Review of Ocalan's Prison Writings

Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the PKK (pictured above), sits in a Turkish jail since 1999. He has penned a book, Prison Writings: The Roots of Civilisation (2007), which I reviewed for the journal Millennium in 2008. The review, in conjunction with others, appears on the Web site for Ocalan's publisher. See the review below:

http://ocalan-books.com/reviews.html

As a footnote, Ocalan's lawyers are trying to pass him my review, but Turkish authorities insist it is translated into Turkish first. Ocalan's recent proposals for resolving the Kurdish-Turkish conflict along federalist lines are certainly interesting. A man that once lived by the gun, Ocalan now renounces ultra-nationalism, Marxism, and terrorist violence. Except the Turkish state is not so convinced about his change of heart.

Tamir Bar-On

My Summer Projects: Book, Article in Book, and Journal Article

As my teaching duties are completed at the TEC of Monterrey (Campus Queretaro) until August, here are my main summer projects below:

1) Write lots of chapters for my book, The French New Right: Three More Interpretations (2011-2012).

2) Complete my chapter on "Intellectual Right-Wing Extremism" for the book edited by Uwe Backes and Patrick Moreau entitled The Extreme Right in Europe: Current Trends and Perspectives. The book is a joint project of the UMR Cultures and Societies in Europe (Strasbourg, France) and of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Social Research on Totalitarianism (Dresden, Germany). This chapter will be completed at the end of June.

3) Write an article on the transnational worldview and influence of the French nouvelle droite. I hope to complete this article by next week and send it to an academic journal.

4) Solicit academics from around the world to take part in the Advisory Board for a new journal I am editing at the TEC of MONTERREY called Retos Internacionales.

5) As the picture above shows, hopefully spend some time near a Mexican ocean (I love the Pacific coast!).

Tamir Bar-On

Fifth Academic Article: Nouvelle Droite and Empire!

Here is the title of my fifth academic article:

"Fascism to the Nouvelle Droite: The Dream of Pan-European Empire," Journal of Contemporary European Studies 16 (3) (December 2008), pp. 327-345.

Here is the abstract below:

The purpose of this paper is to trace continuity in the attachment of the nouvelle droite to a homogeneous notion of pan-European identity since its birth in 1968. Like the nouvelle droite, early post-war neo-fascism and significant fascist elements in Italy were similarly obsessed with the decline of homogeneous pan-European or Western identities. Despite the ultra-nationalistic origins of historical fascism, early post-war neo-fascism and the nouvelle droite in different historical periods, the thread tying them together is the notion of a strong, unified, homogeneous, pan-European empire regenerated in defense against the dominant 'materialist' ideologies such as liberalism, conservatism, social democracy, socialism, capitalism and communism.

And the link to the full article:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/37770743/Dr-Tamir-Bar-On-The-Dream-of-Pan-European-Empire

By the way, the map above is of the Roman Empire in C.E. 117. The nouvelle droite under its leader Alain de Benoist has stated as its geopolitical preference the recreation of a pan-European empire in which there is a "Europe of a Hundred Flags." Internally, the regions or states would be homogeneous (cleansed of immigrants) led by an imperial centre with an authoritarian, elitist, corporatist bent. Yes to a European union says the nouvelle droite, but no to the capitalist, technocratic European Union of today. A united imperial Europe, the nouvelle droite reasons, would be able to challenge the world's sole remaining superpower and its primary enemy, the liberal capitalist United States of America. 

Tamir Bar-On