An Inspiring Weekend of Camaraderie

Once again, the American Renaissance conference was a smoothly organized weekend of fellowship, keen insights, and inspiration. We met at our usual venue — the lodge at Montgomery Bell State Park in Tennessee — where law enforcement professionals kept demonstrators so far away that most attendees were never even aware of the protest.

Gregory Hood argued that what our movement needs more than anything is a Sorrelian Myth to inspire immediate action for a long-term goal. He said that the question about whether a “white identity” is legitimate is meaningless, because all whites in the West already have a negative white identity forced on them. The question is whether whites will accept this imposed villain status, or whether we will be the heroes in our own story.

He said whites will be treated as whites whether they like it or not. Whites should therefore make this a source of pride rather than shame, and accept the historical challenge to build a new kind of state.

Mr. Hood said that white identity is more vivid than civic identity in North America and Western Europe. Our mission, he said, is to build a Western Civilization-State that would have the explicit purpose of ensuring the physical survival of the white race.

Ruuben Kaalep, a member of the Conservative Party in Estonia and an elected parliamentarian, took a different view.

He passionately defended ethnonationalism and independent nation-states. He said ethnostates are the norm in Eastern Europe. “We are an ethnostate,” he said of Estonia, “and we exist, and we are successful.” He said that the explicit purpose of his nation-state is to ensure the survival of the Estonian people and their culture.

Mr. Kaalep said the Ukrainian struggle against Russia is part of the nationalist struggle. Ukraine, he said, is fighting to take its place among other ethnostates.

Nevertheless, although he insisted that different peoples should have their own states, Mr. Kaalep argued that white nationalists around the world should work together. “Our future is united,” he said, calling for “an alliance between nationalists around the world.”