Israel Shamir

Unmanning the Man

Financial crisis is bad, but the Western Man is going through another sort of existential crisis which puts in doubt his very being as man. We shall look at three western men: DSK, Julian Assange and Anders Breivik to illustrate the thesis that the Western man is dying out.

The complaint was presented by the Norwegian murderer Breivik. In his book, we have been offered a view of the killer as an example of frustrated and marginalized Norwegian manhood. Breivik explicitly stated that he felt threatened by:

…television, where nearly every major offering has a female “power figure” and the plots and characters emphasise inferiority of the male and superiority of the female. It is in the military, where expanding opportunity for women, even in combat positions, has been accompanied by double standards and then lowered standards, as well as by a decline in enlistment of young men, while “warriors” in the services are leaving in droves. It is in government-mandated employment preferences and practices that benefit women and use “sexual harassment” charges to keep men in line. It is in colleges where women’s gender studies proliferate and “affirmative action” is applied in admissions and employment...

The killer is a psychotic man whose vision is hardly adequate, but his words are illuminating some dark spots. Without this threat of being eliminated, probably he would not do his horrible crime. While all feel revulsion about his crimes, this statement can be understood all over the West, though in differing degrees.

Is it relevant for Russia? Not really. For Russians, it is rather explication of danger lying on the way of following the West to oblivion. In the same way, the features of capitalism were much more obvious in the West than in pre-1917 Russia. For Russia today, there is no material base for unmanning: physical hard work still exists, industrial proletariat still exists, and another important quality: the Russian priests are exclusively men. In the West, the material base exists in different form, more in the Protestant North, less in the Catholic South. An additional quality of the North: tradition of women priests and rulers existed in pre-Christian times.

DSK

As another case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) collapsed, the bottom line for this man is not comforting: he was paraded as a criminal, denigrated, besmirched, lost his job and a good chance to become the next president of France. It is not comforting for men in general: because of groundless and legally dismissed accusations by two females, the French will have a choice of five females for Presidency, unless they are happy with Nicolas Sarkozy.

We all have our prejudices, and nowhere do they appear so striking as in the notorious case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK). In a recent Counterpunch piece, Pam Martins circulated the personal stories of women who had complained about DSK’s ardour, one of whom was a 23-year old journalist/novelist. Martins calls upon us to “pause for a moment and reflect on what you might do if you learned that a middle-aged man had sexually attacked your young daughter’s girlfriend.”

Just what age and gender person would you prefer, Miss Martins, to sexually attack youryoung daughter’s girlfriend? Would you have preferred a young lesbian? More importantly, nothing in the 23-year-old writer’s story implies that DSK “attacked”. Even if we take her version as the Sinai-delivered Truth, her story hangs on nothing more menacing than his explicitly expressed desire for her, something that had made her feel uncomfortable. Come, come, Miss Martins! Twenty-three years old is not so tender an age! At such an age, any girl - in Paris or in a remote Kashmiri village - will have encountered a man’s desire, unless she was uncommonly plain.

DSK must be quite a man, judging by his excellent, gifted, strong-minded, and successful wife. It may be he is a Zionist Capitalist beast, but as one man to another I can’t fault him for making a pass at a “talented journalist and novelist in France”, nor for flirting with “a brilliant Hungarian economist”. He is, after all, a Frenchman first. They each had their opportunity to say “non”, and so they did. In a healthy society this would suffice.

Did DSK’s advances constitute “harassment”? Perhaps, but so what? I am continuously harassed by banks that send me offers of credit – are these less damaging to my psyche than an offer to frolic in the hay? Is a business proposition less annoying than an amorous one? These women simply refused his advances, just as I refuse the banks – and yet I do not resort to the courts, whereas they have sought both compensation and revenge. Might we not just as well sue the Zuleika Dobsons of this world for the sexual power they hold over their unwilling thralls? Must we castrate our men, cover our women, or erect separation walls like the ones on Indian trains?

Assange

This pursuit of Purdahhas cost us all too much. In England, the High Court deals with the saga of Julian Assange. Our governments don’t have enough money to pay for schools and health care, but they are always ready to spend millions to put a man behind bars for such a ridiculous charge.

