The Dutch Ernstfall

The Dutch predicament

Observers from those regions of Christendom that have still been spared the worst ravages of the fatal autoimmune disease of ‘Cultural Nihilism’ may wonder at the deafening silence that prevails across the dying nations of Western Europe and the overseas Anglosphere. These nations are now about to taste the final dregs of the bitter cup of postmodern Cultural Nihilism – the fatal cocktail of institutionalized atheism, ‘disaster capitalism’ and cultural relativism that full-blown Modernity has concocted for their peoples. Viewed from Russia and the nations of Eastern Europe, which have only recently recovered from the horror of the Red Plague and which are loudly and rightly re-claiming their sovereign rights and cultural identities, the most unsettling feature of the agony of the nations of Western Europe and the overseas Anglosphere may be its awesome silence. The ‘strange death’ of these nations is outwardly characterized by the unfazed legalism of their authorities, the detached ‘political correctness’ of their media and the apparently unreflecting fatalism of their people. To the extent that the silence surrounding this contemporary Calvary is induced by the stoic acceptance of a fully-deserved fate, it may seem historically justified. But to the extent that it ignores the undeserved suffering of many innocent people, this silence is inappropriate - this Calvary too has unjustly condemned men, agonizing women and desperate bystanders. The innocent victims of Cultural Nihilism include not only those Westerners who suffer the daily horrors of endemic terrorism, mass-rape and violent crime. They also include the millions of indigenous Westerners that are becoming strangers in their own land, replaced by cruel colonists that take their possessions and their women. They also include the millions of Western men that are deprived of work by globalized neo-liberalism and institutionalized matriarchy, the millions of Western women that are deprived of marriage and motherhood by the enforced reversal of gender roles and the millions of Western children that are deprived of a proper family life and a proper education by the collapse of the entire social order. They are the innocent victims of the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ to which the leaders of many Western countries have condemned their peoples. To all these victims, the historian owes a correct chronicle and a just judgment – he is compelled to speak out, even if the truth shatters many comfortable delusions.

Obviously, any voice speaking out from the small Dutch nation will tend to be drowned among the many voices speaking out from its three great neighbours: the small Dutch drama tends to be overshadowed by Britain’s Brexit stand against EU tyranny, Germany’s decision to proceed with accelerated Umfolkung and France’s mad pursuit of nihilist laïcité at all costs. The unobtrusively ‘peaceful’ public image of the Netherlands is further reinforced by a carefully staged appearance of prosperity and stability, aimed at attracting investors and tourists. The glittering material facade of international institutions, business centres and transport infrastructure, however, hides the socio-economic reality of a nation in existential crisis. A small elite of bureaucrats, business leaders and baby boomer retirees has monopolized the ability to live in prosperity and stability. For the large majority of Dutch people, day-to-day life is now marked by chronic economic insecurity, declining living standards, spiraling health care costs, imploding educational standards, effective mass illiteracy, constant terror threats, escalating ethnic tensions, disintegrating family structures and a nauseating public culture that approaches a real-time ‘idiocracy’. This reality is silently ignored by self-censoring media, both at home and abroad.

In a sense, the Netherlands constitute the perfect example of a successful postmodern Cultural Nihilist dictatorship: it manages to outwardly project an idyllic vision of postmodern ‘progress’ and ‘freedom’, in the same manner that the old Soviet Union managed to outwardly project an ideal image of a Socialist workers’ paradise.

But behind this facade, the Dutch people are facing the full historical force of Cultural Nihilism, in the same manner that behind the Soviet facade the Russian people were facing the full historical force of Bolshevism. In the same manner that the Bolshevik facade was finally shattered in the East, so perhaps, one day, the Cultural Nihilist facade will be shattered in the West. For the West to return to anything resembling normalcy, however, alternative voices must be heard. The silence of the West must end before the atrocious reality of Postmodern Cultural Nihilism can end. The strongest voice that can still speak up for the West is also its oldest voice: the voice of Tradition. It has been a long time since the voice of Tradition has been heard in the Netherlands – but no country should go silently into the night.

The inter-national dimension

From a Traditionalist perspective, a nation that depends on other nations for its existence is no longer an authentic nation. In this sense, the modernist phenomenon of ‘globalization’, fostering inter-national interdependence, trans-national institutions and cross-border migration, represents a quintessentially anti-Traditional subversion of the nation-state: it threatens the authority of the state as well as the identity of the nation. Historically, the Dutch nation-state has been a maritime, mercantile, colonial and imperial power: it was, in fact, one of the great Early Modern ‘thalassocracies’ that carried Western Modernity to the far ends of the earth. In this sense, the Netherlands now faces a ricochet effect: Postmodern ‘globalization’ represents a historical nemesis to the direct heirs of Early Modernity’s ‘Protestant Ethnic’ and Early Modernity’s ‘Spirit of Capitalism’. As in the case of other Western European nations, the Netherlands now faces the ‘backlash’ that inevitably results from the historical combination of two simultaneous processes: the implosion of formal colonial power and the explosion of informal trans-national financial and business power. The former process results in the dissolution of ethnic cohesion through centripetal migration: long-term national identity is sacrificed to short-term economic interests. The latter process results in the dissolution of national sovereignty through centrifugal devolution: executive power is ‘outsourced’ to transnational institutions and non-state actors. After absorbing - but not assimilating - large numbers of migrants from its former colonies in the East and West Indies, the Netherlands continued to allow mass-immigration for purely pragmatic reasons. Neoliberal policies favour mass-immigration because it allows for a larger ‘labour reserve’ (decreasing labour costs and workers’ rights), a larger consumer basis (boosting business volumes and prices) and reliable electoral support (‘new citizens’ will vote for those who guarantee their continued ‘citizenship’). After handing over customs control to the Benelux Union and defence responsibility to the NATO alliance, the Netherlands continued to hand over more sovereign power to other trans-national institutions: ‘European law’ has replaced Dutch law, ‘Schengen borders’ have replaced Dutch borders and a ‘European currency’ has replaced the Dutch currency.

