In Dagsnytt 18 on 3 February, the publishing manager of Humanist forlag, Bente Pihlstrøm, made gross and false accusations against our publisher Legatum Publishing, without us having the opportunity to respond, beyond a short pre-written statement, because we were not invited to the conversation. We therefore respond in the form of this post. The starting point for the debate was that our colleague Bente Pihlstrøm believes we should be excluded from the Publishers’ Association because we are allegedly “fascists” who are “clearly anti-democratic” and publish books written by “far-right ideologues”. Pihlstrøm would hardly have reacted if Aschehoug or Gyldendal had published Mein Kampf, and she does not advocate excluding publishers run by communists who publish books by Marx or Lenin. But when people she defines as “fascists” publish a political philosophy she defines as “reindeer fascism”, the situation is different. Pihlstrøm wants to limit other publishers’ freedom of organization and expression on the basis of opinions she attributes to those who run the publishing house. Then it becomes ridiculous that she accuses us of “deep down” not caring about freedom of expression. Because we support full freedom of speech, assembly and organization for everyone, regardless of what they think. Pihlstrøm does not. We think it is obvious to the reader who actually has anti-democratic attitudes. Let’s take a closer look at how much support there is in Pihlstrøm’s claims. Haven’t read Benoist’s manifesto To substantiate her accusations, she points out that Legatum Publishing is to publish a book by the French historian of ideas Alain de Benoist. Pihlstrøm claimed in Dagsnytt 18 that he is “one of the biggest far-right ideologues we have” and that his ideas are “pure fascism”. But anyone who takes the trouble to read Benoist’s Manifesto for a European Renaissance, which Pihlstrøm obviously has not done, will see that he is a clear opponent of fascism, a supporter of more grassroots democracy and what is today often called a “freedom of expression fundamentalist”. About fascism, he writes that it is one of the ideologies which, like i.a. Nazism and Communism were dealt the death blow in the 20th century because the “concrete results were genocide, ethnic cleansing, massacres” and “total war between nations”. (Part I. 2 – The crisis of modernity) Is it possible to interpret this in any other way than that Benoist thinks fascism was a disaster? Among other things, he writes the following about democracy: “Democracy is the form of government that is best suited to safeguard society’s pluralism: peaceful solutions to conflicts of ideas, absence of coercion in the relationship between majority and minority, freedom of expression for minorities because they can be tomorrow’s majority.””Renewal of the democratic spirit means to … seek to implement a genuine participatory democracy at all levels … To achieve this, one must consider politics less as a state affair and rather recreate a space for political participation at the grassroots level: every citizen should be involved in safeguarding the common good … The passive consumer, the citizen who has been reduced to a spectator with private rights, will not be able to be activated in any other way than through a radically decentralized form of grassroots democracy that gives each individual a role in the choice of and control over one’s own life. The practice of referendums can also be revived at the people’s initiative.” (Part III. 7 – Against depoliticisation, for a strengthening of democracy) This is what Alain de Benoist writes in a manifesto in which he declares how the think tank he leads, The New Right, wants the Europe of the future to look like. How is it possible to interpret this in any other way than that he wants a democratic Europe? And here are some of the statements about freedom of expression in the manifesto: “Freedom of expression … in principle allows no exceptions. … The New Right advocates a return to critical thinking and fights for total freedom of expression.” (Part III. 14 – For freedom of spirit and debate of ideas) These are Alain de Benoist’s opinions on fascism, democracy and freedom of expression. And when Pihlstrøm tries to concretize her claims that Legatum Publishing are anti-democratic fascists who don’t really care about freedom of expression, she chooses to point out that we want to spread this man’s literature, a man who, in our opinion, is obviously an anti-fascist, pro-democratic free speech fundamentalist. We find it hard to believe that Pihlstrøm has read anything Alain de Benoist has written. We challenge her to substantiate her claims with specific quotes from Benoist. Weak argumentation Pihlstrøm also mentions that we will publish a book by Dominique Venner, who according to her “is embraced by purely fascist parties or groups such as Golden Dawn in Greece and Casa Pound in Italy”. Well, Karl Marx has been embraced by far-left terrorists worldwide. Is there an argument for excluding Marxist publishers from the Publishers Association? Furthermore, Pihlstrøm claimed in Dagsnytt 18 that we have published a “conspiracy book”. It is not true. We have published a book on “The Great Shift”, which is a term used to describe the radical demographic changes currently taking place in Western Europe and the USA. The UN calls it “replacement migration”, others call it “population replacement” or “The Great Replacement”. But these are just different names for a well-documented demographic process that no one denies is taking place. Pihlstrøm belongs to the part of the left that tries to label those who call it “The Great Change” as conspiracy theorists in order to delegitimize them. She resorts to the easy-to-see-through rule technique of putting stigmatizing labels such as extremist, fascist and conspiracy theorists on people who do not share her worldview and then using this as a pretext to curtail their freedom of expression, assembly and organisation. If there is anyone who truly threatens democracy today, it is people like Pihlstrøm.
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False claims in Dagsnytt 18 – Statement
