There have rarely been long-lasting Eras of Good Feelings in the United States. Clashes between the various cultures existing within the union have more often than not been the norm – clashes over tariffs, wars, abortion, slavery, monetary policy, over the very nature of the union itself.
Those clashes are not by any means absent as a new year is born, and traditional Southerners find themselves on the receiving end of much of the metaphorical and literal gun fire.
Physical Attacks
Loosened immigration restrictions championed by transnational capitalists and humanitarian liberals in various corners of the States have led to the deaths of Southerners. Laken Riley, the young Georgia nursing student murdered in 2024 by an illegal immigrant, is one of the most high-profile cases.
Now we must add two other young Southerners, Ella Cook of Alabama and Mukhammad Umurzokov of Virginia. A Portuguese national who won a diversity visa lottery is responsible for their deaths at Brown University, where both were students.
In addition, Yankee States are unapologetically sending abortion pills into Southern States that are killing Southern children in the womb. Louisiana and Texas are currently locked in a legal battle with New York over this unconscionable practice, but there are several other Yankee States with similar shield laws like New York’s that would allow them to send these abortion pills into the South if doctors within those States so chose.
Historical Attacks
The barbaric iconoclasm directed against the memory of Southern heroes has not ceased. The latest act was committed by Virginia’s phony conservative governor, Glenn Youngkin. Here’s part of the report from the folks at Revolver about this act of betrayal:
‘For years now, Americans have been told that tearing down historical statues is about some half-baked “healing” process that will somehow lead to “progress,” because we’re finally confronting our dark, ugly history with honesty.
‘Hogwash.
‘The pattern has always been perfectly clear. What’s being destroyed isn’t ignorance or “racism,” it’s memory. History is being weaponized and rewritten to fit a progressive narrative.
‘This week, that pattern was on full display inside the US Capitol, where a statue of Robert E. Lee was replaced with one honoring civil rights activist Barbara Rose Johns. And standing front and center, smiling ear-to-ear for the cameras, was Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin.
‘And that’s what triggered the epic backlash that swallowed Youngkin whole. He was digitally lambasted for caving to the left’s whitewashing of history by publicly endorsing the removal of one of the most historically significant Virginians of the last 150 years.
‘To many watching this circus unfold, it looked like one of the biggest RINO surrenders in recent memory.’
Spiritual Attacks
These are the most dangerous for they strike at the main root of identity and culture: religion. Dixie’s Christian roots are being struck and severed by several different attackers.
First are the false religions that outsiders are bringing with them, such as Hinduism. Because of the large influx of non-Southerners into States like North Carolina, unheard of actions are taking place:
‘Plans are underway to build and install a massive 155-foot statue of a Hindu god in North Carolina that, once erected, would be the tallest statue in the United States.
‘The outlet Indian Eagle recently announced plans in Moncure, North Carolina, about 30 minutes southwest of Raleigh, to build the world’s largest statue of Lord Murugan, a warrior god of Hinduism. The statue will be part of the Carolina Murugan Temple Campus, for which 130 acres of land were purchased in 2019.
‘The statue will break a record as the largest in the United States, not including a pedestal. The Lord Murugan sculpture just surpasses the Statue of Liberty, which stands 151 feet tall, not including its also massive 154-foot base. Lord Murugan will have only a 35-foot pedestal.
‘The site plan received approval in late 2018 and now has its design completed and submitted to Chatham County. A Boomi Poojai ritual to honor the Mother Earth goddess was performed on the site in May 2021.’
We may add to these abominations the appointment of an anti-Christian bigot to serve as Secretary of Public Safety in Virginia, and an act of anti-Christian bias against a high-school girl in North Carolina.
Resist Like the Greeks
Dixie has always loved the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome. The perseverance of the Greeks in preserving their identity through so many centuries and so many catastrophes is of special relevance for the South as we consider what we must do to hold on to our own patrimony.
One of the main keys to survival is the willingness to fight, to never surrender permanently, to continue living the traditions of the ethnos even when under the dominion of hostile forces, writes a contemporary Greek author, Dr Evaggelos Vallianatos:
‘The situation was tough. Modern Greek historians closed that gap by digging into the history of medieval Hellenism: the Greeks continued speaking Greek; they continue with their Hellenic traditions of farming and food; they continued with their democratic traditions in the village; they never ceased resisting the enemy; they celebrated the birth of children, weddings and other major events with music, dancing and poetry; and they did their best in preserving their Hellenic inheritance.’
