I'll take another crack at this one in the morning, Dafydd... but at first glance I wonder if you haven't narrowed your definition too far. Your last definition was roughly Fascist = Nationalist Collectivist and Socialist = INTERNationalist Collectivist, if I've got that right. If you define as Fascist ONLY some group that holds ALL those characteristics, then that implies that a group that is all of your above EXCEPT they are a zealous religious sect are NOT a Fascist group. I prefer the more general definition, but I'll give this one some thought.

Mr. Michael:

If they believe much of the above, but they believe there is a higher power than the State, then I don't think they're fascists. That's why I strenuously object to the term "Islamofascist," or the even more irritating and juvenile Medvedian term "Islamonazi."

Islamists aren't Nazis or even fascists; they're not that sophisticated.
They're much more primitive theocrats, tribalists, and human sacrificers. I doubt they have any particular economic system in mind, other than that they should somehow get a cut of everything... which is gangsterism, not socialism.

Also, if they believe in a higher power, they're not likely to eschew tradition and the past in favor of the future... another reason they wouldn't be fascists.

And if they passionately, even fanatically believe in God, then they almost certainly believe in a universal code of right and wrong. It may be the complete opposite as ours, but such Islamists wouldn't say "there is no such thing as right and wrong; we're beyond good and evil; don't engage in black and white reasoning... what about all those shades of gray?"

That's another major missing aspect of fascism.

I put together all those beliefs above because they tend to "bundle" together: If someone buys into half of it, he probably buys into all of it. If he doesn't buy all of it, then he likely supports less than half, and even that half is not as extreme as you would find in a fascist. (So you believe in welfare but not in socialized medicine, for example.)

Fascism is a fanatical fancy; it's all or nothing. A person can have some fascist tendencies without being a fascist; but you combine this with an authoritarian mindset and totalitarian leanings, you reach a tipping point... and you're going to get all of the above.

Dafydd

Long before the label liberal fascism was espoused, I have thought that modern liberals simply believed that they knew what was right for the common man and if necessary they would use the government to force citizens to do/participate in what they believed was right. Past failures were because they were not in charge.

Mrs. Clinton's idea that one must become part of a universal national health program and if you don't, you can not work seems just another further step in the liberal plan to govern and control Americans. At least it took five decades for SS to get close to that point and it is still not mandated to be universal although jobs that do not mandate SS payments are few and far between these days.

But let's face it, it is more attractive for people to go the way of the liberal view than the opposite. Especially after more than 40 years of dumbed down education, our citizens have no sense of real history. Anyone with children or supervises people should know that today it is hard to get people to do what is right for themselves. It is much easier to lay down black and white rules with consequences if they don't follow them.

When I read a survey some years ago that 27% of people are not saving for retirement because they believed that they will inherit or win the lottery to give them enough money to be able to retire, I thought we had passed the point of no return. That didn't even include those who thought they had a SS trust fund that would cover them during retirement.

As the communists showed, promise paradise and the vast majority of the people will follow you. I thought that idea only applied to those poor and uneducated, not in our America. But I was wrong; convince reasonably educated Americans that they are victims of something/someone and they will follow blindly the fantasy one puts out as policy.

The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 03/31/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

Islamists not fascists? Try again.

1) Aim is Utopian? Check - they want the perfect Islamic state/society.

2) Creed derives from Sorelian mythology and social militarism; Check - the Islamists constantly fantasize about a glorious past that never really existed.

3) Metaphysics is secular (or pagan) and materialistic; They crave (and are promised) an afterlife of untold riches and pleasures. It is why many of them fight. Islamism seems to involve ritual sacrifice of themselves and others. Very pagan in that regard. So....check.

3)Epistemology is the movement; "The movement defines truth, right, and good: That which furthers the movement is true, while that which runs counter to the movement is false." Substitute the word "Islam" for movement and you have Islamism. Check.

4) Ethics is pragmatism; Islamists have shown time and again they will side with anyone that furthers their goals. Al Qaeda and Iran working together? Al Qaeda and Saddam? Both have happened. They have repeatedly bombed Muslim mosques and markets, even wedding parties, to further their own twisted aims. Would they use chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons? Of course, and indiscriminately. So - check.

