Would Syria be considered a Facist state? It is a dictatorship, with a personality cult, and strong state control, but it is not communist. What about other countries today? Or do the countries have to identify themselves as facist to be so?
They certainly don’t need to announce it to be Facsist. The word “Nazi” was actually an abbreviation that essentially meant “national socialist.” Nazi Germany was Fascist, but it was, in one way, calling itself socialist, the opposite of facism.
TMK, when Italy called itself Fascist there was no stigma attached to the word. Nowadays any sane nation would avoid being labled fascist.
Define your terms, and then check for yourself.
The difficulty with what you call a thing, as both George Orwell and Humpty Dumpty reminded us, is the question of the impact of words. Thus the “People’s Republic of China” is anything but populist, and is certain far from a republic. The term “fascist” is now bandied about as a synonym for “dictatorship”, although at one time (like during the 50s) one distinguished between a dictatorship of the right (communist) and of the left (fascist.)
Merriam-Webster® Collegiate® Dictionary
fascism
Main Entry: fas·cism
Pronunciation: 'fa-"shi-z&m also 'fa-"si-
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces
Date: 1921
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control <early instances of army fascism and brutality – J. W. Aldridge>
- fas·cist /-shist also -sist/ noun or adjective, often capitalized
- fas·cis·tic /fa-'shis-tik also -'sis-/ adjective, often capitalized
- fas·cis·ti·cal·ly /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb, often capitalized
I would say that Syria definitely fits definition (2) above.
In 1990 President Hafez al-Assad ruled out any possibility of legalizing opposition political parties and he was approved for a fourth term with 99.98% (!) of the vote. He had been head of the government since 1973, and when he died in 2000 he was succeeded by his son, Bashar al-Assad. The government of Syria is often described as “Republic under a military regime” (since 1963). The country has been under a “state of emergency” since 1963.
Members of unauthorized groups (e.g. Islamist groups), including foreign nationals, are routinely arrested and held incommunicado. There are many prisoners of conscience sentenced to long terms of imprisonment and sometimes even held beyond the expiration of their sentence; cases of torture of these prisoners have been reported. (Example: Five people were arrested for distributing a leaflet to mark the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). etc…
You can read more at the most recent Amnesty International country report.
I think you’ve got those two reversed, no?
The problem with trying to fit Arab nations into the left-right political spectrum of Western thought is that they don’t pigeonhole all that well.
In some ways this could apply to China too since as far as the person at the bottom of the pile the resemblance between absolute monarchy and political ideology is largely irrelevant.
These nations seem to have had a tradition of monarchical absolutism and what has replaced them is little differant fro their POV.
casdave, you’re right. I didn’t really answer the OP. I would say that Syria is an autocratic state, but I wouldn’t use the term “Fascist”, even though fascist can also mean autocratic, since fascist has the added connotation of similarity with Mussolini or Franco’s regimes. Also many fascist regimes incorporated the idea of the superiority of the indigenous race, which may or may not apply to Syria.
Also bear in mind that Mussolini’s fascism included a strong corporatist element, involving business, labour and government to strengthen the ruling body’s hand. I’m not sure how true that is of Syria.
While “race” is not a huge factor in Syrian ideology (Syrians I believe are a mixture of many groups which have intermarried over the centuries). Anti-Jewish proaganda (which while supposedly “Antizionist” seems to make little distinction between Israelis and Jews as a whole) is certainly present.
http://www.sana.org/english/reports/reports.htm
Also the discredited “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” can reportedly be found imprint there.
http://www.axt.org.uk/antisem/archive/archive2/syria/syria.htm
http://www.adl.org/special_reports/protocols/print.html
And since the state effectively controls the press, any such activity, if it exists, has the sanction of the state.
While these sites accuse Syria’s regime of being “anti-Semitic”. I am unsure whether one can accuse the Syrians of being anti-Semites as they are Semitic people themselves. If fascism is at its heart “anti-semitic” can Syria be fascist?
But I remember reading that in the 1930’s, Nazi agents in the Middle East had to constantly assure potential Arab allies that they were not anti-Arab even if they were “anti-Semites”. So who knows…
The pertinent question is whether Bashar would turn out to be as brutal a ruler as his father was. When he took over, the news analysis was saying things like Bashar could be expected to ease up on the repression some, since his main interest was in computer technology and the Internet. He’s been at it for a year now, but so far I haven’t heard any news about whether Syria is any less repressive than before (I admit I haven’t been reading Middle East Watch).
So I checked Middle East Watch, and they linked to this BBC story: Syria’s Limited Liberalism, dated 2001/03/09. Apparently Bashar did get the régime to become somewhat less repressive . . . up to a point. The liberalization has a limit.
IANAPS, but I suppose one could characterize the present Syrian régime as authoritarian though not fascist. There is a limit to freedom of speech, and no independent political parties, but there is not the racism associated with Fascism, or the heavy-handed involvement of the state with the economy, which as mattk pointed out characterized Mussolini’s Fascism. jaimest is right that Syria is a mixture of so-called races, and what’s more, racism as Europeans understand it has never functioned in Islam or Arab culture—it’s tribalism that divides the society, while race is irrelevant; tribalism is at the basis of most Arab politics, including Syria’s. casdave is right that European categories do not really apply to the Middle East. If under Communism the state dominated the economy in the name of the people, under Fascism the capitalists dominated the state in the name of the state. Neither of these applies to Syria (even though the Baath Party calls itself “Socialist,” that word is probably meaningless here).
There is another BBC story in which Bashar accuses the racism of Israelis as being worse than that of Nazis. This suggests that in principle at least he rejects Fascism.