contrast to their friendliness five years earlier. His two men were missing, presumably murdered. He left a small garrison at Tumbes and pushed 90 miles south into the interior. He learned that the Inca emperor, Atahuallpa, was encamped with a large army at the city of Cajamarca across the mountains to the south. Pizarro decided to march there, defeat the army, and capture the emperor. Thus, on September 24, 1532, Pizarro broke camp at the command of an army of 167 conquistadors, including 67 cavalry, 20 crossbowmen, and three men with muskets. He also had perhaps as many as a thousand Indian auxiliaries.

The Inca emperor, Atahuallpa, was neither idle nor ignorant of the progress of the Spanish. He had decided that instead of attacking them in the lowlands, he would let them march through the mountains deep into his territory where he would trap and destroy them. He planned to capture their horses and breed them for his own army. Prisoners he would sacrifice, or castrate to serve as guards for his wives.

Prescott describes how, on November 15, 1532, Pizarro’s small force emerged from the mountains above the gleaming city of Cajamarca:

What were the feelings of the Peruvian monarch we are not informed, when he gazed on the martial cavalcade of the Christians, as, with banners streaming, and bright panoplies glistening in the rays of the evening sun, it emerged from the dark depths of the sierra, and advanced in hostile array over the fair domain, which, to this period, had never been trodden by other foot than that of the red man.

Whatever the Inca’s reaction, Pizarro’s men were terrified at the sight of an Indian army of 30 to 50 thousand warriors encamped in the hills above the city. After entering the city, which Atahuallpa had ordered evacuated, Pizarro sent an embassy to the Inca camp to invite the sovereign to visit the Spanish at their quarters. Pizarro had decided that his best chance for victory was to capture the emperor and avoid a desperate battle.

In the meantime, Atahuallpa had ordered his generals to block the passes into the city from the mountains through which the Spanish had just passed, thus trapping them in the valley of Cajamarca. Believing the Spaniards to be entirely in his power, Atahuallpa agreed to Pizarro’s invitation. Entering the city at dusk with a contingent of 3,000 attendants and guards, mostly unarmed, the Inca was met by a Spanish priest who told him he must acknowledge the authority of the King of Spain and embrace the true religion of Christianity. Atahuallpa flew into a rage, threw the Bible he had been given to the ground, and announced that he was no man’s tributary. At this moment, Pizarro’s cavalry and infantry sprung from hiding places. The streets soon ran with the blood of Atahuallpa’s massacred guard, and the Inca himself was taken captive.

The capture of their emperor paralyzed the Inca government. Pizarro returned Atahuallpa to his throne and skillfully allowed him to continue to reign under his direction, which allowed the Spanish to begin looting the country of gold and silver, and to bring in reinforcements unmolested. No Indian dared harm or resist a Spaniard. But Peru was far from subdued. When, nine months after capturing him, Pizarro ordered Atahuallpa’s execution, this broke the spell the Spanish seemed to have over the stunned and superstitious Indians.

In the fall of 1533, when Pizarro finally marched out of Cajamarca for the Inca capital of Cuzco, he met serious resistance, and fought two skirmishes and a battle before taking the city. He put a man he thought would be a puppet, Manco Inca, on the throne, and dispatched a large expedition to the south to explore and gain control of what is now Bolivia and northern Chile.

Believing the conquest all but over, Pizarro began searching for a site for the capital of the new Spanish colony of Peru. Cuzco was too far inland and deep in the Andes. Leaving his brother in command at Cuzco, he marched to the coast and founded the city of Lima in January 1535. But while Governor Pizarro devoted all his energies to building his new capital, Manco Inca planned a massive uprising against Spanish rule.

In May 1536, Manco laid siege to Cuzco’s Spanish garrison of only 190 men with an army of at least 50,000 warriors. Incas attacked and massacred isolated Spanish outposts, travelers, and settlers all across Peru, and sent several severed heads to Cuzco. They even attacked Lima, and besieged it for two weeks. An alarmed Pizarro called for reinforcements from all over the Spanish empire. The real war for Peru had begun, but large-scale fighting lasted for only one year. Against all odds, the garrison at Cuzco held. Spanish reinforcements poured into Lima, and Inca warriors began deserting the army to return to their farms. Manco retreated with a small army to a jungle redoubt northwest of Cuzco. His exile kingdom of Valcambamba held out against the conquerors for another 36 years until the Spanish finally overran it and executed his son Tupa Amaru, the last Inca emperor. The Spanish empire founded by Cortes and Pizarro was to last for 300 years.

Reasons for the Spanish Victory

The modern reader marvels at how a few hundred conquistadors could topple the two mighty empires of the New World. Even by the most conservative estimates, in their large battles, the Spaniards were outnumbered 10 to 20 to one, and sometimes by even more. Prescott wrote on one occasion that the magnitude of the Spanish “military achievement” filled him with “astonishment.” He attributed the triumph “to Castilian valor, arms, and discipline,” internal weaknesses in the empires, and the genius of Cortes and Pizarro.