4) Methods are authoritarian and totalitarian; Check.

5) Leadership is Führerism (the Great Man); Check.

6) Orientation is socialist; Check.

7) Politics is populist/Progressive; Islamists always claims to speak for all Muslims. They dwell of supposed injustices to the common man. Check.

8) Economics is corporatism; They support massive control of business, making it just another arm of the Caliphate. So...check.

9) Scope is nationalist; I would say they are nationalist in the sense that they feel the entire Muslim world is all one nation, and they fight for that nation. So - check (maybe)

10) Organization is collectivist. Listen to their rhetoric on the poor sometime. Check.

I'd say the Jihadis are significantly more fascists than most liberals. What would make you think otherwise?

Geoman:

I'd say the Jihadis are significantly more fascists than most liberals. What would make you think otherwise?

I'm sorry, but I think you've misunderstood many of these points.

1) Aim is Utopian? Check - they want the perfect Islamic state/society.

By "utopian," I mean every material thing desired by the people will be supplied here and now, in this life. Radical Islamists preach that it will be supplied in the afterlife. That is millenarian, not utopian.

3) Metaphysics is secular (or pagan) and materialistic; They crave (and are promised) an afterlife of untold riches and pleasures.

"Materialistic" means in this world. If they anticipate riches in the next world, not this one, then they are not materialists, they are transcendentalists.

Fascists, whether liberal or otherwise, eschew promises of rewards beyond the grave; in fact, most are atheists (even when they are pagans... having spent years in the neopagan movement, trust me on this; they have no afterlife metaphysics). The fascist paganism is entirely based upon rewards in this life, not any supposed afterlife.

2) Creed derives from Sorelian mythology and social militarism; Check - the Islamists constantly fantasize about a glorious past that never really existed.

All cultures derive from and are dependent upon Sorelian myths. For example, American culture is dependent upon a number of traditional myths: Washington crossing the Delaware, "Give me liberty or give me death," etc -- remember, myths can be true events that assume mythic proportions -- and all of Western culture is intimately dependent upon the Sorelian myth cited by Sorel himself, the second coming of Jesus Christ.

But fascists cast out the old Sorelian myths and replace them with their own, newly minted ones... Horst Wessel being the most easily understood (but for modern anti-war protesters, Abu Ghraib serves the same purpose).

Islamists do not create new Sorelian myths; they are conservative to the point of being reactionary: They accept the old myths and battle against any new myth or new interpretation of old myths.

4) [I'm correcting your numbering from this point forward] Epistemology is the movement; "The movement defines truth, right, and good: That which furthers the movement is true, while that which runs counter to the movement is false." Substitute the word "Islam" for movement and you have Islamism. Check.

No. The putative truths of Islam long predate the Islamists, and their interpretation is not a radical change from what Moslems have believed since the days of Mohammed... the only difference is what the Islamists intend to do about those beliefs.

By "epistemology is the movement," I mean the movement can -- and does -- flit back and forth from one "truth" to its opposite, whenever practicality dictates. Can you imagine an Islamist saying "there is no God but God and Mohammed is His prophet" one day, and then the next day saying, "Mohammed was a false profit; the real prophet was this other guy over here, whose writings are more useful to the Islamist movement today than Mohammed's." Of course not.

Nor do Islamists even allow changes in interpretation from the centuries-old to a more modern, enlightened one. You must understand that fascism is quintessentially futurist: It loves the new, it hates the old. Islamism is quintessentially reactionary, wanting to get rid of every thought, belief, or desire newer than the seventh century.

(5, 6, 7 -- Yes, Islamists have pragmatic ethics, they are authoritarian and totalitarian, and they believe in rule by a single, perfect man who exemplifies everything the society should be. But so did the Bourbon kings of France. That's a necessary but by no means sufficient element of fascism... many non-fascist but absolute rulers share those traits as well.)

8) Orientation is socialist; Check.

Oh come now, show me the Islamist writing about the class struggle, the worker, the proletariat, and the bourgeoisie. There isn't the slightest hint of socialism in Islamism; Islamists have no concern at all for the plight of the workers, they don't support pensions, Social Security, minimum wage laws, worker safety, trade unionism, or worker control of corporations.

