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prevent unauthorized vehicles from approaching the facility.” Like in Amish country.)
It’s these conflations of Hamas with the “global left” or Wahhabis with the Amish that are truly lazy. In contrast, the Islamism-fascism comparison has ample and even distinguished academic precedents. Younger scholars and students should seize the moment to explore it further, with intellectual rigor and without fear.
The chief imitation of Italian fascism in the Middle East was among the Christian falangists of Lebanon, but it is idle to conflate superficial resemblances– uniforms, salutes, symbols– with ideology.
Mussolini insisted that fascism was ‘not an export article’ and never made any serious attempts to create a Fascist International. It was a cobbled-together nationalistic socialism (for a country with little experience of either) whose only strength lay in practical accomplishments. It duly died when Victor Emmanuel sacked the Duce in 1943 for having entered the war on the wrong side.
The word is more enjoyable to hiss through clenched teeth than ‘Nazi’ or ‘commie’, that’s all: it’s an F-word. As early as 1945 Orwell noted that it had lost all content.
It has been dug up by American neocons to put the fear of Yahweh up Jewry (although Mussolini was a pretty tepid anti-semite) and to round up Christian American Zionists whose knowedge of history is limited to WW2 movies.
For Bush to grasp at this tired old straw so late in the day indicates how desperate he is about his Crusade. You might as well argue that Churchill was a bolshevik for aiding Stalin.
I agree with realist that “fascism” is pretty depleted of meaning, but still I’m taken by a checklist I found (in a book by the appropriately named Stanley Payne). My empirical test was to apply the list to Thatcher and Blair. Thatcher had almost no fascist traits (not surprising for a Manchester Liberal in Tory clothing) and Blair had lots, which again seems right to me – rather like Mosley, a man who became impatient with Old Labour and started banging on about New, Youth, etc.
This is maybe the third time that Maxime Rodinson has been appropriated by the French right as an Anti-Islamic scholar. Rodinson was against all religions, and even that wasn’t enough to qualify him for using the word so abusively as Bush does.
Michel Foucault’s support of the Islamic Revolution (rather than the Anti-Shah secular democrats or marxists), was an error in his judgment. I don’t think Foucault anticipated what was to come, and this topic has been written on extensively and rather well by Jeannete Afary of Purdue (I believe you can find her article on “Revisiting Foucault and the Iranian Revoluion on Yahoo)”. Someone like Foucault supported the Islamic Revolution because they saw it as possessing new possibilities and alternatives..it was their “spiritual revolution”. It was something that Foucault could put some energy into after the failures of national anti-colonialism and socialism for the Left.
In the next 30 years, when we begin to revisit the idea of this war, all the dust will settle and our logical webs will be clear. Islam- as all religions, works on a continuum.
Contrary to the new racist discourse arising in America- Islam is not inherently racist. If your mechanism of interpretation is to see Islam through the text, then I would like to point out that there are many parts of the Old Testament that incite equal, if not greater, shock to the nonviolent.
Islam, in its present discourse, is responding to a history of colonialism, and it is only getting worse as the only alternatives that we imagine back here are more colonial missions.
I condemn the term Islamo-fascism as it functions as a strong rhetorical device that attempts to build on the moral legitamacy of WWII (Yes, I am implying this war is illegitamate), and the fears of totalitarianism of WWII and the Cold War.
Furthermore, the propensity for us Americans to essentialize the Middle East has made it a playground of “Collateral Damage”. The Middle East has become the victim of our crimes, both before and afer 9-11. Applying Islamic-Fascism is a big misnomer that paints the victims as the aggressors and it changes the causal analysis of our history. If we do not challenge this assertion and this war, then the only fascism will be the one growing at home.
I don’t see how Rodinson is being “appropriated by the French right as an anti-Islamic scholar”. Surely he is being mentioned here, on a British, leftist blog, in the context of a reaction to Foucault’s dilettante romanticising of extremist Islam. Reading the Afary article shows just how grudging the grande homme’s demi-climbdown was when presented with uncomfortable facts about amputations for petty crime and the gathering oppression of women. It seems less an “error in judgement” and more of a piece with Foucault’s penchant for flirting with anything but boring old Enlightenment values and with his accompanying willingness to ignore or discount uncomfortable realities. The article cites a letter from an exiled female Iranian leftist, Atoussa H:
‘Foucault,she wrote, seemed “deeply moved by ‘Muslim spirituality,’ which, according to him, would be an improvement over the ferocious capitalist dictatorship, which is today beginning to fall apart.” Why, she continued, alluding to the 1953 overthrow of the democratic and leftist Mossadeq government, must the Iranian people, “after twenty-five years of
silence and oppression” be forced to choose between
“the SAVAK and religious fanaticism?”.’
