This Friday, NSV! Antwerp is organising a lecture with author Daniel Friberg, who just published the Dutch translation of his book, The Real Right Returns. As an appetizer, ReAct had a short interview with Mr. Friberg. Daniel Friberg, MBA, was a founding member of the Swedish metapolitical think tank, Motpol. He has a long history in the Swedish opposition, and was one of the founders of Arktos.
Can you tell us more about Arktos/Motpol (what are their missions) and why you began your activities with them?
The New Right think-tank Motpol (which means ‘the opposite pole’ in Swedish) began in 2006 – and is now celebrating its ten-year anniversary – to fill a void in the Swedish intellectual debate, where no genuine Rightist or traditionalist views were previously represented. Over the years, we have infused public discourse with the ideas and concepts of the French ‘New Right’, the traditionalist ideas of Evola, Schuon, and Guénon, as well as many others from across the entire political and intellectual spectrum – primarily the ‘alternative Right’, and even in some cases the ‘alternative Left’.
The publishing house Arktos Media was launched in 2010 for largely the same reasons, but with a more international focus. Our mission is simply to make the most important thinkers and artists of our time as widely available as possible through the labors of an efficient and profitable publishing operation which consists of a vast network of translators, proofreaders, editors, designers, and distributors, making their works available as widely and in as many languages as possible, and in as many types of media as possible – not just paperbacks and hardcovers, but also e-books and, perhaps one day soon, audio books. We have also made some forays into the world of music production with the band Winglord, and who knows, perhaps one day we will even become involved in video or film production. To date we have become the home of the European ‘New Right’ in English, issuing many works by Alain de Benoist, Guillaume Faye, Dominique Venner, Alexander Dugin, and Julius Evola, although we have published books from many other schools of thought as well.
I should also mention our new site, Right On, which we launched in September, and which is a corollary to our Motpol project, although it consists of different personnel. With it, we are attempting to present the perspective of the Real Right on culture and politics to an English-speaking audience, but hopefully with a somewhat more European perspective than what is already being offered by most of the other English-language Right-wing sites. We update Right On every day with new articles and we have just launched a weekly podcast.
What is your book, The Real Right Returns, about?
My book is trying to accomplish three things: first, to provide an overview of the radical political changes that have taken place in the West over the last 50-60 years, and how these changes were made possible by the Left’s skillful use of metapolitics; second, to provide a common set of principles and concepts for the modern New Right of Europe and the West more generally; and lastly, to provide a thorough introduction to our world of ideas, by inspiring and educating the growing number of supporters which, as we are currently seeing, is quickly rising all over Europe.
In your book you settle accounts with the false Right. What do you mean by the ‘false’ Right, and what does the ‘true’ Right mean to you?
The false Right is simply the liberal Right, that ‘Right’ which is Right-oriented in name only, having capitulated entirely to the Leftist worldview and the plague of Cultural Marxism. This is not a real Right, and it is definitely not the kind of political movement Europe deserves and direly needs in these dark times. It is time we toss it into the scrapheap of history.
You come from Sweden, a country that is being suffocated and destroyed by political correctness. How did things come so far in Sweden, and in Europe more generally, and what can we do against it?
Sweden is largely suffering from the same disease as the rest of the Western world – Cultural Marxism and its components, which includes feminism, multiculturalism, ‘anti-racism’ (which is really just a different form of racism, in this case against Whites), and oikophobia (a fear and loathing of our own culture and heritage). What makes Sweden stand out is that the disease has progressed further in my country than in most others. There are several reasons for this. First, we have not been to war in more than 200 years, which has made us weak in the sense of our national identity and impacted the masculine ideals of our society. Second, we have had a much more successful cabal of Leftist intellectuals, many of whom came to Sweden from Poland during the wave of anti-Semitism which flared up there during the 1960s, and who have been impressively successful at pushing the agenda of Cultural Marxism and making their ideology practically into our state religion.
The solution to this is the same as in any other European country. We have to become more successful at the metapolitical level and engage in metapolitical war with the Left. For that purpose, it is particularly important to gain a stronger foothold in the media and cultural institutions, where we can influence people’s opinions more efficiently and also guide the growing dissent and dissatisfaction with immigration policy and Leftist ideology in a constructive direction. We also need to realise that this is a war fought on many levels, and that we – apart from the metapolitical struggle – naturally need political parties that will push for and legitimise our ideas, and that we also need to focus strongly on building financial power, and so forth. I don’t believe in monolithic organisations, but rather in an integrated, multi-layered network of various organisations, companies, parties, media platforms, student unions, and so on, that will help to pull political developments in the same direction through a joint effort – a direction which will make it possible for our civilisation to survive.
Europe is living through some of its darkest hours. Some people even claim that the fall of Europe is at hand. Do you also believe this to be the case, and what is your message to the people who believe this?
We are indeed living in dark times when our entire civilisation and its biological foundations are being threatened in a way we have never experienced before. But we are also, for that very reason, living in exciting times, and times for heroic deeds. So don’t despair, but instead view this as an opportunity to rise to the occasion and do something truly important with your life. Few people have had the privilege to live in such a defining moment in history. View this as an opportunity for a great adventure, where your contributions can affect the direction of history itself.
Do you have a final message for those people who will be coming to your lecture in Antwerp or who want to buy your book?
I am honored to have been given the opportunity for this interview and for the invitation to speak. I hope to see all of you there, and if you are curious about my book or my previous writings, you can read some of it at Right On, which is a site I’m sure you’ll find interesting in many ways.
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