I’m sure nothing I say will meet with your concurence, say I’ll introduce you to Christopher Hitchens and his essay entitled “Defending Islamofascism,”
I (sardonically) enjoy the way that Hitchens opens each paragraph with, Well, this trait of Facism is actually really different from anything in the Islamist movement and then goes onto say but if you tilt your head just right and squint really hard, you can make an extremely strained analogy that really does not fit but allows me to use similar words so that we can pretend that it does fit.
So, Hitchens’ main point is that radical Islam and fascism share various superficial traits, none of which I’d call a sine qua non of either movement. Unfortunately, he can’t even get his superficial analysis correct: he argues that Salafism and fascism are “hostile to modernity.”
Here we see that Hitchens is a booze-addled idiot.
Any second year philosophy major must know that fascism is a product of modernity, not the antithesis to it.
Then he goes on to say that radical Islam isn’t really like fascism at all, because, for one thing, there’s no corporatist element to radical Islam, but in his view that really shouldn’t matter. Well, that seems to be the point everyone here is making: one must overlook the definition of fascism to equate radical Islam to it, in the same manner that I am like a car except that I lack wheels, a radio, and I don’t carry passengers.
If you’re ever looking for a new career, I suggest you look into political campaigning. You do have a talent for the spin.
I know I’m in the middle of a fray I should stay out of, but shouldn’t we be looking out for the Fascists here in our own backyard??
Authoritarians != fascists. Fascism is something that happens when a certain kind of radical, mass-based political movement comes to power, which does not apply to GWB’s elitist regime.
I believe that your comment would more accurately be stated that I can recognize spin when ham-handely attempted by the likes of Hitchens.
My definition of fascism is when you take whatever forms the basis of your tribal identity and amp it up to the point of extremism.
To the Nazis, it was German nationalism. To the Islamists, it’s the Islamic religion.
And I would say that the #1 characteristic of fascism is the emphasis on loyalty to the tribe. If your loyalty is suspect and the authorities and/or your fellow citizens come down on you like a ton of bricks, accusing you of treason, then that’s fascism. And of course the loyalty of aliens is always suspect, so they become an obvious target.
Of course paranoia of percieved enemies within and without is always present, but another common characteristic is the use of thug-like direct action and intimidation for political purposes.
For these reasons, I think the term Islamofascist may very well apply.
The hell you say. What happened to the Dixie Chicks was radiacal and mass-based. I consider that episode to be a bona-fide (albeit mild in comparison to Nazi Germany) example of fascism.
Oh, please. Refusing to buy somebody’s CDs because you don’t like some political remark they made hardly constitutes fascism.
I’m talking about the accusations of treason, the death threats, the CD-crushing (read: book-burning) rallies, the black-listing by Clear Channel, and the often misogynistic expressions of hatred by millions, all for saying they didn’t like the Dear Leader. That counts in my book (I did say it was mild).
My bumper-sticker definition of fascism is simply, “When Patriotism Goes Negative”.
No, that would be nationalism.
Except that it isn’t. The tribal identity of most Islamists is…their tribe. Most of the countries where Islamism has made inroads are rather tribal in nature, and the movement is clearly pan-tribal, and hence completely misses this central element of fascism.
Let’s not be too literal. “Tribal” in a certain broader sense. The Nazis pretty much ignored the distinction between Prussians and Bavarians, didn’t they? It’s the tribalization of the broader group whether it be defined by national or religious identity that I’m getting at.
There’s nothing inherently negative about nationalism, is there? Patriotism and nationalism are very nearly synonymous, aren’t they? Although you might say that patriotism is love for one’s country while nationalism is the idea that love for one’s country ought to take primacy.
I might go so far as to say that, if you’re more interested in attacking your neighbors for their perceived lack of patriotism than in expressing yours in a postive sense, you’re a little bit of a fascist.
Getting back to Islamists, I’m seeing a parallel between nationalism-cum-fascism and a religious-based group identity that’s on its own violent tear.
You don’t seem to get my point. My point is that religious identity is very substantially dissimilar from national identity. Sure, the Nazis ignored the distinction between Prussians and Bavarians. But they didn’t ignore the difference between Germans and Slavs. If your “Islamofascists” were pan-Arabists instead of Islamists, I’d concede this point. But they’re not. In fact, they’re pretty contemptuous of pan-Arab sentiment. Moreover, they’re perfectly happy to accept non-Arabs into their ranks, so long as they’re similarly fanatical about Islam.
Your “tribal in a broader sense” seems to simply boil down to “identification with a group, regardless of how membership in that group is acquired”. But this misses entirely the nationalist element of fascism. The group identity relevant to fascism is ethnic, hereditary, and national. It is not voluntary, belief-based, and religious. These are not trivial differences - they make for completely different dynamics.
Well, why not? Any group can get to the point where it can be characterized as “tribal”. Even a clique of high school girls.
Different dynamics in some areas, but common characteristics as well. It’s when there are harsh demands of loyalty and a hype-up sense of being surrounded by enemies that group identity can begin to lend itself to fascism.
But you’ve then robbed ‘fascism’ of its distinctive flavour. All you mean by it now is ‘extremist’. Nobody’s going to deny that Islamists are Islamic extremists. What people in this thread are arguing is that Islamists are different from actual real historical fascists in several significant respects, and that conflating those differences is misleading. Sure there are some similarities, too. There are similarities between American football and soccer, too, but that doesn’t make them the same sport.
Look, you’re trying to boil things down to the point that everything is the same. Unfriendly teenage chicks could now be called Nazis. Franco is now like a mullah. The Cherokee are just like a Monday night poker club. Judaism isn’t too different from fans of the TV show “Lost.”
One of the interesting things about language is that words mean things. We get it: couch potato D&D addicts share many commonalities with tribal Ethiopian children, because they each have societal mores and a belief system. But that isn’t a sufficient basis to call the Ethiopian children “dorks.”
A member of Al Qaeda and a Nazi are both bad, but that doesn’t make them both fascists, no more than Himmler could be called a Eurosalafist.