@ traveller

While we often share similar political views on specific issues, I am afraid we will have to disagree on this one.  For a while I thought that this was just a disagreement about 'style' (Taki's style, that is), but it is not.  There is disagreement here about substance.

In my opinion, you have not adequately dealt with any of my 4 specific points.  Your response provoked me to re-read the article in The Spectator, and I am even more convinced than before that it is a load of "gibberish".  His early comments about Greece, Italy and Britain, are almost infantile in their jingoistic implications.  I see it as typical glib moral relativism on the nationalistic right.  Perhaps, that is what readers of The Spectator expect these days.  It certainly resembles very much the more common sort of gibberish on the multicul left in the media.  But sure, that loose 'style' very much characterises our entire civilisation these days.  I call it "radical chic" sentimentalism, either whether it comes from the left or the right.  Taki is right that all "empires fall", but his kind of writing is more indicative of the truth that "all civilisations fall" eventually. 

His promiscuous use of language (take the word "empire", for instance) is indicative of his moral relativism.  Indeed, on the second page of the article he expresses (though indirectly) distate for "moral judgments".  And, his language is also cryptic enough to enable him to hedge his bets, so to speak.    No wonder it allows you to claim that he is only "intrigued" by Mussolini, whereas I clearly detect "admiration".   By the way, his claim that d'Annuncio was followed by "poor, honest, unsophisticated Italians" whereas Mussolini was followed by "nihilists, intellectuals, cosmopolites...", is an historical lie. Take another example of his irresponsible moral 'hedging':  to satisfy his emotional need for Belgium to disappear and Flanders to 'emerge', he claims that "Belgian politicians are a disgrace", but he conveniently 'forgets' that at least half of them are Flemish!   This is not the sort of language of a person who wants to hold people, any people, accountable.  He will fix 'blame' in function of his ideological goals, not on an objective basis.     

I agree with you that Flanders and Lombardy are both very creative regions in the world, but I am more interested to hear what Italians have to say about their cultural affinities, or lack thereof, than someone like Taki who clearly feals 'superior' to Italians as a Greek.   We disagree about his admiration for Mussolini, and I maintain that his admiration/fascination with Mussolini is "abhorrent".   Just like the nutcases at the New York Times consider themselves first 'neutral' journalists before they are Americans, so Taki clearly sees himself as an 'artist' "with poetic licence" before he is a moral human being.   We also disagree about China, but that is a very different subject. 

Agreed on all points.

@ traveller

I suspect there are many "mistakes" in Taki's comments, but I don't think his kind of gibberish in The Spectator deserves a serious answer.   A few minor points:

-- It is one thing to express disgust for a creature as Louis Michel, but it is quite another to express admiration for...Mussolini.  The former disgust is understandable, the latter admiration is (should be) abhorrent.  Taki himself is of course aware of the eternal 'seductiveness' of fascism, including its seductiveness for comtemporary lefties (who do not seem to realise it).  Indeed, his kind of comments would tend to smear Flemish independence 'by association'.

-- It is one thing to express "a prayer" for Flemish independence, but it is quite another to come up with a rationale for such a development.  In my opinion, Taki has nothing serious to say about that rationale.

-- He seems to be somewhat knowledgeable about former European "empires" of sorts in the distant past, but apparently cannot see the difference with what he calls "American empire" today.  For one thing, the former "empires" did not start off with parliamentary debates about 'exit strategies'.  Perhaps, he does not understand what "empire" really means.

-- His concern for 'allies in Iraq' is commendable.  However, the metaphore about "helicopters taking off the roof" is misleading.   He should have spelled out that those helicopters were taking on Vietnamese refugees, NOT American soldiers.   US combat troops had left Vietnam 2 years earlier, following a so-called 'peace treaty' in Paris, which of course the fascists/communists never adhered to.  It is after the lefties in the US Congress cut off all further US aid to South Vietnam, following a direct military invasion from the communist north, that the south 'crumbled', hence the helicopters on the roof.   Taki could and should have made this 'parallel' (for today) clearer.  

I don't see any mistakes in Taki's comments. The conclusions he makes are absolutely logical and his knowledge of Italy is certainly superb.

Taki: Last week I read David Gilmour’s review of The Force of Destiny, by Christopher Duggan, and a very interesting review it was of a book I hope to buy soon. Except for one thing. Gilmour links us Greeks with the Ethiopians in both having defeated the Italians. Well, for one thing the Ethiopians did not.

Not a surprising statement considering his views on Africans in general and Blacks in particular.

Taki: Greece was the only European country fighting alongside Britain in October 1940, and the only one to give a good account of itself...

Not true. Unless one discounts the resistance movements that sprang up in German-occupied Europe. Moreover, major Norwegian resistance lasted for some two months, and the respective movements in Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and later those occupied regions of the Soviet Union were incredibly effective in tying down literally millions of German soldiers, and sabotaging the German war effort.

Taki: As David Gilmour correctly speculates, perhaps Garibaldi and Cavour did the Italians a great disservice by uniting them. (‘Might not industrial Lombardy have succeeded as a sub-Alpine Belgium?’)

True. Regionalism remains strong in Italy, including significant separatism in the north. However, Italy resembles not so much Belgium as France. Italians are a blend of Mediterranean, Alpine and Germanic peoples, although it is difficult to find these groups in isolation. Northern Italians are Germanic-Alpine (like the Swiss), while central Italians are Mediterranean-Alpine and southern Italians are Mediterranean. Not only is this description generalized but it ignores cultural and other non-ancestral factors. Yet, just as the French are a fusion of different ethno-cultural stock (Germanic, Celtic, Mediterranean and to a small extent Alpine) displaced unevely according to geographical and other considerations, so too are the Italians.

Taki: Er, yes and no, as Belgium itself is about to break up, something I fervently pray for. Belgian politicians are a disgrace — French-speaking ones, that is — and the quicker the Flemish majority gets rid of bums like Louis Michel, the better for the rest of us Europeans.

Agreed.

Taki: My two favourite Italians are Gabriele d’Annunzio and Benito Mussolini.

Why am I not surprised? Taki's views seem contradictory. On the one hand he is a proud Greek; on the other, he attaches a certain superiority to Northern Europeans and Germans in particular e.g. Flemish, Germans. According to this perspective, the Greeks would be beneath the French and their Wallonian cousins. Or perhaps Taki merely romanticizes ultra-nationalism and the organisation of human capital possible under totalitarian regimes and during times of war.