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2011-04-30 15:38:49 UTC
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=britt_28_5
Point/Counterpoint
Laurence W. Britt
Islamofascism Is a Gross Misnomer
In recent years, the bizarre term Islamofascism has begun making the
rounds, usually emanating from the strange world of right-wing politics
and neocon pundits and their acolytes. After a test run on the fringe,
the term broke into the big leagues of political discourse in the fall of
2006, when President George W. Bush and top members of his administration
simultaneously adopted its use in a desperate attempt to bolster support
for the stumbling war in Iraq and the related “war on terror.” The Bush
administration was finding it more and more difficult to define just who
or what we were fighting against. To declare a war on a tactic is
imprecise to the point of meaninglessness. To replace the Global War on
Terror (GWOT), a catchall phrase was needed to label the enemy and
simplify matters. The phrase had to represent something bad, something
that would conjure up visceral fear and hatred. Certainly fascism, a
discredited political philosophy, combined with the bogeyman status now
accorded to the Muslim religion in the minds of most Americans, was a
perfect match. The problem is that they don’t match up at all.
Islamofascism is a neologism, that is, a new word. Neologism’s secondary
definition is “a meaningless word or phrase.” Perhaps here we are
approaching the heart of the matter. First, consider the primary users of
this curious term. It stems mostly from the political Right, especially
in the United States, and it is constantly being repeated in the echo
chamber of conservative talk-shows and associated commentators in the
print media. Right-wing polemicists such as David Horowitz, Norman
Podhoretz, and Daniel Pipes have been the main promoters of the concept.
David Horowitz even promoted an “Islamofascism Awareness Week” on college
campuses in the fall of 2007.
President Bush started using the term in a 2006 press conference. Within
weeks, it became a staple commodity within the administration, repeated
frequently by administration spokespersons including then-Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, then-Press Secretary Tony Snow, Condoleeza Rice,
Vice President Richard Cheney, and a number of Republican members of the
Senate and House. Obviously, the campaign was well planned and
orchestrated.
The use of this term represents a curious twisting of historical facts
and logic. The word fascism is bandied about by many who have little
knowledge of what it actually means or who simply extract a meaning to
fit their purposes. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language defines fascism as “a philosophy or system of dictatorial
government of the extreme Right typically through the merger of state and
corporate leadership usually tied to an ideology of belligerent
nationalism.”
How the above definition of fascism can be associated with a stateless,
religion-based, transnational terrorist movement whose apparent raison
d’être is opposing Western incursion into Islamic lands is
incomprehensible. Fascism, first and foremost, was a nationalistic
movement wherever it came to power and sought the aggrandizement of that
nation. These regimes were corporatist in how they functioned and were
usually supported by the economic elite of the nation. The regimes were
nominally secular, though usually tied to the Christian church in some
way. They were ethnocentric, opposed to transnational cooperation, and
harshly suppressed domestic opponents. These opponents were often labeled
as terrorists.
Standing these historical factors on their heads, we are now asked to
believe that the above definition and description of the fascist modus
operandi describes the terrorist threat we are now facing. Al Qaeda and
its imitators represent no single national power. Rather, they attract
followers from many nations with the common bond of adherence to violent
Islamic religious fundamentalism. During the ascendance of fascism, there
was no talk of the threat of “international fascism” per se. It was the
individual nations that posed the threat, based on their formidable
military and industrial infrastructures.
Islamic fundamentalism and the terrorist actions its adherents perpetrate
appear to have as an objective the establishment of fundamentalist
Islamic states where Western power and influence can be excluded and
secularism abolished. There is no indication that they are seeking world
economic or military hegemony, not that such an objective has even the
slightest chance of success. The only thing Islamic terrorists have in
common with historic fascists who gained control of modern industrial
nations is that they are both bad. However, that fact does not lead to
the conclusion that they are equivalent. Drug dealers are bad, too, but
that does not mean that they’re also fascists.