The Spanish certainly had superior weapons. Almost all were armed with swords of Toledo steel, with which they could decapitate or de-limb an opponent with one blow. The cavalry also carried long lances, which they used with deadly effect against foot soldiers. Spanish muskets, crossbows, and cannon could kill at long range, and their metal projectiles easily penetrated Indian shields and protective clothing. Cannon in particular wrought devastation among closely massed Indian warriors. The carnage the Spanish inflicted was horrendous.

By contrast, Indian weapons were largely ineffective against the steel helmets and thick cotton mail worn by the Spanish. The Indians were armed with bows and arrows, spears, slings (for hurling stones), and heavy maces. These weapons had blades or points made of obsidian, bone, or copper, all of which were sharp but brittle, and might break on contact with Spanish steel or armor.

The Spaniards also had the horse. No other single weapon was as important in routing huge masses of Indian warriors. Horsemen were particularly effective on open ground, where they would charge into enemy columns, slashing and stabbing with their swords and lances, trampling men with their horses, and scattering them. If their enemies fled, the Spanish rode them down and stabbed them from behind with lances. The psychological effect produced by horses was as important as their physical effect. Several important battles would certainly have been lost without cavalry. At the battle of Centla at the very beginning of Cortes’ campaign, the outnumbered Spanish infantry fought without cavalry for more than an hour, becoming thoroughly exhausted. They were saved at the last minute by a slashing attack by just 16 horsemen, who had undertaken a distant flanking maneuver that took much longer than expected.

Nevertheless, the disparity of numbers was so great that superior weapons alone could not ensure victory. The Spanish had superior military science and discipline. While Indian warriors tended to rush into battle pell-mell, Spanish commanders were careful to order attacks and defenses to gain maximum advantage from their weapons and greatest effect from their soldiers.

The Indians were further handicapped by their desire for sacrificial victims. They often fought to capture rather than kill, so as to be able to offer living victims to the gods. The Spaniards, of course, went into battle intent on killing as many of the enemy as possible.

Finally, Cortes and Pizarro could not have succeeded without the support of Indian allies. Prescott concluded that “the Aztec monarchy fell by the hands of its own subjects, under the direction of European sagacity and science.”

Racial Lessons

The fashionable doctrine that race is a social construct does not receive much support from the reaction of the Indians to the sudden appearance of white men. Long before the Spanish had time to invent social constructs, the Indians had a vivid sense of racial differences. They seem to have regarded whiteness as an attribute of divinity. The Inca marveled at the “fair complexion” of the Spanish, and early on began referring to them as the “the Children of the Sun,” an impression reinforced by Spanish armor and fire-arms. The Indians of Mexico named one of Cortes’ principal officers, Pedro de Alvarado, who had blonde hair and a fair complexion, “the Sun,” and often referred to the Spanish as “the white gods.”

Unlike the English, and to a lesser extent the French and Dutch, the Spanish had no antipathy to miscegenation. Shortly after their arrival in the Americas, their tendency toward promiscuity, concubinage, rape, and even marriage with the natives created a mixed race of mestizos. Cortes had five Indian mistresses, three of whom bore him children. Pizarro had two children by a daughter of the Inca emperor. The Tlascalans offered their ally Cortes 300 slave girls and five or six daughters of the nobility. Cortes distributed the former among his soldiers and the latter among his officers. His only condition was that the high-born women be baptized before they could share the beds of his officers. Montezuma likewise was very generous in offering women to his Spanish captors. While Cortes tried to prevent rape, Pizarro was much less scrupulous. In Cuzco, his officers and men ravaged the Virgins of the Sun — Inca equivalents of the Roman vestal virgins — and debauched the Inca’s many wives.

It is surprising that Prescott did not comment on the Spanish tendency to mate with Indians, for it was an article of faith among Anglo-Americans of his time that miscegenation had brought down Spanish America. North Americans thought mestizos were a degenerate mixture of two incompatible races. While recognizing a remnant population of pure, or almost pure, Spanish blood, they believed it was too small to raise Latin American society to a European standard.

English settlers in America did not countenance miscegenation, and Indians took this as a sign of hostility and antipathy. If the English had freely intermarried with Indians, there would have been less warfare, but they would have ceased to be English, European, or white. They were proud of their race and determined to perpetuate it.

The demographics of Spanish colonization differed from the English in another important respect. The Spanish found themselves a minority living amongst a large Indian population. There were three reasons for this: the large existing Indian population; their settled agricultural state; and the sudden completeness of the Spanish conquest. The English, on the other hand, came to settle, not to conquer. The purpose of war was not to subjugate tribes but expel them. The English formed compact settlements along the coasts and then gradually spread inland as their population increased. Thus, North Americans built homogeneous communities wholly separated from the Indians by an uninhabited frontier. The fact that the Indian tribes of North America were less numerous and less settled than their kinsmen to the south encouraged the English pattern.