Many Moslems are socialists; but radical Islamists -- those mistakenly called "Islamofascists" -- couldn't care less about the here and now; they care only about the hereafter, and getting straight with their bent conception of Allah.

9) Politics is populist/Progressive; Islamists always claims to speak for all Muslims. They dwell of supposed injustices to the common man. Check.

That's not what populism means. Populism is the theory that whatever the masses want, that's what they should get, good and hard. The masses in Germany wanted all the socialist claptrap above, and that's just what Hitler promised them.

The masses in the Islamic Republic of Iran want more freedom, more democracy, and more Western culture... movies, books, music, clothing. Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad demanding they get it?

Islamists don't care what the people want; they tell them what they're going to get and demand that they like it. Like all socialists, fascists are very responsive to the people -- en masse, not as individuals, of course -- while Islamists could not care less what the people say or want... they care only about what Allah wants.

10) Economics is corporatism; They support massive control of business, making it just another arm of the Caliphate. So...check.

You can't just say "check" and move on; you have to show us what you mean. Simple confiscation of profitable businesses does not constitute corporatism; even Marxists believe in that. Nor is it necessarily corporatist for a country like Saudi Arabia to have its own corporations.

11) Scope is nationalist; I would say they are nationalist in the sense that they feel the entire Muslim world is all one nation, and they fight for that nation. So - check (maybe)

No, that would make them internationalist. In fact, Islamists are pan-nationalist, in that they do not believe in the Sorelian myth of the nation-state... which is essential for fascism and what distinguishes it from its international-socialist predecessor. Islamists welcome into their ranks faithful from any country: the bin Ladens are Yemenite immigrants into Saudi Arabia; Zawahiri is Egyptian; two of the 9/11 hijackers were from the UAE, one was Lebanese, and leader Mohammed Atta was Egyptian. Al-Qaeda welcomes converts from every Moslem country and even from the United States.

They couldn't care less about nationality; they care that you "submit" to Islam as they define Islam. By contrast, while liberals want to emulate some of the policies of many European countries (but not all; they don't want us to emulate France's nuclear policy, for example), I think very few actually want to eliminate the United States as a separate nation. They want to "reform" America, not erase it. (Those who want to erase national identity are closer to Marxism than fascism.)

12) Organization is collectivist. Listen to their rhetoric on the poor sometime. Check.

Again, collectivism is necessary to fascism, but it doesn't distinguish fascism from other collectivist endeavors, such as (obviously) Marxism but also Syndicalism, theocracy, and even non-totalitarian movements like the Kibbutzim in Israel or the communes in Germany in the 1920s.

All totalitarian movements are collectivist, but not all collectivist movements are totalitarian.

Islamism utterly fails most of the tests for fascism... which is why I completely reject the term "Islamofascism," whose only function (so far as I can see) is to argue that Islamism is badthing, fascism is badthing, so badthing-Islamism must equal badthing-fascism.

It's primitive associational thinking based upon superficialities, like the magical "law of similarity" -- that if two things superficially resemble each other (a man and a voodoo doll made to look like him), then they must be connected.

Dafydd

Hmmmm.

I think you are hung up on very specific definitions, and missing the picture:

1) Islamicists believe that an Islamic society is just and good, and...well Utopian. Perfection. The ideal way for men to live on this Earth. Their utopianism is NOT based solely on the afterlife, or on fulfilling every pleasure here on earth, but so what. They believe that perfect Islamic will supply all men need, or want in this world. By the by - the German version of Utopia involved much sacrifice and hardship as well.

2) Perfection on earth, gross excess in the afterlife. Way to double down guys! Seriously, what does it matter when you are promised to fulfillment of your wildest desires? The promise of such fulfillment is what drives your actions. The reward for good Muslims in the next world isn't the Christian reward - it is not seating at the right hand of the father, or feeling the presence of god. It is pure animal satisfaction - food, drink, sex. It is bacchanalia. A materialistic afterlife (yeah, I know a contradiction), not a spiritual one is what is promised. The Islamicists play the "Gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" game, but they get the same result as the fascists.

