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Concept Interrogation: 'Fascism' for the Right and Left

  
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
18:11 / 02.09.06
Inspired by the use of the word 'Fascism' in this thread and others, I thought it might be productive to interrogate the use of the term 'fascist' to describe one's political enemies.
There tends to be two uses of the term: the (usually American) Right has recently (i.e, in the last five years, perhaps less) coined the term 'Islamo-Fascist' to describe principally Al-Qaeda, but also Hamas, Hezbollah and the governments of Iran, Syria and the pre-invasion governments of Iraq and Afghanistan. See the Christian Science Monitor Report on the term and the Wikipedia entry for it.

On the other side of the political spectrum the Left, particularly the radical left, has been using the term 'fascist' to describe policies, governments and persons for a much longer time. Today it's used mainly to refer to American policy, both domestic and international- see the Project for the Old American Century's Fourteen points of Fascism.

So, the question is whether the highly emotive term 'Fascist' is a help or hinderance to politics today, whether it is accurate describing Islamic radicalism and American neo-conservatism and, if not, why not?
Over to you:
 
 
nighthawk
19:05 / 02.09.06
I think it depends on how the term is meant. I often feel like its supposed to show something as beyond all belief, through vague associations with recognisably Bad Things like Nazi Germany. And when its used in this way it tends to stifle any actual analysis. I tried to outline in the other thread why I thought refering to current New Labour policies as fascist wasn't very helpful.

On the other hand, I think there are times when it can be used very accurately to describe ideas and movements with a certain lineage or even form. So the far right movements that were prevalent in Britain in the 80s, and in certain parts of Europe today, can correctly be called 'fascist'. I say this because using the term helps us understand their historical lineage, and the ideology that shapes them. Perhaps this could also be extended to other non-European movements that share an analogous ideology?

A similar possibility, which on reflection is what I think Nadezhda Krupskaya means here, is that it could be applied to policies and beliefs that all take similar form and are intended to produce certain results (e.g. control the makeup of a society according to the ethinicity/sexuality/etc of individuals). Exactly what these policies/beliefs are is what needs to be established.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
20:20 / 02.09.06
I guess part of the trouble is the difference between what people self-identify as, and what they are. I mean, Bush is obviously never going to say "I am a Fascist", and nor is Blair. No-one canny who really wants power in the post WW2 world would ever deam of doing that- even the BNP don't use the term. But what are we to call their policies when they start to resemble the tenents of fascism?
 
 
nighthawk
20:45 / 02.09.06
But what are we to call their policies when they start to resemble the tenents of fascism?

I suppose the question is in what sense they do meaningfully resemble the tenents of fascism.

They can resemble them ideologically, in the sense that they somehow share the aims and ambitions of other fascists, e.g. the Nazis, without ever identifying themselves as such. That might well be true of some of the extreme religious right in the States, I don't know.

But I think its generally just picks out a very loose similarity between e.g. political policy, which is then flagged up as Bad because its like the things the Nazis did, and we all know that they were evil. Or alternatively, as happened in the other thread, people claim that certain policies will lead to a climate very similar to that endured under fascist regimes.

The reason I questioned this in the other thread was because I think the policies implemented in e.g. Nazi Germany arose out of very different political conditions, and very different ideologies, from those around now. And if the reason for invoking 'fascism' is to highlight how awful these policies are and provide the main platform for critque, then it will probably end up obscuring the serious and important differences between these current movements and 1930s Nazism. I mean it sounds good rhetorically, and it highlights these things as Bad, but we knew that anyway, right?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:40 / 02.09.06
I'm sure Haus will be along to correct me at some point, because I have a very sketchy understanding of this, but I tend to define "fascism" as being "the rule of the strong", from the "fasces" of the Romans. (This is why I got in quite such a strop when someone brought up Social Darwinism a while back- to me, at least, it's a fascist ideology, and one I have no time for. But that's just me). Or, to boil it down, "might makes right". This doesn't have to necessarily be made manifest in domestic policy, as it was with the Italian Fascists and the Nazis, but call it by whatever name you want, it's not really something I like on any level.

As I say, not probably the actual definition, but it's what I personally tend to mean by "fascism", at any rate.
 
 
nighthawk
21:47 / 02.09.06
fasces were an axe surrounded by a bundle of rods, which symbolised the authority of Roman magistrates. I don't think it was explicitly associated with 'might is right' etc.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
22:17 / 02.09.06
No, but I thought the symbolism was the strength embodied by the bound twigs. That this was conferred on the magistrates was incidental- it was the strength that was being praised.

Admittedly, there's a whole "strength in numbers" thing there too...
 
 
Jared Louderback
04:43 / 03.09.06
I always thought that facism was sort of like communism, but instead of giving yourself over to "the people" or "the grand collective" you give yourself over to
"The glorious state" or some would-be-godlike leader.


of course, I guess my definition just opens up a whole 'nother can of worms, that being what in the nine hells is communism.
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
18:18 / 03.09.06
The two tend to overlap- 'National Socialism' for instance and the term 'Red Fascism' used to describe Stalin's regime etc.

A question: is fascism necessarily racist? The two 'big names' in fascism -Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy- undoubtedly were so, if we take racism to be a defining factor in Fascism does it really apply to the two modern movements that are often labelled 'fascist'- Bush's America and Islamic Fundamentalism. Neither is 'racist' per se- Bush has had various black, hispanic and Jewish members of his government and Al-Qaeda etc. aren't as much racist as religion-ist, in that they don't particularly care about your skin color as long as you follow their interpretation of Islam (though their stance towards Jews borrows much from European Fascism and even earlier forms of anti-semitism, such as their use of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and blood libel).
 
 
All Acting Regiment
19:01 / 03.09.06
That's a good question. You could argue that Bush, by not supporting affirmative action, supports racism. I'd argue that the fine detail that stops Al-Qaeda and Bush from being "technically" racist is effectively meaningless, but I might be wrong...
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
19:04 / 03.09.06
Good points one and all. Indeed, I've also learnt a lot about the etymology of the term "fascism".

For me, I don't like the term "fascism" because it has too many connotations that have been stuck to it over the years, and which can get in the way of some political discussions. For example, I always can't help partially think of Rick Mayall's character in the 'The Young Ones', when I hear someone call another person/state/etc a fascist.

I think it's why I still prefer the term totalitarian or maybe even "post-totalitarian"; although these word are not free of mythical baggage either. I said as much in the thread which was one of the catalysts for this thread, here.

To reiterate, it's more the confusing mythological symbolism triggered by "fascism" than the historical denotations of the word that bother me in discussions. For example, when I look at some of the measures taken by both sides in the Cold War, I could easily describe much them both as fascistic. However, those in (e.g) the US or the UK, could argue "but we voted them in; and there was no blatant curtailing of free-speech; is that fascism?", etc. However, I believe it could be argued that such western countries at the time had/still have their own underhand methods for propping up what can (to me) be better seen as a totalitarian system, which curtails Free Speech and democracy. Indeed, democracy is a concept that many different political systems might believe they are representing, when in fact it may be argued that they are only be loosely employing certain aspects of the concept, or even a subjective aesthetic of what they believe the concept looks like in practice.
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
19:12 / 03.09.06
[Apologies for my awful typos, above. I'm having mouse / keyboard / finger / brain problems at the moment. I've hopefully already moved for all the necessary edits to be done through moderation. Sorry if I've managed to still leave some out. Time for a coffee, me thinks...]
 
 
*
19:22 / 03.09.06
Neither is 'racist' per se- Bush has had various black, hispanic and Jewish members of his government

The devil you say? You think Bush's administration isn't racist because it's had a few token POC employees? Once again: Racism is a system that keeps white people in power by disempowering people who are not white. It relies on prejudice, but it is not the same as prejudice. It relies on privilege, but it is not only privilege. It relies on white superiority, but not always overt white superiority. It divides nonwhite people into "good" people of color (who support the racial system and are sometimes rewarded) and "bad" people of color (who speak out against racism and are punished by being characterized as "angry," "deluded," "stupid," "lazy," or as dangerous traitors) in order to keep them from working together to overthrow it. It reacts to challenges sometimes by hate, sometimes by fear, sometimes by obfuscatory rationalism, sometimes by paternalism, sometimes by economic sanctions, sometimes by righteous indignation, sometimes by an imitation of wounded dignity. That is racism. Hysterically opposing immigration of dark skinned people from the south, except when the immigrants serve the needs of white businessmen, is racism in action. Turning Islam from a religion into a race in order to profile Middle-Eastern looking people in airports is racism. These are policies enacted by an administration that was put in power by racism and that is practicing racism to help them stay in power. We don't need photos of GWB burning crosses whilst wearing a sheet over his head to show that. Saying that Bush's administration is not racist betrays a lack of knowledge of how mainstream racism works in America today— not always and only with rocks and racial slurs, but often with a creeping "it's good for you because whitey says so" mentality.