Prescott was aware of the two different patterns of colonization, and clearly preferred the English method. Indeed, the example of Latin America is an historical fact that cries out against those who believe Western Civilization and her national cultures can survive when the majority populations of Europe and North America are no longer white. It is no accident that the only countries in Latin America that remind one of Spain, or seem European, are countries in which the majority population is of European ancestry: Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Costa Rica. Even such countries as Germany, England, Denmark and France will meet the same fate as Mexico and Brazil if they fail to control immigration.

A final lesson we might draw from the conquest points to what white men can accomplish when they are united and confident, and not enervated by a false sense of guilt or moral inferiority. That Cortes’ and Pizarro’s hundreds could subjugate thousands should remind us that with sufficient resolve, we need not be in the majority to prevail against our adversaries.

Dr. Trask is a historian who lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He is the author of the July AR cover story on Christianity.

IN THE NEWS

O Tempora, O Mores!

Cincinnati Still Burning

Ever since the riots of early April, Cincinnati police have held back in their enforcement efforts in black parts of town for fear of being accused of “racism” or “racial profiling.” Compared to previous years, arrests are down 50 percent and traffic stops are down 55 percent. Crime, of course, has gone up. As of July 26, there had been 73 shootings since the riots. These had left 85 people killed or wounded, compared to nine shootings and 11 victims in the same period last year. This is an 800 percent increase, and every perpetrator, and all but one victim have been black. One night in July there were six separate shootings, an unprecedented number for Cincinnati. Police say they still respond to every police call, but often give blacks warnings rather than attempt an arrest, and have stopped aggressive enforcement. They must now report on the race of everyone they stop, so no longer stop blacks they would have routinely questioned before the riots.

The crime wave seems to be both a continuation of the spirit of the riots and a recognition that police have pulled back. “It’s like the Wild West down here,” says Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen. “There is still the same lawlessness that went on during the riots. And the criminals know that police are now reluctant to take action.” Officer Adam Hennie, who is white, says he doesn’t get out of his patrol car very often these days: “It’s pretty much not safe for me to get out of the car if there’s 10 guys on a street corner who don’t like me and tell me so. There’s a severe difference in the past three months. There’s a complete lack of respect for police authority.”

Keith Fangman, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, understands that anyone who blamed police for the riots was really blaming them for doing their job. As he explained in a recent issue of the FOP newsletter, “If you want to make 20 traffic stops a shift and chase every dope dealer you see, you go right ahead. Just remember that if something goes wrong, or you make the slightest mistake in that split second, it could result in having your worst nightmare come true for you and your family, and City Hall will sell you out.”

Mr. Fangman points out that Cincinnati is part of a national trend, joining Seattle and Los Angeles as places where police no longer enforce the law in black neighborhoods for fear of being sued or accused of racism. The result, he says, is “an epidemic of crime.” He points out that in terms of the number of dead and wounded, “the aftermath of the riots has actually been more harmful to the city than the riots themselves.” He says the situation will not improve until the press and the politicians get over their “lynch-mob mentality” and accept that good police work will inevitably fall more heavily on blacks.

Blacks refuse to see the obvious. Rev. Clarence Wallace of the Carmel Presbyterian Church says the crime wave only reflects poverty, and will subside when blacks get financial help. Rev. Damon Lynch, chairman of the city’s Black United Front, accuses police of a deliberate slow-down to punish blacks. He says there is more crime because the attention blacks got after the riots has faded. Young blacks are “falling back into a sense of hopelessness” and have “turned on themselves.”

Meanwhile, on July 27, a white police officer shot and killed a 21-year-old black man. Officer Thomas Haas held his fire while Ricky Moore blasted away twice with a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun, before responding his own weapons. There were no riots or other disturbances. [Stephanie Simon, Cincinnati Police Holding Back After Riots, Chicago Tribune, July 16, 2001. Steve Miller, Cincinnati in Grip of a Crime Wave Months After Riots, Washington Times, July 18, 2001. Terry Kinney, Tensions in Cincinnati Still High, AP, July 20, 2001. Cincinnati Cop Kills Black Man, AP, July 27, 2001. Francis Clines, Police in Cincinnati Pull Back in Wake of Riots, New York Times, July 19, 2001.]

Chicago Still Stewing

The Chicago city council is in a stew about race. For two terms during the 1990s, to the consternation of black politicians, white alderman Thomas Murphy represented the majority-black 18th ward. Blacks thought they were finished with him after 1998, when redistricting gave the 18th ward an 85 percent black “super-majority,” and drew Mr. Murphy’s house right out of the district. Mr. Murphy himself gave a tearful City Hall speech that sounded like a final farewell. However, in 1999 he won 57 percent of the vote in a nine-candidate race, moved back into the 18th ward, and kept his place on the city council.

Now, as alderman for a nearly all-black ward, he has set the political establishment on its ear by asking to join the city council’s black caucus. The blacks say no. “I don’t think Ald. Murphy can look out of the same eyes we do as African-Americans,” says Alderman Carrie Austin. Mr. Murphy points out that he represents more blacks — 47,000 — than some of the blacks on the caucus who won’t let him in. “The purpose of the caucus is to represent the interests of black residents of the city,” he says. “Apparently they think it’s some other purpose — their own personal interests.” Mayor Richard Daley agrees, saying it is not the race of the alderman but the race of the constituents that matters. “This idea that you can only represent a racial and ethnic group by yourself is not what America stands for,” he explained.

