1-0 to the right in the propaganda war

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1405605,00.html

Fascism is coming back into fashion, at least in the propaganda wars. For the right, it comes in the shape of a new word: "islamofascism". That conflates all the elements into one image: suicide bombs, kidnappings and the Qur'an; the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan; Iranian clerics and Hitler.

The term seems to have appeared first in the Washington Times in a reference to Islamist fundamentalists. Coined by Khalid Duran, a Muslim scholar seeking to explain Islam to Jews, the word was meant as a criticism of hyper-traditionalist clerics - who in turn denounced Duran as a traitor to the faith.

Usage has gathered momentum among commentators and academics who seek a verbal missile to debilitate those who disagree with them. Christopher Hitchens, a former socialist who now sits on the other end of the political see-saw, sprinkles islamofascism about like paprika. He and Andrew Sullivan, a voice of the right, both wrongly receive credit in some quarters for coining the term.

Use of the term to describe Muslim clerics and stateless terrorists has neatly pre-empted any chance of labelling Bush a fascist - no matter how many suspects are kidnapped by the US authorities and tortured; no matter how impervious the border; no matter how effective the use of propaganda to destroy the opposition; no matter how many countries are invaded on false pretenses; no matter how strongly a minority religion may become a mark of guilt.

[VioletLake]

1. Ah, so that's why Bush isn't being labeled a fascist.

Here I thought it was because his supporters control the media.

:eyes:

Actually, a growing number of people are using that label in reference to Bush. He's more of a fascist than the "islamofascists."

Edit: spelling.

[gottaB]

2. wikipedia notes two usages (both perjorative)

One being used specifically to refer to followers of Sayyid Qubt, the Muslim Brotherhood or its ideological descendents.

Here is a thoughtful take on the question of whether Qubtism can fairly be described as "islamofascism":

Lyttleton's review discusses some of these issues as well. Fascist movements were very much shaped by the countries in which they emerged. Different manifestations were often a by-product of a different mix of leader, party, bureaucracy, traditional institutions, and cultural heritage. In almost all cases, however, fascists "acknowledged no theoretical limits to the invasion of private life." (Lyttleton warns that, actually, "<t>he increasing intrusion of fascism into private life threatened to undermine the consensus in favor of fascism among the middle classes.") This private-public fusion is, perhaps, one reason why some commentators talk in terms of "Islamofascism," which seeks an equally comprehensive public absorption of private life. As I write here, with regard to one of fundamentalist Islam's founding fathers, Sayyid Qutb:

Pining for a theocratic Islamic caliphate, Qutb's influential "theological criticism of modern life" lamented the dualistic "schizophrenia" of the secular and the sacred, science and religion. But as is typical with religious monists, Qutb sought to collapse secular life into religion. His "deepest quarrel was not with America's failure to uphold its principles," <Paul> Berman explains. "His quarrel was with the principles. He opposed the United States because it was a liberal society" (emphasis added). The most "dangerous element" of that society was, in Qutb's view, the "separation of church and state." His version of liberation entailed an adherence to strict Islamic law ("Shariah") in defense of "freedom of conscience." But such liberation "meant freedom from false doctrines that failed to recognize God, freedom from the modern schizophrenia." It is no great leap to realize the dictatorial implications of this utopian vision, whose enforcement would echo the totalitarian projects of fascism, Nazism, and communism.

But, clearly, whatever totalitarian echoes one sees in the Qutbian vision, there are distinctions that disqualify the usage of the word "Islamofascism" to describe it, or to describe Islamic fundamentalism in general. This takes a bit more explanation, and Lyttleton's article helps.

As Lyttleton observes, "fascism was something else, something new and disquieting in its ability to mobilize positive enthusiasm and dedication, a form of modern mass politics." One of the keys to understanding fascism is its identification as "national socialism," or "national syndicalism," or more precisely, "nationalist socialism." And therein lies some of the parallels, not with theocratic Islamic fundamentalist dictatorships, but with quasi-fascist military dictatorships in the Arab world. There is a key difference between these military dictatorships and the regimes that neocons criticize typically as “Islamofascist.” The military dictatorships in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq took power in comparatively “secular” Arab countries. The whole Pan-Arab nationalist-socialist movement was opposed to the fundamentalists; in fact, as a member of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, Qutb himself was executed in 1966, under the Egyptian dictatorship of Gamal Abdel Nasser.


http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/7830.html

NB: The "liberty and power blog" appears to be a collective of Ann Rynd objectivist historians.

As for Sciabarra's argument, I think it's insightful, but one critisism I have is that many people who make the argument about the Muslim Brotherhood being "islamofascist" focus on Hassan al-Banna and Amin el-Husseini's ideological and, it is alleged, operational ties to Nazis. I have read some of the writings of Matthias Küntzel and found the thesis provocative, but ultimately not persuasive. Regarding al-Banna in particular, it seems that Küntzel's strongest claims are based on secondary sources. I have read a few of al-Banna's tracts (in English translation) which in my opinion contain discredited kinds of racial theories, zealous fundamentalism, totalitarian overtones and anti-Semitism, but nothing that signals the unmistakable imprint of Nazism.

One of Scardino's points stuck in my mind:

To make Bush-Hitler comparisons work requires more nuanced historical references - to the night of the long knives, for example, as Sidney Blumenthal did about the dismissal of Colin Powell. Unfortunately for liberals, those references don't work as efficiently as islamofascism does for the right, because to imagine the appropriately creepy picture requires a familiarity with German history of the 1920s and 30s.

I'm not sure that's completely true. It bears thinking about. One thing I am sure about, as a casual observer of style rather than history, is that Hitler is being done to death. The left would do well to consider other historical analogies. (Benito Mussolini and Maximilien Robespierre are among my favorites, but that's just me.)