The New Vikings

Photo: pravda.ru Photo: pravda.ru
    

The ninth century chronicles of England constantly refer to the war between the ‘Christians’ and the ‘heathen’, that is, the war between the English and the Vikings. Once the English had themselves been heathen and a bit like the Vikings. However, they had settled 300-400 years before the Viking raids, founding homes and farmsteads (‘hams’ and ‘tons’) and had begun to live as Christians. The Vikings raided (killed, raped, enslaved, looted and pillaged) and traded (exploited and made huge profits). True, many of them then settled like the English, but their spirit lived on and infected other races.

Their spirit lived on in the last Viking invasion – that of the Normans, who were also Vikings. By the eleventh century, having learned French, these barbarian Vikings had become the shock-troops of the new imperial papist ideology in Rome, massacring in southern Italy, England and then much further afield as far as Jerusalem in so-called ‘crusades’. Then their spirit spread to others, especially in northern France between the Loire and the Rhine, and gradually horse-mounted banditry and castle-built exploitation (called ‘feudalism’) became the norm for the whole European upper-class.

Thus, this was the spirit of the Teutonic Knights attacking 13th century Russia, of Spanish conquistadors in 16th century Latin America, of British and French slave-traders, ‘merchants’ and pirates in the 18th century Caribbean and India, of European cowboys in 19th century North America and the spirit of all Westerners and their converts who have looted and pillaged Asia, Oceania and Africa. At one time people spoke of Westernization, in the 1960s Americanization, today it is globalization. It is all the same. It means infecting the world with the Viking spirit of piratry and pillage.

Today the Viking spirit is not conducted by Viking longships, medieval knights, Spanish galleons, British ‘privateers’ (State-sponsored pirates) or Gatling gun-armed troops massacring Africans armed with spears. It is conducted by Western politicians in cartels, ‘businessmen’, international bankers and Stock Exchange or corporate ‘raiders’. They are raiding, asset-stripping, the rest of the world to feed their incredible capitalist-consumerist machine, making all into drugged, enslaved and enzombied consumerists with their Black Friday Alexa apps, ordering them to buy. They are today’s Viking victims.

Used with permission.
Comments
John2/12/2019 5:45 pm
Um, aren't Russians the descendants of Rurik the Viking?
Ian1/1/2019 6:27 pm
Could a lamentable case also be made against the canonical church system after blending with imperialism (4th century onwards), having been lured from living the disarmament prophecy of Isaiah 2, as proclaimed in Justin’s First Apology chapter 39? Did this osmosis inspire the rise of an enviable Islam? If Sharia is submission - politically, socially and religiously -, domination with exacting legislation, persuasively backed by force, is this “Viking spirit” so very different from that manifested by Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant churchmen, Byzantine Emperors, Tsars, or other politicians? Yet our Lord taught, “it shall not be so among you;” and, “love your enemies.” (Mat. 20:26; 5:44)
Rdr Andreas Moran12/30/2018 9:41 pm
Can the character traits of modern English people be attributed to Viking ancestry? This is a very complex matter and would need to be considered in the light of the findings of DNA specialists. From what I have gleaned, the percentage of people in England who have Viking ancestry is highest in the north – Yorkshire, specifically – at 5.6%, whereas in the rest of England, it is in the range of 1.9% to 3.6%. I don’t know the genetic makeup of the remaining 95% or so. If this is so, is it not quite a leap to attribute English colonial and mercantile expansion in the imperial period and current activity to Viking ancestry? Perhaps the answer, if it can be found, is more complex.
Fr John McMonagle12/30/2018 10:53 am
I think that Fr Andrew is on to something here. This is insightful. He should develop his thoughts here into a longer article to clarify the connection between Viking-ism and modern corporate dominion. There is a lot of work done in other places to further develop his thought.
Michael 12/30/2018 5:17 am
Further more I don’t know why there still calling out the Vikings on there past sins and horrific acts. Some of them became saints and also it became a convince for the the Byzantine empire when the Muslims were invading. Why do we forget the fact the Islam has done much more horrific acts and are still doing it today, 1400 years of slaughtering etc. Just saying here! Oh but wait there not from the west.
Michael 12/30/2018 5:09 am
Yes let’s blame the west for everything that goes wrong in the east. It was the west who caused the Arian heriseys. The west is bad!!! The east never does anything wrong, they are living saints among men!
Anna12/30/2018 5:02 am
A thought provoking and insightful article, albeit full of generalisations. To be fair, James is correct, we must be careful as there is a move afoot to rewrite Western (civilization) and American history that, without completely and obviously lying, highlights the evil and minimizes the good while the whole truth is obscured in finger pointing, blame and hatred. When our people become ignorant of the whole of history, and see only the past as something to be rejected, they will quickly cling to whatever is offered in its stead by those who are raiding and pillaging and destroying.
Rdr Andreas Moran12/29/2018 11:00 pm
I think James is right. I'm unsure to whom Anthony refers in his comment - who is this westerner? Since his comment follows mine, he may be referring to me, but, as I have said elsewhere, I have Irish ancestry, and the Irish suffered more than most from the English. More generally, we may recall what St Paul said at Romans 13:1-7.
Brad12/29/2018 8:17 pm
Another type of the Viking mentality very active today is Islam. But they are even more dangerous because their host countries in Europe are actually welcoming them.
James12/29/2018 6:47 pm
We ought be very careful here. This article has lots of accuracy but also gets very close to blaming all the world's problems on westerners which fails to see the evils everywhere else. Also as a 12th generation cowboy the application of the Viking mentality onto cowboys is really a characterization based on Hollywood's depiction rather than on historical fact. The article is also very close to making these accusations against westerners as opposed to Western Civilization and culture. An important dividing line. I certainly wouldn't want my Russian brethren at church to hold to this view. It's tribally divisive. I get the point of the article, and agree with it. But it's almost to far.
Anthony12/29/2018 2:06 pm
Well, at least there's one westerner who's prepared to call a spade a spade and acknowledge what his people have been doing to the rest of us for centuries. God's justice may be slow. But it is coming to those whom Ayios Gerondas Iosif Vatopaidinos calls ''the shameless descendants of those who call themselves Europeans...'' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCs0LZil6Ac
Rdr Andreas Moran12/29/2018 12:09 pm
The Viking attack on Lindisfarne in 793 was unprecedented and shocked the Christian west.
‘. . . never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race, nor was it thought that such an inroad from the sea could be made. Behold the church of St Cuthbert spattered with the blood of the priests of God, despoiled of all its ornaments; a place more venerable than all in Britain is given as a prey to pagan peoples who desecrated the sanctuaries of God, and poured out the blood of saints around the altar, laid waste the house of our hope, trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God’. (Alcuin, Letter to Ethelred, King of Northumbria.)

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