3) Islamists do not create new Sorelian myths? Huh? The entire structure is based on myth. Starting with the caliphate, and moving on to the glorious retelling of the mighty blows struck for Islam last week. There is near continuous mythologising on the glories of their actions, of the accomplishments of individuals. Horst Wessel was a piker. Bin Ladin, Mullah Omar, et. al - all have been subject to wholesale mythologizing by Islamicists.

4) "the movement can -- and does -- flit back and forth from one "truth" to its opposite" Like saying you are defending Muslims while blowing up the local market? Like finding a new grievance of the week to justify what it is you want to do?

5,6,7 - no argument huh?

8) -Orientation socialist? "This is why I tell you: as you liberated yourselves before from the slavery of monks, kings, and feudalism, you should liberate yourselves from the deception, shackles and attrition of the capitalist system. If you were to ponder it well, you would find that in the end, it is a system harsher and fiercer than your systems in the Middle Ages.” Bin Ladin, September, 2007. There is lots more of this tripe where that came from. "Many Muslims are socialists" is correct, because socialism better relates to aspects of Islam requiring social justice.

I will happily concede 9 and 10. Not because I entirely agree with you, but because my arguments are, at best, weak.

11) Awww, c'mon. Islamicists believe they are fighting for a single nation, the former Caliphate. Yes it is internationalist in that it crosses recognized national boundaries, however, the Islamicists certainly don't consider this to be the case. This is like calling the Hitlerian fascists internationalists since they coveted the Sudentland, which was part of another country at the time.

12) Call it a draw then?

So, I'm getting a solid 10 out of 12 here. I'm not saying the Islamisms = fascism, but certainly there are more than superficial similarities.

Look - the connection of radical Islam to fascism is not random - many of the founding fathers of the Muslim Brotherhood movement learned all they knew at the feet of the Nazis. It is little wonder Nazi propaganda methods persist in Islamicist literature. It is all well documented. Try searching for Haj Amin al Husseini (former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood) and Nazis or Himmler. You'll spend days reading what shows up.

The Nazi seed planted in the Middle east has finally sprouted, and bears a deadly fruit.

I once made the mistake of wondering aloud (to someone a lot less civilized in his manners than you appear to be) what was so wrong about "Islamo-fascist" as a way of distinguishing the misguided, bloody-minded and, well, evil members of the Muslim community from their poor co-religionists.

Thank you for giving me an answer at last (My first interlocutor: "Because you are evil!")

Geoman, however, has made some good points about the Heaven-on-Earth (caliphate) and the new mythology: There does seem to be one. Think of how the Crusades, formerly a point of national pride (where is "Christian Asia Minor these days, anyway) have been transformed...

Perhaps what we want is "Islamo-stalinism"--?

After all, when reading what the people who speak for the rank-and-file murderers have to say, it does seem as if they've got Islam infected with post-modern-Marxism + post-colonialism. After all, the worst of the bunch all seem to have been educated in European universities...

Geoman:

I've already spent days -- years, rather -- on world Islamic fundamentalism and its militarist version. I'm well aware that the Nazis tried to stir up the Moslems against the British and the Jews.

And I know that bin Laden has absorbed the words that will attract many European socialists to his cause. But that doesn't at all make Islamism socialist; even when bin Laden -- who is no theological theorist -- attacks Capitalism, it's not in favor of socialism... it's in favor of renunciation of all things Western (which, by the way, would include socialism).

I asked for an example of class-warfare rhetoric, but all you found was a religious call to renounce wealth and the world... and materialism, too; so you've got quite a problem pushing your argument. Bin Laden's call sounds less like Marx and more like St. Francis of Assisi.

You can always cram a square peg into a round hole by sawing off the corners... but it's still a square peg. Islamism is not fascist, nor is it socialist of any stripe.

There were radical socialist Moslems; Gamal Nasser of Egypt is a much better example; and of course Saddam Hussein. But they weren't particularly religious.

The Muslim Brothers loved the Nazis, but they weren't themselves particularly socialist. I think they just liked the Jew-hating rhetoric.

As to the rest, I stand on my previous comment.

Dafydd

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