Why far-right nationalists like Steve Bannon have embraced a Russian ideologue
Source: Washington Post
Why far-right nationalists like Steve Bannon have embraced a Russian ideologue
And how his medieval fantasies distort history for his cause.
By Brandon W. Hawk
Brandon W. Hawk is an assistant professor of English at Rhode Island College who writes about the Middle Ages, biblical apocrypha, and intersections with pop culture.
April 16 at 6:00 AM
Stephen K. Bannon is back. He’s making the rounds in the United States and abroad, talking about uniting “the Judeo-Christian West” in a clear call for violence against the Islamic world. Two new documentaries focus on his life and work — Alison Klayman’s “The Brink” and Errol Morris’s not-yet-released “American Dharma” — and Anderson Cooper interviewed him on CNN late last month.
Bannon’s return should raise concerns. It became clear during his time in the Trump campaign and then the administration that the former head of Breitbart was a key player in the mainstreaming of the alt-right in the United States. But Bannon’s reemergence is tied to the global spread of the far right in the United States and Europe. And Bannon is using a racist version of the history of the Middle Ages to justify and legitimize his vision for nationalist imperialism.
To understand Bannon and the threat posed by his reemergence, we need to get to know the dangerous Russian ideologue who has inspired him: Aleksandr Dugin, a man once called “The Most Dangerous Philosopher in the World” for his influence on world politics. A Russian political analyst and modern fascist, Dugin has written dozens of books laying out his political philosophy. His Eurasianist ideology is grounded in a fundamentalist religious nationalism that seeks to create a Christian empire that unites Europe and Asia in a quest to restore a “traditionalism” rooted in conservative Orthodox Christian values and white supremacy.
One key to understanding Dugin’s politics is his fixation on the Middle Ages. His website is plastered with medieval imagery and iconography: Stock images of icons of saints, Byzantine mosaics, manuscripts and church architecture abound. In his writings, too, Dugin idealizes a fictional version of the Middle Ages, one that stands in stark contrast to the modern world and liberalism, which he rejects.
To Dugin, Christian imperialism is an ideal political form that secures racial purity. ...
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/04/16/why-far-right-nationalists-like-steve-bannon-have-embraced-russian-ideologue/
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