[WCUSP] The Big Lie About "Islamic Fascism" by Eric Margolis

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

THE BIG LIE ABOUT `ISLAMIC  FASCISM'

 
 
Eric S. Margolis 
28 August 2006  
_http://www.ericmargolis.com/_ 
(http://e8.octadyne.net/guest/index.cfm?fuseaction=guest.tc&cgLkID=4373&sID=1159214&finalURL=http://www.ericmargolis.com/)  

The latest big lie unveiled by Washington's neoconservatives  are the 
poisonous terms, `Islamo-Fascists' and `Islamic Fascists ' . They are  the new, hot 
buzzwords among America's far right and Christian fundamentalists.  
President George W. Bush made a point last week of using  `Islamofacists' 
when recently speaking of Hezbullah and Hamas - both, by the  way, democratically 
elected parties. A Canadian government minister from the  Conservative Party 
compared Lebanon's Hezbullah to Nazi Germany.  
The term `Islamofascist' is utterly without meaning, but packed  with 
emotional explosives. It is a propaganda creation worthy Dr . Goebbles, and  the 
latest expression of the big lie technique being used by neocons in  Washington's 
propaganda war against its enemies in the Muslim World.  
This ugly term was probably first coined in Israel - as was the  other hugely 
successful propaganda term, `terrorism' - to dehumanize and  demonize 
opponents and deny them any rational political motivation, hence  removing any need 
to deal with their grievances and demands.  
As the brilliant humanist Sir Peter Ustinov so succinctly put  it, `Terrorism 
is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the  rich.' 
Both the terms `terrorism' and `fascist' have been so abused and  overused tha
t they have lost any original meaning. The best modern definition  I've read 
of fascism comes in former Colombia University Professor Robert  Paxton's 
superb 2004 book, `The Anatomy of Fascism.'  
Paxton defines fascism's essence, which he aptly terms its  `emotional lava' 
as: 1. a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of  traditional solutions; 
2. belief one's group is the victim, justifying any  action without legal or 
moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader  above the law, relying 
on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the  chosen people to 
dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of  foreign 
`contamination.'  
Fascism demands a succession of wars, foreign conquests, and  national 
threats to keep the nation in a state of fear, anxiety and patriotic  hypertension. 
Those who disagree are branded ideological traitors. All  successful fascists 
regimes, Paxton points out, allied themselves to traditional  conservative 
parties, and to the military-industrial complex.  
Highly conservative and militaristic regimes are not necessarily  fascist, 
says Paxton. True fascism requires relentless aggression abroad and a  
semi-religious adoration of the regime at home.  
None of the many Muslim groups opposing US-British control of  the Mideast 
fit Paxton's definitive analysis. The only truly fascist group ever  to emerge 
in the Mideast was Lebanon's Maronite Christian Phalange Party in the  1930's 
which, ironically, became an ally of Israel's rightwing in the 1980's.  
It is grotesque watching the Bush Administration and Tony Blair  maintain the 
ludicrous pretense they are re-fighting World War II. The only  similarity 
between that era and today is the cultivation of fear, war fever and  
racist-religious hate by US neoconservatives and America's religious far right,  which 
is now boiling with hatred for anything Muslim. 
Under the guise of fighting a `third world war' against `Islamic  fascism,' 
America's far right is infecting its own nation with the harbingers of  WWII 
totalitarianism.  
In the western world, hatred of Muslims has become a key  ideological 
hallmark of rightwing parties. We see this overtly in the United  States, France, 
Italy, Holland, Denmark, Poland, and, most lately, Canada, and  more subtly 
expressed in Britain and Belgium. The huge uproar over blatantly  anti-Muslim 
cartoons published in Denmark laid bare the seething Islamophobia  spreading 
through western society.  
There is nothing in any part of the Muslim World that resembles  the 
corporate fascist states of western history. In fact, clan and tribal-based  
traditional Islamic society, with its fragmented power structures, local  loyalties, 
and consensus decision-making, is about as far as possible from  western 
industrial state fascism.  
The Muslim World is replete with brutal dictatorships, feudal  monarchies, 
and corrupt military-run states, but none of these regimes, however  deplorable, 
fits the standard definition of fascism. Most, in fact, are  America's 
allies.  
Nor do underground Islamic militant groups (`terrorists' in  western 
terminology). They are either focused on liberating land from foreign  occupation, 
overthrowing `un-Islamic' regimes, driving western influence from  their region, 
or imposing theocracy based on early Islamic democracy.  
Claims by fevered neoconservatives that Muslim radicals plan to  somehow 
impose a worldwide Islamic caliphate are lurid fantasies worthy of Dr .  Fu Manchu 
and yet another example of the big lie technique that worked so well  over 
Iraq.  
As Prof. Andrew Bosworth notes in an incisive essay on so-called  Islamic 
fascism, `Islamic fundamentalism is a transnational movement inherently  opposed 
to the pseudo-nationalism necessary for fascism.'  
However, there are plenty of modern fascists. But to find them,  you have to 
go to North America and Europe. These neo-fascists advocate  `preemptive 
attacks against all potential enemies,' grabbing other nation's  resources, 
overthrowing uncooperative governments, military dominance of the  world, hatred of 
Semites (Muslims in this case), adherence to biblical  prophecies, hatred of 
all who fail to agree, intensified police controls, and  curtailment of 
`liberal' political rights. 
They revel in flag-waving, patriotic melodrama, demonstrations  of military 
power, and use the mantle of patriotism to feather the nests of the  
military-industrial complex, colluding legislators and lobbyists. They urge war  to the 
death, fought, of course, by other people's children. They have turned  
important sectors of the media into propaganda organs and brought the Pentagon  
largely under their control.  
Now, the neoconservatives are busy whipping up war against Syria  and Iran to 
keep themselves in power and maintain the political dynamics of this  21st 
century revival of fascism. 

The real modern fascists are not in the  Muslim World, but Washington. The 
neocons screaming fascist the loudest, are the  true fascists themselves. It's a 
pity that communist and leftist propaganda so  debased the term `neo-fascist' 
that it has become almost meaningless. Because  that is what we should be 
calling the so-called neocons, for that is what they  really are. 
copyright Eric S. Margolis 2006 
Posted by Eric Margolis at _12:22 PM_ 
(http://e8.octadyne.net/guest/index.cfm?fuseaction=guest.tc&cgLkID=4374&sID=1159214&finalURL=http://www.ericmargolis.c
om/archives/2006/08/the_big_lie_abo.php)  | _Comments (0)_ 
(http://e8.octadyne.net/guest/index.cfm?fuseaction=guest.tc&cgLkID=4375&sID=1159214&finalURL=http
://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2006/08/the_big_lie_abo.php#comments)  


Eric Margolis is a regular commentator at CBC TV,  CNN, FOX, CTV, 
contributing foreign editor of Sun National Media, Canada and  American Conservative 
Magazine, Washington DC. and regular columnist at Sun  Media and Dawn, Pakistan. 


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/wcusp_wilpf.org/attachments/20060828/f54b3dd6/attachment.html