Identitarian movement

Not to be confused with Identity politics.

Lambda, the symbol of the Identitarian movement/Identitarianism used primarily in Europe by Generation Identity and occasionally other countries, intended to commemorate the Battle of Thermopylae

The Identitarian movement or Identitarianism is a post-WW2 European political ideology focused on the perceived group interests and group identity of particular white ethnicities, as well as of Europeans or Western Civilization as a whole. Some identitarians promote the creation of white ethno-states, to the exclusion of migrants and non-white residents.

The movement originated in France with the work of writers such as Renaud Camus, Alain de Benoist and Guillaume Faye. It has been influenced by ontological ideas of modern German philosophy, especially those of Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt.

The movement is most notable in Europe, and although rooted in Western Europe, it also has some representation in Eastern Europe. It also has adherents in North America, Australia, and New Zealand.

Origin

The identitarian ideology mainly derives from the Nouvelle Droite, a French philosophical movement created in the 1960s to adapt traditionalist, ethnopluralist and illiberal politics to the European post-WWII context. It represents a project of pan-european nationalism, in contrast to earlier chauvinistic or imperialistic attitudes associated with the nationalism of particular European nations. For instance, Guillaume Faye repeatedly called the Russians "my people" to highlight this position.

The Nouvelle Droite thinkers, led by Alain de Benoist and Guillaume Faye, also aimed at imitating the marxist meta-politics and tactics of cultural hegemony, agitprop and entryism which, according to them, had allowed left-wing movements to gain cultural and academical dominance from the second part of the 20th century onwards. The movement exhibits a hostility to multiculturalism and liberalism, and while it does not espouse the view that Europeans are a superior race and defends popular democracy, it has been widely described as a neo-fascist attempt to reinstate far-right ideas in the center of the political spectrum by liberal critics.

In the late 20th century, their ideas influenced youth movements through various groups such as Génération Identitaire and Unité Radicale, partially made up of young men who engaged in street football hooligan fights. The French movements quickly exported their ideas to other European nations, turning themselves into a pan-European movement of loosely connected identarian groups. In the 2000s and 2010s, thinkers led by Renaud Camus, Guillaume Faye and Henry de Lesquen introduced the concepts of the Great Replacement and remigration into the public opinion, achieving to define the identitarian ideology in Europe, while radicalizing the original ideas and intentions of the Nouvelle Droite.

Ideology

Identitarianism can be defined by its opposition to globalization, liberalism, multiculturalism, extra-European immigration, and its defense of traditions, pan-European nationalism and cultural homogeneity inside the nations of Europe.

The movement is strongly opposed to the politics and philosophy of Islam. Followers often protest what they see as an islamisation of Europe through mass immigration, claiming it is a threat to European culture and society. This theory is connected to the ideas of the Great Replacement and remigration, the latter being a project of reversing changes in ethnic demographics. Non-European immigrants, often including their descendants, would be encouraged to return to their place of ethnic origin.

By location

France

Main article: Les Identitaires

The main identitarian youth movement is Génération Identitaire in France originally a youth wing of the Bloc Identitaire party before splitting off from the group and becoming its own organization.

Austria

Main article: Identitäre Bewegung Österreich

Austrian identitarians demonstrating in Vienna

In Austria, Identitäre Bewegung Österreichs was founded in 2012. Austrian Identitarians have sometimes used the concept of a "War Against the '68ers," referring to people whose political views fit with the counterculture of the 1960s.

On 27 April 2018 the IBÖ and the homes of its leaders were searched by the Austrian police, and investigations were started against Sellner on suspicion that a criminal organization was being formed. The court later ruled that the IBÖ was not a criminal organization.

Germany

The movement also appeared in Germany and converged with preexisting circles, centered on the magazine Blue Narcissus (Blaue Narzisse) and its founder Felix Menzel, a martial artist and former German Karate Team Champion, who according to Gudrun Hentges – who worked for the official Federal Agency for Civic Education – belongs to the "elite of the movement". It became a "registered association" in 2014. Drawing upon thinkers of the Nouvelle Droite and the Conservative Revolutionary movement such as Oswald Spengler, Carl Schmitt or the contemporary Russian Aleksandr Dugin, it played a role in the rise of the PEGIDA marches in 2014/15.

Martin Sellner (2019)

The identitarian movement has a close linkage to members of the German New Right, e.g., to its prominent member Götz Kubitschek and his journal Sezession, for which the identitarian speaker Martin Sellner writes.

As their symbol, the European Identitarian movement and Generation Identity use a yellow lambda sign, a symbol that was painted on the shields of the Spartan army to commemorate the ancient Battle of Thermopylae.

In August 2016 members of the identitarian movement in Germany scaled the iconic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and hung a banner in protest at European immigration and perceived Islamisation.

Members of the identitarian movement erected a new summit cross in a "provocative" act (as the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported) on the Schafreuter, after the original one had to be removed because of damage by an unknown person.

