Islamo-Fascism. Islamofascism. Islamofascist:
*edited to fix the fact that blogger spell check can't spell faScist.
This is probably a pet peeve of mine because of a single 50 minute high school history lecture on the etymology of fascism, but is it really fair to lump fascism into radical islam? It isn't exactly a topic I usually sit around thinking about much, but I've been operating under the assumption that "fascism",should only be applied to governments that:
A. Emphasize strong national pride, typically racially focused, and with derogatory commentary towards other nationalities or races.
B. Subordinate religous institutions to the state. Not the other way around, which is theocracy. (Somewhere beyond subjectating relgion is abolishing it completely as in most communist nations.)
C. Effect a police state, complete with heavy propaganda and civil rights violations. Almost invaribly there will be a particular closeness between a handful of large corporations and the police state: "corporism. (This was described as the a simple way to differentiate between facism and communism.)
The point of the lecture was, I think, that the radical left in America call all sorts of things fascist that aren't (like, oh, Nixon, and most 1960's college provosts), and the Stalinist USSR was close to facist, yet we don't run around calling it Communo-Fascist or similar. As I recall there was also some discussion of how "fascism" as a general purpose insult was invented by Trotsky to denounce Stalin. So what the hell is up with using "islamo-fascist"? Maybe its just me, but Iran cannot really show the type of nationalism found in the facist states of old? And of all the possible canidates in the islamic world, only Iraq under Sadaam showed much in the way of signs of fascism, and they sure as heck weren't very islamic. When talking about the Taliban, wouldn't it be better to call them a theocracy, akin to Oliver Cromwell or James I's England?
To be very cynical, hooking fascism onto islam merely makes it easier to make comparisons to World War II, and sets up comparisons to "peace in our time" appeasement. When I get to be dicator of Eurasia, I think I'll call Castro "Communo-homo-islamo-fascist-liberal" and invade to restore democracy and improve cigar quality. Labels are really powerful propaganda, lets be precise with them!
*edited to fix the fact that blogger spell check can't spell faScist.
This is probably a pet peeve of mine because of a single 50 minute high school history lecture on the etymology of fascism, but is it really fair to lump fascism into radical islam? It isn't exactly a topic I usually sit around thinking about much, but I've been operating under the assumption that "fascism",should only be applied to governments that:
A. Emphasize strong national pride, typically racially focused, and with derogatory commentary towards other nationalities or races.
B. Subordinate religous institutions to the state. Not the other way around, which is theocracy. (Somewhere beyond subjectating relgion is abolishing it completely as in most communist nations.)
C. Effect a police state, complete with heavy propaganda and civil rights violations. Almost invaribly there will be a particular closeness between a handful of large corporations and the police state: "corporism. (This was described as the a simple way to differentiate between facism and communism.)
The point of the lecture was, I think, that the radical left in America call all sorts of things fascist that aren't (like, oh, Nixon, and most 1960's college provosts), and the Stalinist USSR was close to facist, yet we don't run around calling it Communo-Fascist or similar. As I recall there was also some discussion of how "fascism" as a general purpose insult was invented by Trotsky to denounce Stalin. So what the hell is up with using "islamo-fascist"? Maybe its just me, but Iran cannot really show the type of nationalism found in the facist states of old? And of all the possible canidates in the islamic world, only Iraq under Sadaam showed much in the way of signs of fascism, and they sure as heck weren't very islamic. When talking about the Taliban, wouldn't it be better to call them a theocracy, akin to Oliver Cromwell or James I's England?
To be very cynical, hooking fascism onto islam merely makes it easier to make comparisons to World War II, and sets up comparisons to "peace in our time" appeasement. When I get to be dicator of Eurasia, I think I'll call Castro "Communo-homo-islamo-fascist-liberal" and invade to restore democracy and improve cigar quality. Labels are really powerful propaganda, lets be precise with them!
posted by Bob at
7:40:00 PM
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