The struggle between Europe and West 

(Interview  with Claudio Mutti by Natella Speranskaya)

1. Q. - How did you discover the Fourth Political Theory? And how would you evaluate its chances of becoming a major ideology of the 21st century?
 A. - Having given a constant attention to the activity developped by Alexander Dugin in the last twenty years, I consider Dugin's attempt to elaborate a Fourth Political Theory as the natural goal of his thought. Concerning his chances of imposing it, I would remember Machiavelli's statement: "All the armed prophets won, the disarmed ones went to ruin" (The Prince, VI, 5).
 2. Q. - Leo Strauss when commenting on the fundamental work of Carl Schmitt The Concept of the Political notes that despite all radical critique of liberalism incorporated in it Schmitt does not follow it through since his critique remains within the scope of liberalism”. “His anti-Liberal tendencies, – claims Strauss, - remain constrained by “systematics of liberal thought” that has not been overcome so far, which – as Schmitt himself admits – “despite all failures cannot be substituted by any other system in today’s Europe. What would you identify as a solution to the problem of overcoming the liberal discourse? Could you consider the Fourth Political Theory by Alexander Dugin to be such a solution? The theory that is beyond the three major ideologies of the 20th century – Liberalism, Communism and Fascism, and that is against the Liberal doctrine.
 A. - Leo Strauss's critique shows that the conservative revolutionary thought, which reached the highest peaks also through Carl Schmitt, must be adjourned for the present historical circumstances. Therefore the Fourth Political Theory is a precious attempt to elaborate an antiliberal doctrine which, after the defeat of the "enemies of the open society" occurred in the XX century, can efficaciously oppose individualism, market cult, "human rights", unipolarism.
  3. Q. - Do you agree that today there are “two Europes”: the one – the liberal one (incorporating the idea of “open society”, human rights, registration of same-sex marriages, etc.) and the other Europe (“a different Europe”) – politically engaged, thinker, intellectual, spiritual, the one that considers the status quo and domination of liberal discourse as a real disaster and the betrayal of the European tradition. How would you evaluate chances of victory of a “different Europe” over the ”first” one?
A. - The struggle between the "two Europes" - I would say: between Europe and West - is a struggle for life or death, because the final instauration of liberal totalitarism, with the monsters created by its atheistic anthropology, by its cult of profit, by its technological prometheism, would mean to sink to the bottom of a subhuman barbarity which never existed in the world history. I don't know if Europe will find in itself the necessary energies to invert the liberal trend, nor we can see the "help from East” hypothized by René Guénon, so that I am tempted to repeat that "only a god can save us". In every case, "good Europeans" must do their duty and continue to struggle, never mind the chances of victory.
 4. Q. - “There is nothing more tragic than a failure to understand the historical moment we are currently going through; - notes Alain de Benoist – this is the moment of postmodern globalization”. The French philosopher emphasizes the significance of the issue of a new Nomos of the Earth or a way of establishing international relations. What do you think the fourth Nomos will be like? Would you agree that the new Nomos is going to be Eurasian and multipolar (transition from universum to pluriversum)?
 A. - A new, multipolar Nomos der Erde liberating the world from the global prepotence of the US thalassocracy can be established only by a power or a front of powers possessing those requirements that have permitted the US to build their world hegemony: continental dimensions, demographic weight, atomic armament, technological development, cultural prestige, strong political system, will of power. In this case we can foresee the birth of a pluriversum consisting of six or seven "great spaces": China (and Japan), India, Iran, Russia, Europe, Latin-America and North America. 
 5. Q. - Do you agree that the era of the white European human race has ended, and the future will be predetermined by Asian culture and societies?

 A. - After World War II the concept of “white race” has been replaced by other categories, more anti-racist and politically correct: “the Free World”, “the West”. Now, since the West has hegemonized some peoples belonging to the yellow race and is trying to submit the Arab world, the idea of “the decline of the West” seems to be upset, so that somebody has been able to speak of “westernization of the world”. Nevertheless, this perspective is hindered by the actual persistence of non-Western cultures, based on the values of authority, order, hierarchy and supremacy of community over individual. That is why the US theorist of the “clash of civilizations” has imagined a future “islamic-confucian axis” as the greatest obstacle to the final triumph of the western hegemony.
  6. Q. - Do you consider Russia to be a part of Europe or do you accept the view that Russia and Europe represent two different civilizations?
 A. - The above mentioned theorist of the “clash of civilizations” considers that Russia is a “torn country” since the times of Peter the Great, as among Russians some people think that their country is a part of Europe, while others think it is the fulcrum of a peculiar Eurasian civilization. Indeed, nobody can deny that, also after the end of the Tatarian domination, in Russia civil and military institutions held their Mongolian-Tatarian nature, so that we could consider Russian civilization as a synthesis of Slavic, Roman and Turkish-Mongolian elements.
  7. Q. - Contemporary ideologies are based on the principle of secularity. Would you predict the return of religion, the return of sacrality? If so, in what form? Do you consider it to be Islam, Christianity, Paganism or any other forms of religion?
 A. - Concerning the modern ideologies, you have to consider that sometimes their apparent secularity hides degenerated, deviated, counterfeited elements of religious origin, as it happens, for example, in the American case, where you could easily discover a secularized messianism founded on a presumed divine investiture. In the modern world the religions are exposed to an analogue danger of profanation, so that the "return of sacrality" can happen in spurious and parodistic forms: Zionism, American fundamentalism and Wahhabism-Salafism belong to the phenomenology of this kind of profanation. 
 
 
Claudio Mutti, January 21st, 2013