Islamofascists

One of the few things nearly all can agree on in the West is that the Second World War was just and had to be fought. (It's conveniently forgotten that many did not want to fight it, both here and in the States, and forgotten too that fascism had a fatal attraction for many in the West.)

So it's a useful rhetorical ploy to compare Islamists with Nazis. Call the Islamists "fascists" and their claim to justice is destroyed at a stroke.

But are they? Looking at Browne's article, one can see the case for considering Islamists to be fascists (not a new case, no one can accuse Browne of being a thinker).

"Islamic radicals, like Hitler, cultivate support by nurturing grievances against others."

*kof* Well, who doesn't? George Bush won an election on the basis of American grievance against Iraq. The Tories tried to win one on the basis of yob grievance against foreigners.

But what is the basis for Islamism? Some of it is fuelled by grievance: that the West has interfered in Middle East politics and economy for a long time, and not for the better. Mostly, Islamists believe that the problems of the Middle East would be resolved by a return to the Caliphate, although their Caliphate doesn't necessarily resemble the one that once held sway over much of the Middle East. In truth, that latter would be a vast improvement over the current polities there: it was largely tolerant, rich and peaceful. The notion of the Islamic community made sense, with trade and travel between Muslim centres easy. Of course, "largely" so doesn't mean wholly so, and it's hard to see how the version of Islam that the Qutbistas urge could have constructed the Caliphate. It was never unitary. It was never all Sunni, never all peaceful. Peasants still toiled in the fields. One of the attractions of Islamism to the poor is that it promises to bring into being the Islamic ideal of equality, which would mean a measure of enrichment for many. This is not that far removed from the justification for Western "democracy": it's ugly and unpleasant but we're rich because of it.

"Islamists, like Hitler, scapegoat Jews for their problems and want to destroy them."

Yes, they do. Islamists are antisemites of the most disgusting kind. They hate Jews for being Jews. This should be deplored. However, it's not an outcome of their philosophy per se. Indeed, it is almost inexplicable, given Islamic tolerance for "People of the Book", which was a feature of the Caliphate (not always nor in every place, but in a broad sense).

And that hatred did not begin with the Israeli oppression of Palestinians. It is an expression of an older antisemitism that is rife in the Middle East. Israel is resented as a bastion of "Western values" (licentiousness, frivolity, booze mostly) imposed on what is seen as a core part of the Muslim territory, a part that Muslims fought very hard to wrest from the Crusaders. The resentment is understandable in part, and, like many of the "useful idiots", I deplore Israel's exploitation of the West's sympathy for it to cause a great deal of misery for Palestinians. But Israel exists. It cannot be undone, just as other places, nations exist, and now we have to take what we have and work out how to make it work for all of us. That's not easy, and the route to a solution would, one would have thought, begin with an understanding that all sides have grievances, resentments, needs that must be met. Our blind support for one side has exacerbated the problem.

Jews make good scapegoats though. They did not surrender their identity in their diaspora but clung onto their "Jewishness" in the face of all that was thrown at them (I am not suggesting for a moment this is a bad thing, by the way). They are notable in many places for their expertise and success, partly, I think it's fair to say, because they have a culture that stresses the value of education and that urges thrift and hard work on its people. They have tended to be a recognisable minority: being a recognisable "Other" makes you an easy scapegoat -- in the UK, Asians can be singled out because they are dark, just as blacks were 20 years ago and still are. They have rules and rituals that have led some of them, often times, to dress differently to the locals, and to eat different food. (True today of Muslims in Western countries, of course.) They have tended to maintain community and, sometimes, this has meant excluding outsiders (particularly when the outsiders have been aggressive or unwelcoming to them, it has to be said; and I don't ignore that Jews were often corralled into particular areas of town, forced to look inwards).

So is it shared fascism that puts Hitler and bin Laden together, or just selection of an easy target?

"Islamists, like Hitler, decree that the punishment for homosexuality is death."

Well yes, but so do many in this world. The world would be majority fascist were this the marker of fascism. I'm not sure that George Bush wouldn't secretly agree with this -- certainly, he'd believe that eternal punishment awaits the gay.

"Hitler divided the world into Aryans and subhuman non-Aryans"

That's rather a simplification, of course. Aryans were the pinnacle rather than a different sort of thing.

"while Islamists divide the world into Muslims and sub-human infidels."

No, they don't. This comparison is wildly wrong because the Nazis idivided the world by race, something immutable; while Muslims divide it by belief, which is inherently mutable. Islamists do not believe infidels are "inferior" in the way Hitler thought a black was. They believe infidels can become Muslims simply by accepting that there is one God and that Muhammad was his messenger. Their division of the world is not ideological as such. The two sides are interchangeable for them: you can as easily become an infidel (an apostate) as an infidel can become a Muslim. Indeed, they believe many, if not most, Muslims are apostates. (Interestingly, this is precisely what the Wahhabis believed and taught. They claimed that nonWahhabis simply weren't Muslims.)

"Nazis aimed for their Thousand-Year Reich, while Islamists aim for their eternal Caliphate."

Yes, but the Nazis looked forward to a thousand-year Reich -- the keynote of their ideology being futurism: that they would wipe away the mistakes of the past -- while the Islamists look back to the Caliphate -- the keynote of their ideology being antimodernism: that they would wipe away the mistakes of the present.

And how is it different for us to say that we want to "uphold our way of life"? Are we not aiming to make our way of life permanent in the same way? We don't call it a recognisable name but it's the same notion.

"The Nazi party used terror to achieve power, and from London to Amsterdam, Bali to New York, Egypt to Turkey, Islamists are trying to do the same."

The Nazi party stole elections to achieve power (should sound familiar). The Islamists tend to win elections when they contest them because they have enormous popular appeal (which the West ignores), and then have them stolen from them. They do not in any case seek power as such. They seek to influence the powerful. They seek to dissuade the West from imposing itself on the ummah. They were successful in Afghanistan in the eighties and that emboldened them. The Nazis weren't trying to convince anyone of anything. They had broad popular support in Germany. They didn't try to convince Europe to become Nazi; they simply invaded it and forced it to, just as the Romans made Europe Roman. They did use terror but to different ends from the Islamists'.

Other elements of fascism, more important in understanding it, are missing of course. Fascists are corporatists and statists. Hitler worked hand in glove with business interests. Islamists distrust business. They abhor usury and, in theory at least, deplore the acquisition of enormous wealth at the expense of others. Hitler believed too that the individual should serve the state. Islamists hate states. Mistaking the Caliphate, or their notion of it, for a super-nation is easy to do, but it is rather the idea of a commonwealth that attracts them. Islamists believe the individual should serve God, not Mammon or the state. Fascists believed that the individual was of little account in the bigger picture, and you could argue that Islamists believe the same.

But anyone who has been "downsized" to maintain a bottom line, or who hears a government spokesperson talk about "collateral damage" knows that that belief is seductive across the political spectrum.

posted by Dr Zen @ 11:19 am