I don't know from fascism, but if you're saying the distinction is racism, I think your position needs to be modified. The Bush Administration has not yet advanced putting ALL people it racializes as Arab/Muslim into high-security prison camps— just a moderate number into Guantanamo. It has still felt compelled to pretend there was some evidence of an actual crime being committed. So far, what we have is racism without an active and undisguised pogrom.
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
15:25 / 04.09.06
id- read my post again: I wasn't advancing a position so much as asking a question.
I also didn't intend to sound like I was saying that the American government has a perfect track record as far as racial issues are concerned- but remember this thread was set up to examine comparisons between, amongst other things, the current American adminstration and nations which made it policy to slaughter vast numbers of people based on their race. A clearer way of wording the question would have been: 'Is fascism necessarily overtly racist?' or possibly 'Is fascism necessarily genocidal?' since, as you've said, different levels of racism exist.

This said, and though this may be threadrot, I feel uncomfortable about your assumption that the POC members of the American administration got to where they are through 'tokenism' since a) you would need to be able to see into Bush's mind to show that he appointed Condeleeza Rice to secretary of state (for example) because having a black woman on his cabinet would look good rather than because she was qualified for the job- of course it's possible, but since there is no evidence either way and virtually no way of getting any evidence it's a not a valid assertion b) it implies that POC can't suceed on their own merits, but only when white people allow them to and c) it again presumes that one's political enemies are not human beings like ourselves who have come to have views we consider to be erroneus and harmful, but paragons of evil who are only capable of doing evil things for evil reasons and nothing else.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
18:28 / 04.09.06
if the reason for invoking 'fascism' is to highlight how awful these policies are and provide the main platform for critque, then it will probably end up obscuring the serious and important differences between these current movements and 1930s Nazism

The post that is linked to in this thread was a response to Our Lady's comment on communism. I felt the comparison was inaccurate but recalling history lessons in school there did seem to be a real comparison with the use of law to control undesirable aspects of society by the Nazi party. Blair is basically targetting poorer, disadvantaged families with his statements and in a way criminalising them. He refers to people as if they were degenerate elements in society but the idea of control from the womb is the real point at which the notion of his policy as born from fascism comes into play because that really strikes me as a basic tenet of fascism. That ideology does map onto ideas of social control as suggested (and then carried out) in fascist states in the early half of the 20th century so the link is logical, the statement was not "Britain is becoming a fascist state" but "the way he outlines this policy is reminiscent of fascism".

This is the Penguin English dictionary's primary definition of fascism:

a political philosophy, movement or regime that is aggressively nationalistic and stands for a centralised autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

That outlines the distinction between a fascist state and a fascist policy, Blair's policy seems from my perspective both nationalistic and dictatorial and bears a similarity to past fascist policy but that does not mean that Blair is a fascist and he certainly does not govern a fascist state (he remains a democratic leader). Likewise Bush is not a fascist leader despite his aggressively nationalistic policies and frankly those are hardly limited to Bush. In 1940 the supreme court ruled that students in public schools should be compelled to recite the Pledge of Alliegance, that's nationalistic but not fascistic outside of a fascist state.

is fascism necessarily racist?

That seems to depend on where you draw the line between nationalism and racism. I'd argue that nationalism can never exist without racism, that the two go hand in hand, particularly in a space like the US, with its borders with Mexico and the UK, which is a member state of Europe. Any attempts at nationalism immediately lead to questions about the attitude to people who are already in the country and have effectively been nationalised but nationalism inevitably excludes those people because they are on the fringe of citizenship.

Basically if you're going to use a word like fascism, I think it's fine but it has to be specific and it doesn't work as an accusation.
 
 
*
22:31 / 04.09.06
id- read my post again: I wasn't advancing a position so much as asking a question.

Yeah, sorry, noticed that when I went back to it after a little calm-down. I should have posted again to clarify, but I felt shy about it.

I feel uncomfortable about your assumption that the POC members of the American administration got to where they are through 'tokenism' since a) you would need to be able to see into Bush's mind to show that he appointed Condeleeza Rice to secretary of state (for example) because having a black woman on his cabinet would look good rather than because she was qualified for the job- of course it's possible, but since there is no evidence either way and virtually no way of getting any evidence it's a not a valid assertion b) it implies that POC can't suceed on their own merits, but only when white people allow them to and c) it again presumes that one's political enemies are not human beings like ourselves who have come to have views we consider to be erroneus and harmful, but paragons of evil who are only capable of doing evil things for evil reasons and nothing else.

By tokenism, I wasn't referring to how the people involved got where they are but how they are used— i.e. pointed to on occasion to show that the administration isn't racist, which is exactly how you used them in your post (albeit with no intention of tokenizing them, I am sure). I have seen them used this way by some of the administration's supporters, who decry all criticism of the actions of Condoleeza Rice and Alberto Gonzalez, for examples, as stemming from racism. In some cases such criticism will be informed by racism, but that claim can also be used to silence all criticism of their individual actions in support of the racist policies of the administration. My point is only that their continued employment by GWB&co does not ensure that the administration is not practicing racism through their policies— such as unfair restrictions on immigration targeting those with darker skin, and the maintenance of at least one high-security prison camp where a disproportionate number of people with darker skin are imprisoned on very specious grounds and in utterly inhumane conditions, with no transparency and no effort to protect their human rights.

