Killing an Arab
OK, the title of this post might be in bad taste. But it was inspired by news that the First Reader was reading Camus's Stranger during his vay-cay . . . and, of course, the Cure song. But this is really a post about Islamic fascists . . . or, maybe, about the term "Islamic fascists," which the First Reader used, to some fanfare, last week.
Is this term "apt"? Well, not really. But why not? As someone who's actually thought a bit about fascism, from an academic point of view, and taught fascism, and Nazism, in a course on ideologies, I'd say that the underlying reason that fascism as a term is not apt is that fascism was a relatively specific response to certain political developments; more precisely, it was a reactionary movement. I would argue that each and every reactionary movement is specific to what it is reacting to. (Imagine calling segregationist Southerns the "counter-reformation," and I think you will see my point.)
The fascists were reacting to "modern" liberalism, but, even more importantly, to socialism and Bolshevism. It was a mass movement, like some Islamist movements, but a mass movement of the Right--specifically, a rejection of the materialism of the Marxist Left (Marxist, explicitly, and Marxist-tinged). This comes across most clearly in the Italian fascists, but also in Nazism (which, in its more radical forms, sought to resurrect paganism, but it would be a mistake to read that as part of Nazism's "broad appeal," such as it was). Here, there is a point of similarity, but I would argue that the term "fascism" cannot be understood in isolation from Marxist materialistic theories. Because the West today, especially the United States, Land of the Free(Dom Which They Hate), is not a Marxist, or philosophically materialist, society, then whatever you want to call the Islamist enemies of the West, "fascist" is not the right (or Right) term . . . If, indeed, our G-D is bigger than their g-d, then this is quite a different clash of civilizations than that which happened in 1939-45. Americans are always forgetting that the real enemy of the Nazis was the Bolshevic U.S.S.R., and not the more or less capitalistic and Christian West. Hitler could have made peace with the U.S. in the end, but the Nazis and the Bolsheviks were fated to fight it out on the steppes. Fight it out to the death.
That's all I have, so . . . take it away, Macaca!
Macaca say, even if Islamists not fascists, they still bad, sahib.
posted by Number Three @ 9:24 PM
3 Comments:
I think you're wrong here. For one, you neglect how prevalent communist radicalism was in the Arab world of the 1950s and 60s when Ba'athism and Islamism developed intellectually. So it WAS an enemy, even if, by the time these movements exploded into the mainstream, it was no longer their primary rival.
Second, you ignore how much Hitler, et al., were opposed to BOTH the commies AND the liberalism of US and Brits. Think for example about Heidegger's infamous line in 1935 about how Germany was caught in a "pincers" between the two great materialisms of Russia and the US. That's pretty common language for the era. If you go back and read your Mussolini, you'll also find that he spends at least as much time (if not more) attacking liberalism rather than communism. If Russia was a more immediate enemy for Hitler, it was only because of their geographical proximity.
There's no doubt in my mind that the radical forces in the Arab world are a variant on "fascism." We really don't have a better generic term for modern rightist movements that see themselves as spirtitual revivals of a "pure" past, purged of "enemies," celebrating military force, and rejecting moderation, democracy, and western liberties. In his otherwise flawed book, Terror and Liberalism, Paul Berman does a great job of documenting the intellectual connections between the European and Arab intellectual right-wings.
Sure there are some points of contact between the behavior of radical islamists and fascists, but there are points of contact between their behavior and all authoritarian/militaristic movements in history. Why not call them Islamist-Spartiates or the Islamist-Optimates? I take #3 to be offering a quick critique of W's simplistic and inflammatory rhetoric. That is, if we can rhetorically lump the islamist radicals in with the fascists or nazis, which we had to fight WWII in order to defeat, then we must fight WWIII to defeat the "islamist fascists". The problem is that the radical islamists are mostly non-state actors so the intended impact of the rhetoric (wage WWIII to fight them) is just plain stupid. Ergo, we really do need another term that will/can better define the islamist radicals to help us understand what it is that has motivated them to start their movements, and more importantly help us formulate a response. Their biggest beefs and defining moments, so it seems to me, are: (1) the installation or existence of pro-Western (or rather pro-US) governments, such as Jordan, Egypt and most importantly Saudia Arabia (propped up with the presence of US ground forces on "Arab soil") to protect oil interests; (2) The creation of the modern state of Israel on "Arab soil". (3) The jockying amongst the Sunni/Shia divide. I don't think the term "Islamist-fascists" is particularly helpful in either defining them or helping the US come up with a rational (and yes, self-interested) response to their emergence. It is only an inflammatory pose menat to push us on a conventional war footing with Iran and Syria. Well, we already know how the conventional war with Iraq is faring after having simplistically made a rhetorical comparison between Saddam and Hitler, so #3's overall point is well worth heeding.
Paul, I'm sensitive to the dangers of the GOP rhetorical strategy here. I just don't think it automatically follows that IF you (a) define radical Islamism as a variant of 20th century fascism, THEN (b) you must fight WWIII against them.
That premise strikes me as purely analytical and descriptive, and far from sufficient to justify the normative conclusion. What's missing is strategic context: Hitler and the Axis powers were expanding rapidly and were poised to conquer much of the known world, whereas the Islamists have neither the military power nor the intellectual seductiveness to conquer the west. They have only the power to nip at our heels with sporadic acts of barbaric nihilism. Big difference, especially in terms of strategic implications. So I wouldn't throw out the analytical baby with the strategic bathwater.
I also don't think it makes much sense to hold up the Spartiate or Optimate alternatives. Since those are ancient examples, they MEAN far less to modern ears, while also lacking the direct historical link between movements.
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