Revanchism and the Postmodern Liberal Mind

The recent events involving Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea has inspired an essay by Carlin Romano in the latest Chronicle of Higher Education on revanchism and irredentism (here). He says that these topics are generally avoided by scholars, but eventually names four books that deal with the topic in a limited way. The first, by Timothy Snyder, deals with Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Belarus, and the author goes way back to the medieval period to talk about all the twists and turns concerning borders in that area. Romano asks, “Does anybody (besides Snyder) remember Austrian Galicia and Russian Volhynia in the late 18th century?” Well, yes, I do. In Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, which I read when I was about nineteen, one chapter begins, “Leo Naptha came from a little place near the Galician-Volhynian border” (p. 440). I had never heard of either of these places, so I looked them up, and the episode stayed in my memory all these years.

Another book he mentions, though he thought of it as the weakest of the four, is by Cara Nine, and he thought it weak because she is too abstract, “as if she’s operating in cloud-cuckoo land, oblivious to, or just not interested in, how states actually determine their borders.” He thinks this is true of many political theorists and mentions John Rawls as one of the offenders who regards borders as a given, but I have to put in a good word for Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia. While he doesn’t address this question specifically that I can recall, he does talk about cases in which some rogue group within a state demands the right to inflict violence and how this can cause a breakdown of that state. I have found this a good model for understanding Lebanon and Somalia.

Anyway, my main reason for mentioning this essay is how strange it is that it appears now rather than after 9/11. While Romano talks about how most scholars shy away from the topic of revanchism, those of us in the Resistance (see here) are well aware of it, because we have often heard it from the Islamists. For example, a few months after 9/11, Osama bin Laden gave a lengthy statement in which he claimed (among other things) that al-Andalus (i.e., Spain) really belonged to the Muslim world and not the West. Yet, this elicited no comments from anyone in academia, particularly the Collaborationist wing (again, here). So, Romano’s theme could be applied to himself: he himself shied away from discussing this example at the time, and he is now shying away from it in his current essay (which contains no mention specifically of Muslims, though it did mention a problem between Spain and Morocco without going into any details).

Hey, guys, why did it take you so long to get to this topic? Apparently, it’s ok to bring it up with respect to Putin, but it wasn’t with respect to Osama bin Laden and the Muslims. But why? It’s apparently because when it comes to Muslims, the left’s normal faculties suddenly get frozen down. Things they should have been talking about were instead talked about by people on the right, so that is where many of us who were disturbed by what was happening gravitated. Why bother with the left? They had nothing worthwhile to say.

Romano ends his essay by quoting a question from the last author, which he thinks she is right to raise, even though he thinks her book is generally too abstract. The question relates to what general principles govern borders and how if we don’t know what these are in the abstract, we won’t know them in particular disputes. It is an interesting question, but on the whole, I would rather this question were not raised right now. I think many of us know how it will go for Spain if the question does get raised because the Collaborators in academia and our media will raise such a huge fuss about Western imperialism, while saying nothing about Islamic imperialism, that we cannot be sure that Spain’s border, or any border, is safe. Instead of telling the Muslims to go back under whatever rock they crawled out from, the Collaborators will talk endlessly about Western sins and how we need to atone for them, possibly by allowing Muslims to take over the West.

These people cannot be trusted, and so it is better right now not to even have them talk about this topic.

Comments

[John McCrarey]

Outstanding! Came here via Big Hominid so this is my first visit.

To be honest, you may be the only "self-critical leftist" I've ever encountered. The hypocrisy of so many on the left often leaves me shaking my head in wonder. The most recent example is the apoplectic reaction to Israel's defense against Hamas attacks with nary a peep about the far worse atrocities (crucifying Christians!) being administered by ISIS in Iraq.

Again, kudos for your bravery but it must be lonely in your role as a voice of reason on the left.

[Mark Spahn]

I read to nearly the end of this piece before I realized that Collabortors = jihadsymps (to borrow some John Birch-type vocabulary). And I only remembered it because I read your earlier piece proposing an alternative term for counter-jihadis = the Resistance.

[John Pepple]

Mark: I did give a link!

[John Pepple]

John: Many thanks! Yes, it's a bit lonely, especially since so many of my friends are in academia, though my wife always forestalls things by proclaiming herself a centrist. That usually shuts the liberals and leftists up. Also, I know a few academics who don't fall in with the rest of them.

I've never heard of Big Hominid, by the way. I'll have to check it out.

[John McCrarey]

Sorry, should have linked to Big Hominid's post that brought me here. Here it is: http://bighominid.blogspot.kr/2014/07/ave-john.html

[John Pepple]

Wow, thanks for the link. That's the best write-up of my blog I've ever seen!