Also essential is the education of the younger generations, which is often either prevented or corrupted by conquering powers. Such was the case of the Greeks under the Turks, and such is the case of the South under the Yankees:
‘During the years of the Ottoman Rule, the Turkish authorities did not allow Greeks to have schools and educate their children. As a result, the priests and monks would gather secretly at night the Greek children, usually into churches and monasteries, in order to teach them reading, writing, mathematics, as well as the principles of the Orthodox faith and Greek history’ (Elder Paisios of Mount Athos, Saint Arsenios the Cappadocian, Holy Monastery of Evangelist John the Theologian, Souroti, Thessaloniki, Greece, 2007, p. 56, Note 2).
One will get a better idea of the pains the Greeks went through to educate their children properly from the following story about St Arsenios in Pharasa in the late 19th century:
‘ . . . he went about his work in an unassuming fashion and with great discernment, despite the fact that he was so young. He had prepared a room as a school and, instead of desks, had long-haired goatskins or sheepskins, for the children to kneel on and to follow the lessons.
‘In this rather sagacious manner he avoided provoking the Turks, and even when they happened to see the children, they simply assumed they were praying. Many times Father Arsenios would gather the children in the Chapel of Panaghia . . . , which was located high up on a cliff in a cave and was used as a Secret School’ (Ibid., pgs. 54, 56).
The quasi-catacomb nature of the life of traditional Southerners will require us to use similarly unusual methods to teach our children not only the basic rudiments of the utilitarian subjects (which wokeness and other quack theories are ruining) but also the true story of our people and the teachings of Christianity.
The tenacity of the Greeks in holding on to their cultural identity, in deepening their knowledge of it, would eventually bear fruit, the fruit of freedom from their oppressor:
‘ . . . they built schools and started educating the children of peasants on the basics of Greek history and culture. This slow, laborious, and centuries-long effort connected the ancients and the moderns in Greece. By the beginnings of the nineteenth century, it sparked the Greek Revolution against the Turks’ (Dr Villianatos).
That struggle of the Greeks for their freedom beginning in 1821 captured the attention of many in the West and was an inspiration to them. It should similarly inspire those of us here at the South:
‘The English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was keenly aware of the transformation taking place in Greece. In 1821, the year of the outbreak of the Greek Revolution, he said:
‘“We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts, have their root to Greece.” (The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1994, 501.)
‘Shelley was witnessing the heroic struggle of the Greeks to throw the Turks off their land. The moto of the revolutionaries was freedom or death. Shelley was one of dozens of philhellenes who fought with the Greeks against the Turks.
‘When the French and British, in alliance with the Turks, were fighting Russians in the Crimean War in the 1850s, the English newspaper, The Manchester Guardian, connected the Greek achievement to the Greeks’ passion for freedom. And that, the newspaper said, is why the Greeks matter:
‘“Why do we still read with undying interest the annals of that small Athenian state, whose whole free population never equaled that of the least of our metropolitan boroughs? Is it for the graceful verse of its tragedians, the rollicking wit of its comedians, or the glowing eloquence of its orators? Not a bit of it. All these treasures of literature are precious to us because they are the legacy and the inheritance of a freedom gained at fearful odds from mighty hosts. It is because each choric song and each tragic lay breathes of the spirit, which drew the sword at Marathon, and baffled the invader at Salamis. . . .’ (Ibid.)
From our current vantage point, the attainment of Southern independence or even autonomy within the United States would seem to be an almost impossible goal facing the same ‘fearful odds’ and ‘mighty hosts’ that the Greeks encountered more than once in their history. But the Greeks did triumph over their foes. And we have other examples from the past: of the Roman Christians triumphing over their pagan persecutors; of the eastern European countries driving out the communists from power; etc.
A new year has come, and with it new hopes. Our prayer is for a Southland free to live peacefully according to the traditions handed down to us by our forefathers. The Greeks and others show us that it can be done, though the labors required are difficult. That is all the more reason for us to supplicate ‘the Bestower of prizes, Christ our God’ (Slain for Their Faith: Orthodox Christian Martyrs under Moslem Oppression, Leonidas Papadopoulos, Ellensburg, Wash., 2013, p. 123) for victory in the contest as we cross the threshold of 2026 and enter the arena once more.
The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily those of the Abbeville Institute.
