Is Islam a form of Fascism?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
OK. Someone tells me why I should care whether Islamism is Fascism or not?

bermans main point was to raise concern among liberals, and show that the war against Islamist terror (not necessarily all islamism, as i point out earlier) is a natural cause for liberalism. He was spefically countering some voices on the left who claimed that AQ was a legitimate liberation movement, and an objectively progressive force. Chomsky in particular.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
It's all about sticking it under a term that Westerners generally agree = BAD.

Square peg, round hole? No problem, just gimme a jigsaw or a really big hammer and I'll fix it!

-Arrian

so have you read Bermans book?

[Al B. Sure!]

countering some voices on the left who claimed that AQ was a legitimate liberation movement,

wow... there's people who believe this?

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark



I see this as being highly charecteristic of the Salafist position - it comes out most strongly in their relationship with Saudi Arabia. In other states, which are not islamist, or at least not Wahabist, things are easier for them, as they see those states by their very nature as violations of the supremacy and unity of the Ummah. Arguably this is a universal for a "nationalist" fascism in that they are tied to a particular nation and its particular political history - thus Italian fascists had to deal with the liberal heritage of the only modern unified Italian state. Im not sure that this constraint is intrinsic to fascism, or just to fascism in that particular circumstance - certainly Austrian Nazis, for example had no trouble repudiating the Austrian state. Nor did Dutch or Norwegian fascists show any loyalty to local political traditions.

Repudiating local politics is not the issue- it is one of instituting modernizing ideas in the name of reactionary ideals. Fascism like Communism puts loyalty to the State first- and undermines the family and erases the private. Do Salafist want to institute massive new government bureaucracies and institute loyalty to the State as primary.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Last Conformist


God, being the inconsiderate bastard He is, did not provide us with a list of definitive and universal definitions of political terms. Therefore our definitions are arbitrary, and only work as long as both sides of a discussion use the same ones.

Yours, and, I gather, Berman's, is, then, no more inherently wrong than any other. I however consider it to be bad from a practical PoV, since it agrees neither with what the average joe on the street understands under the term, nor with what the people who developed an ideology they called Fascism considered it to be.


If we were more interested in furthering understanding than in lengthy discussions that do not lead anywhere in particular, we'd drop the question whether Islamism should be labeled 'Fascism', and instead speak of its practical importance and relevance, and perhaps to of its merits (or lack thereof) as an ideological system. Comparisons with European '30s Fascism may or not be considered relevant or enlightening, but do no hinge on whether we unify both under a label of "Fascism".

I would suggest that Berman goes on to practical implications of his point of view.

The largest one, clearly, is that if "jihadism" is largely a western cultural import, and not a natural outgrowth of Islam, then we should not see the WOT as a war on Islam, and we should approach traditional Islam differently than we otherwise might. We should focus the war of ideas not against Islam, but against the fascist ideas that came from the west. In particular we should clarify to muslim peoples the extent to which jihadi ideas are based on western imports, and so undercut their claims to authenticity.

I would agree its not that important how we define fascism, and whether jihadism is considered a form of fascism or not. Whats important is to understand that several of the key aspects of jihadism are derivative from western fascism, EVEN if we choose to include criteria in our definition of fascism which jihadism does not include. IIRC Berman spends more time on the tracing of these ideas, than on the question of definition. Its important to him, but theres plenty of other important points in the book.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


so have you read Bermans book?

I was talking about the thread, and the thread starter, not just your contributions (which have a helluva lot more worth than the original post). No, I have not read the book. Sounds vaguely interesting, but not interesting enough for me to go out and get it. Reason being I figured the motive for the writing before you stated it (to convince the left that Islamists are anti-liberalism and must be fought).

-Arrian

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


bermans main point was to raise concern among liberals, and show that the war against Islamist terror (not necessarily all islamism, as i point out earlier) is a natural cause for liberalism.

This does not exactly weaken the plausibility of the charge he's labeling it Fascism to benefit from kneejerk aversion to that.

He was spefically countering some voices on the left who claimed that AQ was a legitimate liberation movement, and an objectively progressive force. Chomsky in particular.

A noble goal, I guess. And optimistic - I would tend to write of such people as lost.

Chomsky claims that? He's more whacko than I thought ...


(And I'll never get used to this Liberal=Leftist idea. I voted for the Liberals today, which, of course, means I voted for the right.)