Please realize that I don't make a simple equation of racism with evil. It's a system. It's a power structure. It exists. Of course people who are in power due in part to the disenfranchisement (literally and figuratively) of people with darker skin are going to want to continue that disenfranchisement— either consciously or unconsciously. That's a very human thing. I fight my own fears about what the world will be like for me when white privilege is erased. I've gotten to be a precious precious snowflake for twenty six years, and I don't really want to know how badly I'll deal with having that taken away.

Not being racist is not passive; it takes effort and work for every white person in America, and most of us would rather not do it— especially when we're busy running a war against an unseen and poorly-defined enemy and concerned about our failing approval ratings. That's very human— I don't think I can call it "evil"— but it has terrible effects, and I oppose it. I don't know whether that means I should call it fascism either. It is important to me to call it racism, though, because that much is clear to me and I feel strongly that racist policies should be named for what they are.
 
 
nighthawk
06:48 / 05.09.06
The post that is linked to in this thread was a response to Our Lady's comment on communism. I felt the comparison was inaccurate but recalling history lessons in school there did seem to be a real comparison with the use of law to control undesirable aspects of society by the Nazi party.

I think I understand now. I'm not sure what you're thinking of though? The Nazi's attempted a social engineering project, which was intended to control the make up of society through measures such as enforced sterilisation etc. And given these aims, there were children who they would have planned to exclude from their Reich even before they were born.

But beyond the reference to children, Blair's not suggesting anything even remotely similar, is he? Labour's aim is to deal with social inequalities and their effects, not to control the make-up of our society. In mentioning children, Blair is (rightly) registering the fact that these inequalities can threaten to shape a child's life even before ze is born. He is not trying to exclude them from society in the way the Nazi's hoped.

is fascism necessarily racist?

Given that racism is so insidious and ubiquitous, can we reject the idea that a racist government is a fascist government? Not that anyone has suggested this, but we're trting to settle in what sense modern movements should be called 'fascist', right? Even if we settle on overtly racist policy as the criteria, this still includes America until 1964 (I think that was the end of the Jim Crow laws?). I'm not sure what would be gained by calling America fascist as well as racist, beyond rhetorical force.
 
 
grant
18:03 / 05.09.06
Not coming from a terribly sympathetic viewpoint, but this essay touches on the main points of Spanish fascism -- Franco's gov't being the longest-running self-declared fascist state the world.

The author thinks that's kinda cool.

As a summary, it does a better job than wikipedia on Falange, the nationalist syndicalist political party -- the Spanish fascists. They overtly reject racism (and yes, the present tense is intentional -- there are also falangist parties in Lebanon and Bolivia, and a tiny one in the U.S.).
 
 
Triumvir
22:28 / 05.09.06
Nighthawk & others who equate fascism with racism: fascism most certainly =/= racism. Fascism is, in simplest terms, a beleif in the preemenence of the state over the individual. The fact that a state is racist doesn't at all make it fascist. Although fascism does inherently involve some form of intense nationalism and/or idelogical singlemindedness, there are/have been fascist states that aren't appreciably more racist than their non-fascist counterparts (Singapore, Spain), and Capitalist/Socialist states that do practice patterns of racist policies (Jim Crow laws in the US, Pogroms in the Soviet Union). So, although there are many fascist states (NAZI Germany, Fascist Italy) that have practiced widespread racism, racism isn't an essential part of Fascist ideology.
 
 
*
22:38 / 05.09.06
nighthawk: Given that racism is so insidious and ubiquitous, can we reject the idea that a racist government is a fascist government? Not that anyone has suggested this, but we're trting to settle in what sense modern movements should be called 'fascist', right?
 
 
nighthawk
07:10 / 06.09.06
the (usually American) Right has recently (i.e, in the last five years, perhaps less) coined the term 'Islamo-Fascist' to describe principally Al-Qaeda, but also Hamas, Hezbollah and the governments of Iran, Syria and the pre-invasion governments of Iraq and Afghanistan.

We haven't really talked about this yet. Is the phrase 'Islamo-fascist' in anyway way legitimate or useful? Its a particularly pertinent question given that Bush and Rumsfeld seem to be using Hitler analogies themselves now.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
13:30 / 06.09.06
At least insofar as it's a further way of linking (the apostate) Saddam "the new Hitler" Hussein with Islamic terror groups, it's certainly useful for the drivers of TWAT.
 
  
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