by Savitri Devi

Edited by R.G. Fowler

German Translation

The following brief article (1,005 words) appeared in the January-February 1979 issue of White Power (page 11). At first reading, it struck me as unworthy of Savitri Devi. It is surely the least significant of her works. It is a brief historical vignette, padded out with long quotations and offering scarcely any analysis. Furthermore, the assertions that ancient Egypt was an “Aryan” nation and that an Egyptian Pharaoh had “fine, Nordic features” struck me as suspicious, because they are errors that Savitri Devi never would have made. The Ancient Egyptians were a Mediterranean Caucasoid people. They were not Aryans, and although they did have fine features, they were not Nordic.

The origins of this article were clarified by Martin Kerr, the then editor of White Power, who sent me a photocopy of the original manuscript of the essay, which, along with an accompanying letter, I have transcribed here.

The letter makes it clear that Savitri herself did not think much of her efforts and explains why, under the circumstances, that she could not do better:

I hope I didn’t bore you with my “bit of ancient history.”

I was too crushed by the awful heat of Delhi’s summer (it is summer, here, since March) to go to the length of writing something of my own inspiration for White Power. I am not of those privileged ones who have air-conditioning in their lodgings. I have merely a fan above my bed, in my one room and kitchen tiny flat. And that fan—under which I am lying, whenever I am not forced to get up, either to go and get food for my cats, or to go and teach my few private pupils: earn my living and that of my animals, home ones and strays who depend on me—that fan, I say, does nothing more than agitate burning air (45 degrees centigrade in my room, under the fan, a few days back: hardly less than outdoors in the shade). Now you can imagine the furnace in the sun! And when one goes out on foot, be it to walk to the station where one can hire some conveyance, you can imagine what it feels like. I am exhausted when I come home from my lessons or from shopping, and the only thing I am fit for is to call back into my mind the little I once learnt about ancient times.
[. . .]
Excuse me if for just now I do not write any more. I intend to write about my late husband—Sri A.K. Mukherji—for the National Socialist World. He deserved it. But I must wait till I can be myself again—after this heat. End of June, beginning of July, the “monsoon rains” are expected. Hurray! That means on the first day a sudden fall in temperature of 25 degrees (centigrade) and a downpour, amidst thunder and lightning. Lovely!

Apparently Savitri had volunteered to contribute to White Power, but the enervating heat of the New Delhi summer had robbed her of the creativity and concentration necessary for writing anything original, so she dashed off a few lines about 12th dynasty Egypt and Nubia.

The manuscript is also revealing. First, it makes clear just how much Savitri was suffering from the heat, for she did not even finish the Nubia article, but broke off in mid-thought and, in effect, turned the text into a personal letter. Second, it is clear that the last few paragraphs of “The Egyptian Conquest of Nubia” as published in White Power—including the mistaken racial descriptions of the Ancient Egyptians—were written by another hand. According to Martin Kerr, he was their author. I have indicated these additions in bold below. The title, illustrations, and captions were also provided by Kerr.

 According to Kerr, the additions were not shown to Savitri before the article was published, but he was confident that they would meet her approval, and if they did not, he would have published her corrections in a subsequent issue. Savitri never complained.

It should be noted that the additions to Savitri’s text, aside from the minor errors of racial anthropology, are quite intelligent. They draw an edifying lesson for the present day from an otherwise abortive historical vignette.

 —R. G. Fowler

“This is the Southern Frontier. . . No Negro is permitted to pass this boundary northwards, either by foot or by boat . . .”

Which awful racist wrote these words? Shocking they sound! The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith should look into the matter, surely.

It is too late, however, for the Jews to punish this author. These words were written—cut into hard stone—over 4,000 years ago.

The ADL, or any equivalent of it, was not yet invented, and any attempt to bring the spirit of such a body into action would have been met with universal contempt on the part of the people and with the severest penalties on the part of the authorities in power.

The quoted words are part of the inscription which can be seen to this day upon the boundary stone set up by the order of Pharaoh Senusret III (the fifth king of the Twelfth Egyptian dynasty) at Semneh, one of the two fortresses he had built upon the hills on each side of the Nile, some 30 miles above the second cataract.

The fortresses were built after his first military expedition into Nubia (the Sudan of today) in the eighth year of his reign. The expeditions of Senusret III followed those of his predecessors. Already under Senusret the First—three generations before—the region of the third cataract was Egyptian and ruled by Hapzefa of Siut, who was buried at Kerma under a mound, with his slaves slain all around him.

The main motive of the Twelfth dynasty pharaohs in conquering Nubia was their desire to control the Nile more effectively and to be able to foresee more accurately the probable height of the yearly inundation on which the prosperity of Egypt depended. The regulation of the great river was looked upon as the highest duty of the Egyptian ruler—which is true even today.

In addition to this, there was also the desire to acquire the gold with which the Wadi Alaki and other areas of the Nubian desert valley were full.

The military expeditions into this region brought the ancient Egyptians—a proud Aryan people—into close contact with the primitive Blacks who inhabited the area.

The remainder of Senusret III’s inscription at Semneh is interesting: “No boat of the Negroes is to be allowed to pass northward forever . . .”

And a few years later:

Year 16, third month of Peret, His Majesty fixed the frontier of the South at Heh . . . I advanced up-river beyond my forefathers; I added much thereto. What lay in my heart was brought to pass by my hand.

I am vigorous in seizing, powerful in succeeding, never resting; one in whose heart there is a word which is unknown to the weak; one who arises against mercy; never showing clemency to the enemy who attacks him, but attacking he who attacks him. For to take no notice of a violent attack is to strengthen the heart of the enemy.

Cowardice is vile. He is a coward who is vanquished on his own frontier, since the Negro will fall prostrate at a word: answer him and he retreats! If one is vigorous with him, he turns his back, even when on the way to attack.

Behold! These people (the Negroes) have nothing frightening about them; they are feeble and insignificant; they have buttocks for hearts! I have seen it, even I, the majesty, it is no lie!

I have seized their women; I have carried off their folk; I have marched to their wells; I took their cattle; I destroyed their cornseed, I set fire to it. By my life and my father’s, I speak the truth!

Every son of mine who shall have preserved this frontier which My Majesty has made, is indeed my son and born of My Majesty, verily a son who avenges his father and preserves the boundary of him who begat him. But he who shall have abandoned it, he who shall not have fought for it, behold, he is no son of mine he is none born of me.

Behold! My Majesty has set up an image of My Majesty upon this frontier, which My Majesty has made, not from the desire that ye should worship it, but from the desire that ye should fight for it!

In the days this was hewn out of the granite by the scribes of Senusret III, Egypt was a mighty Aryan nation, a military power to be reckoned with, a centre of learning and culture.

Today, Egypt is no longer a world power, nor is it an Aryan nation. It is impoverished, and populated by mongrels and half-castes. It was vanquished by the very people it had enslaved centuries earlier—a people which is not known for its heroism and warlike spirit: the Jews. How far the civilisation of our ancestors has fallen!

Without realising it, Senusret III himself tells us how this came to be: “. . . I have seized their women; I have carried off their folk . . .”

And thus the stage was set for race-mixing which inevitably leads to the destruction of the greatness which lies in the purity of Aryan blood.

“Cowardice is vile.” “(The Negro) is . . . insignificant.” “. . . for to take no notice of a violent attack is to strengthen the heart of the enemy.” “My Majesty has made (this boundary), not from the desire that ye should worship it, but from the desire that ye should fight for it!”

This inscription of Senusret III contains much wisdom for 20th century Americans—if they choose to heed it Nothing, however, is more important than the unintentional lesson he teaches us concerning the pollution of the blood. Another great Aryan leader, who, unlike Senusret III, was conscious of this, has expressed it better than anyone:

“Blood sin and desecration of the race are the original sin in this world and the end of a humanity which surrenders to it.”

Illustrations and captions provided by White Power