Well, it's that time of year again. And as usual it crept up on me. That's right! Get out the decorations! It's "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week"!
Whuh?
Yup. From the fevered mind of David Horowitz, comes another howler. A nation-wide, week-long (or so) celebration of "Islamo-Fascism Awareness." Of course, when the right-wing in this country becomes "aware" of anything, it's always a cause for celebration, provided of course that what they are aware of is an actual, you know, thing.
And of course, even my beloved adversaries at the DePaul Conservative Alliance* are in on the act, though they are renaming it "Terrorism Awarness Week" (yet interestingly, no reflection on nationalist terrorism in the IRA vein). Sponsoring several events this week around campus. If I didn't have enough reasons to be glad I'm on sabbatical, I can now add the sense of freedom I have to not attend any of this.
However, in recognition of this auspicious occasion, I thought I'd link to a passage from Juan Cole's blog (Juan of course, knows something about Islam, unlike David Horowitz, who doesn't):
There can be Muslim fascists, just as there can be Christian fascists
(and were, in Spain, Italy and Germany, and parts of Central and South
America; the Spanish fascists and the Argentinian ones, e.g., were
adopted by the United States government as close allies.)
But there cannot be "Islamic" fascists, because the Islamic religion enshrines values that are incompatible with fascism.
Fascism
is not even a very good description of the ideology of most Muslim
fundamentalists. Most fascism in the Middle East has been secular in
character, as with Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. Fascism involves
extreme nationalism and most often racism. Muslim fundamentalist
movements reject the nation-state as their primary loyalty and reject
race as a basis for political action or social discrimination. Fascists
exalt the state above individual rights or the rule of law. Muslim
fundamentalists exalt Islamic law above the utilitarian interests of
the state. Fascism exalts youth and a master race above the old and the
"inferior" races. Muslim fundamentalists would never speak this way. Fascism glorifies
"war as an end in itself and victory as the determinant of truth and
worthiness." Muslim fundamentalists view holy war as a ritual with
precise conditions and laws governing its conduct. It is not considered
an end in itself.
I know Andrew Sullivan and others have made careers out of touting the dangers of "Islamo-Fascism," and in Sullivan's case it's no doubt an attempt to associate himself with his hero George Orwell. No doubt also, it's an attempt to equate the current "War on Terror," a war that's badly directed, poorly conceived, and intellectually and morally incoherent, with the war against fascism, in which the enemy was clear, the cause was just and the goal was evident.** Alas, life provides few such easy moral and political targets, and just because we'd like Osama bin Laden to be Hitler doesn't make him so. It was more accurate to compare Iraq to Nazi Germany, but then, prior to the invasion, Iraq's politics could not be said to be "Islamo-" anything, even though it was largely run by Muslims.
*When I say "beloved adversaries," I'm not being ironic. My experiences with the DCA have been uniformly positive, and my experience of them has been, to an individual, that of sincere, highly intelligent, motivated, and woefully misguided young women and men. One reason I enjoy interacting with them is that it's much more fun to have arguments with people who don't agree with you than with people who do, for what I imagine are obvious reasons.
** However, despite the current passion that conservatives have for fighting fascism, let us not forget that the founding publication of modern conservatism, The National Review, referred to Spain's Fransisco Franco as a "National Hero" or that Republican adminstrations from Nixon through Bush the Elder gave aid and comfort to actual fascist governments in Chile, Peru, Guatamala, and El Salvador, as well as supporting neo-Fascist movements such as the Contras in Nicaragua. So, please forgive me if the current "anti-fascist" brand of conservatism strikes me as somewhat insincere.
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