From a Traditionalist perspective, the Dutch state is on at the point of disappearing as a sovereign state and the Dutch nation is on the point of disappearing as an authentic nation.

No other nation is obliged to help the Dutch nation in its present predicament – it is even dangerous and wrong to help those who do not want to help themselves. For its imminent disappearance the Dutch nation has only itself to blame. At most, other nations may one day soon be asked to show mercy to individual refugees seeking to escape the disasters facing the Netherlands. If they are not ‘climate refugees’, escaping the drowning cities of the Low Countries when the seas start to rise, then they may be the remnants of the indigenous population, escaping endemic terror, ethnic strife, social implosion and civil unrest – perhaps even civil war. All that these poor refugees may hope for is that other nations will consider them useful immigrant, remembering the old qualities of the Dutch people - productivity, self-reliance, intelligence and endurance. Before this comes to pass, however, it may be that other nations can profit from the example of the Dutch predicament. Given the fact that other Western nations are now facing a somewhat similar predicament, a correct analysis of the mistakes of the Dutch nation may convince other nations to stay clear of the pitfalls that brought down the Netherlands. Such an analysis may still convince the relatively intact nation-states of Eastern Europe to resolutely defend their national sovereignty and national identity. With this in mind, it may be useful for foreign observers to study the preliminaries of the imminent ‘Dutch doomsday’.

Dutch doomsday

Although the Dutch word noodgeval, ‘emergency’, renders an aspect of the German word Ernstfall, ‘case of seriousness’, the reach of the Dutch is much more restricted: the precise content and grave severity of the German word cannot be easily translated into Dutch. Untranslatability, as in this case, always provides a reliable linguistic marker of the unique psychological qualities and spiritual peculiarities that characterize different peoples and cultures – even peoples and cultures that are so intimately related in ethnicity and history as the Dutch and German nations. Behind the solemn German word Ernstfall we can discern the profundity of German philosophy as well as the weight of German history. Even at its surface, we can discern the legal philosophy of Nomos and Katechon and the political practice of Ausnahmezustand and Führerprinzip. Behind the rational calculation of the Dutch word noodgeval we can discern the dispassionate sobriety of a typically Dutch sense of realism as well as the modest heroism of a typically Dutch resilience. Even at its surface, we can discern associations with a calculating ‘insurance’ culture (collective sea dike taxes, social security, limited liability) and a dramatic history of luctor et emergo.ⁱ German culture is historically characterized by a collective commitment to structurally anticipate ‘emergencies’ through ideas and measures based on Ernstfall considerations. Thus, German history is characterized by socio-economic harmony in peacetime and political-military cohesiveness in wartime. Dutch culture is historically characterized by a collective pragmatism and improvisation to deal with entirely unique ‘emergencies’. Thus, Dutch history is characterized by institutionalized hyper-individualized socio-economic anarchy in peacetime and short bursts of astounding collective heroism in wartime.ⁱⁱ

The societal reality of the contemporary Western world, however, is such that there is no longer any clear boundary between war and peace: the entire West is confronted with a rapidly escalating social-Darwinist ‘civil war’ of unprecedented scope and depth. To the good old-fashioned capitalist war of all against all are now added the new wars of old against young, women against men and immigrant against native. Increasingly, these various new forms of societal conflict tend to coalesce into one single ‘permanent revolution’ against all residual forms of social hierarchy and order. Those who have joined the kleptocratic elite through lucrative ‘privatization’, globalized ‘outsourcing’ and financial malpractice can deprive the working poor of their just wages. Those who ‘immigrated’ to the West through bureaucratic loopholes, ‘investment schemes’ and fraudulent ‘asylum procedures’ can cheat their host nations out of their birthright. Those who nurture old black and brown racial grudges against ‘white privilege’ can indulge in the sadistic humiliation of the women and children of the remnant Western natives with virtual impunity. Those who disguise their cultural primitivism in the religious cloak of ‘Islam’ can ‘prove’ the inferiority of Christian message of peace by applying the label of ‘holy war’ to acts of barbaric terrorism. Resentful feminists can ‘deconstruct’ manhood and its political derivates: honour, fidelity and honesty. Narcissist ‘baby boomers’ can fatally compromise the future and happiness of naive millennials. Only a few of the most drastic incidents of this near-global ‘civil war’ pass through politically-correct (self-)censorship: only occasionally does the international conglomerate of Lügenpresse media report an incident of an illegal ‘drone strike’, a terror attack, a ‘farm killing’, a ‘rapefugee’ event, a ‘grooming gang’ or a ritualistic child murder.

This new reality of ‘permanent revolution’ – the Postmodern equivalent of the Trotskyite ‘no war, no peace’ recipe – demands a thorough reflection on the permanent merger of enduring Ernstfall and incidental emergency. The structural lack of facilities to cope with Ernstfall conditions aggravates the permanent reality of continuous ‘emergencies’.

