Camp of the Saints Paperback – 1994

Kenneth Ellman Reviews The Camp of the Saints, Box 18, Newton, New Jersey 07860. Email:ke@kennethellman.com, Oct 25, 2016 . Racism is Irrational but Cultural Suicide is a Death Wish for our Children and Grandchildren.

“... the incredible fleet from the other side of the globe, the rusty, creaking fleet that the old Professor had been eying since morning. The stench had faded away at last, the terrible stench of latrines, that had heralded the fleet’s arrival, like thunder before a storm”.
And so the tale created by Jean Raspail in 1973 titled “The Camp of the Saints” begins.

The book in and of itself is not so extraordinary as a fictional account, although well written and demanding of attention through its recreation of a reality some never thought would happen. It is the reality today that makes this book so compelling, as it stands between news reports we read, see and hear and a prophecy we try to see through the mist and clouds of the future. While I read this book many years ago, it is the current events that cause me to now write this review. What makes the book grapple with your mind is it’s picture of what we see unfolding before our eyes today. More and more of this fiction comes into our lives and becomes reality, both for those who come fleeing to our world of Western Civilization and us who live there fearing it will disappear.

While the book is set in racial geographic tones as an invasion masquerading as migration, it conveys a very real biological reality that the conduct, culture and well being of our fellow human beings varies as much or perhaps more than it remains the same around our globe. Yes, our bodies and genetics are mostly the same, but our experiences and way of life are certainly not. Values and expectations may be significantly impacted by the world we face and grew up in. The fear that haunts this book is not the obvious racial difference between those of Caucasian biology and those of other genetic heritage. It is self evident that human beings must be judged individually as to what they are and are not. Those who presume that skin, eye and other facial features define the ability, values and capacity of an individual are blind to the truth of the world we live in and our human history. The fact that such blindness has been a part of human development since the beginning of humanity, does not it any way lesson the truth that we have learned each man must be judged according to what he is in all respects and what he has made of himself as an individual. This principle is beyond question if we are to make rational judgments about each other. Any standard other than measurement of individual accomplishment and judgment fails when applied for any purpose in daily life.

Equally so, as the Raspail book so clearly portrays, is the extraordinary cultural difference between many peoples and that the only way to maintain a Culture and Civilization that you value and want is to defend it against the opposing human conflicts for domination and control of our world. This Raspail book, using fiction, hallmarks a stark confrontation and truth that no human civilization can survive unless it chooses, defends and values itself . People kill, torture, enslave and destroy each other with regularity. In the long view of human history war and competition for resources defines a part of the human experience and such battles and killing is what, in part, has brought us to what we are today, for better or worse.

Raspail’s fiction becomes a stark choice between giving up the Culture and Beliefs of what your ancestors so sacrificed for us to have today or accepting a deceiving dream that we are all the same when Culturally we most certainly are not. It is better to live than die and accepting the reality of the biology of this world in a necessity to survive in it.
If you have not yet read this book, do it and see a glimmer of warning in the biology of what we are and must accept. While some in Europe and the United States may not kill unarmed invaders and so die themselves, I have no doubt that the Chinese and Russians, if after failing to stop such an invasion by non-lethal means, would take the next step to protect themselves and their families An interesting dichotomy and a terrible choice.
Kenneth Ellman, Box 18, Newton, New Jersey 07860. Email:ke@kennethellman.com

There's a crisis on its way to France in the form of a flotilla of a hundred rusty ships carrying almost one million poor, starving migrants from Calcutta. As the ships slowly make their way to the Mediterranean, the popular media gush about how best to welcome the newcomers. More pragmatic observers realize that the entry of all of these people en masse will change the West's way of life forever and try to sound the alarm to save the country from the invasion.

This book was written in 1973 and made available in an English translation in 1975, but the vision of a Third World invasion of the West as described in the book is even more relevant today as we see in frequent news reports of troubles with migrants in Europe and our own political rhetoric in the United States about immigration issues.

The writing style is very literary and at times a bit flowery with many twists of scene as events are repeated from various viewpoints. It is not a quick read and will require the reader's concentration to navigate among the various metaphors, concepts, and personalities.

Abandon any thoughts of "political correctness" when reading this book. It presents the reality of the world's population rather than a Utopia of the brotherhood of mankind. As a a non-white character from the book, Monsieur Hamadura, who has embraced France and its culture points out, it's not only race that matters, but the whole common culture, language, and heritage that is threatened by a massive influx of people of other backgrounds. The message and the warning presented is: in a war of the haves versus the have-nots, it is the haves who will lose if they are unwilling or unable to defend themselves against the invaders.

Recommended.

I agree that Raspail's writing style can get a bit tedious but this detract only slightly from the work. As to subject matter, I will excuse those reviewing the book in the 2000's and earlier when the plot seemed to far fetched to be considered not even remotely possible. However, today the book seems more than just eerily prescient. Those who feel the plot to be farsical should consider giving the author a bit more artistic license. In the preface Raspail agrees that in reality such a scheme as subversion by mass immigration would take 100 years or more to play out. Trying to adhere to that time table in a novel would grind on too much as real life to be compelling to read. The history of the collapse of human civilizations is written in mass migrations of people. Be it the Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Chinese, Romans, Byzantines, etc. all met their match in mass migrations that overwhelmed the existing cultures. Why should it be any different today? The fact that author had the courage to take on, in very plain terms, a tale of the extermination of Western Civilization by the most likely means of mass migrations is deserving of respect.

Five stars according to Amazon says "I love it." No.

This is a classic and not one bit of I love it. There is a reason people are reading it now and talking about it. Those facts are not because they love it. But because fiction is often more truthful in exposing reality than non-fiction.

One of the few Must Reads from the latter part of the 20th century which is still a Must Read.