Breaking down the empires

Alfred found learning dead and he restored it
Education neglected and he revived it
The laws powerless and he gave them force
The Church debased and he raised it
The land ravaged by a fearful enemy from which he delivered it
Alfred's name will live as long as mankind shall respect the past


The word indigenous is currently the big no-no according to our liberal elites, so your author was heartened to see this news item on the Cross of St George English nationalist forum last week. The reality of the Wessex Wyvern fluttering over an historic English city bought much cheer to old Berrocscir here! That King Alfred, one of England's national heroes, was commemorated like this makes a welcome change from the usual spectacle of rainbow flags (is sexual orientation to be publicly 'celebrated'? There's me thinking it was a personal matter. What about those who are indifferent to certain bedroom habits, or those - within certain constraints - hostile to them?) or that EU rag that is becoming increasingly ubiquitous, let loose upon the masses. In the 21st century the Wessex Wyvern also represents a a crucial link to the past and an authentic regionalism based on a common history, dialect and culture. One that stands in stark contrast to the artificial, meaningless Euro regions foisted on us from Whitehall at Brussels' bidding.

The region is the first building block to a tribal identity. As Edmund Burke said

To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections

Human society needs to break down the empires and begin the journey of returning to its organic, tribal roots. The starting point for this is the region.

Wheel of the year
I write on All Saints Day and we are well into my favourite time of the year. This started at the Autumn Equinox and takes in Michaelmas (September 29th) when amongst other things, goose is traditionally eaten in order to secure a prosperous year ahead.

November (called 'blood month' by the Anglo-Saxons, the time when animals went to slaughter) has a very English feel to it. After All Hallows Eve (at the time of writing, yesterday) we have Guy Fawkes Night and Remembrance Day approaching. Thankfully, they remain higher up in the in the national consciousness than the UN Day for This or That.

OO ARE YER?!
Nationalists have commented at length on the strengths and weaknesses of the English Defence League. Exactly what its leadership represent is open to speculation. But nationalists should be more interested in its rank and file. Certainly it is a confused and contradictory formation - it claims to support the very multiculturalism that has allowed the rise of the militant Islam it claims to oppose. However nationalists would be unwise to dismiss the EDL out of hand. Ethno-nationalists need to engage with the disaffected that have flocked to the group. The EDL has the potential to become a fruitful recruitment ground for ethno-nationalism. The group's rudimentary 'tabloid' patriotism can easily be refuted by ethno-nationlists using the art of conversation. It's good to talk.

The enemy is the same

So the conference season is over for another year and did the Greens in Brighton debate immigration? No. All we got was this:

At the Green Party's conference in Hove tomorrow (Sat 5th September), Jean Lambert, London's Green MEP since 1999, will lead a strategy discussion about shaping a Green Party response to the far right -- now that it has won seats in the UK at the local, regional and European levels.

The session will draw on this year's experience of fighting the BNP - for example, in the North West England Euro-constituency, where the Green Party's Peter Cranie led a determined effort to stop the BNP leader from winning a seat in the European Parliament.

Peter Cranie said today, "Our Euro-campaign in the North West came agonisingly close to defeating Nick Griffin. We lost by just 0.3% of the poll. That's 5 000 votes out of an electorate of over 5 million. Now North West England is stuck with a racist MEP for five years. We need to make totally certain that, in 2014, we replace him with a Green."

Jean Lambert commented, "We'll be looking at how a lack of political activity in a community can allow the far right to win. We'll be aiming to clarify what Greens can do to limit the advance of the far right in politics at all levels."

Now, I know it is in the Greens' DNA to espouse 'official' anti-racism and anti-fascism, and of course every political party has the right to contest elections and get their people elected over rival parties. However, with their knee-jerk hysteria, what the Greens are effectively doing is letting our political and economic elites (the neocons, the neo-liberals and the globalisers) off the hook.

You may say I'm a dreamer - guilty as charged. But it does irk me that the Greens (and others) are insistent on keeping their blinkers on. Our rulers can handle their opponents kept straight jacketed in their respective ideological boxes. Of course, the Greens could have taken a step back and examined the bigger picture. They could have looked at Nick Griffin the anti-globalist, Nick Griffin who opposes EU excesses, Nick Griffin who speaks out against multinational corporations, Nick Griffin who's party literally wishes to keep its pleasant land green. The Greens could have fired their venom on the big three parties and worked to get rid of THEIR MEPs in the North West next time around. Sectarian attitudes won't disappear over night, but it is the duty of all sincere anti-globalists to fight it.
We face a common enemy. The enemy is the same - Horst Mahler.

Bucking the trend

Two national elections in Germany and Portugal last week were of note because of the relative success of the Left. June's European Union elections witnessed the steady progress of the nationalist right, so we do indeed live in interesting times. This blog has always advocated that the anti-globalist milieu should adopt a pluralistic and pragmatic approach - turning groups and individuals away because they're not 'on message' is a road to nowhere. If the so-called 'Left' (an old fashioned term) truly opposes the global elites, multinational corporations and one-worldism then they should be supported. Likewise for the 'Right'. But if either camp clearly sides with our political, economic and cultural elites then they should be opposed.

In Germany the Marxist Die Linke ('The Left') overtook the once mighty Greens with 11% of the vote and 4.7M constituency votes to the Greens' 3.9M - although the Green vote itself was up 4% to 9.2%. The nationalist NPD vote held up on 768k. Interestingly the Ecological Democratic Party (which is made up of more conservative minded Greens not subscribing to the left-liberal shibboleths of open borders, 'human rights', feminism etc) grabbed 105 thousand votes, thereby proving that there is a market for a Green politics which is not the preserve of the cultural Marxists.

In Portugal the Trotskyite Left Bloc did well taking just under 11% of the vote and just ahead of the 'official' Communist/Green alliance. The small Third Positionist National Renewal Party (PNR) held steady on 11,614 votes - nothing grand but the fact that their vote held up should have given heart to these sincere anti-globalists.

You have to be an optimist in this game and these results show that although voters express it very differently, there is a substantial section of the public who are obviously dissatisfied with the current set up of 'Neo-liberalism/Neo-Conservatism like it or lump it'. But despite their shared opposition to global capitalism there is still a wide gulf between the nationalists and internationalists. The challenge for those who have had enough of the dogmas and bigotry from all quarters, is to forge a new politics, to bridge the gap and create a culture of self-determination within the anti-globalist movement and replacing the current dictatorship of one or other macro-ideology. The days of 'Our Way or No Way' have long passed their sell-by date.

If you believe in an ideology, you don't own it - it owns you

Those Greeks show the way

A snap General election has been called in Greece for October 4th. This blog notes that a small party - Ecologists Greece (not to be confused with the larger Ecologists Greens) have entered into what seems an electoral pact with the Third Positionist/nationalist/anti-globalisation Popular Orthodox Rally (who currently have 10 seats in the Greek parliament) with Ecologists Green leader Konstantinos Papanikolas running on a Popular Orthodox Rally ticket.

Now your editor doesn't know all the ins and outs of the political platform of Ecologists Greece, although the Broad Left site lists them as being on the left and as having worked with another left-wing group in Greece(DIKKI) in the past. Not knowing the lingo - it's all Greek to me - I can't verify this from their website, but I'm guessing that Papanikolas's party are at least sympathetic to nationalism otherwise why aren't they part of the left-liberal Ecologists Greens? So the fact that they exist in itself is a positive thing, showing that Green politics is not totally in the grip of the cultural Marxist agenda. And the fact that they are willing to work with the P.O.R - a radical nationalist grouping - proves that anti-globalists can overcome ideological barriers in the fight for a world of sovereign peoples.

Berrocscir's Banner wishes the EGr/POR alliance every success at the polls and hopes that the pact is long lasting. It's just this kind of syncretic approach that's so needed in the opposition to neo-liberalism and globalisation.

COMING UP...
The knee-jerk 'anti-fascism' of the Green Party of England & Wales.
Some thoughts on those naughty boys from the English Defence League

Here be dragons

The White Dragon flag of the ethnic English has been gaining in popularity among some English nationalists in recent years, with several groups, including the autonomist English National Resistance , adopting it. However, it's a bit controversial this one, it has to be said. While some have enthusiastically taken it to their hearts, other positively foam at the mouth at the mention of it. The latter claim there is extremely tenuous evidence for the authenticity of the emblem. Only Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth vaguely mention it in passing.

The sadly off-line English Dragon site was very thoroughly researched and proposed the theory that the White Dragon is synonymous with the Golden Wyvern of Wessex and Berrocscir's Banner doesn't refute this view. Wessex was the only Anglo-Saxon territory to remain unconquered, gaining the title The Cradle of England. It would appear reasonable then, that the Wessex Wyvern extended its brief to the whole of England during the 10th Century. It is mentioned twice in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (at the Battle of Burford in AD 752 and again at the Battle of Ashingdon in 1016) and it is also depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry.

What the anti-dragon camp fail to recognise is that just because something has little basis in actual fact does not prevent it from entering a collective national identity. Myths and semi-myths are scattered throughout England's history. The White Dragon may be convoluted, but why should that prevent it from use as a badge for today's English patriots? Robin Hood and the story about Alfred burning the cakes may or may not be truthful. Harold's arrow and Edith Swanneck finding his birthmark could all be rubbish. Did Pope Gregory really comment on the angelic looks of the English slave children? We don't know for sure and never will, yet it has passed into English history and has helped to define a nation.

The point is that badges and totems represent what people want them to represent. Those English Nationalists that fly the White Dragon are claiming it as their own. Its authenticity may be dubious to say the least, but its appeal gives it meaning today.