Traditionalist concepts can contribute to a correct assessment of the acute social crisis facing the contemporary West. From a Traditionalist perspective, this crisis is a deeply tragic but entirely logical result of the failure of the Ernstfall provisions of Western civilization. The militant secular nihilism, hyper-altruistic cultural relativism and warped historical-materialist world-view of the Western intellectual discourse are only compatible with the construction of secular and material Ernstfall provisions – and only to the extent that these are ideologically compatible with the neoliberal model of the ‘night-watchman state’. Only a few underpaid police officers are still left to investigate the alarming proliferation of terrorist networks. Only a few overburdened soldiers are still left to deliver ‘hit and run’ pinpricks against the world’s most dangerous totalitarian state and non-state actors. Only a few unsupported customs officials are still left to occasionally pretend that Rotterdam Port and Amsterdam Airport are not the primary wholesale outlets for the world’s greatest drugs cartels. These few hold-outs aside, the only Ernstfall provisions Holland has left are represented by material infrastructure – most sensationally the Zuiderzee Worksⁱⁱⁱ and the Delta Works.^iv In the past, however, Holland also had a number of immaterial – institutional, social-cultural – Ernstfall provisions that have been largely abolished in the course of Modernist ‘progress’, but which were of even more vital importance for the continued existence of the Dutch nation and people than its dikes and sluices. These were the Ernstfall provisions that Holland inherited from the pre-modern world of Tradition. These were the socio-political institutions and cultural-historical structures that created and protected the border, ethnicity, language, values and culture of Holland through the centuries. Monarchy, Nobility, Chivalric Order, Academy and Guild were all among these Ernstfall provisions: these were the institutions that Traditionalist thinkers have always considered as manifestations of the Katechon, of the shield of civilization that protects every authentically Traditional community. A broken dike, a flooded polder, a ruined house – they can be rebuilt. An extinct people, a forgotten language, a lost faith, a ruined culture – they never return.

Modernity: ‘progress’ & ‘freedom’

We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is

the first duty of intelligent men. – George Orwell

All those who refuse to be a nation and all those who wish to deposit religion and culture in the dustbin of history can rejoice in the fall of ancient Ernstfall provisions. For those who think in that manner, there exists no ‘loss of identity’ and no ‘oikophobia’^v – for them there is only scheduled ‘progress’ and commendable ‘freedom’. This is the experiential bubble in which the Dutch social elite is living and in which the Dutch political regime is operating. For those whose inner orientation and natural habitus is defined by neoliberal globalisation, antinationalist universalism and secular-cosmopolitan nihilism the advances of ‘progress’ are cause for joy: the ‘homeopathic’ dilution of ethnicity,^vi the ‘internationalizing’ reform of language, the ‘deregulating’ disruption of economic life, the ‘deconstructing’ subversion of religion and the ‘emancipating’ dissolution of social cohesion. These are the revolutionary processes of Modern ‘progress’ which create the existential vacuum of Modern ‘freedom’: the freedom to ‘live’ without a king who inspires fear and admiration, without a nobility that sets standards of public behaviour and good taste, without a church that requires piety and respectability, without an academy that demands knowledge and wisdom, without a husband who guards honour and virtue, without a father who decides on social boundaries and standards.^vii It is literally a borderless freedom – without constraints on materialism, without social norms, without cultural baggage, without moral duties and without pangs of conscience. It is not only the freedom of drug barons in fancy restaurants and pimps in fancy cars, but also that of smooth-talking politicians in custom-made suits^viii and bonus grabbing bankers in stately mansions. It is the freedom to bury the law in bureaucratic ‘governance’ and to ridicule public justice in rigged ‘debate’. It is the freedom to offer housing, healthcare, employment and subsidies to hundreds of thousands of fake ‘refugees’ and criminal asylum-seekers while hundreds of thousands of indigenous people are homeless, ill, unemployed or buried in ruinous debt. It is the freedom to hand over education and culture to unscrupulous ‘financial managers’ and resentful ‘affirmative action’ appointees at the expense of precious knowledge and irreplaceable heritage. It is the freedom to reserve scarce employment for bored feminists and incompetent allochtonen, or ‘non-natives,^ix at the expense of unemployed bread-winners and potential heads of family. It is the freedom to quickly amass a fortune through drugs trade and prostitution and to reduce hard work and prudent thrift to laughable anachronisms. It is the freedom to kill unborn children and ‘redundant’ senior citizens for the sake of abstract illusions such as ‘personal autonomy’ and ‘quality of life’. It is the freedom which gives a democratic ride to car ownership and air travel holidays, even if anthropogenic climate change has reduced former Dutch pastimes such as ice-skating and snowball fights to distant childhood memories. It is the freedom of ‘parents’ to built yet another holiday home when their children fund their education through ruinous student debts.^x It is the freedom to indulge in fashionable abuse of your children stepchildren with virtual impunity when serial monogamy and wife swapping no longer suit your jading appetites. It is the freedom to cheaply feed yourself on dead animals every day without having to think about the millions of innocent creature that are ground into mincemeat by Holland’s industrialized torture program euphemistically known as ‘bio industry’.

This is the combined neo-liberal and cultural-Bolshevik freedom that allows Modernity’s self-appointed Uebermensch to truly be ‘himself’, ‘herself’ or – according to the ironically-correct gender-neutral fashion – ‘itself’. In that ultimate freedom the perfectly contented postmodern consumer can finally withdraw into the undisturbed illusion of paradisiacal happiness: Friedrich Nietzsche’s ‘last man’ has been finally realized in Holland, Western Modernity’s true gidsland, or ‘guiding nation’.^xi This is the freedom which beckons in the ‘Orphaned Society’ described by Pim Fortuyn and which is promised to the ‘bastard children’ described by Peter Sloterdijk. The baby boomers have been pioneering this freedom, the ‘Canal District’ people^xii are practicing this freedom and ‘Planet Section K’^xiii is the guiding star leading to this freedom. Unlike that long-forgotten star of 2000 years ago, ‘Planet Section K’ does not shine for wise kings: it lights the broad democratic road to the five-star inn of Postmodern ‘self-redemption’. There stands the stable of the Modern Anti-Bethlehem, where everybody lives by bread alone, and the great prostitution of New Babylon, where nobody is disturbed by God or Law. There reigns the redeeming certainty that the struggle for a humane existence, the struggle for a dignified identity and the struggle against animalistic atavism are over for all time – simply because humanity has been replaced by the Untermensch reality of measureless materialism and heartless hedonism.

 

Tradition: palingenesia and anagogics

We sleep safe in our bed because rough men stand ready in the night

to visit violence on those who would do us harm. – George Orwell

Many Dutch people, however, still refuse to practice such bestiality and to live such beastly life. There are still well-intended people who wish the Dutch people a different future. For all those who wish to stand up for the future of the Dutch people, it is vitally important that they are able to gauge the true depths of the Ernstfall facing the nation. They should recognize the unmistakable symptoms of René Guénon’s crise du monde moderne and of Carl Schmitt’s Ausnahmezustand. A number of recent political-philosophical developments that have recently occurred in the wider Western world are relevant to the crisis facing Dutch society – they can help achieve a correct contextual assessment of that crisis. In recent years a number of Western thinkers have taken the first cautious steps towards an intellectual Bewältigung of the escalating ‘Crisis of the Modern World’. Peter Sloterdijk’s Die schrecklichen Kinder der Neuzeit, Guillaume Faye’s Archéofuturisme and Jason Jorjani’s World State of Emergency contain a number of analyses and hypotheses that are directly relevant to this crisis. The recent re-discovery of older relevant material, exemplified by recent re-editions and reappraisals of the work of Oswald Spengler and Julius Evola, clearly indicate a general trend to a fundamental Vergangenheitsbewältigung throughout the Western world. The unofficial but very real ‘state of emergency’ that is prevailing throughout the West is already causing scattered incidents of meta-political rearmament. These first centres of resistance cover a wide political spectrum, ranging from neoliberal ‘populism’ (represented in the Netherlands by Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom) and libertarian ‘renaissance’ (represented in the Netherlands by Thierry Baudet’s ‘Forum for Democracy’) to alt-right ‘ethnonationalism’ and old-right ‘romanticism’.

The ultimate weapon available to the West, however, is the also its oldest weapon: its Traditionalist heritage. The Traditionalist ‘Sword of Gnosis’ is its weapon of last resort, to be drawn at the final hour – it can only be drawn from the stone of history by those who are aware of what is truly at stake.

The Dutch people are facing the abyss of historical oblivion. The young generation cannot ignore the double reality of true Ernstfall and acute emergency. True awareness of the existential crisis facing the Dutch people will force the young generation to urgently re-think the Ernstfall provisions with which this crisis can be overcome. So much time has passed since these provisions have been the subject of serious consideration, however, that it is necessary to first review their basic premises. What counts in any confrontation with an existential crisis is always the shortest way to safety and the first weapon at hand – this is true in the physical as well as the psychological sphere. Surviving a profound crisis requires the willingness to engage in total war – within and without. Confronted with an existential crisis a nation must rise above itself and re-invent itself. A nation’s capacity for ‘palingenesia’ – self-renewal – rests on its ability to access the same agglomerate of impersonal and elementary powers that created it in the first place. This ability is both sub-human, because it rests on bio-evolutionary adaption, and super-human, because it rests on a transcendental reference. In older literature the power agglomerate accessed is termed the ‘nation’s soul’ and in ancient myths it is related to super-natural ‘destiny’. In modern science this power agglomerate is described by means of abstract sociological and anthropological terminology, but this fact does not alter the experiential realities represented by the ‘nation’s soul’ and its ‘destiny’. All pre-modern communities, from the smallest jungle tribe to the greatest historical Imperium, are characterized by simultaneously sub-consciously and super-consciously real socio-political mechanisms and societal structures that foster biological and cultural continuity. These mechanisms and structures, which shield ethnicity, language, religion and culture from the wear and tear of history, are the Ernstfall provisions of the pre-modern world. Traditionalist symbolism expresses the dual nature of these Ernstfall provisions in the double-edged sword: it refers to a combined physical and spiritual power. At its highest level, this power creates the supra-national force of Imperium. When Imperium fails, power devolves to the next level – the level of the nation-state. What Jacob Needleman termed the ‘Sword of Gnosis’ refers to a power agglomerate of physical strength, intellectual discernment and spiritual insight. This power combination grants the power of self-renewal not only to individuals and tribal communities but also to whole peoples and great states. This principle is symbolically represented in the mythologies surrounding magical swords such as Gram and Excalibur. The shining ‘Sword of Knowledge’ is always recovered or re-forged when disaster looms closest – in other words: when the ultimate Ernstfall must be faced.

Pre-modern life represents a single, continuous Ernstfall: the wolf eats the sheep, the boar eats the harvest, winter kills the elders, childbed kills the baby, neighbouring tribes kidnap the girl, plundering bandits burn down the house and evil spirits possess the mind. The Ernstfall provisions of the pre-modern world are meant to deal with a permanent theriomachy, a never-ending ‘animal struggle’. This existential war with a host of natural, human and spiritual enemies requires a permanent ‘state of siege’, a constant alertness and battle-readiness. This is the experiential reality that underpins all authentic forms of Traditional life. The world of Tradition is a black-and-white world of good and evil, light and darkness – it is a world that is lived by means of an uncompromising Wehr- und Waffen-Instinkt and which is guarded by guardians on both physical and spiritual walls. These guardians cannot make mistake: every lapse of attention, every doubt and every weakness of the guardians is fatal for the community. The guardian cannot mistake a wolf for a sheep, a stranger for a friend, he cannot lose sight of the gate, he cannot be distracted by idle chatter, he cannot drink when others celebrate, he cannot let strangers talk to children and he cannot let strangers seduce girls. Self-discipline and self-sacrifice determine his thoughts and his behaviour. His vision must stay unclouded and his attention must be single-minded: his own people remain his own people, strangers remain strangers, women remain women, children remain children. Thus, strong, brave and wise people man the walls around vulnerable, sick and weak people. They protect the child, the woman, the old man – their function is institutionally and culturally anchored in their society. At the most primitive level, these people are the guardsmen who kill predators, the warriors who chase off enemies, the medicine men who heal the sick, the shamans who control the spirit world, the tribal elders who do justice and the chiefs who lead their people through the wilds of the world. At the most civilized level, these people are the dike-wardens who check the levees,^xiv the knights who guard the border marches, the surgeons who cure bodies, the priests who cure minds, the magistrates who maintain the laws and the monarchs who maintain the peace. The archetypes of the world of Tradition are the anointed monarch, the born nobleman, the ordained priest, the oath-bound doctor and certified master craftsman.

The universally-recurrent characteristics of the world of Tradition are: holistic integration, hierarchical organization and transcendental direction. All members of the community – tribe, nation – have their own particular place and each member has his or her own specific duties and rights. Place, duty and right reflect archetypal function: there are male roles and female roles, noble rights and civil rights, hereditary privileges and sacred offices. The direction of the world of Tradition is always anagogic: it looks upwards, it strives upwards, it is driven upwards. In the world of Tradition people are always more than themselves, even at in their most mundane experiences. The expectant mother mirrors herself in the Mother of God, the beggar mirrors himself in the Poor Job, the dying man mirrors himself in the Martyred Saviour. The higher vocations are explicitly superhuman: the word of the Priest offers forgiveness, the sword of the Knight conquers the invader, the hand of the King grants healing. At their height, these archetypes reach heroic and holy transcendence. Even the stubborn clay and the down-to-earth people of the small Netherlands have brought forth such greatness: Thomas à Kempis in lived mysticism, Erasmus in philosophical scholarship, Barentsz in daring discovery, De Ruyter in heroic sea wars, Rembrandt in genius artistic vision. Throughout all the hierarchic layers of the world of Tradition rights and duties are always functional, imposing the heaviest burdens on the strongest shoulders. The ideals and ideas of the world of Tradition are superhuman for everybody – but they also grant superhuman strength.

Generation and de-generation of a people

If liberty means anything at all,

it means the right to tell people what they do no want to hear. – George Orwell

From a Traditionalist perspective, also peoples have rights and duties, also peoples have superhuman ideals and also peoples have superhuman strength. A people conquer and defend a territory, a right to exist, a name and a reputation by collectively doing battle with natural challenges and human enemies. The resulting landnám may be limited to a few hectares of hunting grounds in a jungle or it may extend across thousands of miles to form a multi-continental Imperium.

The small Dutch nation represents a modest transitional form, ethnically based on a historic agglomerate of Germanic tribes that settled in the estuary swamps between Ems and Scheldt, slowly taking on its primordial shape over a number of centuries. The pressures of climate, geography and history molded the specialist adaptations that determine Dutch identity - physically, psychologically and spiritually. This means physical survival of the dangerous tidal swamps, the storm floods and the atrocious weather. This means psychological tolerance of the endlessly flat horizon and the sunless winter. This means historical animosity against religious collectivism and political centralism. Swamp and geest^xv are cultivated as polder and garden.^xvi Reed thickets and virgin forest are replaced by villages and cities. Domestic anarchy and foreign tyranny are replaced by law and autonomy. Superstition and witch hunts are replaced by science and humanism. The Spanish global empire, the English naval challenge and the French Sun King are defeated by the Dutch David.^xvii The small Dutch nation has gained its sovereign place among the nations of Europe and the small Dutch state survives the 18^th and 19^th Century social-Darwinist jungle war of nationalism and imperialism. The Netherlands survive the French Revolution, the European Revolution of 1848 and the First World War:^xviii people and state absorb what is compatible, reject was is incompatible and survive what is pathogenic. Finally, however, the Second World War damages the roots of people and state. In the aftermath of the Second World War the first symptoms of fatal external and internal weakness appear: the Netherlands abandons its sovereign rights through the political-economic merger with Belgium and Luxembourg, the military pact with its wartime allies America and Britain and the retreat from the Dutch East Indies.^xix

After a short interlude of infrastructural modernization, mass emigration and cultural Americanization, starting from the mid-1960’s the Netherlands suffer an identity crisis of unprecedented depth and scope. Thus far located on the historical margins of the Western mainstream, the Netherlands now finds itself in the political and economic vanguard of Western ‘progress’ and at the eye of the storm of Western Modernity.

The Crisis of the Modern World hits the Netherlands with full force and the deluge of fully-fledged Cultural Nihilism wipes out all the landmarks of identity and tradition. A heritage of centuries is squandered within the lifetime of just one generation - the ‘baby boom’ generation. Driven by unrestrained consumerism, hedonist narcissism and secular nihilism, the baby boomers build a megalomaniac new Tower of Babel. Traditional family farms are replaced by a grotesque ‘bio industry’ that sacrifices human health and animal welfare ‘for a fistful of dollars’. Manufacture and industry are replaced by a ‘service economy’ and physical labour that cannot be ‘exported’ is delegated to foreign workers.^xx Honest trade and respectable banking, the traditional staples of Dutch enterprise, are replaced with the facilitation of industrial dumping, narcotics traffic, ‘consumer credit’ usury and money laundry through ‘post-box firms’. The national currency is replaced by European ‘monopoly money’. National borders are replaced by global ‘free movement of goods and people’. ‘International treaty obligations’, ‘European law’, ‘market mechanisms’ and ‘free trade competition’ prevail over the most elementary notions of self-preservation, self-respect and moral responsibility.