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


Repudiating local politics is not the issue- it is one of instituting modernizing ideas in the name of reactionary ideals. Fascism like Communism puts loyalty to the State first- and undermines the family and erases the private. Do Salafist want to institute massive new government bureaucracies and institute loyalty to the State as primary.

In principle, Nazism differed from Italian fascism in this respect - loyalty to the RACE was principle and the state existed to serve the historical goals of the race. IIUC AQ sees the Caliphate as the proper political form, and sees that caliphate as inseperable from Islam. Loyalty to Islam is first, but will in theory be inseperable from loyalty to the Ummah. They did NOT declare a Caliphate in Afghanistan, for their own ideological reasons i presume. AFAICT they certainly expected supreme loyalty to the Taliban state on the part of Afghans, within THE LIMITS of local social conditions, which in turn were conditioned by local (pashtun) culture. Very parallel to the experience of Leninists in places like Africa, where objective local conditions limit the implementation of the full ideological plan.

[Imran Siddiqui]

how about the Great Schism which saw France with a different pope than the pope in rome?

How was this a result of heresy? The pope moved to France and the next Pope died early and hence there were different interpretations over who the next Pope should be and where. And don't forget the third Pope in Padua. It was more a comedy of errors than Heresy.

can we agree on the fact that Protestantism's success (and the existance of heretical movements earlier) was due to the dissolved HRE and the weak power of the Emperor?

Any revolt needs a weakened leader to succeed. That isn't the point. The point is these areas went for a much more individualistic religion when they had the chance, due to cultural beliefs. The exception was England.

Substitute organic group identity for National identity

Then it isn't Fascism. You may come close, but you won't actually reach it.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Last Conformist

This does not exactly weaken the plausibility of the charge he's labeling it Fascism to benefit from kneejerk aversion to that.

I would suggest that most of the kind of people who would read a book as difficult as this are not the sort to react in knee jerk fashion.

[Last Conformist]

lord of the mark]
The largest one, clearly, is that if "jihadism" is largely a western cultural import, and not a natural outgrowth of Islam, then we should not see the WOT as a war on Islam, and we should approach traditional Islam differently than we otherwise might. We should focus the war of ideas not against Islam, but against the fascist ideas that came from the west. In particular we should clarify to muslim peoples the extent to which jihadi ideas are based on western imports, and so undercut their claims to authenticity.

Then I to a large extent agree with him here.

(I still suspect him of dishonest rhetorics on the Fascism issue, tho.)

[Imran Siddiqui]

And, of course, in the end, there is a question of the one leader to whom everyone looks to. A council of Ayatollah's won't work. Has to be someone Khomeni like.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


I would suggest that most of the kind of people who would read a book as difficult as this are not the sort to react in knee jerk fashion.

Possible. (Not having read the book, I can't judge it's difficulty, nor do I have the psychological expertise to tell to what extent immunity to such kneejerking correlates with a propensity for reading difficult books.)

He can't be unaware, tho, that his basic assertation that Islamism=Fascism would be heard by quite a few people who would never read the book (some of them, apparently, unable to distinguish between Islam and Islamism).

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Substitute organic group identity for National identity

Then it isn't Fascism. You may come close, but you won't actually reach it.

Ok, its banana. Banana is term for the ideology that swept over large parts of europe between the world wars. banana is charecterized by all the criteria which charecterize fascism, EXCEPT that the loyalty is to an organic entity, a religion or race, and not necessarily a nation. Fascism is therefore one variety of banana - all others are called Banana peel.

Italy was taken over by fascism. Germany was taken over by a form of banana that many consider to be facsism, though some would say it has large elements of banana peel. Spain was taken over by a form of banana that was largely banana peel, though it subsumed some genuine fascists. One form of banana that took root in the muslim world was fascist - though it was mainly of appeal to army officers and minority intellectuals. The form that took deeper root was banana peel. One can also see elements of banana peel on the Israeli and Indian far right, though the one to one match of religion and state make those bananas look more fascist.

Clealy the jihadi banana peel, despite its claims to muslim authenticity, and its differences from western fascism, is deeply rooted in western banana. This should make it clear to liberals that jihadism is their enemy, and it should impact the way we view the struggle.

Happy now?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Not really . Fascism isn't a subset of anything other than totalitarianism. At most the statement can be made that these groups take from Fascism and have aspects like Fascism. They cannot be said to be fascism, though.