As to a ‘racist discourse’ arising in the US – where exactly? Extreme Islam is an ideology, not a race. That ‘fascism’ is an uncertain term is true, but it is surely one of those things you feel you recognise when you see it. The absence of jackboots or feathered hats is not the issue. Those hatted/booted movements that were labelled ‘fascist’ did share to varying degrees some common features. Here’s a definition of fascism, cribbed from the Wikipedia ‘Fascism’ entry, written by Prof. Robert O Paxton of Columbia University:
1. a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign `contamination.”
The chosen people here don’t necessarily need to be racially pure (we know that Islamism’s house can have many mansions, despite its evil expression in the Sudan)and aren’t necessarily those who worship Allah. As the scenes of public execution that took place in pre-liberation Afghanistan’s sports stadiums showed, only Islamists or obeying them would really do – you could be considered fatally inadequate by Allah’s earthly representatives and machine-gunned on a football pitch for it.
That colonialism has a lot to answer for is true, but it doesn’t have answers for everything. Colonialism is another -ism of many varieties. It seems the sharp end of Islamism is all about colonialism, territorial and bodily. This is not the West – it seems to be initiating discourse all by itself, and spoiling for a fight.
an being truly nationalists. Jamaat-e-Islami too are pseudo-Islamists. The paradox here is that Jamaat-e-Islamists in Bangladesh are neither proponents of a caliphate nor true islam. They are political prostitues who can tie knot with the most immoral and unethical of all to share and then abandon the stepping ladder (here BNP) to grab power. On the other hand, the BNP is not a nationalist party at all. It is an amalgam of opportunists and unethical traders. BNP is a misnomer to decieve voters. The combo is perfect for breeding of medieval era fanaticism blended with fascism in Bangladesh under state-sponsorship.
What is happening in Bangladesh today under a BNP appointed president cum self imposed caretaker chief Iajuddin is a glaring example of Islamic fascism. Everything from administration to judiciary to the police have been turned into a state controlled fascist apparatus. Extrajudicial killings and rise of Islamic fascist terrorists under their direct patronization and killing of opposition MPs have been in the rise under Khaleda Zia and Motior Rahman Nizami alliance government. This alliance was the most corrupt and fascist in nature in Bangladesh’s 35 year old history.
Islamic fascists are acting according to their evil blueprint designed mainly by the Jamaat-e-Islami lawyers and BNP’s Moudud Ahmed, a shameless lawyer who had switched allegiance several times in the past in his lust for power. The blueprint is moving according to plan.
The National Security Intelligence (NSI), Defence Forces Intelligence (DFI) and many secretive government organisations are headed by Jamaat-e-Islami militant cadres subtly promoted into the key posts over the last five years. It seems that the Islamic Fascist Gestapo has spread its tentacles in Bangladeshi politics. Even the Dean of faculty of law at the Dhaka University has been appointed by Moudud Ahmed of BNP and Abdur Razzak of Jamaat-e-Islami. This guy is hardly 40 but claims to be constitutional expert!
The Islamic fascist government under the BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami alliance got a free ride under the Bush administration. I sincerely hope and pray as a true muslim that the Democratic Congress of the United States under the Honorable Speaker Nancy Pelosi immediately take measures to bludgeon the rise of Islamic Fascism in a secular and democratic Bangladesh that is guaranteed in our constitution. I am sure the US is keenly watching developments in Bangladesh. I hope the new House of Representatives and the Senate will immediately address the Bangladesh case. The Democrats must act fast or else Bangladesh will soon become a fascist islamic state like once Algeria or Afghanistan.
Iajuddin and Khaleda Zia got a blank check under the Republicans and George Bush to do whatever they wanted. Ultimately, its on the brink of becoming a failed state. Iajuddin is using BNP and Jamaat party loyalist cadres within law enforcing agencies recruited during 2001-2006 to brutalize street agitators. He also has further evil fascist designs up his sleeves to murder opponents. He is acting on instructions from the Khaleda Zia coterie of conspirators. They are following what Goebbels had practiced. Lies and damned lies will ultimately be accepted by the public as truth.
The world community under the UN charter is obliged to ensure a free, fair and impartial election under a new non-fascist neutral clean caretaker government by extending the election period by another 90 days ASAP.
For anyone interested in doing research on Islamic fascism should keenly follow the developments in Bangladesh under the puppet caretaker government directed and manipulated by the Islamic fascist Khaleda-Nizami-Tareq-Babar coterie of conspirators.
Fascism in whatever form cannot last. It dies a violent death. Politicians all over the world should take note of it.
Fascism must not be allowed to take root anywhere in the world. It must be hunted down and uprooted en masse for the greater benefit of mankind. Major powers must not exploit it for their selfish geopolitical interests.
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