A few years ago the Marxist-Leninist Weekly Worker, when commenting on the rise of English nationalism, rejected the resurgence of the Cross of St George on the grounds that it was a Royalist emblem - YES, THEN,when it was bought back from the Holy Land! Three hundred years ago it lost a battle with the Union flag, and today the English commons see the CoSG as truly theirs. It has become a symbol almost of defiance and has changed its meaning. In 1381 the 'Mad Multitude' of the Peasant's Revolt flew the CoSG along with the Royal Standard, according to some to display their ultimate loyalty to the crown - But this is to do with the medieval mindset more than anything else: after all, the King was appointed by the Almighty, was he not? But could it be that the insurrectionists of 1381 carried both flags to signify the unity of the crown and the commons - the Cross of St George representing the latter? It's possible that in the 14th century the English commons were taking the CoSG as their own and in the process changing its meaning. Let 10,000 flags fly - including the White Dragon. There's nothing to stop the 21st century English commons adopting it. Look at the widespread popularity of the new-ish county flags - do they have a pedigree spanning a thousand years? No, yet the English have taken them up. When it comes to the identity of a a people, myths are just as powerful as reality.

CHOKING ON THE SPLINTERS
Civic nationalism isn't this blog's bag, but that doesn't mean that those of us with a more tribalistic interpretation of nationalism should shun the civics entirely. If civic nationalists play their part in opposition to internationalism and globalism, they are worthy allies in the fight.

A new splinter group has emerged from the ranks of English civic nationalism: the English Radical Alliance - a breakaway from the 18 month old Free England Party, who themselves split from the numerically much larger English Democrats. What's interesting about the ERA is their promotion of Distributism (a 'Third Way' economic system in contrast to both Capitalism and Communism, favoured by some National Anarchists, other nationalists and others still) and their highlighting of the importance of the English radical tradition - something too often overlooked by English nationalists of all hues.

Berrocscir's Banner will monitor the progress of these new English Radicals with interest and in the hope that they will become a welcome force in the anti-globalist milieu.

Nature's bounty

A week's respite from wage labour encouraged me this morning to go out Blackberrying. It's food for free, organic, and most importantly, it gave me a sense - less of being a consumer and more of being human. I got in touch with my pagan side, meditating as I picked, on our hunter-gatherer ancestors and attuning myself to nature's never ending cycle.

For National Anarchists, their fellow travellers and others, human beings are more than the passive consumers they have become under capitalism, more than the robotic producers that Marxism would wish them to be. We are also spiritual beings - something our tribal ancestors understood well enough. Out Blackberrying this morning was good for my soul. Too often we forget the wheel of the year, and as I ambled home I remembered it is Harvest time here in Northern Europe, vital to everyone if we acknowledge the fact or not. And out and about yesterday, I took in the berries and fruits and the seas of wheat in my corner of England...The neat reassuring hay bails, the Horn of Plenty...

So my particular morning's bounty will shortly be going under the pastry and I'll utter a little prayer as it journeys to my belly. Comrades, join the revolution and go Blackberrying! But remember to do what I did and leave some for the birds and other animals, human and non-human. If we lose our part in the wheel of the year, we cease to be truly human. And then the globalisers really will have won.

Forthcoming attractions
Next up - my thoughts on the White Dragon flag of the English and why the controversy surrounding it shouldn't really matter. Mmmmmm....great.

In at the deep end

In a letter published in the current edition of Green World (the official Green Party mag) two Stafford-based members propose the formation of a Green Party Deep Ecology group "with a view to the informing of party policy". If something concrete (no pun intended!) comes out of this it can only strengthen Green politics. The 21st Century should be defined by a new syncretic politics with an open-minded pluralistic approach to ideologies, and one that jettisons the rigid dogma that stained the previous one.

The Green Party of England & Wales remains very much a left-liberal formation in character, but things can change. Currently within the Party there is quite a high profile debate raging about the merits (or not) of nuclear energy. So if Greens are big enough to debate this issue, what is stopping them from debating immigration/migration? Can you think of anything more un-green than this? Now, a Tribalist faction within the Green Party - that really would be something. After all, Nationalism is a lot more greener than Internationalism...And no, all you Red Greens, any future Tribalist platform won't be proposing an invasion of Poland!

YOUR EDITOR WRITES...
Berrocscir's Banner has been a bit quieter than I would like recently. But being off work for a week means that a couple of items will be appearing here hopefully by the end of the month...Watch this space.

Double standards?

I'm a folkie myself - I love the genre. You can't stop me having a sing-song after I've had a few. But aren't this lot being a tad hypocritical? I can understand artists being a bit upset with political parties gaining financially from their songs. But the whole English folk genre is Left leaning - it goes with the territory. Would they moan about Attila the Stockbroker? I didn't hear a peep from anyone when Chumbawamba played the Cambridge Folk Festival a few years back.

I've got a copy of the Morning Star's benefit folky CD and very good it is too - music has always been political and always will be.

The quote about English folk music 'belonging' to everyone is fair enough if purely from personal taste - if you dig something, groove to it. But what, deep down, would Jamaicans think if I called reggae "my own"?

Anyway - isn't the clue in the name - FOLK music? If it 'belongs' to every person on the planet, then we should stop calling it by that name...or am I being sinister?