FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - Reactionaries

Rant Number 511       23 October 2012

‘A contemptible little Army’, Kaiser Wilhelm termed the British expeditionary force in France at the outset of WWI. Soon the Kaiser (himself half-English, by the way) regretted his jibe. The Brits fought like lions, Germany lost and Wilhelm fled to Holland. With typical British self-effacing humour, war veterans later styled themselves ‘the Old Contemptibles’.

Young or old, those regarded as ‘reactionaries’ are also treated with contempt. Dismissed as sticks in the mud, irrelevant antiquarians, right-wing fogeys who unreasonably oppose change and look back nostalgically to a lost, idealised past. Like self-deluded folks who dreamt of restoring Byzantium or of resurrecting the medieval Holy Roman Empire of the German nation or indeed the Ottoman caliphate.

It seems to me that reactionaries have only one way to prove they are not a contemptible little bunch of no-hopers: they must, like the brave British soldiers in WWI, fight – and fight to win.

On Saturday I emerged from a central London meeting of such ‘reactionaries’ for the lunch break. In Lower Regent St I encountered the long TUC march against austerity. Posters and banners shouting ‘No Cuts’, ‘Save Our Schools’, and ‘Strike!’ filed past. Wearing my black clerical gear, I crossed through the march, saluting the protesters with a clenched fist salute. It got me plenty of cheers. Guess even lefties relish God’s support. To explain: the priest used to be a Marxist-Leninist. One of my many folies de jeunesse, but as Meister Eckhart says, ‘youth remains in the soul’.

‘A Future that Works’ was the march’s slogan. Yet, I felt the future-orientated marchers were bound to be losers, as unsuccessful as the past-worshipping reactionaries. They too are stuck in a past when the Trade Unions were strong and militant. Today they are a shadow of their former self. Moreover, marches hardly ever achieve anything. Fine for a fun day out with your mates – London pubs must have done wonderfully – but results? Nah! In 2003 one million marched in London’s biggest demo against the war on Iraq. Not just lefties but ordinary people of all persuasions and allegiances. I was there, too. It was peaceful and good-natured. All most impressive but...did it stop the war? The answer is known.

That is not to say that mass action is futile. In fact, it is a most effective operation to bring down a government, a regime, even a whole system. The Arab Spring proves that. But mass action has to be properly targeted, used intelligently. If only half of the Iraq antiwar protesters had been directed to choose the right targets, in peaceful but robust Gandhian fashion, such as military bases, how many innocent lives would have been saved?

Terrorism is a main alternative to mass action. The terror strategy draws young, simple-minded hotheads, abstract theoreticians and fanatics but it never accomplishes its aims. It only intensifies the authorities’ repression and the hostility of common people. Many Russian revolutionaries prior to WWI engaged in one of the most systematic, ruthless campaign of bombings and assassination in history. They failed to effect any change. Many terrorists were hanged – Lenin’s brother was one of them but Lenin’s revenge was not emotional. Instead, he coolly devoted himself to forging the revolutionary vanguard of the future, the Bolshevik party. In the end, of course, it took a disastrous war to make it possible for the revolution to triumph but the vanguard-guided masses did the decisive trick.

Can the reactionaries learn to be Leninists? They too can mobilise masses. In 2002 the Countryside Alliance got nearly half a million people to parade in London. Not just to keep foxhunting but in support of jolly English, rural ways of life. ‘Liberty and Livelihood’ was its rallying cry. They were not, however, radical enough. The shackles of legalism. Storming Parliament the law-abiding citizens could not bring themselves to do. Pity. 

Reactionaries could, in theory, make an impact but they have a big task ahead. First, they must learn to discard pathetic nostalgias and mere antiquarianism. Pining away after urban classical architecture in the manner of Prince Charles, for example, is nothing to do with real tradition. Timeless values can be expressed in novel, exciting formal ways. Even abstract and conceptual art can represent great ideas.  Artists like Kandinsky, Mondrian and Jackson Pollock prove it. Similarly, in poetry and literature. T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and, arguably, Anthony Burgess (think of the dazzling linguistic fireworks ‘A Clockwork Orange’, conveying the truth of freewill versus necessity) were revolutionary traditionalists. In philosophy, thinkers wanted. A lone Roger Scruton is not enough. Anyhow, all this is really part of the essential ideological, cultural battle reactionaries cannot shirk. Until now, they have dismally failed to do that.

Second, reactionaries should not shun tactical alliances with other anti-establishment movements. It may go against their grain but, UKIP apart on the right, the Respect Party is probably the biggest joker in the leftish pack, with a potential for causing a big shake-up in British politics. In the North of England they could capture enough seats to seriously weaken the Labour hold. George Galloway is not Lenin but he is the kind of maverick that could make a difference and deliver a substantial blow to the stifling parliamentary consensus. It will horrify the reactionaries – some would rather put their trust in that ridiculous but congenial populist, Boris Johnson. But Boris, unlike George, is the system. Salvation cannot not lie with Boris.

Third, reactionaries should think hard about their vision for the future. Britain is all very well, and hatred of the EU justified, but the malaise affecting British society today is Europe-wide. Xenophobia, despite appearances still deeply ingrained in the British psyche, is a shallow and not very good thing. (Snobbery is even worse.) Tradition, for instance, is a concept that embraces all Western nations and beyond – Hossein Nasr, Fithjof Schuon and Ananda Coomaraswamy demonstrate it.

Will reactionaries succeed in proving they are not a contemptible – or worse, irrelevant - quaint little patrol?

It is up to them.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli