Comments on: So what if it IS “Islamofascism”?

By: y81

y81 — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 17:03:05 +0000

The term “Islamofascist” doesn’t seem any stupider than “Christianist”: the latter term certainly alienates most Christians. Then again, Andrew Sullivan and Mark Kleiman don’t generally manifest much interest either in subtle intellectual work or in persuading, as opposed to insulting, their political opponents, so perhaps the criticism of Pres. Bush here is on pont.

By: Globalclashes

Globalclashes — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 23:42:47 +0000

More on Islamic fascism

Katha Pollitt has an article in the Nation, which gives us a different perspective on the reasons why the use of the expression “Islamic fascism” or “Islamofascism.” Her argument is more political than mine, but it is worth reading. She

By: Labeler

Labeler — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 15:56:56 +0000

After World War II, international law was rewritten so that the sovereignty of all nations was to respected, the legitimacy of all regimes accepted–except those on the Nazi model. One could argue whether fascism isn’t a good deal less virulent than Naziism. But insofar as fascism and Naziism can be assimilated, it’s maybe fair to say that the fascist regime are in international law a breed apart, less protected against external intervention than others.
The Taliban regime never achieved international legitimacy. It was, for instance, recognized only by Pakistan and maybe another stray or two. Internally, it seriously jeopardized the fundamental well-being of most of its citizens. Externally, it made itself a launching pad for terrorist attacks on other nations.
If the Taliban is exemplary of what those designated by label “Islamo-fascist” actually set about doing when in power, there’s an argument in international law for the propriety of the label “fascist.”
(None of this is intended to gainsay the plain fact that in Dearborn Bush’s desperate campaign rhetoric is considerably resented and does more harm than good.)

By: TheJew

TheJew — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 19:41:19 +0000

Could it be that the Republican language architects want to connect the misadventures of the Bush administration in the Middle East more to the US occupations of Japan and Germany and less to our cold war policies against communists like the occupation of Vietnam.
The Republicans seem to be relying on the folk theorem: Fascist ⇒ Good Easy US occupation.

By: marcel

marcel — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 15:45:34 +0000

Is antisemitism really an IMPORTANT part of fascist idealogy? This was certainly true of the nazi variant, and also though to a lesser extent of those throughout central Europe (Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Lithuania, etc.), but it was a minor part of the Italian and Spanish varieties as far as I am aware. This is not to say that they were not anti-semitic, but it was of a more traditional, less deadly variety, not central to the ideology.
The Franco regime was apparently quite willing to look the way as Jews entered Spain fleeing the Nazis. They weren’t supposed to stay very long, though I recall reading a memoir of someone whose family remained in Spain for a year or more because they couldn’t find passage to anywhere willing to accept them.
I have often heard Jabotinsky’s movement characterized as fascist and, while it may not have been good for the Jews, I would be shocked it was antisemitic.

By: Altoid

Altoid — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 14:33:55 +0000

I agree with Matt on this, for starters. It’s essentially just name-calling and its significance is unrelated to its specific content. Everybody supposedly knows fascism is bad, so if you want to make them think Islam is bad, you link the two verbally. In the same unanchored way, when Brian Bosworth was playing college football the NCAA wouldn’t let him do something he wanted to do, so he had a t-shirt made up that said “National Communist Athletic Association.” “Communist” for him was just a curse word.
But I want to raise two other points. First, both communism and fascism had pretty specific and significant economic content. As far as I know, that content is missing in the theocratic flavors of Islam bush was supposedly talking about. They do not propose to organize and govern people according to their economic functions, for instance, and they do not propose to subserve enterprises to the needs of the volk as embodied in the party which controls the state. From the little I know, these are not categories in Islam.
Second, is it really his position that Islam is bad? The “islamo-fascist” designation is flip-floppy. It could be just a subspecies of Islam he’s talking about, or it could be all of Islam. Of course that’s one reason why he’d use the term, because these evangelo-fascists love coded and ambivalent messages (remember the Dred Scott reference that bush pulled out of nowhere). But that’s also what has the moderate Muslims po’ed. So what Jonathan’s calling the pragmatic argument here is much deeper, in my opinion.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 13:30:22 +0000

I’m certainly not an expert on Spanish fascism, but I don’t see why the points James mentions should make us doubt that Franco and his movement were fascist, since support from older concervative elements, the monied classes, and the Catholic church all existed to significant degrees in, say, Germany and Italy as well, so they can’t be disqualifying factors. What we can learn from Spain (and Paraguay and Argentina) I think is that a fascist government need not be a massively murderous one. In the case of Islam it seems pretty clear to me that the whole thing was based more on name calling and a desire to demonize one’s enemies than careful analysis, which is one more reason to ignore it.

By: James Wimberley

James Wimberley — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 10:12:59 +0000

Franco’s fascist mala fides are actually in dispute. The Falange (not Phalange) was certainly a paradigm fascist movement; some of Franco’s generals, notably Queipo de Llano and Yag�e of “Viva la muerte!” fame, also fit the bill; and the sheer scale of the massacres of Republicans (5,000 in Granada alone) indicate a paranoid bloodlust you have to call fascist. But the nationalist coalition had other components – Carlists, the Catholic Church, traditional conservatives, the monied class – and the Falange element grew weaker over time. Franco made no serious effort to spring the Falange leader, the younger Primo de Rivera, from his Valencia prison by an exchange; a martyr was much more convenient than a rival.