How does one destroy a civilisation from within?
This was once explained by Yuri Bezmenov, a former KGB agent in the Soviet Union who worked on subversion abroad. When he became disillusioned with the Soviet system in 1970, he defected and fled to the West – first to Greece and then to Canada.
In 1984, Bezmenov gave an extraordinary interview in which he explained that subversion must take place gradually, in a manner that transforms the adversary and “demoralises” it. It takes one generation to do this. And for that one needs “useful idiots”, who will subsequently be lined up against a wall.
The model has four phases – demoralisation, destabilisation, crisis and normalisation – and in 20 years it has destroyed our society. Those who have eyes in their head and the ability to see and understand will be fascinated by how effective this is.
A few weeks ago I reread the fascinating book “How the Irish Saved Civilization” by Thomas Cahill.
In the darkest centuries of Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, it was the Irish monks who preserved and transmitted large parts of classical culture, thereby making decisive contributions to the rebirth of European civilisation. The political, economic and cultural structures that had supported classical civilisation collapsed. The invasions of the barbarians, the breakdown of cities and the loss of stability meant that literacy and cultural production gradually disappeared.
In many areas of continental Europe, the classical texts were forgotten or destroyed, and the transmission of knowledge was almost completely interrupted.
One of the most important aspects of Irish Christian culture was how they valued the written culture and study. The monasteries became centres of learning and preservation of knowledge.
In contrast to many other European regions where chaos hindered cultural production, the monks in Ireland began to copy and preserve ancient manuscripts, especially works from classical Latin and Greek literature. According to Cahill, who is also the author of the remarkable books “The Gifts of the Jews” and “Why the Greeks Matter”, it is precisely thanks to this tireless copying work that many works from antiquity have survived to this day.
They copied Virgil, Cicero, Plato and the Church Fathers. They transformed their scriptoria (skriptorier) into beacons of cultural continuity. St Patrick, a brilliant evangelist who had escaped from slavery, adapted the Gospel to the Celtic sensibility, valued the written word, and created a cultivated and missionary monastic life which centuries later would restore Carolingian Europe.
They did not do this out of an abstract love for what is “different”, but because they had acquired a faith that regarded the divine logos as worthy of being preserved in written form.
This is the kind of thing that was done before today’s demoralisation.
A “woke” understanding of history does not require facts, but narratives that serve a purpose in the moment. Take, for example, this poster from the Irish government.
On St Patrick’s Day, 17 March, Ireland’s new president Catherine Connolly, a radical socialist who considers Israel a “genocide state”, said that “the story of Patrick’s life serves to remind us of the endurance and courage of migrants”.
St Patrick was a “migrant”.
Catherine Connolly. Still image: RTE News via CorkCityRSC / YouTube.
Zohran Mamdani, the Islamic pro-Hamas mayor of New York, did not let St Patrick pass unnoticed without speaking about … yes, you guessed it: the Palestinians.
The culture that produced Joyce, Yeats, Beckett and the monks of Clonmacnoise has officially been diluted into a multicultural soup. The culture that produced Irish monasticism, the modern novel and the theatre of the absurd has officially been declared interchangeable with any other.
Let us look at another country with the same demoralisation, the same subversion and the same useful idiots.
The scene takes place in a “rage room”, and the word itself does not bode well. It conjures images of immature adults unable to control nerves that lie thick upon the surface.
Yet the three adults appear on Studio Brussel, the Flemish public broadcaster, where they destroy images of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus, today’s sacrificial figures.
But Dries, Eva and Sam dismiss it all with a wave of the hand: “It is not a problem, because Belgium is not really a religious country”. The country was home to Rubens, Van Dyck, the great painters of the Catholic Counter-Reformation and the Gothic cathedrals of Antwerp and Bruges. The message is clear: our tradition is worthless. It is folkloric wreckage that one can trample upon in order to feel modern.
Then comes the double standard: “Would you do the same with Muhammad?”. When Eva, surrounded by her two assistants, was interviewed by the BBC journalist Colm Flynn, she admitted that she would never commit a similar offence against the Prophet Muhammad, because “it would be inappropriate”, given that “there are many Muslims in Belgium”. And we who thought it was a far-right delusion …
The symbols of our identity, already lying in ruins, are crumbling away, yet care is taken not to destroy the symbols of a religion whose adherents would respond to such an offence with a bloodbath in their premises, which would then be transformed into a “rage room” for Islamists. Any survivors would be brought before the courts for “hate propaganda”. Eva knows this perfectly well, just like all the other Evas in Belgium, Europe and the West.
The Irish monks risked their lives to copy Aristotle. Progressive Belgians risk, at worst, a reprimand from the editor-in-chief while they smash Christian plaster statues. The difference is abyssal. A civilisation that laughs at its own history has already lost its backbone.
Belgium, once home to the great Flemish humanists, now allows the country’s opinion-makers to trample on their own history out of sheer cowardice. Europe, the heir of Athens, Rome and Jerusalem, behaves like a wealthy old lady who feels guilty for her own wealth and therefore invites the thieves in and lets them help themselves.
Nicola Porro hits the nail on the head in his review of my new book “Titanic Europa” in Il Giornale. He writes: “It is natural that a culture that no longer believes in itself allows itself to be colonised”.
The others do not need Trojan horses; everyone can see that we are building them ourselves. The rest is merely the sound of shattering glass in a padded room, while history outside continues to march and shows no mercy to those who deny themselves.