The Great Replacement Thesis Goes Mainstream In Italy

Italy's Minister of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, grandnephew of glorious 1960s screen siren Gina (below), has said that Italy should not "give in to the idea of ethnic replacement" through the twin evils of mass immigration and childlessness. "The Italians are having fewer children, so we'll replace them with someone else.’ That's not the way,” said Francesco. (State-funded BBC).

Unfortunately,  he suggested that he'd also accept immigration if it led to “growth opportunities for a country.” He should realise that short-term economic gains are not sufficient compensation for permanent demographic change and legal immigration often far exceeds illegal, having a greater impact on the population. Perhaps Italian farmers, like the British, want their cheap foreign labour.

His comments were in response to the recent publication of Italian birth figures of 1.2 per woman, putting them among the most infertile countries in the world. A shocking state of affairs for the Catholic nation. 

They also followed leader Giorgia Meloni's attempts to declare a 'state of emergency' in Italy, after 31,000 marauders crossed the Mediterranean Sea to throw themselves upon Italy's welfare state. The emergency, sadly, won't lead to them being repelled but to their being given more support, faster. 

Predictably, the centre and Left-wing Italian candidates have gone into overdrive with Reductio Ad Hitlerum after Lollobrigida's comments, while the right of centre are keeping quiet for now. This includes his Brothers of Italy leader, Giorgia Meloni, who is his sister-in-law. 

The theory of the Great Replacement has many antecedents. One of the earliest modern iterations was by the US writer Lothrop Stoddard in his 1920 book The Rising Tide of Colour. Another was by the French writer, Jean Raspail, in his bestselling 1973 book The Camp Of The Saints, which outlined a scenario where massive boats would begin to arrive from the Third World and the Europeans would not have the moral courage to react appropriately. 

The best-known version of this theory though is by the previously fêted French man of letters (and homosexual) Renaud Camus, who in 2012 published a book entitled the Grand Remplacement. In it, he declared a process of "being reverse colonized by Black and Brown immigrants, who are flooding the Continent in what amounts to an extinction-level event.”

As the term has gained in currency, it has also been widely opposed in two key ways. Firstly, by those who improvise and add their own content that is not present in Camus' own writing, attributing to it the criticism that it's an "anti-Semitic conspiracy theory" that blames Jews (or a shadowy cabal that is taken to be representative of them) for the process. The other key tactic is to associate it with manifestos written by certain right-wing mass murderers because they had referenced it in their published screeds. To even discuss the demographic change in this context becomes a terroristic event for its opponents who often believe those voicing it should be legally imprisoned. 

No polls have been conducted in Britain on attitudes to this issue by official polling companies, though one impressive vox pop (We Were Never Asked) was recorded on the streets of Britain and the public showed almost universal opposition. In France though when asked over 60% of the population firmly believes in (and opposes) the theory.

Therefore, as time goes on, critics of the thesis will inevitably become more and more a discredited minority. 

I shall leave you on a happier note, with Francesco's ancestor, Gina, who passed in January: