The 'Islamo' affix and lazy thinking

Full disclosure - I am studying History, in particular the ideology of fascism and violence. It was the basis of my dissertation and, mysterious Grades deity willing, will be the core of my doctorate too. I am thus very very touchy about the use of the term fascist in serious debate and discourse.

To many very good and very bad commentators, Islamofascism is a useful and accurate term of reference. As far as i can tell, this is because it places the struggle against militant Islamic fundamentalists in a suitably dramatic light, being both existential for democracy and 'liberty' (or in the case of some, Judeo-Christian tradition) and adheres the affix Islamo to a well know brand of horror and malignant morality. It has been used by high priest decents of the left as well as the theo-right. It has even been uttered in the hallowed halls of the White House. Such universality is not surprising, it has a rather cathartic resonance. It places a complex and differing situation within a mythical and manichean world of the great struggle with fascism in the 30s and 40s. It is still lazy thinking, a-historical and possibly dangerous to defeating a very real threat.

Islamofascism correlates two ideologies or families of ideology together using somewhat outdated comparisons.

Mr Hitchens gives a fine defence of the term here - http://www.slate.com/id/2176389/

His list of comparison is as follows -

1. Both have a death cult centred within their perception and historical narrative
2. Both are anti-intellectual
3. Both are obsessed with mythical 'humiliations'
4. Both are anti-Semitic
5. Both are in hock to a leader cult and 'one great book'
6. Both are deeply misogynistic
7. Both are militantly philistinistic and abhor culture
8. Both 'steal' tricks from the mass movements of the left
9. Both dream of a greater 'volk' for their particular chosen people

1. Death cults are not particular to either movement of course. Japanese Bushido Militarism, the quasi- marxian spiritualism of the Shinning Path, Necheav's dreams of purifying violence, the Blanquism cult of the day at the barricades are all death cults and come from the extremities of political ideology. They are more linked to temporal matters on a socio-psychological level. For these movements, violence offers a temporal break, between a dying age, termed by one mystic of the post-war fascist movements, the Kali Yuga (the age of vice) to a new rejuvenated age of purifying violence and spiritual regeneration. This temporal break is not ideologically particular, rather it is primordial, even anthropological. Perceived decay of a social system is to be defeated or reversed or transcended by plunging the 'patient' into a crucible of violence, reforging it and reinvesting it with meaning.

Islamo-Bushido anyone...?

2. The anti-intellectualism of fascism is a half truth. How else could one classify Gentile, Evola, Rosenburg, Spengler, Heidigger, Junger or De Benoist as anything but intellectuals and dilettante ones at that. The fascist attack on the intellect was directed against sources of perceived decadence that corrupted the gemeinschaft being reborn. Thus Marxist and Liberal academics were attacked for the content of their thought, their materialism, their lack of spirituality. Their ideas were the font of the volk trouble, not idea 'creation' itself. Critical thinking was fine if it did not produce (as it systemically would) ideas that 'rocked the boat'.

As for the those 'Islamofascists', they too are involved in a war against perceived corruption. Indeed one of the particular horrors of their war against the people of Iraq is the decapitation of higher education (http://www.petitiononline.com/Iraqacad/petition.html). These academics are not good scholars like the sainted Qutb (possibly the less competent revolutionary of the 20th century). By their continuing to teach their students in the worst possible conditions, they are, to the 'Islamos', complicit in moving Iraqi society away from their telos of a theocracy in the midst of the purifying conflagration. Neither the 'Islamo' or fascist program can be accurately characterised as a war against intellect rather than a war against intellectual decadence. It is an instructive difference.

Islamo-Iconoclasts anyone...?

3. As for humiliations,they are again a common element to political extremism. To the fascists of the PNF, the mutilated peace demonstrated the lowly position of Giolottian Italy despite the sacrifices of the Italian Army on the Isonza. The stab in the back myth (actually propagated at the behest of the Prussian high command as a toxic first feed for the Weimar Republic) 'highlighted' how the decadence of Wilhelmine Germany had cowardly failed to stand on its 'honour'. The 'humiliation' of Israel victories and western intervention (from the independence of Greece to the Iraq war) were a ongoing proof that the traditional and nationalist elites of the ME had failed in their missions. Humiliation was thus a powerful reproof to current regimes, cutting away basic legitimacy. Avenging these was a milestone towards the completion of internal revolution. Yet we find these in the nationalist discourses of the Gironde in 1790-91 where Prussian and British humiliations of French arms were used as indictments of the Ancien Regime. The nationalist right in Russia failed to defend the throne in March 1917 as they were convinced that the Tsarist regime had 'humiliated' Russian honour via it's incompetence and border-line 'treason'.