Active force behind persecution of Assange is presented by two persons, the lawyer Borgstrom who made himself a name as an extreme feminist, and his old comrade Marianne Ny. Together they prepared new laws that stretched the definition of rape so far that “if a woman doesn't have multiple orgasms during hetero sex, the man can be charged with rape”, in the witty words of a sister feminist. Ny is heading a ”development center” specializing in sexual offences, and is attempting to take feminism to the next level (a la Valerie Solanas). Retired judge Brita Sundberg-Wietman writes this about Marianne Ny: She is known to have said that when a woman alleges she has been a victim of assault by a man, it is a good idea to have the man detained, because it is not until he is arrested that the woman has time to think of her life in peace and realize how she has been treated. According to Ny the detention has a good effect as protection for the woman ”even in cases where the perpetrator is prosecuted but not found guilty”.

Marianne Ny is a prosecutor in far-away Gothenburg, but Swedish laws allow her to take on any case as long as there is some new development. And lo and behold, under Borgstrom’s guidance new evidence suddenly appeared: ten days after Julian’s arrest and release, Anna Ardin carried a soiled condom into a police station. The condom was checked, and the examination came up blank: the condom showed no sign of being used at all. But Marianne Ny did not need a positive result, all she needed was a “new development”; and so she re-opened the case.

Afterwards, she did nothing. From time to time she called a witness to be interrogated, but Julian was not called up again. It was only much later, when he was in the UK, that Marianne Ny decided to demand his extradition. This was a smart move. If she had called him in for questioning while he was in Sweden, the case would have immediately collapsed. Since he will now be brought into Sweden against his will, Ny and Borgstrom will be able to lock Assange up for months until the trial, as Swedish law does not permit bail. Once in custody, Julian can be shipped to the US, or directly to Guantanamo without even returning to Sweden; as a detained foreigner he can be deported at the pleasure of the Swedish government.

The Assange case is no exception: recently, a Swedish man was sent to jail for 18 months for failing to properly wake up his girlfriend before beginning a session of morning sex. Swedish men have good reason to fear the Swedish justice system, and daily they grow more afraid of Swedish women. In response, they have begun to take foreign wives; they are also increasingly turning gay and adopting children from abroad.

What a shame! Sweden is home to the most dazzlingly beautiful women in the world: perfectly shaped, their blond manes blown by the wind; their blue eyes reflect frankness and encouragement.

Years ago, I was blown away after seeing them for the first time: dancing on a green lawn around a maypole, sun-tanning topless on a low wooden bridge protruding into a lake as blue as the sky above, and sitting like mermaids along the rocks - for Swedish soil is not too soft but full of great stones of iron and copper. These rocks were polished and rolled by the receding ice walls of millennia past when Sweden was freed from its long frozen captivity. The men of Svea laboriously arranged these immense monoliths around an ancient oak tree in imitation of a flotilla. There they heaped high mounds upon the burned remnants of mighty Viking chieftains. Centuries later, these ancient holy places attracted neighbouring churches, decorated from top to bottom by Albertus Pictor in the 15^th century.

The oaks are still leafy and mighty, the lakes still clean, the stone armada still standing amid green meadows, but the churches are empty. They have become clubs for old ladies, led by a lady pastor - as I witnessed last Sunday in a beautiful church near Vasteras. Men have been slowly pushed out of positions of power in the Church, and now the worshippers have lost interest.

It is not only Swedish churches that have lost their manly shepherds, Swedish newspapers prefer to hire and advance women; there are few male editors, excepting the gays. Swedish publishers now only publish books that will appeal to women; books that glorify women and depict men as monsters, like the dreadful Millennium Trilogywritten by the PR-savvy Stieg Larsson. Swedish museums exhibit the kind of art that is designed to appeal to a female-centric New Age audience. Swedish universities are dominated by female professors. In Sweden, it hurts your career if you are discovered to be a heterosexual male. It feels like the country is at war with natural sexuality: the schoolbooks promote a unisex standard; children are referred to as “it” instead of “he” or “she”, and the lightest flirtation has been criminalised.

The war against males has not resulted in a more compassionate Sweden. The Swedish welfare state is being dismantled by the right-wing followers of Ronald Reagan; Neocon Karl Rove is sending Swedish soldiers to die for NATO in Afghanistan, and bombing Libya in the name of the Swedish state. Nor have the civilians of Sweden fared well under the new regime. They eat more junk food, and obesity – previously unknown in the North – now disfigures their once beautiful bodies. Their thoughts have been controlled by a newly consolidated media and their hard-won freedoms traded away in the name of compassion.