One black alderwoman Dorothy Tillman, has been particularly outspoken about not wanting a white man in the caucus. She is Chicago’s most prominent promoter of reparations, and claims that “post traumatic slavery syndrome” continues to impede black progress. She says the caucus is “where our group gets together and discusses our interests.” She doesn’t want Mr. Murphy on the city council, much less in the caucus. “We want that seat to belong to an African American,” she says. “We want to make sure to take that seat.”

Miss Tillman has had other recent dust-ups over race. Last year, at a fund-raising event at the tony Palmer House, one of her staffers asked hotel management to make sure all the waiters were black. The hotel obligingly asked a white, an Arab, and a Hispanic to serve at a different function that night. Now the white and the Arab have sued the Palmer House for $100,000 to make up for the “emotional stress, humiliation and other damages” they suffered. Mayor Daley once again decided to tell us what America is about: “You can’t go into a restaurant and say, “Who’s in the kitchen and who’s serving me?’” he said. “That’s not what we stand for.”

Miss Tillman says her staff asked only for more blacks, not only blacks. “I make no apology for asking that black people get some benefit from the money we spend with any business or organization,” she says. Miss Tillman adds it would be perfectly fine for a white customer to book events at black-owned establishments and ask for white waiters — so long as there were at least a few blacks. “I would get upset if you said all of us had to leave,” she explains. Miss Tillman insists she doesn’t dislike whites. “I’m just pro-my people,” she says. Her chief of staff reports that she has had many calls from “people in the hospitality industry” who say there is “nothing unusual about making those kinds of requests.” [Mary Mitchell, Black Aldermen Discover Race Issue Double-edged, Chicago Sun-Times, July 17, 2001. Fran Spielman, Daley: Let Murphy in Black Caucus, Chicago Sun-Times, July 17, 2001. Rick Hepp, Tillman: “No Apology’ for Requesting Black Waiters at Hilton Event, Chicago Sun-Times, July 16, 2001.]

St. Louis Still Suffering

Irene Smith is a black member of the St. Louis, Missouri, Board of Aldermen. On July 17, she was filibustering the board, trying to prevent a redistricting plan blacks think will dilute their power. At one point she asked the presiding alderman, James Shrewsbury — who is white — if she could take a bathroom break without giving up the floor. He said no. About 40 minutes later, Miss Smith’s aide’s walked up to where she was standing and surrounded her with a sheet, quilt, and a tablecloth. The board was then treated to the sound of Miss Smith urinating into a wastebasket. Later, the board adjourned without voting on the measure Miss Smith opposed.

St. Louis blacks virtually all support Miss Smith, and many say Mr. Shrewsbury was “racist” not to let her use the rest room. Whites disagree, and say the incident has made St. Louis the butt of jokes. On July 23, police filed a citation against Miss Smith for violating a city code barring lewd conduct, which includes public urination. City Counselor Patti Hageman said her office was considering filing misdemeanor charges, which could result in a fine of up to $500, and 90 days jail time. Miss Smith says she is innocent. “What I did behind that tablecloth is my business,” she says. [Embarrassment, Bitterness After Alderman Expresses Herself in Novel Way, Fox News, July 19, 2001. Police File Citation Against St. Louis Alderman Over Alleged Urination During Meeting, AP, July 25, 2001.]

Malay Malaise

Malaysia is a nation of 23 million people, of whom 65 percent are native Malays, 25 percent are Chinese, and about 10 percent are Indians. Malays, or “bumiputras” (sons of the soil) as they are called, cannot compete with Chinese or Indians and have benefited from 30 years of extensive “affirmative action” in education, business opportunities, and land ownership. Prime Minister Mahatir Mohammad, who has run the country for 20 years, is deeply frustrated by how poorly his people do in comparison with the Chinese.

“Why can’t the Malays be like them?” he wants to know. “Those with AIDS are Malays, drugs also involve the Malays, rape and murders . . . You name anything that is bad, the majority are Malays,” he says. “Why does it only involve the Malays? Why not the Chinese?” He adds that if it were not for persistent preference programs Malays would “fail totally.” He says that if he were granted one wish it would be that “the Malays would change” and be more like Chinese.

Lately, Mr. Mahatir has been particularly annoyed with Malay students, who have guaranteed access to a generous quota of university places even when Chinese or Indians get better grades. He is considering making students sign an agreement promising to attend lectures, take notes, and ask questions. He says too many Malays either goof off or join anti-Mahatir political movements: “Only those interested in study should join the university.”

