Column | Does that decent conservatism even exist?

It was a shock, and yet no surprise either: the repopulation theory that was discussed at Ongehoord Nederland without being contradicted. The broadcaster operates in an ecosystem of half and full conspiracy theories and it was only a matter of time before the hobbyhorse of the radical right would pass. The House of Representatives has asked for clarification – a good thing. Murders in the name of this theory, last week in the American town of Buffalo, where ten people were killed after a young white supremacist opened fire.

The conspiracy theory, coined in 2010 by the French writer Renaud Camus, has a large following in both the United States and Europe. Basically, left-wing elites are colluding with international business by importing non-Western immigrants (read: blacks and Muslims) on a large scale. The aim would be to ‘replace’ the white population and establish a globalist order without nation states and trade barriers.

In 2019 I visited Camus in his 14th century chateau near Toulouse, where he leads the secluded life of a late nineteenth-century aesthete. Camus once made a name for himself with a homoerotic novel and was friends with Andy Warhol; it gives its current role as an icon of the radical right a edgy edge. What struck me during the conversation was his disdain for demographers and the numbers they present. Data shows that immigration has been stable for many years, that although there are problems locally, integration is generally going well. But all that is not for Camus. Trust your own experience, he says, anecdotal as it may be.

“Look at the platforms, the streets and the squares,” he writes La France, suicide d’une nation (2010). “It is clear to everyone that France is changing color.” Camus plainly speaks of an “occupation” and that’s where it gets seriously dangerous. Because if you are occupied, resistance is legitimate, and why not by force of arms?

Behind Camus’ Grand replacement hides a deep unease with modernity. It is expressed in Liquid Modernity van Zygmunt Bauman, the Marxist sociologist who appropriated the national conservative movement in recent years. In our society, changes happen so fast that they don’t have time to solidify, says Bauman. A certain rootlessness was the result.

Also read this portrait from 2018: ‘Environment’ comes from a French castle

‘Modernity’, ‘change’, within classical conservatism these were for a long time relatively neutral terms. It’s a matter of slowing down a bit here, adjusting a bit there. The refugee crisis of 2015, Brexit, the rise of Trump and Orbán have sharpened that, or rather: pulled the veil away. It suddenly turned out to be primarily about our Christian identity and our white skin color. He was threatened and had to be defended.

You see it in America, where the “decent,” Burkian conservatism of David Brooks has been overtaken by the thinly veiled ethno-nationalism of figures like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. That raises the uneasy question of whether that decent conservatism actually exists, and isn’t it essentially a reactionary movement. What is certain is that conspiracies have always been part of the Western counter-revolutionary tradition. They have traditionally been the savage side-arm of the conservative mainstream.

But Camus’ replacement theory has become so widespread that it appears that the side arm itself has become mainstream. The House of Representatives would also do well to ask for clarification from its own ranks. In 2018 Camus was brought to Rotterdam by PVV MP Martin Bosma. He said he was “impressed” on Twitter.

Marijn Kruk is a historian and journalist. He writes a column every other week about politics and the representation of climate time.

A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of May 23, 2022