Islamo-Black Hundreds anyone...?

4. The anti-Semitism of Islamism is fairly central to its identity. The Jews via their existence and the sectarianism within the Koran are the bete-noires of the mythical Ummah, their chosen other. While in Islam, this choice of 'otherness' is prescribed by the tenets of the Meccan Koran and the Hadith, in fascism, there is no set formula for those beyond the pale. The founding fathers of the PNF in 1919 Milan included Jews, who would feature in the mechanism of Fascist Italy till into the thirties. Then Mussolini became increasingly enamoured with a racial definition of Italian identity as he drew more dependant on the Reich. Fascism is in no way philo-semitic, as some have described the Ustasa foolishly. Rather fascism sought to destroy alternative and 'irredeemable' identity as seen from its own nationalistic lens. Anti-Semitism itself was not the strongest bond that held together the genus. In a similar vein, popular leftist movements of the early to mid 19th century were deeply embedded with christian anti-semitism. Fergus O'Connor being a particular virulent hater of the 'Jew'

Islamo-Chartism anyone..?

5. Here Hitchens is on very marshy ground. Islam declares only one intermediary betwixt God and Man, the Prophet (though the Shiite have their martyred Imans). A Leader cult is hardly a way to describe this. Indeed Islamo is not a top down phenomena, it is fractious diverse and multi-headed. Thus the Challenge.

As for Fascism, the leader cult was a primary element in its manifestation, even with remarkably uncharacteristic leaders like Pavelic. Indeed, this is one of the most divergent elements between Islamo and fascism (in the inner-war period certainly).

As for 'one great book', Mein Kampf was in no way a blueprint or central text for Nazism, its turgidness guarenteed that. Apart from short tracts, no other fascist leader produced a comparable work nor any movement adhered to one solitary text.

Islamo-Marxists anyone...? (actually that has been suggested)

6. Basically who ain't. Apart from a handful of liberals and some mightily hypocritical leftists, Misogyny remains mostly unmoved and unchallenged outside of the west and pockets elsewhere. Kinder, Kurke und Kirke is neither a fascism speciality nor an Islamic monopoly.

Islamo-Churchillians anyone...?

7. Again culture is contingent. Islamists don't destroy their own shrines and they don't burn their own books. Fascist modernism is a increasingly accepted term for the onrush of various styles seeking to become the national 'vernacular'. Certain types failed and were deemed decadent, others were applauded. Gropius carried on working and being commissioned in Germany long after 1933. Evola was Italy's leading Dadaist. Culture as a source of decadence was the enemy. Those giant Buddhas were an affront to the Taliban's monopoly of imagery, their destruction was meant to ensure that. Art and culture as a source of decadence and corruption is as old as art itself.

Islamo-Tipper-Gorists anyone..?

8. Mass movements, take a deep breath comrades, are not the monopoly of the left. Mass movements are simultaneously communities bound by ritual, vehicles for political action and a collective based on belief. These elements are in no way incompatible with rightist or Theocratic thought. Indeed one of the most vibrant early mass movements were connected to both. The Guerrilla movement in Spain 1808-14, the peasants of the Vendee and the Christian Social Party of Vienna. The left merely had a head start in organising a mass following, fascism was were right caught up. Islamists in contrast have been split between mass movements like the MB and vanguardist tactics of which the groups around AQ are a fine example. Mass movements are contingent to both left and right and neither is the result of some absolute higher rationality.

Islamo-Leninists anyone..?

9. Between the Volk and Ummah are a variety of differences. The Ummah is a mythical collection of believers brought together by the revelations of the Koran. The Volk is defined by a fair more nebulous series of conditions, cultural, identity, race. For Islamos, the ummah is a well defined construct, a united and morally purified flock of believers. The Volk is particular to each movement. By ascribing to the norms of the ideology, membership of the ummah is gained. Indeed conversion, either via missionary work or coercion is a mainstay of Islamo thought. This cannot be said for fascism. One example being the Ustasa's 'nationalising war' against the Serbs. As annihilation became counter-productive, ideological bypasses were created to allow Serbs to live as Croats as long as they refuted Serbian primacy of identity. Only in the defeat of their maximinist goals did they fall back to assimilation.

One might bring to mind considering the Ummah the example of the Jacobin conception of the Body Politic. It required an acceptance of the mythology of the Great Nation and abandoning 'couter-revolutionary' thought, practice and tradition.

Islamo-Jacobins anyone...?

Islamism, my preferred term, is its own beast. Using heuristic models of fascism that are 30 years behind currently scholarship and applying them slip-shod onto a very different ideological position is a worthless exercise. It might sound pleasing to the ear, but it is to confuse what the Kraken is about and how to confront it