More on Pambert Speller’s and Romela Gencer’s fact-free “neo-fascism” charge against the EDL

As the blogger Stogie informs us, Pamela Geller’s authority for the supposed neo-fascism of the English Defense League is a Jewish extremist who was forced out of the organization.

I would add that while I have not recently kept closely abreast of matters EDL, my main problem with that organization has not been that they are too right wing, but that they are too liberal—issuing conspicuous, gratuitous expressions of their love for every kind of diversity. Therefore the notion that this group is really “neo-fascist” strikes me as unlikely in the extreme. See this, from last October. And see what I wrote this past February:

The EDL explicitly disassociates itself from any concern about race. It also embraces England’s immigration-fueled diversity. It only opposes militant Islam. I can understand why they take this position. I don’t condemn them for taking it. But, as I see it, it’s an incoherent and ultimately unworkable position. The militant Muslims are in Britain because of Britain’s mass diverse immigration, and England finds itself incapable of opposing the militant Muslims because that would require acting against a “diverse” group. Diversity is both the problem, and the reason England is unable to do anything about the problem.

The EDL speakers say that England has a Christian culture and wants to keep it, but that non-Christians, brought to England via immigration, are welcome. But on that basis England won’t long continue having a Christian culture. When they speak this way, the EDL’ers sound like your standard American conservatives, caught unconsciously in the contradiction between the traditionalist belief in a particular culture, and the liberal belief in non-discriminatory openness to all law-abiding peoples of all cultures. If the nations of the West are to have a chance to survive, that contradiction must be faced and resolved, in favor of particularism.

Does the EDL with its diversity-speak sound like a neo-fascist organization to you? Yet to people like Pambert and Romela, who are half conservative, half knee-jerk liberal, no amount of conspicious liberalism can ever clear an organization that has a culturally conservative side to it of the suspicion of fascism.

- end of initial entry -

July 1

LA to a European correspondent, before the above entry was posted:

This is also ironic in that I have criticized the EDL for being too liberal, e.g., for making conspicuous and gratuitous expressions of its love of nonwhites.

Hmm, since EDL is “neo-fascist,” and I’ve criticized the EDL for being too liberal, what does that make me…

The correspondent replied:

You’re in a bad spot, Lawrence.

LA replies:

I’m chuckling.

That’s also clever in that you cannot be accused of agreeing with me. :-)

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 30, 2011 06:42 PM | Send