Some of the exponents of Islamofascism seem to dwell on the points made
by Italian writer Umberto Eco in his 1997 book, Five Moral Pieces. In
this work, Eco describes the characteristics of individuals who would be
susceptible to the lure of fascism. These characteristics include such
things as anti-intellectualism, the need for action, intolerance of
dissent, rejection of pacifism, identification of enemies, male
dominance, the willingness to use violence, and general fanaticism about
their belief system. The problem is that most of these characteristics
could be assigned to adherents of any authoritarian religion, including
many Christian sects—not to mention that they could also resemble such
disparate movements as communism, the Mafia, Japanese militarism, and any
number of despotic regimes throughout history.
Anti-Semitism is also used as “proof” of an Islamic/fascist tie-in. But
again, a look at the historical facts significantly weakens this
argument. Only the Nazi version of fascism was violently anti-Semitic,
and this was based on a convoluted racial theory, not religion.
Converting to Christianity could not save Jews from the Holocaust.
Islamic anti-Semitism is based on the incursion of infidels (the
Israelis) into previously Islamic lands.
There have been many articulate rejections of the Islamofascism concept
from across the political spectrum. In an October 29, 2007, International
Herald Tribune column titled “Fearing Fear Itself,” Paul Krugman wrote,
“. . . there actually isn’t any such thing as Islamofascism—it’s not an
ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into
vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward
transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden who attacked America to Saddam
Hussein who didn’t.
British historian Niall Ferguson, a conservative whose recent book War of
the World covered World War II and the fascist experience in depth,
declared in 2006,
. . . what we see at the moment is an attempt to interpret our
present predicament in a rather characterized World War II idiom. I mean,
“Islamofascism” illustrates the point well, because it is a completely
misleading concept. In fact, there is virtually no overlap between the
ideology of al Qaeda and fascism. It’s just a way of making us feel that
we’re the “greatest generation” fighting another World War. You’re
translating a crisis symbolized by 9/11 into a sort of pseudo World War
II. So 9/11 becomes Pearl Harbor and then you go after the bad guys who
are fascists, and if you don’t support us, then you must be an appeaser.
As Eric Margolis observed in an August 2006 syndicated essay, “There is
nothing in any part of the Muslim world that resembles the corporate
fascist states of western history. The clan and tribal-based traditional
Islamic societies, with its fragmented power structures, local loyalties,
and consensus decision-making, is about as far as possible from western
industrial state fascism.”
Not only is the use of this term disingenuous for the American people as
an explanation of what we are fighting for or against, it also causes
unneeded outrage in the Muslim world. In a September 11, 2006, article in
The Nation, Katha Pollitt wrote that “Islamofascism enrages to no purpose
the dwindling number of Muslims who don’t already hate us. At the same
time it clouds with ideology a range of situations—Lebanon, Palestine,
airplane and subway bombings, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran—that we need to see
clearly and distinctly and deal with in a focused way. No wonder the
people who brought us the disaster in Iraq are so fond of it.”
One deeply suspects that the foisting of this oxymoron on the public is
yet another attempt at crude wartime propaganda and disinformation
designed to distract a gullible public to accept a disastrous policy. One
further suspects that this outlandish twist of the English language may
serve another, more handy purpose. Among the harshest critics of the Bush
administration, the word fascism is also wafting through the air. But
it’s not aimed at the Islamic terrorists. It’s aimed at the Bush
administration itself—the perpetrators of warrantless wiretaps, flaunters
of the Geneva Convention, extraordinary rendition, Guantánamo, torture,
secret prisons, the right to perpetrate preemptive attack on other
countries, overthrowing uncooperative governments, and the grabbing of
other nation’s resources. Now that is a comparison to fascism with some
validity.
The disinformation strategy is simple. If the Bush administration can
name the enemy as fascism, then how can anyone accuse it of exhibiting
the same characteristics?
Laurence W. Britt is a retired international businessperson, writer, and
commentator. His brief article “Fascism Anyone?” (FI, Spring 2003),
offering numerous references to historical fascism, became the most-
reprinted single article published by FREE INQUIRY.
Point/Counterpoint
Laurence W. Britt
Islamofascism Is a Gross Misnomer
In recent years, the bizarre term Islamofascism has begun making the
rounds, usually emanating from the strange world of right-wing politics
and neocon pundits and their acolytes. After a test run on the fringe,
the term broke into the big leagues of political discourse in the fall of
2006, when President George W. Bush and top members of his administration
simultaneously adopted its use in a desperate attempt to bolster support
for the stumbling war in Iraq and the related “war on terror.” The Bush
administration was finding it more and more difficult to define just who
or what we were fighting against. To declare a war on a tactic is
imprecise to the point of meaninglessness. To replace the Global War on
Terror (GWOT), a catchall phrase was needed to label the enemy and
simplify matters. The phrase had to represent something bad, something
that would conjure up visceral fear and hatred. Certainly fascism, a
discredited political philosophy, combined with the bogeyman status now
accorded to the Muslim religion in the minds of most Americans, was a
perfect match. The problem is that they don’t match up at all.
Islamofascism is a neologism, that is, a new word. Neologism’s secondary
definition is “a meaningless word or phrase.” Perhaps here we are
approaching the heart of the matter. First, consider the primary users of
this curious term. It stems mostly from the political Right, especially
in the United States, and it is constantly being repeated in the echo
chamber of conservative talk-shows and associated commentators in the
print media. Right-wing polemicists such as David Horowitz, Norman
Podhoretz, and Daniel Pipes have been the main promoters of the concept.
David Horowitz even promoted an “Islamofascism Awareness Week” on college
campuses in the fall of 2007.
President Bush started using the term in a 2006 press conference. Within
weeks, it became a staple commodity within the administration, repeated
frequently by administration spokespersons including then-Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, then-Press Secretary Tony Snow, Condoleeza Rice,
Vice President Richard Cheney, and a number of Republican members of the
Senate and House. Obviously, the campaign was well planned and
orchestrated.
The use of this term represents a curious twisting of historical facts
and logic. The word fascism is bandied about by many who have little
knowledge of what it actually means or who simply extract a meaning to
fit their purposes. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language defines fascism as “a philosophy or system of dictatorial
government of the extreme Right typically through the merger of state and
corporate leadership usually tied to an ideology of belligerent
nationalism.”
How the above definition of fascism can be associated with a stateless,
religion-based, transnational terrorist movement whose apparent raison
d’être is opposing Western incursion into Islamic lands is
incomprehensible. Fascism, first and foremost, was a nationalistic
movement wherever it came to power and sought the aggrandizement of that
nation. These regimes were corporatist in how they functioned and were
usually supported by the economic elite of the nation. The regimes were
nominally secular, though usually tied to the Christian church in some
way. They were ethnocentric, opposed to transnational cooperation, and
harshly suppressed domestic opponents. These opponents were often labeled
as terrorists.
Standing these historical factors on their heads, we are now asked to
believe that the above definition and description of the fascist modus
operandi describes the terrorist threat we are now facing. Al Qaeda and
its imitators represent no single national power. Rather, they attract
followers from many nations with the common bond of adherence to violent
Islamic religious fundamentalism. During the ascendance of fascism, there
was no talk of the threat of “international fascism” per se. It was the
individual nations that posed the threat, based on their formidable
military and industrial infrastructures.
Islamic fundamentalism and the terrorist actions its adherents perpetrate
appear to have as an objective the establishment of fundamentalist
Islamic states where Western power and influence can be excluded and
secularism abolished. There is no indication that they are seeking world
economic or military hegemony, not that such an objective has even the
slightest chance of success. The only thing Islamic terrorists have in
common with historic fascists who gained control of modern industrial
nations is that they are both bad. However, that fact does not lead to
the conclusion that they are equivalent. Drug dealers are bad, too, but
that does not mean that they’re also fascists.
Some of the exponents of Islamofascism seem to dwell on the points made
by Italian writer Umberto Eco in his 1997 book, Five Moral Pieces. In
this work, Eco describes the characteristics of individuals who would be
susceptible to the lure of fascism. These characteristics include such
things as anti-intellectualism, the need for action, intolerance of
dissent, rejection of pacifism, identification of enemies, male
dominance, the willingness to use violence, and general fanaticism about
their belief system. The problem is that most of these characteristics
could be assigned to adherents of any authoritarian religion, including
many Christian sects—not to mention that they could also resemble such
disparate movements as communism, the Mafia, Japanese militarism, and any
number of despotic regimes throughout history.
Anti-Semitism is also used as “proof” of an Islamic/fascist tie-in. But
again, a look at the historical facts significantly weakens this
argument. Only the Nazi version of fascism was violently anti-Semitic,
and this was based on a convoluted racial theory, not religion.
Converting to Christianity could not save Jews from the Holocaust.
Islamic anti-Semitism is based on the incursion of infidels (the
Israelis) into previously Islamic lands.
There have been many articulate rejections of the Islamofascism concept
from across the political spectrum. In an October 29, 2007, International
Herald Tribune column titled “Fearing Fear Itself,” Paul Krugman wrote,
“. . . there actually isn’t any such thing as Islamofascism—it’s not an
ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into
vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward
transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden who attacked America to Saddam
Hussein who didn’t.
British historian Niall Ferguson, a conservative whose recent book War of
the World covered World War II and the fascist experience in depth,
declared in 2006,
. . . what we see at the moment is an attempt to interpret our
present predicament in a rather characterized World War II idiom. I mean,
“Islamofascism” illustrates the point well, because it is a completely
misleading concept. In fact, there is virtually no overlap between the
ideology of al Qaeda and fascism. It’s just a way of making us feel that
we’re the “greatest generation” fighting another World War. You’re
translating a crisis symbolized by 9/11 into a sort of pseudo World War
II. So 9/11 becomes Pearl Harbor and then you go after the bad guys who
are fascists, and if you don’t support us, then you must be an appeaser.
As Eric Margolis observed in an August 2006 syndicated essay, “There is
nothing in any part of the Muslim world that resembles the corporate
fascist states of western history. The clan and tribal-based traditional
Islamic societies, with its fragmented power structures, local loyalties,
and consensus decision-making, is about as far as possible from western
industrial state fascism.”
Not only is the use of this term disingenuous for the American people as
an explanation of what we are fighting for or against, it also causes
unneeded outrage in the Muslim world. In a September 11, 2006, article in
The Nation, Katha Pollitt wrote that “Islamofascism enrages to no purpose
the dwindling number of Muslims who don’t already hate us. At the same
time it clouds with ideology a range of situations—Lebanon, Palestine,
airplane and subway bombings, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran—that we need to see
clearly and distinctly and deal with in a focused way. No wonder the
people who brought us the disaster in Iraq are so fond of it.”
One deeply suspects that the foisting of this oxymoron on the public is
yet another attempt at crude wartime propaganda and disinformation
designed to distract a gullible public to accept a disastrous policy. One
further suspects that this outlandish twist of the English language may
serve another, more handy purpose. Among the harshest critics of the Bush
administration, the word fascism is also wafting through the air. But
it’s not aimed at the Islamic terrorists. It’s aimed at the Bush
administration itself—the perpetrators of warrantless wiretaps, flaunters
of the Geneva Convention, extraordinary rendition, Guantánamo, torture,
secret prisons, the right to perpetrate preemptive attack on other
countries, overthrowing uncooperative governments, and the grabbing of
other nation’s resources. Now that is a comparison to fascism with some
validity.
The disinformation strategy is simple. If the Bush administration can
name the enemy as fascism, then how can anyone accuse it of exhibiting
the same characteristics?
Laurence W. Britt is a retired international businessperson, writer, and
commentator. His brief article “Fascism Anyone?” (FI, Spring 2003),
offering numerous references to historical fascism, became the most-
reprinted single article published by FREE INQUIRY.