Forced into a ‘race to the bottom’, Dutch workers are supposed to compete with Eastern European ‘migrant labour’. Forced to implement the American commercial principles of ‘internationalization’ and ‘valorization’ Dutch universities and museums are reduced to a cultural desert. Within a few years, mass immigration causes the total Frisian population, indigenous since the time of the Roman Empire, to be outnumbered by Turkish and Moroccan residents.^xxi Within a few decades, the legal fictions of ‘citizenship education’ and ‘naturalization’ allow for the mobilization of millions of ‘new Dutch citizens’ as consumers, ‘labour reserve’ and electoral reinforcement for the benefit of a tiny anti-national elite. Soon these allochtonen, fattened with ‘targeted subsidies’, pampered by ‘affirmative action’ and supported by ‘anti-discriminatory’ legislation, manage to massively infiltrate all levels of government, the security services, the institutes of higher learning and the public media. ‘Child benefit’ subsidies, ‘family reunification’ policies and ‘refugee resettlement’ programs provide a continuous demographic reinforcement of legally enforced ‘diversity’. Within a few years, monstrous ghettos are formed in the major cities of the country - breeding grounds for criminality, prostitution, extremism and terrorism. Within the lifetime of just one generation, the ‘baby boom’ generation, the country is heavily damaged - irretrievably damaged, as silently hoped by the anti-national elite. All critics of globalization and mass-immigration are systematically persecuted and silenced, usually by means of politically-correct witch hunts and public character assassination. Only a few exceptional talents are granted the privilege of straightforward martyrdom: the gifted spirit of Professor Fortuyn was expelled by a bullet.^xxii

Approaches and choices

In 2002 Professor Fortuyn wrote his last book - De puinhopen van acht jaar paars, ‘The Ruins of Eight Years Purple’.^xxiii In this book he was still able to prescribe a mild cure of democratic reforms and gradual political course corrections for his country. But even these moderate propositions were too much for the Dutch political elite: the elite opted for a Flucht nach vorne. Now, fifteen years later, the socio-political ruin that is the Netherlands requires a much deeper and larger archaeological project than Professor Fortuyn envisioned. A much longer gauging rod is needed to fully fathom the depths of the present crisis. The new generation will have to dig much deeper and cover a much larger terrain. It will have to a re-assess the fundamental notions of Ernstfall and emergency because forty years of betrayal of the nation cannot be cured by a mere cosmetic operation. Perhaps deep in his heart Professor Fortuyn already suspected the true scope of the task ahead, because three weeks before he was killed he wrote in the re-edition of De verweesde samenleving, ‘An Orphaned Society’, that he had been granted the vision of Moses: after forty years in the desert the old prophet ascends a mountain to see the Promised Land. Professor Fortuyn is now allowed to rest from his heavy task, but there is no rest for the living. Now it is up to the new generation to re-claim the Promised Land and to take it back for its people. But this work can only be accomplished with superhuman strength: the pledge can only be redeemed through only an unwavering trust in Divine Providence and a radical willingness to sacrifice comfort and egoism. Only Traditionalist wisdom can still re-discover the sources of this strength, this trust and this commitment. Only Traditionalist wisdom offers a degree of understanding that is sufficiently profound to truly appreciate the Ernstfall facing the nation. Traditionalist philosophy cannot offer ideological precepts and it cannot offer metaphysical hope – it certainly cannot offer a political program. The only thing it can offer is a tested and proven formula for a clear-eyed re-assessment of history. It can provide the intellectual and moral tabula rasa that is a pre-requisite for an authentically-effective form of meta-political rearmament.

Various philosophical-scientific approaches are available to describe the generative and degenerative phenomena that create and destroy peoples and nations, i.e. their diachronic development and their synchronic identity. In the final analysis, all of these approaches are functional and they are complementary in relation to each other – even when a specific approach is preferred in certain settings of political correctness or when it is used to sustain certain power monopolies. The Modernist (or ‘historical-materialist’) philosophical-scientific approach has become the preferred approach of institutionalized academic science: it focuses on material factors and utilitarian functionalities – these include genetic evolution, epigenetic tendencies, social-geographical conditioning and socio-economic dynamics. The Traditionalist philosophical-scientific approach, on the other hand, focuses on immaterial factors and macrocosmic functionalities – these include cultural-historical dynamics, psycho-history, meta-historical interpretation and transcendental references. From a

Traditionalist philosophical-scientific perspective, the Ernstfall provisions of a given community are important reference points in describing the synchronic identity and diachronic development of that community – they allow for a diagnosis of the present sustainability and future trajectory of that community.

The most important Ernstfall provisions that recur throughout Western and Dutch history are the Monarchy, the Nobility, the Church and the Academy. Thus, it is important to determine to what extent these old institutions – to the degree they still exist – can still be relevant as Ernstfall provisions in the context of the present Crisis of the Modern World. If they cannot, they will have to exit the stage of history in infamy. In that case, history may yet create entirely new institutions, suited to entirely new conditions: these new institutions will serve entirely new peoples and new nations – peoples and nations that will probably be radically re-defined and historically un-recognizable. But if these old institutions recover their relevance to the present Ernstfall, they can provide the strongest shields and the best swords in a war of national re-birth. In that case, Western nations and peoples may yet survive in historically recognizable forms.

The fundamental issue at stake may be summarized in a single question: what is the contemporary raison d’être of these historical institutions? It is a question that the institutions of Academy, Church, Nobility and Monarchy must ask themselves – it is also a question that only they themselves can answer. Can the Academy still be the Academy – and does it wish to be? Can it still return to the high task of substantive transmission of knowledge and fundamental research on behalf of nation and people? Or does it merely wish to generate comfortable tenures and hollow titles for resentful feminists, unscrupulous foreigners and corrupt management consultants? Can the Church still be the Church – and does it wish to be? Can it still return to the sacred task of spiritual defence and ministry on behalf of nation and people? Or does it merely wish to create a ‘neo-spiritual’ smoke-screen to cover self-appointed ‘New Age’ high priests, hypocritical sexual offenders and traitors that open the gates to criminal and illegal immigrants?^xxiv Can the Nobility still be the Nobility – and does it wish to be? Can it still return to the knightly calling to serve king and country in the military, at court, in diplomacy and in governance? Or does it merely wish to cover a cowardly love of ease with a beautiful old name? Can these old institutions re-invent themselves, and re-define themselves - where necessary with new people, new names and new ideas? Or do they wish to take their place in history’s museum of curiosities? Can these old institutions find a new role, befitting new conditions and new problems? Or do they wish to acquiesce in the pseudo-intellectual discourse of ‘historical progress’ propagated by the cultural-nihilist elite? In the latter case, they will disappear in the rubbish bin of history. At most, they will be re-invented - in a radically different form - by the people that they have betrayed.

There is one old institution that has not been questioned yet – the Monarchy. The reason for this omission is simple: in the Netherlands the Monarchy is beyond question – the Netherlands stands or falls with the House of Orange. A return to a ‘republican stewardship’ presided over by the House of Orange^xxv is not possible: nobility can rise in title – from prince to king – but it cannot fall. This means that the Netherlands is either a Kingdom under the House of Orange, or nothing. The Dutch state and the Dutch people are both creations of William of Orange^xxvi - he is literally the ‘father of the Dutch nation’. Whether one likes it or not, the conjoined destiny of the Dutch nation and the House of Orange is a fact and it is a fact about which the real Dutch people do not tolerate disputation – in spite of all freemasonic fantasies, all republican rhetoric and all patrician envy.^xxvii The Orange Monarchy is the last line of defence and the strongest citadel of the Netherlands – it is the ultimate Ernstfall provision of the Dutch nation and people. Reverence and respect for the Orange Monarchy is not a matter of sentimental bigotry: first and foremost it is simple reverence and respect for the Dutch nation and the Dutch people. Second, it is the logical and inevitable consequence of any authentically Traditionalist approach of Dutch identity in terms of state and nation. Third, it is a simple recognition of historical reality. The Kingdom of the Netherlands, as founded by the Vienna compromise of 1814, represents Dutch national sovereignty in the jungle of international geopolitics. The narrow-minded merchants, the independent gentleman farmers and the quarrelsome citizens inhabiting the Low Countries would never have survived the era of social-Darwinist nationalist and imperialist Realpolitik as a sovereign nation under a decentralized merchants’ republic. The House of Orange, immensely rich Uradel with a redoubtable political and military reputation, not only continues to provide international prestige and diplomatic grandeur to a nation of canards, canaux et canailles,^xxviii but also continues to constitute a lofty symbol of national identity and historical continuity. Whereas the terror of 20^th Century hyper-democracy has reduced most Western heads of state to anonymous interim managers, the King of the Netherlands can still stand next to the Emperor of Japan on a footing of sovereign equality. Despite the hair-splitting of professional historians, the gossip of tabloid journalists and the ideological prejudice of bored intelligentsia, House of Orange is the Dutch nation and the Dutch nation is House of Orange.

Perspective and self-analysis

In times of cultural drought the only remaining well is historical imagination.

- Nicolás Gómez Dávila

 

If the tie between the House of Orange and the Dutch nation ever breaks it will not be because the House of Orange disappears, but because the Dutch nation disappears. By the time that a republican Rutte ‘Regency’ or a Pechtold ‘Presidency’ is announced,^xxix the Netherlands will no longer exist. Such figures will be mere caricature landvoogden, or ‘district governors’,^xxx mercenary appointees of the international banking cartel and its Brussels politburo.^xxxi By that time, the ‘Netherlands’, overrun by a swarming mass of métèques, will be no more than a geographical expression. The ‘Eurocratic scenario’ - pseudo-autonomy as a lucrative colony under a Brussels superstate – may, in fact, turn out to be the preferable option. In the long run, the ‘Islamic scenario’ is much more realistic: basic demographic calculation makes it likely that the future ‘Netherlands’ will simply turn into a Sperrgebiet of the ‘Eurabian Caliphate’. The latter scenario holds little attraction – at least for the last non-convert natives. One of the last walls that separate the Netherlands from these two scenarios is its Monarchy.

At this historic juncture, the choices that the old Ernstfall institutions of Monarchy, Nobility, Church and Academy will make for themselves and for the Netherlands are all-decisive. This means that no choice necessarily involves a choice: the choice to comfortably and carelessly enjoy a full bank account and a full stomach, but only at the expense of the last remnants of common decency and self-respect. This also means that a choice for the road of least resistance has only one destination: degenerate and dishonourable oblivion. But when future historians will judge the imminent choices of these old institutions, they will also judge the choices of the nation that they were supposed to serve. The common people, effectively divided into what may be termed the Third, Fourth and Fifth Estates, are duty-bound to bear and maintain its Ernstfall institutions: the people should carry hierarchy and support its institutions. If the people fail in their duty, their institutions are left powerless. A people stands or falls as an organic whole: the head does not work without the heart and the arm does not work without the lungs. Recognition of the need for unity, solidarity and cooperation –for a totalizing mobilization of the whole community in Ernstfall and emergency – is a fundamental principle of every authentic Traditionalist theory of statecraft and politics. The holistic vision of Traditionalism teaches that such a mobilization is a fundamental pre-requisite for the re-birth of a nation and a people. Only such a mobilization will allow the Dutch nation to rise from the ashes of Modernity. Above all else, the realization of this essentially timeless vision requires an inner re-generation: it requires a conscious and active rejection of the Modernist pretenses of ‘progress’ and the Modernist illusions of ‘freedom’ - in other words, a total rejection of Modernist cultural-nihilism.

This requires every member of the community – irrespective of formal rank, social status, educational qualification, gender and age – to look into the mirror and ask whether he or she can still see an authentic private destiny and whether he or she can still accept an authentic public role. The mirror of Traditionalism is merciless and it has some disagreeable lessons to teach to the Dutch people:

(1) The Third Estate – the ‘Blue Book’, the ‘patricians’, the regenten^xxxii - cannot separate itself from the nation by money and privilege: it cannot exist without the people. International investment portfolios and overseas real estate holdings are no substitutes for home and identity: even the richest bankers and the most cunning businessmen still are part of their people.