In other developments, it was recently reported that three Malays have been arrested for sacrificing a Minnesota woman to spirits who were supposed to tell them the winning number of a popular lottery. In 1999, the three reportedly lured Carolyn Jamica Noraini Ahmad (née Bushell) to an oil palm plantation, where they told her she could meet a priest who would help her with personal problems. The 35-year-old mother of four disappeared, and her car was later found with bloodstains on the seat. One of the suspects has now led police to her body, which was found with head and ankles severed. Her husband, Roslan Ahmad, was able to identify the remains from pieces of clothing. Belief in black magic is still fairly common among Malays, and there are occasional reports of human sacrifice, usually in connection with attempts to learn winning lottery numbers. [Mahatir Asks Why Malays Can’t be Like Chinese, Reuters, July 22, 2001. Mahatir Warns Malays About Study Privileges — Paper, Reuters, July 28, 2001. Trio Charged with Lottery Murder, Reuters, July 27, 2001. Officials in Malaysia Say Minnesotan Died in Ritual Killing, AP, July 1, 2001.]

African Angst

Many Nigerians believe in magic, too. Recently a 13-year-old girl confessed to killing 48 people over the last seven years and using their organs for black magic rituals. She was being interrogated about the disappearance of a two-year-old boy in the northeastern town of Maiduguri, and confessed to killing scores of others. She explained that she removed the boy’s heart after killing him. The girl says she was initiated into the black-magic cult by a government employee whom police have since arrested. [Teenager Kills 48 for Rituals? Reuters, July 27, 2001.]

But it is the Congo — former Zaire — that appears to be having the worst time with black magic these days. Civil war has been raging for three years in the northeastern part of the country, and Western drugs have not been available for some time. Endemic diseases once under control — including plague — have returned, and local people think the problem is witchcraft. As part of a campaign to rid the world of non-witches by 2006, sorcerers are said to have concocted a poison that has only to be rubbed on the outside of a building to kill the people inside.

Bush trials have been set up to put a stop to this sort of thing. Several weeks of rough justice that began in late June have resulted in the slaughter of a confirmed 843 witches, though the death toll could be has high as 4,000. Some witches are easy to spot. “We knew who the witches were because at night a fire would come from the sky and engulf the witch’s house, but it would not burn it because the fire came from hell,” one local woman explained. One type of witch, known as “night dancers,” cavorts naked around the houses of their victims before they steal the blood of children and store it in underground tanks. When cagey witches refuse to identify themselves by dancing naked or surviving fire balls, it suffices to catch one and torture him until he identifies others. Troops from neighboring Uganda have been called in to stop the killing. [Henry Wasswa, 200 Suspected Witches Slain, AP, July 6, 2001. Adrian Blomfield, Massacre by the Jungle Witch-Hunters, Electronic Telegraph (London), July 28, 2001.]

Let ’em All In

President George Bush has been touting a plan that would grant legal status of some kind to illegal immigrants from Mexico, of which there are an estimated three million. Lately, this plan has come under fire — not from people who are opposed to legalization but from those who think it would be “discriminatory” to legalize only Mexicans. Africans, Koreans, and Central Americans insist such a plan must not exclude them. Steve Ladi, a Dallas immigration lawyer and director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association agrees, saying a Mexicans-only plan would be “un-American.”

Mr. Bush doesn’t want to be un-American. “Obviously, the Mexican issue is at the forefront because we’re preparing for my first state visit with my friend [Mexican President] Vicente Fox,” he says. “But I’m open-minded. I’ll listen to all proposals that people have in mind.” Mr. Bush is to meet Mr. Fox in September and hoped to be able to offer the Mexicans some kind of legalization plan at that time. Legalization would require congressional action. [Karen Brooks and Diane Smith, Bush Plan May Cover All Immigrants in U.S., Star-Telegram (Dallas), July 27, 2001, p. 1.]

Congress could well comply. On July 29, Senator Robert Graham of Florida said on ABC’s “This Week” that he favors “earned legalization.” He referred to the “humanitarian tradition of the United States to periodically allow those persons who have been here for a period of time — and have demonstrated their good behavior — to become citizens.” Tradition? It happened once, in 1986, and was supposed to be a “one-time” amnesty.

Keep ’em All Out

The “peace process” in the Middle East has been based on the theory that some kind of agreement could be reached with Palestinians that would permit cross-border cooperation. Now there is increasing support in Israel for unilateral separation and walling off the Palestinians. Local councils along the Green Line — the pre-1967 border between Israel and the West Bank — have been building what they call “agricultural security fences” to keep out infiltrators. In the longer term, these fences could run along the entire 200-mile border and freeze out Palestinians completely. The Israeli government has not taken a position on the construction of a border wall, but local officials say they have the quiet financial support of the Defense Ministry.

More academics now support unilateral separation. Shlomo Avineri, a scholar and former director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, says Jews should pull out of Gaza entirely and wall it off. They should also give 90 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority as well as the outer suburbs of Jerusalem. The Palestinians who used to cross into Israel to work will just have to stay put. Mr. Avineri says foreign aid — not, needless to say, from Israel — could be used to create jobs for them. [Gil Sedan, Israeli-Palestinian Separation Becoming Reality, Jewish Week, July 13, 2001.]

Many Israelis would be happy to turn their backs on Arabs but some prefer more active engagement. The Shas party holds 17 of 120 seats in the Israeli Knesset, and its founder and leader Rabbi Ovadia Yossef minces no words: “In the old city of Jerusalem they [Arabs] are swarming like ants,” he said in a July 27 sermon broadcast on army radio. “They should go to hell — and the Messiah will speed them on their way.” Mr. Yossef has also referred to Arabs as “snakes” and “vipers.” He thinks Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been too restrained with the Palestinians, and should not worry about international criticism. “Who are these nations of the world?” he asked in his sermon. “The Messiah will come and scorn them, will condemn them and with a single breath will scatter them.” [Israeli Rabbi Says “Swarming” Arabs Should “Go to Hell,” Agence France Press, July 27, 2001.]

A(w)rap it Up

In order to slow the spread of AIDS, Kenyan president Daniel Arap Moi has called on his people to stop having sex for two years. Just in case Kenyans fail to heed the call, the government also plans to import 300 million condoms. Health officials estimate that 2.2 million people out of a total population of 30 million are infected with the HIV virus, and 700 die of AIDS every day.

Religious leaders oppose importing condoms, saying they will increase promiscuity. Sheikh Mohamed Dor, the secretary-general of the Council of Imams and Preachers, says young Kenyans will be encouraged to experiment with sex and then stop using condoms. “This will just increase the number of cases of AIDS,” says Sheikh Dor.

Taxi driver James Karijoki said he will continue to have sex and not use condoms. “It’s like eating a sweet with a wrapper, you cannot do that,” he said. “You have to have sex, those who will die will die, and whoever does not get AIDS, then good for him.” [Simon Denyer, No Sex for Two Years, Moi Urges Kenyan People, Reuters, July 12, 2001.]

‘A Real Shootout’

“Greekfest” used to be an annual New Jersey gathering of members of black college fraternities, but now attracts young blacks of all sorts. This year’s Greekfest, held in the beach town of Asbury Park, New Jersey, on July 15th, attracted 5,000 people. Only 50 police were on hand when 3,000 blacks decided to march from the boardwalk into town, throwing rocks and bottles. Before the night was through, festival-goers shot three people, robbed at least five more at gunpoint, hijacked several cars, groped and molested women, and stripped the clothes off a 13-year-old girl. The next day, police collected hundreds of spent shell casings strewn across several city blocks.

“There were reported gunshots all over, and apparently, there were some running gunbattles,” said Monmouth County Prosecutor John Kaye. At one point men hijacked a vehicle but could not get away because of gridlock. Instead, says Prosecutor Kaye, they roared around a parking lot causing “mass hysteria.” Mr. Kaye says there was a report of a black sport-utility vehicle with its windows shot out returning fire with a “fully automatic weapon.”

“It was a real shootout, no doubt,” says Deputy Mayor James G. Bruno. “I expect arrests to continue for weeks after this,” adds Mr. Kaye. [Peter Eichenbaum and James W. Prado Roberts, Mayhem Follows Festival in Asbury Park, Asbury Park Press, July 17, 2001.]

Another Hoax

On May 10, 2000, someone set fire to Mrs. Jaelynn Sealey’s 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier and painted “Go Home Nigger” on the garage door of her Huntersville, North Carolina, home. The police considered it a possible hate crime. More than 400 people attended an anti-hate rally a few days later, and the town gave the Sealeys $2,255 it raised in donations. On July 10, 2001, Mrs. Sealey was in federal court in Charlotte, facing charges that she burned the car herself to collect insurance money so she could pay off debts.

At the time of the incident, police looked for a white man with whom Mrs. Sealey claimed to have exchanged words on the day of the fire. They also investigated and cleared a group of high schools students who were reportedly involved. Police then asked the Sealeys to take a lie-detector test; they refused. In Mrs. Sealey’s garage the police found a can of the same kind of paint that had been used to paint the slur on the door. Just hours before the fire, Mrs. Sealey bought a new minivan, and called her insurance company to ask if the Cavalier was still insured.

Whites don’t regret their initial support for Mrs. Sealey but admit their feelings have changed. “Given what we knew at the time, we’d do it again,” says Cindy Dorman, vice president of the Wyndfield Homeowners Association, but she adds, “there’s a tremendous sense of betrayal for the whole town.” [Robert F. Moore, Woman Charged With Faking Hate Crime, Charlotte Observer, July 11, 2001, p. 1.]

Uncivil Wrongs

Mary Frances Berry is the chairman of the supposedly non-partisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She is also a partisan Democratic black. Since the November election, she has used her office to undermine the legitimacy of the Bush presidency by issuing a fanciful “report” claiming blacks were deliberately disfranchised in Florida. She also suppressed a dissenting report written by the Commission’s two Republicans.

In a speech at the NAACP convention in New Orleans in July, Miss Berry crowed over the fact the Democrats had regained control of the U.S. Senate. As she explained, before the defection of Sen. James Jeffords “I was just wondering when Strom Thurmond was gonna die.” The audience laughed and applauded, and gave Miss Berry a standing ovation after her talk. Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC), is 98 and in poor health. It is easy to imagine the outcry that would have greeted a similar remark by a white government official about a black. [Peter Roff, Going Negative, UPI, July 12, 2001.]

Raping White Girls

On July 7, a dozen Middle Eastern men repeatedly raped a white Australian teenager in a suburban Sydney schoolyard. After they had finished with her, they scrawled degrading slogans on her body. She was just the latest victim in an ongoing campaign by Middle Eastern men to rape white women. Over the past two years, at least 70 white Australian girls between the ages of 13 and 18 have been raped, beaten and humiliated in attacks police fear have become “culturally institutionalized” among Middle Easterners. The attacks are continuing at a rate of at least one per month, despite a special police task force set up to stop them.

Police say the rapists approach girls with flattery, by claiming to be friends of a friend, or by offering to buy drinks. Before the assaults begin, the rapists taunt the women about being white or about their attackers’ sexual prowess. Police have charged 15 Middle Eastern men with more than 300 offenses. Investigations have been difficult because many of the girls are too embarrassed to come forward or fear reprisals. [John Kidman, 70 Girls Attacked by Rape Gangs, Sydney Morning Herald, July 29, 2001.]

Hereditary Victims

The Clinton administration give-away to black farmers about which we reported has finally begun to break the surface. Fox news has tumbled to the fact that although there are only 18,000 black farmers in the United States 40,000 blacks claim to have been victims of U.S. Department of Agriculture racism.

Fox reports that employees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) claim the settlement was nothing more than an attempt by the Clinton-Gore administration to buy votes. “They needed this election,” said Tom Kalil, a USDA loan official and member of Executives Committed to an Honorable Organization (ECHO), a group of USDA employees who have raised questions about the settlement. “I would suggest hundreds of thousands of votes were influenced in this election as a result of what I consider to be a huge violation of justice and abuse of power and abuse of the system and abuse of the American taxpayer.”

As reported in AR, the terms of the $50,000-per-farmer offer are so vague they invite fraudulent claims. “You didn’t even have to live in the rural community,” Mr. Kalil says. “Heck, somebody from here in the Washington area could have been passing through a rural community and decided that they would have liked to farm and put in an application.”

Blacks insist they deserve the money anyway. “This suit is about the fact that [federal officials] practice racial discrimination, that they have terrorized black people, black farmers in this country, and that they have stolen from us what was rightfully ours,” said Gary Grant, a black farmer. “We’re talking about people who lost land, who lost hundreds, who lost thousands of acres of land.” Farmer Grant says blacks deserve the money even if they were never farmers. “If you are an African-American, you deserve $50,000 because your roots are in farming and your folk have already been cheated. You are collecting what your grandparents didn’t have the opportunity to.” [Steve Brown, Settlement Is a Crass Action, USDA Employees Say, FoxNews.com, July 14, 2001.]

Segregation for Prisoners

In a remarkable May 7 decision that went almost completely unreported, the federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that prison guards may sometimes have a duty to segregate prisoners. A black plaintiff claimed guards mixed blacks and Mexicans in an exercise yard even though they knew there was so much racial hostility it could lead to attacks. Judge Harry Pregerson agreed, saying prison officials must take reasonable measures to protect inmates from violence at the hands of other prisoners. When it is known that racial tensions are high, segregation is a reasonable measure.

This ruling is now law in the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Washington, and Oregon. It means that if prison officials know their institutions are racial powder kegs but fail to segregate them and violence erupts, they may be held personally liable. At least in prisons, racial reality is beginning to undermine integrationist dogma. [Prisons and Jails — Civil Right Actions — Racially Integrated Exercise Yards, Criminal Law Reporter, May 23, 2001, p. 215.]

There is some irony in that the plaintiff in this case is black, because it is white prisoners who are in greatest danger of racial attack. Human Rights Watch has just published a book about rape in American prisons called No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons. Their research confirms that the most likely rape victims are young, slightly-built whites. Unless they are prepared to fight to the death, they almost invariably become the “property” of blacks, who rent them out for oral or anal copulation. The study finds that men of all races are raped, but that blacks and Hispanics protect their own “women.” That is to say, a black may rape another black, but blacks will kill or maim a Hispanic or white who buggers a black. Hispanics likewise do not let prisoners of other races rape Hispanics. It is only whites who are not defended by men of their own race, and are fair game to be sodomized by all comers. The book can be read online.

Yahweh on the Loose

Hulon Mitchell was the leader of a 1980s all-black, anti-white “religion” called the Nation of Yahweh. Using the name Yahweh Ben Yahweh, he required candidates for membership in his Miami cult to kill at least one white person and bring back a piece of the body as proof. At first he insisted on the head, but this was a lot of trouble, so he later settled for a finger or an ear. At least seven whites died at the hands of Yahweh followers. He also showed his flock pornographic videos of black men having sex with white women, and told them this was proof that whites were degraded. Former pro football player Robert Rozier was a member of the cult, and was a star witness against Mr. Mitchell at his 1992 trial.

Mr. Mitchell was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, and will soon be eligible for parole. The parole board has ordered him not to associate with any former members of the cult, but Mr. Mitchell has sued, claiming this violates his First Amendment rights. His lawyer Jon May says “these are extraordinary types of restrictions and patently unconstitutional.” Mr. Mitchell plans to return to Miami upon his release. [Jay Weaver, Yahweh on Verge of Getting Out of Prison, Herald (Miami), July 10, 2001.]

A California white racial activist named Alex Curtis was recently put on probation with similar restrictions on the people with whom he may associate. There are no reports of First Amendment suits on his behalf.

LETTERS FROM READERS

Sir — I recently read “The Christian Doctrine of Nations” by H. A. Scott Trask in your July issue. He is absolutely right about race and nations, and backs it up with scripture. It breaks my heart to see what is happening to our race. Whites have been taught to believe “equality” includes marrying blacks. I suspect that in order to have a one-world order, the elites plan to create a one-world race, or non-race. Nationalism and racial identity must be eliminated if all nations are to be merged together.

Gladys Woolverton, Mount Enterprise, Tex.

Sir — As your July cover story points out, the Bible clearly teaches the “cosmic” importance of nation. I am a Roman Catholic. Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Part 1, Section 1, Chapter 2, Article 1, Subsection 2, Heading 2) says about “nations:”

56. “After the unity of the human race was shattered by sin God at once sought to save humanity part by part. The covenant with Noah after the flood gives expression to the principle of the divine economy toward the “nations,’ in other words, towards men grouped “in their lands, each with [its] own language, by their families, in their nations.’ [Gen 10:5; Gen 9:9-10, 16; Gen 10:20-31.]”

57. “This state of division into many nations, each entrusted by divine providence to the guardianship of angels, is at once cosmic, social and religious. It is intended to limit the pride of fallen humanity [Acts 17:26-27; Dt 4:19; Dt (LXX) 32:8.] united only in its perverse ambition to forge its own unity as at Babel. [Wis 10:5; Gen 11:4-6.] But, because of sin, both polytheism and the idolatry of the nation and of its rulers constantly threaten this provisional economy with the perversion of paganism. [Rom 1:18-25.]”

It is clear, then, that the division of mankind into separate nations, each distinguished from the rest by blood (in their families), culture (each with its own language), and by sovereign territory (in their lands), is willed by God for our well-being.

How can any Catholic support the unlimited right to immigration, without regard to race or religion?

Walter Yannis

Sir — Thank you for the July article by Frank Borzellieri, “Censoring the Color of Crime.” I personally have sent at least 50 copies of either the entire report or sections of it to various media outlets, and know for a fact it has been censored. For example, six weeks after I sent a copy to CBS, I received a call from an assistant producer seeking the New Century Foundation phone number, but have yet to see any coverage by them of the “Color of Crime.”

Warren Brown, Portland, Maine

Sir — I must compliment you on your June article, “Arguments for Our Side.” It is an excellent essay that can be a boost to millions of demoralized whites. I was also pleased to hear you recently on KSFO in San Francisco. You are obviously making the rounds, and getting out your message.

Violent crime is another “argument for our side.” When people mention James Byrd, counter with Brandy Duval. She was a young white Colorado girl gang-raped, sodomized, tortured and stabbed 30 times by six blacks and Hispanics, who then dumped her corpse into a ditch. The trial started on the same day as the Byrd trial, but was ignored. Continue to pile on with countless recent anti-white crimes censored by the media. The most common response is “How do you know about this?” or “Why focus on this type of thing?” The latter response is particularly ironic when it comes from someone who has just brought up James Byrd.

Name Withheld, Dublin, Cal.

Sir — I find it curious that in your August review of Alexander Keyssar’s The Right to Vote, you did not link the American colonists’ declaration of their right to revolt against the king — couched in the language of “no taxation without representation!” — with their descendants’ inability to resist the successive demands for political representation, first by propertyless white men, and later, blacks and women. These later claimants’ demands for “inalienable rights,” make sense only in light of 1776.

During the civil rights revolution, Martin Luther King even described the Declaration of Independence as a “promissory note” for the political independence of blacks. Once propertied white men began to talk about liberty existing in nature for all men it became injustice to deny it to any. With no hereditary authority — neither king nor aristocracy — to stand in the way, the bidding war for more votes and money doomed the chance of maintaining a republic with an oligarchy of propertied white men. The latest chapter in this record of pandering is the appalling scramble for the Hispanic vote.

If white Americans ever seek recourse to a revolution that would “break the political bands uniting them” with those who cannot be assimilated, the irony will be that it was the American Revolution’s original claims of equal natural rights that laid the intellectual foundations for the rise to power of nonwhites. Most whites cannot give up their attachments to the rhetoric of the Revolution. They cannot imagine a society whose basis is not one of equal rights — except, perhaps, for the current anti-white regimen in which they are servants. The Revolution, it seems, is finally devouring its children.

A Tory from Virginia

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