Looking back, it seems that Sweden’s freedoms, as well as our own, peaked just after the long-gone year of 1968. At the time, Sweden was the most implacable foe of the US-led war in Vietnam. US deserters once dreamt of escaping to fair Sweden with the same fervent desire of Heller’s Yossarian. In those days the Swedish girls pursued adventures, not legal strategies. Swedish men spent their days building up the church, moulding a uniquely Scandinavian social state, creating Bergman films and Volvo cars. Now even Volvo was sold off to the Americans, and they promptly sold it to the Chinese.

1968 was a turning point in America. In 1968, the richest Americans contributed 90% of their income to the state, while now they pay less than 30%. Never mind that they do not pay even that by the use of tax shelters, funds and other tricks.  It was in 1968 that the American worker’s minimum pay peaked in real terms. Looking back, 1968 was the moment in history when mankind was nearest to the stars.

Children of the defeated ’68 revolution, we were free to love, smoke, think and act. We could travel and fly without being stripped at the airport, and our booze was not confiscated. We could make love and smoke in cafes. Since then, it was downhill all the way: smoke was banned, free thought was incarcerated by Political Correctness, and political action has been reduced to joining a Facebook group. Love has been turned into minefield by Victorian laws. We have been transported back to the days when Mr. Pickwick might be sued by his landlady for breach of promise. Sweden is not the only victim of this revolutionary zeal. Everywhere, all over the world, men are losing their place under the sun; it may be more than a coincidence that our freedoms vanish along with them.

Is there a method to this madness? The great conspiratorial mind and modern Russian prophet Alexandre Dugin declared that there is an ancient female conspiracy that aims to return us to a Matriarchy. Many conservative observers put the blame on feminists. Yet even though men have clearly lost the war, the victory of women wilts under examination. Once upon a time women had a choice: they could join the business world or stay at home with the kids. Once upon a time women could raise a family without guilt. Once upon a time women could enjoy being flirted with. Not any more. Unmanning man was quickly followed by the un-womaning of woman.

I think the reality is worse than Dugin’s wildest conspiracy. There is an understanding between the holders of power that feminised men are easier to control. Unmanning men is a linchpin in the reprogramming of mankind into an obedient herd, because strong men are unpredictable. Strong men are prone to rebellion, ready for sacrifice and primed for action. It is no coincidence that the enemies of Empire are all masculine males, be they Qaddafi, Castro, Chavez, Lukashenko or Putin. It is no coincidence that native men everywhere have been targeted for elimination; their cults suppressed, undermined and replaced.

The attacks on DSK, Assange, and Qaddafi are all part and parcel of the campaign to unman humanity. The Empire hates Lukashenko and Putin not only because they do not let them seize the country’s assets, but also for their outspoken masculinity. Eric Walberg in his Great Gamesspeaks of the deeper strategy behind the colour revolutions: their organisers “castrate modern states” in order to transform them into post-modern weaklings. This “castration” is an important plan of the rulers, far more profound than the ephemeral struggles over pipelines and resources.

The Left

The Left was misled into dubious gender politics and away from the class struggle. Mistakenly and ominously, the history of the Left has been rewritten as if it was a leading force in the conspiracy to unman the man. It is not true! While the Left always pushed for equality between the sexes, this equality leaned rather towards the masculine. Whether it was a worker building the barricade, sailors storming the Winter Palace, cigar-smoking Barbudosof Castro, they were all manly symbols of the Left.

The ultimate symbol of masculinity was Joseph Stalin: the great Yugoslav director Dushan Mackaveev depicted him in his Mysteries of Organismin priapic form. Indeed, the Russian Communists quickly recognized that the CIA-orchestrated campaign to denigrate the dead leader was an attempt to unman them. No one would ever have confused Ernst Thalmann with the limp-wristed warriors of today’s Left. 

The new anti-Stalinist Left is too well described by the words of Owen Owens: "female, old and short"; surely these ladies are wonderful human beings, but they may not be the strongest models to inspire the working masses. This feminisation of the good fight has earned us another Freedom Flotilla fiasco: the masculine and brave Turks were prevented from sailing, the moustachioed Ken O’Keefe was sidelined, and after the dust settled we had a few sweet and elderly Jewish ladies receiving a cup of tea in Ashdod port as a reward for promising to be good.

The Left has been emasculated; it is now overly gender-concerned, overly minority-based, and overly petit bourgeois. It should become manly, masculine, Christian, and working-class. And here we can look into Russian struggle around the figure of Joseph Stalin, as a proxy fight for masculinity