(2) The Fourth Estate – small and medium entrepreneurs, skilled workers, peasants, fishermen – should not imitate the riches and privileges of the patricians and the nobles. Hyper-materialist and immoral wishes are inappropriate for an Estate that is called to productive labour and honourable family life. Ostentation and luxury are not appropriate for people that are called to hard work and simple responsibilities.

(3) The Fifth Estate – resident aliens – must accept a modest place and subservient role in the life of the host nation. Resident aliens should remember the generous hospitality of the host nation. History gives certain groups – Israelites, Roma, West- and East Indies ex-colonials, Afrikaners – the right to a permanent place in the Dutch nation, but not to full legal equality. ‘Guest workers’, ‘migrant labour’, ‘refugees’ and their descendants only have the right to temporary residence: those who no longer engage in productive labour and who no longer qualify for refugee status must return to their countries of origin. Those who are honest and honourable and who recognize the boundaries of common decency can count on a correct parting and a correct final settlement. Those who hold on to fictitious rights through bureaucratic fraud, legal tricks and criminal blackmail can expect an appropriate response. Those who are allowed to stay as members of the Fifth Estate will have to learn to live as guests. That means to maintain a respectful silence when the host nation discusses its own affairs and heritage – and to keep a respectful distance from the rights, property and people of the host nation.

(4) All groups must limit focus their effort and attention on the duties and responsibilities that they have been given by Providence. The First Estate, i.e. the Nobility, has been called to provide the soldiers, diplomats, courtiers, landlords and benefactors that serve the monarchy, the people and the country – without degenerating into rootless cosmopolitans. The Second Estate, i.e. the Church, has been called to provide priests, deacons, teachers, nurses and social workers – not for illegal aliens, but for its own nation. The Third Estate, i.e. the patricians, has been called to sensibly and prudently maintain a financial and industrial framework that creates wealth for all – without becoming an ‘expat’ community in its own country. The Fourth Estate, i.e. the working people, has been called to be productive in professional vocation and to be faithful in family life – not only for the present generation and the present time but also for the next generation and for the future of the nation. The Fifth Estate, i.e. the resident aliens, has been called to remain faithful to its alien roots with maximum autonomy according to the principle of ‘sphere sovereignty’^xxxiii – without being a burden on the host nation.

(5) All individuals must limit their effort and attention on the duties and responsibilities that they have been given by Providence. Bankers and businessmen have a right to enjoy the fruits of their ingenuity and their entrepreneurial ventures – but not to exploit the common people or to interfere in affairs of state. Scientists, artists, entertainers and sportsmen have a right to use their God-given talents and to appropriate public recognition – but not to financial excess and not to interference with public policy. Women have the right to marriage and motherhood – but not to simultaneous experiments in terms of private relations and paid employment. Men have a right to respect as breadwinners and heads of the family – and they must be allowed to be both – but not to abandon work and family commitments at will. Older people have a right to economic security, proper healthcare and the gratitude of the community – but not to a disproportionate share of national wealth and not to excess luxuries at the expense of young people that still have to start their own lives.

(6) Hyper-democracy, in which everybody is allowed and forced to participate in decision-making, is incompatible with the great variety of collective identities and individual destinies that co-exist within every great people. To remedy the disaster of hyper-democracy it will be necessary to limit the democratic process to appropriate spheres of self-regulating sovereign groups and to limit the democratic franchise according to direct interest, proven competency and effective financial contribution. It is unjust to give religious majorities the ‘democratic right’ to decide about the behaviour and conscious of minorities that have a different worldview. It is unjust to give a mass of lazy spongers the ‘democratic right’ to decide how much taxes hardworking people should pay to keep them in idleness. It is unjust to ‘democratically’ force hardworking men that have to feed and clothe their families to pay for the irresponsible partner and parenthood choices of confused and dissolute women. It is unjust to give a mass of envious foreigners the ‘democratic right’ to decide which rights they have in relation to indigenous people whose ancestors have build the nation. It is unjust to give a mass of brainless consumers the ‘democratic right’ to decide about the future of the global ecosystem and about the fate of millions of innocent animals.

(7) Only the simultaneous and full application of the Traditionalist principles of holistic integration, hierarchic organization and transcendental direction can prepare the Dutch people for the Ernstfall and emergency of the present Crisis of the Modern World. The fatal ‘ progress’ of hyper-democratic Modernity and the destructive ‘freedom’ of Postmodern cultural-nihilism can only be exorcized by an honest look in the harsh mirror of Traditionalism. This same Traditionalism, however, also offers the glorious perspective of a national re-birth – a re-birth that can grow from the natural solidarity, the inner strength and the common sense which Divine Providence has granted the Dutch people in ample measure.

If the old institutions and the traditional qualities of the Dutch nation prove themselves unequal to the modern challenges of interethnic struggle, intercultural conflict and interreligious competition, then it simply does not deserve to survive the impending Crisis of the Modern World. In that case, the forces of nature and history must run their course and the Dutch nation must disappear in the great tides of the world. If it must be so, may Divine Providence return our land to the sea – may the waves mercifully cover the moral cowardliness, the political treason, the social injustice and the cultural dirt of the ‘last Netherlands’. If it must be so, may Divine Providence grant our people an honourable seaman’s grave, worthy of our noble ancestors.

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Author’s translation of the article ‘Ernstfall: het Zwaard van de Kennis in de Crisis van de Moderne Wereld’ published on the website of Dutch Alt-Right think tank ‘Erkenbrand’. Two introductory paragraphs and explanatory notes have been added to contextualize the present Dutch predicament and to clarify specifically Dutch themes.