In June 2017 the PayPal donations account of the identitarian "Defend Europe" was locked, and the identitarian account of the bank "Steiermärkische Sparkasse" was closed. Defend Europe crowdfunded more than $178,000 to charter a ship in the Mediterranean. It aimed to ferry any rescued migrants back to Africa, to observe any incursions by other NGO ships into Libyan waters, and to report them to the Libyan coastguard.

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom and Ireland branch was launched in late October 2017 after a banner was unfurled on Westminster Bridge reading "Defend London, Stop Islamisation".

On 9 March 2018, Sellner and his girlfriend Brittany Pettibone were barred from entering the UK because their presence was "not conducive to the public good".

Prior the ban, Sellner intended to deliver a speech to the Young Independence party, though they cancelled the event, citing supposed threats of violence from the far-left. Prior to being detained and deported, Sellner intended to deliver his speech at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park.

In June 2018 Tore Rasmussen, a Norwegian activist, was working in the Republic of Ireland to establish a local branch of Generation Identity. In August 2018, the co-leader of GI UK Tom Dupre resigned from his position after UK press revealed Rasmussen, who was a senior member in the UK branch, had an active past in neo-Nazi movements within Norway.

Al Jazeera English conducted an undercover investigation into the French branch, which aired on 10 December 2018. It captured GI activists punching a Muslim woman whilst saying "F*** Mecca" and one saying if ever he gets a terminal illness he will purchase a weapon and cause carnage, when asked by the undercover journalist who would be the target he replies "a mosque, whatever". French prosecutors have launched an inquiry into the findings amidst calls for the group to be proscribed.

Other European groups

In Sweden, the organisation Nordiska förbundet (active from 2004 to 2010), which founded the online encyclopedia Metapedia in 2006, promoted identitarianism. It mobilised a number of "independent activist groups" similar to their French counterparts, among them Reaktion Östergötland and Identitet Väst, which carried out a number of political actions marked by a certain degree of civil disobedience.

The origin of the Italian chapter Generazione Identitaria dates from 2012.

The founder of the far-right Croatian party Generation of Renovation has stated that it was originally formed in 2017 as that country's version of the alt-right and identitarian movements.

In Australia / New Zealand

Australia has a local presence of the Identitarian movement in the form of an organization known as Identity Australia which describes itself as "a youth-focused identitiarian organisation dedicated to giving European Australians a voice and restoring Australia's European character". The group has also published a manifesto detailing its beliefs. Similarly, New Zealand had hosted the Dominion Movement, which labeled itself as "a grass-roots identitarian activist organization committed to the revitalization of our country and our people: White New Zealanders". The website for the group shut down alongside New Zealand National Front in the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque shootings.

Australia-born Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand was concerned about The Great Replacement and named his manifesto after it, as well as donating 1,500 euros to Austrian Identitarian leader Martin Sellner of Identitäre Bewegung Österreichs a year prior to the terror attacks. Following an investigation into the potential links between Tarrant and the IBÖ (the Austrian branch of Generation Identity) by then Austrian minister of the interior Herbert Kickl, no evidence was found of further contact or connections between the two parties. The shooter also donated 2,200 euros to Generation Identitare the French branch of the Generation Identity which has to the government of France to consider the possibility of disbanding the group.

In North America

Identity Evropa was a part of the American identitarian movement.

Richard B. Spencer identifies himself as a leading member of the American identitarian movement.

The now defunct neo-Nazi Traditionalist Youth Network/Traditionalist Worker Party was modeled after the European Identitarian movement, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. Identity Evropa in the United States labeled itself identitarian, as does former IE executive director Patrick Casey's new organization, the American Identity Movement. Richard Spencer's National Policy Institute is also a white nationalist movement, which advocates a version of identitarianism.

On 20 May 2017, two non-commissioned officers with the US Marines were arrested for trespassing after displaying a banner from a building in Graham, North Carolina, during a Confederate Memorial Day event. The banner included the identitarian logo, and the phrase "he who controls the past controls the future", a reference to George Orwell's novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, along with the acronym YWNRU, or "you will not replace us". The Marine Corps denounced the behavior and investigated the incident. A marine spokesperson commented to local news “Of course we condemn this type of behavior ... we condemn any type of behavior that is not congruent with our values or that is illegal.” Both men plead guilty to trespassing. One received military administrative punishment. The other was discharged from the corps.

The Canadian organization IDCanada was originally formed in 2014 as Generation Identity Canada, and rebranded in 2017 after the Charlottesville riots. The organization has distributed propaganda in Hamilton, Ontario, and near McGill University in Montreal.

See also

• Anti-communism
• Counterculture of the 2010s and 2020s
• Identity politics
• Kalergi plan
• White nationalism
• White pride
• White separatism
• Nativism
• Pro-white
• Great Replacement

References

Notes

Further reading

External links

• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons