Christopher Hitchens attempts to defend the term "Islamo-Fascism" in Slate today and falls far short of his goal. The term is, in fact, incorrect and counter-productive. Fascism, by commonly accepted definition, incorporates extreme statism, nationalism, and corporatism.
Fascism is a state-based phenomenon. Those who talk of "Islamo-Fascism" are encouraging a climate that fosters state-to-state warfare, although police and intelligence work will counter terrorism more effectively. But then, that's probably the point. Iraq II, anyone?
What's more, words matter - both for their inherent meaning and for their intended impact. Misusing a word for propaganda purposes should be antithetical to a society that values free and honest debate.
Let's conduct a quick analysis of the Hitchens argument. He makes the following points:
1. That the conflation of "fascism" with religion began on the Left with its critiques of the Catholic Church's political role in countries like Spain, Croatia, and Slovakia.
True, but irrelevant. The political activities of some Catholic leaders in these countries more accurately reflected the accepted definition of fascism. The movements they supported were strongly nationalistic, emphasized centralized state control (as opposed to clerical control), and were strongly allied with corporate interests.
Hitchens also throws in the red herring that Muslims are not being treated differently from other religions in that those other faiths are also sometimes labelled "Fascist. " That may or may not be true, but it doesn't help answer the question at hand.
2. That Fascist movements and Islamic extremism both involve a "cult of murderous violence that exalts death and destruction and despises the life of the mind."
Probably true, and hateful, but still irrelevant. Birds, meteors, and F-16s all fly. Viruses, cluster bombs, and fatty foods are all bad for your health. That does not make them the same thing.
3. That both fascism and Islamic extremism are "hostile to modernity."
This generality is demonstrably false. Fascism has, in fact, been very pro-modernity at various times. Certainly the erudite Mr. Hitchens is familiar with Futurism, the Italian art movement that was closely allied with the Italian Fascist movement. Consider the following quote, from the 1910 Manifesto of Futurist Painters:
"We will fight with all our might the fanatical, senseless and snobbish religion of the past ... against everything which is filthy and worm-ridden and corroded by time. We consider the habitual contempt for everything which is young, new and burning with life to be unjust and even criminal."Islamic radicals are clearly "hostile to modernity" in some ways. Fascists? Not necessarily.
4. "Both (movements) are chronically infected with the toxin of anti-Jewish paranoia ... leader worship ... the power of one great book ... sexual repression ... art and literature as symptoms of degeneracy and decadence."
True, and interesting. But see "birds, meteors, and F-16s" above. Both movements are clearly authoritarian, and their followers probably share many psychological characteristics. But words have specific meanings, and Hitchens knows that better than most. "Authoritarian Islamist" is a defensible phrase. But these qualities are not the defining characteristics of fascism. That word is being conjoined with "Islam" not to educate, or enlighten, but to inflame.
5. "Both (movements) burn books and destroy museums and treasures."
Often incorrect. Both Italian and German fascism built museums and protected (or stole) great works of art. Both movements share with Islamic extremism a great contempt for what they considered "decadent" art. But, again, while that tendency is totalitarian, it is not specifically statist or corporatist - both defining elements of fascism.
Hitchens goes on to gloss over the fact that Islamic extremism fails to meet the definition of fascism with this phrase: "There isn't a perfect congruence." That's putting it mildly. He offers no foundation for moving from this imperfect "congruence" to suggesting that it's "permissible ... to mention the two phenomena in the same breath and suggest they constitute comparable threats to civilization ..."
It's "permissible" to say anything in a democratic society. But ignoring the established definition of a word in order to coin an inflammatory neologism? Permissible, perhaps, but hardly defensible. Misusing terms for propaganda purposes does violence to reason and to informed debate -- precisely the qualities that should distinguish us from fascists and religious extremists, even if those two groups are not one and the same.
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LOL
They are as likely to "re-establish the caliphate" as Bush is likely to re-establish the Guilded Age. In their own lands, they are outnumbered twenty to one.
We are more likely to see a Christian fundementalist state in this country.
The odds are better.
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If they cannot provide relevant measurements, then what they are presenting is probably a lot of rhetoric.
Even MacNamara has his body counts. What are the fighters of Islamo-fascism looking at as they march toward victory?
I am generally opposed to name-calling. It is too easy to attach one's individual interpretation of what the name means, ignoring the finer distinctions in beliefs and behavior.
I certainly do agree with Hitchens that religion (rather than a belief in an eternal deity) is the source of much political strife. If one believes that they have the TRUTH, certainly there is an obligation to spread it.
We have Christians in this country who are committed to converting Jews and Muslims to the "One True Faith".
By failing to spend time learning about the disparate cultures and varieties of Islam in the Middle East and trying to understand why so many people prefer to live in a sectarian "non-democratic" state, we lock ourselves in to being victims of ignorance as well as terrorism.
I still have a lot of respect for what Hitchens has contributed, especially his assaults on the likes of Reagan, Mother Teresa, and Falwell, but he's squandering a lot of his cultural capital.
I'm no fan of institutionalized religion, but Hitchens is a fundamentalist atheist. You're either totally against religion according to his worldview, or you're a total idiot.
No wonder he's boosted W. Bush in recent years. Both men have the same "my way or the highway" persona.
Meteors dont fly.
His examples are weak - an educated reader of Hitchens knows better...
This essay/critique is way off the mark.
Fascism, as a definition of a certain expression of government, owes its original coinage to the rise of Mussolini. By attaching Islamo as a prefix, it infers a specific type of fascism practiced by Sharia based governments, and other Jihadist inspired political regimes, such as the Taliban.
You might argue Islamo-Fascism is not classic fascism, but that's a bit like arguing a horsefly is not a horse.
If the phrase is to have no meaning, if it is to be used merely for propaganda purposes, then why not call it Islamo-Communism? Or Islamo-Confusionism ?? In the up-is-down, black-is-white world of Bushisms, it would make no less sense.
The adoption of the phrase Islamo-Fascism by the Bush administration is for the purposes of contrasting Islamic radicalism from their own Christian Crusade. When the White House became tired of being called fascists, coloring others with the same term serves to differentiate them from its meaning.
But the last 7 years under Bush has been a proto-fascist march of the highest order, with visions of Yossarian being carried away by uniformed Blackwater agents - for his own good - and it is no surprise that their rhetoric would be dispensed to obfuscate that fact. Between the extended tours, the forced recalls and the stop-loss programs the Army has suffered under their commander in chief, Joseph Heller would turn over in his grave.
Thus Islamo-Fascist. 21st Century thinkspeak.
And why Hitchens would dig in his heels on this issue is anybody's guess.
Perhaps his Green Card is up for renewal.
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It is possible to cherry-pick Mussolini's definition of Fascism and call anything/body the F-word. Try it yourselves, commentators:
Benito Mussolini: What is Fascism, 1932
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/mussolini-fascism.html
it even works with the Neocon American Zealot Imperialist (check the clever acronym) philosophy.
(This was just after the US Senate tried to pin George with aiding Iraq, using him as a scapegoat. That didn't work either. George slammed the senate too.)
It was so easy too because Hitchens views and perspectives change according to his hang over.
I wish we had a Stateman in this country as George Gallowway. Succinct, accurate, sharp as a razor, and true insightful knowledge.
I believe Hitchens is still hunted by how foolish his arguments where. And here I suggest Hitchens is still a pencil pushing fool just working as he does to make a living pushing rhetoric around wasting readers time.
This week is called "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" and events are scheduled in over a hundred college and university campuses all over the country.
This is because people like David Horowitz have come up with a way to rile up the citizenry and make a ton of money at the same time.
We should be wary of this kind of rhetoric because it does much harm when trying to deal with those of us who are different.
I don't hear the word "Peace" from any of the Presidential candidates and that's what worries me!
One thing on Hitchens' ideological inclination(s): to argue that he is liberal because he wrote for liberal publications doesn't "prove" that he is a liberal. Recall that Irving Kristol (along with wife Gertrude Himmelfarb) were once Trotsky-ites, but became the founders of the neo-con movement in reaction to 60s' anti-Vietnam "radicalism". Yes, Bill Kristol's parents were once lefties. As for Hitchens, I think of him as a contrarian, and an entertainer of sorts but certainly not a major force to be reckoned with.
Before large oil deposits were discovered in the Middle East, nobody anywhere gave a damn about the treatment of Middle Eastern women. For that matter, the subservient status of Japanese women, which despite Japan's status in a modern world economy largely persists to this day - has been looked upon as a quaint cultural relic. No one is shouting from the rooftops about Japanese Fascism Awareness Week. Clearly, you don't have to dig very deep to find out who's behind this charade and what they are trying to pull. Iran has been in zionist crosshairs for a long time - and we're seeing the zionists' all out push to get the United States to attack that country.