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Fifth Column
How the right played the fascism card against Islam
2005-02-04
Via Lucianne:
Albert Scardino
Guardian
Fascism is coming back into fashion, at least in the propaganda wars. For the right, it comes in the shape of a new word: "islamofascism". That conflates all the elements into one image: suicide bombs, kidnappings and the Qur'an; the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan; Iranian clerics and Hitler. The term seems to have appeared first in the Washington Times in a reference to Islamist fundamentalists. Coined by Khalid Duran, a Muslim scholar seeking to explain Islam to Jews, the word was meant as a criticism of hyper-traditionalist clerics - who in turn denounced Duran as a traitor to the faith.
The ummah takes the place of the Party. The Caliph — and his temporary stand-ins — are Fearless Leader, all-wise and all-seeing. The jihadis are the Blackshirts and Brownshirts. The Arabs are the Master Race™, who are at the top of the heap of the Master Religion™. Salafism is the Party ideology. The Defense of Islam™ equates to the drive for Lebensraum. Gangs like Zarqawi's and Basayev's exterminate those who don't follow the Party line. Qutb's writings fill the function of Mein Kampf. Your friendly neighborhood holy men fill the functions of the block leaders, the Kreisleiters and the Gauleiters. Pretty accurate description, I'd say.
Usage has gathered momentum among commentators and academics who seek a verbal missile to debilitate those who disagree with them. They have adopted it as a sort of Judeo-Christian war cry - look for it soon in the title of a neo-conservative think tank conference.
Probably so. I think "Salafism" is actually easier to pronounce than "Islamofascism." The problem is the political implications, since it'll offend the Soddy sensitivities and drive the price of oil up another $10 a barrel.
For the left, the term "fascist" lost its power in the 1970s, when it was sprayed on every authority figure in sight, from the Nixon-Kissinger White House to university provosts to the neighbourhood cop.
Cried wolf one too many times? Or was it hundreds of thousands too many times?
To make Bush-Hitler comparisons work requires more nuanced historical references - to the night of the long knives, for example, as Sidney Blumenthal did about the dismissal of Colin Powell.
Powell survived the experience. Ernst Roehm didn't. It's normal for cabinet members to submit their resignations after an election, and Powell had stated prior to the election that he was ready to move on. Then again, truth has never been Sid Blumenthal's strong point, has it?
Unfortunately for liberals, those references don't work as efficiently as islamofascism does for the right, because to imagine the appropriately creepy picture requires a familiarity with German history of the 1920s and 30s. Nazism is better known for its death camps than for Leni Riefenstahl or the Reichstag fire, so analogies between the Nazis' early years and current Republican party behaviour seem hollow, no matter how strong some parallels might be.
I dunno. Analogies between the Nazis' early years and current behavior on the left are just as hollow. Events are like bricks — No. That's wrong. Lemme start again: Ogres are like onions... No. That's not it. Let's just say that just because an event occurred on one occasion with a given set of results doesn't mean that a similar event occurring on another occasion, under different conditions, will have the same results. America and France both had revolutions, with many of the same ideas and even a few of the players involved in both. One revolution gave us Washington, Jefferson, and John Quincy Adams. The other gave us Robespierre, Napoleon Bonaparte, continental war, and eventually Louis Philippe. Leni Reifenstahl in Hollywood might have directed Jean Harlow movies.

The left fixes on Naziism as the epitome of fascism, but it was a superset of the political system. It grew up in the anarchy into which Italia had fallen during WWI. Il Duce was the modern incarnation of Caesar. The movement adapted itself to similar conditions that existed in Europe at the time, taking root in lotsa different countries: Spain, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, France and Austria among them. There was no equivalent of the Night of the Long Knives in any of them that I know of. The best Il Duce could come up with was the assassination of Matteotti. Stalin, on the other hand, did carry out the Yezhovshchina, which (literally) decimated the Red Army on the eve of WWII, and which presents a much closer parallel to the Night of the Long Knives — only longer, and with more casualties. So blood purges seem to be much more associated with dictatorial states than simply with fascism. The same applies to the Reichstag fire, but its inclusion in Albert's argument is so silly it can be dismissed out of hand.
Christopher Hitchens, a former socialist who now sits on the other end of the political see-saw, sprinkles islamofascism about like paprika. He and Andrew Sullivan, a voice of the right, both wrongly receive credit in some quarters for coining the term.
Hitchens is still a leftist. I disagree with most of what he believes society should be. After the WoT's over I'll probably go back to calling him names, and he to calling me names if he notices my existence. He's realist enough to recognize the evil of the enemy that's facing both ends of the political spectrum, something Albert's apparently not bright enough to grasp. Neither Hitchens nor Sullivan, to my knowledge, has claimed credit for inventing the term "islamofascism." Bill Quick invented the term "blogosphere," and I'm the inventor of the Surprise Meter, but neither invention earns us royalties.
Long before September 11 2001, Duran was commissioned by the American Jewish Committee to produce one side of an interfaith project. Duran responded to attacks on his book, Children of Abraham, by deriding those who sought "to impose religious orthodoxy on the state and the citizenry". In that sense, he said, extreme islamism is "islamofascism."
Pretty accurate description, huh? Especially given the striving for the caliphate and the roving bands of fascisti who're now shooting up the entire world.
It took a couple of years for the word to seep into frequent usage. By then its meaning had expanded. Last year, Sullivan cited "five elements that make it particularly dangerous", including the "broken, medieval societies" that foster it, the "unquenchable extremism" of its motivation, and "the destructive technology" its adherents seek. Use of the term to describe Muslim clerics and stateless terrorists has neatly pre-empted any chance of labelling Bush a fascist - no matter how many suspects are kidnapped by the US authorities and tortured; no matter how impervious the border; no matter how effective the use of propaganda to destroy the opposition; no matter how many countries are invaded on false pretenses; no matter how strongly a minority religion may become a mark of guilt.
Since the one term's accurate and the other's frivolous, the frivolous usage doesn't come off well, does it?
Poor, poor Al, we've left him w/nothing, the VRWC has co-opted one of his favorite words.
Posted by:anonymous2u

#15  "Islamofascism" is -- at least when I use it -- intended to describe the conflation of racialist nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism. The Baath party is the direct intellectual descendant of the Nazi party! Why is it so hard to follow that? Then you chuck in the tendency of the Islamists to treat Arabs as a kind of master race -- a practice derived either from pan-Arab nationalism or, possibly, from a belief that "the closer you are to Mohammed, the more perfect you are".

CrazyFool and Ptah are right -- this ass is just upset that he can't scream "fascist" and make it stick.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2005-02-04 7:24:03 PM  

#14  That which we call "tyrrany" by any other name still smells just as bad.
Posted by: Mike   2005-02-04 7:12:10 PM  

#13  There is no playing the fascist card against Islam, they are fascists.
Posted by: Cleans Angereling9543   2005-02-04 6:45:21 PM  

#12  Ptah has been spot on lately.
Posted by: Jules 187   2005-02-04 5:53:39 PM  

#11  Ptah, Well said!
Posted by: phil_b   2005-02-04 5:45:31 PM  

#10  "Christopher Hitchens, a former socialist who now sits on the other end of the political see-saw..."

Um, that's not accurate at all. He is still a socialist (or at least "Third Way," which is socialism for liars), is still not very fond of the US (has he stopped hounding Kissinger yet?), and, in general, is still very much a Leftist.

He is not, however, an Idiotarian. Mr. Scardino is, apparently.
Posted by: jackal   2005-02-04 5:30:09 PM  

#9  It is "Chimperor Bushitler" as of today.
Posted by: Brett   2005-02-04 3:12:04 PM  

#8  the best explanation of the historical connections between radical, Qutbist, Islamism and european fascism is found in Paul Berman's "Liberalism and Terror" Berman remains a liberal, and a moderate socialist, but I think most of you would find his insights compelling. And his tone is a lot easier to take than either Hitchens or Sullivan. I strongly recommend this book.
Posted by: Liberalhawk   2005-02-04 2:36:01 PM  

#7  The guy obviously wants to have his cake and eat it too: he wants to retain the right to accuse Bush and republicans of being neo-fascists, but try to deny that right to those he opposes.

CrazyFools' remark helped me realize that one of the problems with accusing Bush of being a Fascist/Nazi is that the purported "proof" or "evidence" does not fit the magnitude of the accusation. one of the "outs" Intellectuals use to put down the concept of God is that the claim that God exists is an "extraordinary" claim that demands "extraordinary" proof. The level of proof demanded to prove that one is a murderer is higher than that demanded to prove that one is a pickpocket. No such "extraordinary" evidence exists when it comes to Bush: just highly creative analogies. At the same time, if one substitutes "religious superiority" for "Racial superiority", the correspondence of behavior between Radical Islamists in Sharia and the Nazis becomes easy to make, with an abundance of examples.

To rephrase what CrazyFool said, it pisses this author off that it is easier for us to pin the "Fascist" label on the Islamists than it is for him to pin it on us or on Bush, and he's demanding, like every leftist, a synthetic right of equality of regard and acceptance of one's arguments. He's demanding an intellectual free-lunch, where his arguments are accepted blindly, without any regard to how good they are. Put another way, it's a demand for an Intellectual analogue to federal welfare, in which he gets intellectual currency without having to work for it. Good insight, CF.
Posted by: Ptah   2005-02-04 2:30:40 PM  

#6  Hes just pissed because Facism is fullhy applicable to Islam and the Islamic countries such as Iran, Syria, SA, etc... You dont have to look very far for examples.

While Facism is not applicable to Bush. There is no evidence of a 'night of the long knives' or anything else by that matter.

Did anyone notice that the actions of the DNC and its union brownshirts during the last election? Election offices shot at, taken over, and tires slashed. I would not go so far as to call the DNC facists, but they are working on it.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2005-02-04 9:28:38 AM  

#5  .com, deep down I think he does get it and knows it fits, & it's eating him up. He's just doing what comes naturally to all candy assed LLL window-lickers w/a masters degree and a third grader's outlook on the world - he's throwing a temper tantrum.
Posted by: Jarhead   2005-02-04 9:18:45 AM  

#4  Fascism is coming back into fashion, at least in the propaganda wars. For the right, it comes in the shape of a new word: "islamofascism". That conflates all the elements into one image: suicide bombs, kidnappings and the Qur’an; the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan; Iranian clerics and Hitler.

All the elements of what? In this missive we already have leftist propoganda and we're not even out of the first graf...

The term seems to have appeared first in the Washington Times in a reference to Islamist fundamentalists. Coined by Khalid Duran, a Muslim scholar seeking to explain Islam to Jews, the word was meant as a criticism of hyper-traditionalist clerics - who in turn denounced Duran as a traitor to the faith.

No wonder the left lost the election in 2004 and possibly beyond. Nothing better to do than to trace a word's origins?

We have nothing for society other than to wreck its institutions, nothing to attract people to our views. So, of course that is the right's fault.

The term Islamofascism is a lamentable word to be sure. Islam is fascism: why give it a sort of indicator that other elements of Islam aren't fascism by saying terrorism is inspired by Islamofascism? Islam is ALL fascism.

Usage has gathered momentum among commentators and academics who seek a verbal missile to debilitate those who disagree with them.

HELP! I'm being oppressed! Someone called me an Islamofascist!

The guy is right. It's terrible when you devote your whole life to wrecking a society whose tit you suck daily.

Words have power over the left because frankly they have nothing else. A lifetime of sedition and treason, and all I got was called an Islamofascist.

They have adopted it as a sort of Judeo-Christian war cry - look for it soon in the title of a neo-conservative think tank conference.

Joe's Islamofascist Institute/Bar and Grill?

For the left, the term "fascist" lost its power in the 1970s, when it was sprayed on every authority figure in sight, from the Nixon-Kissinger White House to university provosts to the neighbourhood cop.

Actually, the obverse is true: The word did have some resonance, but it was overused. But it never really did lose its power. And the word is in widespread usage still in Russia where it essentially got its birth as a disparaging term.

To make Bush-Hitler comparisons work requires more nuanced historical references - to the night of the long knives, for example, as Sidney Blumenthal did about the dismissal of Colin Powell. Unfortunately for liberals, those references don’t work as efficiently as islamofascism does for the right, because to imagine the appropriately creepy picture requires a familiarity with German history of the 1920s and 30s. Nazism is better known for its death camps than for Leni Riefenstahl or the Reichstag fire, so analogies between the Nazis’ early years and current Republican party behaviour seem hollow, no matter how strong some parallels might be.

That kool-aid taste good? A little bitter maybe?

Republican party behavior?

Did I miss something? Was there not s'posed to be an example of how 'Republican party behaviour' could even be parallel to the German National Socialist Party at any point in history?

Oh, wait. Nevermind. This is a leftist article about propoganda. I forgot the left often criticizes in ways that smears the left itself with whatever taint-du-jour a befuddled writer can invent.

Christopher Hitchens, a former socialist who now sits on the other end of the political see-saw, sprinkles islamofascism about like paprika.

Hitchens is still very much a creature of the left. I personally like the guy, but he is very much a creature of socialism. His program will resume as soon as the WoT is over.

He and Andrew Sullivan, a voice of the right, both wrongly receive credit in some quarters for coining the term.

How awful. And Sullivan shifted left this last fall. If Sullivan is of the right when John Kerry will run as a republican for senate next time...

Long before September 11 2001, Duran was commissioned by the American Jewish Committee to produce one side of an interfaith project. Duran responded to attacks on his book, Children of Abraham, by deriding those who sought "to impose religious orthodoxy on the state and the citizenry". In that sense, he said, extreme islamism is "islamofascism."

Which was wrong. Islamism IS fascism, no question.

It took a couple of years for the word to seep into frequent usage.

I've used it myself a time or two, but it is too long and I prefer the term Islamowanker anyway.

By then its meaning had expanded. Last year, Sullivan cited "five elements that make it particularly dangerous", including the "broken, medieval societies" that foster it, the "unquenchable extremism" of its motivation, and "the destructive technology" its adherents seek.

Sullivan is a wanker, just like the Guardian writer.

Use of the term to describe Muslim clerics and stateless terrorists has neatly pre-empted any chance of labelling Bush a fascist

Poor baby. All mad coz Bush won't fit into a box?

- no matter how many suspects are kidnapped by the US authorities and tortured;

Cool! That's our spooks, baby!

no matter how impervious the border; no matter how effective the use of propaganda to destroy the opposition;

You must mean the fifth column. The opposition is having a difficult time with their message at the moment, but not the fifth column like this writer.

no matter how many countries are invaded on false pretenses;

You must mean Iraq. You know, that new Bush Imperial province in which there is no democracy, only Bushitlerian fascism.

no matter how strongly a minority religion may become a mark of guilt.

One billion adherants a minority religion? Typical leftist math: 2+2 = 250,000

Thank God f*ckers like this writer don't do engineering.
Posted by: badanov   2005-02-04 6:06:55 AM  

#3  This would be a lot less amusing if he didn't actually believe that "Bush = Hitler" is the nuanced view...
Posted by: someone   2005-02-04 3:54:42 AM  

#2  Albert Scardino is a SocioFascistWankerBat.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom   2005-02-04 2:13:42 AM  

#1  Oddly, it seems he can't grasp the obvious: it's accurate. I guess if his ilk can't apply it, then it's only a word which has lost any useful meaning. SocioFascistIslamoBat™ wank-o-matic AlG twitter.
Posted by: .com   2005-02-04 2:06:32 AM  

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