Posted on 08/15/2006 5:19:13 PM PDT by Urbane_Guerilla
With most of the Western world in denial, ignorance or some degree of acquiesence before the dream of islamic hegemony, it is at least encouraging that all of a sudden a discussion has arisen among those westerners not so afflicted, whether we should identify the ideology of our enemies as fascist.
It is encouraging because it might, perhaps, signal a sense that it is becoming more commonly acceptable in our societies to think of our enemies as not nice people. Maybe our reluctance to give offense is giving way, to some degree, to the foreboding that horrible suffering and death might actually await many of us, by those not nice people who daily threaten to inflict horrible suffering and death on us, and do inflict it on as many of us as they are currently capable of reaching.
The question remains whether "fascism" is really the word we ought to use, when we use it in the phrase "War on Islamo-fascism." There is no question that fascism and islam share a strikingly similar world view, and as much is assumed in the following words. Islam shares a striking world view with nazism, perhaps moreso than with fascism, and yet would it sound right to refer to "islamo-nazism"? Our enemies are true barbarians: should we call this war, the The War on Barbarism?
The problem with calling our enemy ideology "islamo-fascism" is that it is not fascism, it is islam. While there may be fascist equivalents of words such as dhimmi, hudna, taqqiyah and jihad, or fascist literature the equivalent of the koran, the hadith and the sira, that does not make islam, fascism. Each has a distinctive time and place in the history of mankind, and each a different cultural and philosophical context.
Adding fascism to "islamo" does not have the ring of truth to it. It sounds somewhat childish, like calling a police officer a "fascist pig." The use of the word "fascist" has a very sorry recent history of being used as a totally baseless pejorative, and it does not gain resonance regardless of how more accurately it might be applied to our enemy than to a cop.
And even the prefix "islamo" has that absurd ring of an awkward neologism, as with islamism. They sound like pipsqueak pejoratives, they do not quite ring true. They have the sound of phoniness and reaching too far. Does the word "homophobia" still grate on your ears? That's because it has the psuedo-serious echo of a nagging, hectoring made up verbal sledgehammer.
But the worst aspect of this leaden coinage is, it does not call the thing by what it calls itself and how it is known.
It is understood: there is a major difficulty involved. Even those who attribute the "root cause" of our enemy's barbarism to islam itself, are loathe to be so blunt, if only for prudential reasons. There remains the so far unrealized hope that some adherents will take a stand against the purported extremism of their co-religionists, that there might be a reformation of islam, if only we avoid at all costs the impression that we are trying to destroy their religion.
The problem is, you cannot fight this war without knowing about the love of death, the hatred of humanity, and the worship of mohammed, which comprises islam. The details of islam are critical, because the details lead to the understanding of motives and tactics. The knowledge of fascism is beside the point, or at least a distraction. Islam is quite big enough without trying to view it through the prism of what in comparison is a trivial historic era.
This has been a long war, between islam and humanity. The significance of the current phase, is that barbarism has just intersected with modern technology and the happenstance of vast oil wealth. The world has literally never faced anything like this before.
We are not fighting fascism. We are fighting jihad, the islamic war against humanity. The first battle in the current phase of islam's dedication to the destruction of us, is the struggle to get modern Westerners to grasp what they are facing. Jihad is doing its best to spin their war in such a way, as to keep most Westerners clueless. And it has not been a difficult job for them, given the predilections of most Westerners.
The first job in resisting jihad is to get the attention of Westerners, and the second is to focus them on exactly what they are facing. The first job is being done by jihad itself. Only jihad can do it apparently, sadly. The second job has to be done by Westerners who already know what we face.
That job is one of speaking clearly and with conviction, not obfuscating or using obscure historical metaphors.
This is a war on jihad, if we are willing to make war. It is a war of ideas, freedom, civilization and humanity, versus a religious belief that all shall die, and die horribly, who do not submit. Jihad is that religious belief. And the war on jihad ought to be the resolve of free men.
No we moved from Complete Denial to Groggy Imprecise Awareness. Next up, Homicidal Rage.
Have patience. It is progress.
You are right! It actually is progress. How pathetic is that? I was actually pleased and then annoyed to hear him say it.
People, we aren't fighting fascists and we aren't building friggin democracies.
Geez. Its been 5 damn years now.
Don't worry, get some sleep. Orwell's reputation will be just fine. Just don't start using the term Orwellian to describe anything and I think he will be OK.
memo to self - fascism is as fascism does.
I'm very impressed that you've managed to find a religious world view that should effectively alienate you from pretty much 100% of the world's Christians, Muslims, Jews AND atheists. That's quite an achievement!
Happily, I belong to none of those groups.
They're barbaric alright.
Just curious ... where does this leave jihad? Does it do what it does? And if so, then why not call it what it is?
Here is what I do not understand.
Why are folks so passionate about calling islam and jihad fascist, when calling islam, islam, and jihad, jihad, is about as good as it gets?
Please explain the advantages to me.
I guess it really doesn't matter anyway. George Bush today backed off his characterization of "islamic fascists" and called them "an extremist group of folks". I kid you not.
You do know who Mussolini was don't you?
Anyway, before Mussolini there was Rome, and the one we know most about was the Eastern Empire. That's the one the Moslems picked apart piece by piece over a 700 year period. While doing so they gradually absorbed the facist technique, method, principles, and ideology.
I would never use the word orwellian to describe anything. Did you know that when you change even a proper name into an adjective, you don't capitalize it?
Orwell was a commie ~ he's addressing an audience of leftwingnuts for whom "fascism" had a meaning totally divorced from its reality.
We have entirely too many fascist judges who like to see babies juggled on the ends of bayonets.
So, in fighting the Outlaws, why don't we just call them Hell's Outlaws?
After all, the Hell's Angels are better known and more readily identifiable.
"Islamo-" has to do with the "flavor", and "jihad" is simply one of a number of techniques within the broad parameters of the "-ism".
Somebody has been listening to too much of MSM.
yitbos
yitbos
We're fighting something that has yet to be named in the Middle East.
I cringe every time I hear "war on terror".
Terror and terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy.
The jihadis, the term you prefer, are quite fascistic. Esp. in their desire for the imposition of their sick Sharia law. You can call them jihadis, I use that term myself, but I would not discount entirely that jihad can be used as a term for "self-struggle", although I don't know enough about Islam to be sure that is accurate.
It is silly to say we are in a war against Islam, the Islamofacists abuse and murder of their brother and sister Muslims around the world demonstrates that. It may become a war agasint all of Islam, but we are not there yet.
I think Islamo-fascism describes them quite well. The Nazis were fascists, but they also had weird paganistic ideas, although I doubt the average German had much truck with that quasi-religious aspect of Nazism. But again, I really don't know for sure.
And the Muslims do not "worship" Mohammed, just as Roman Catholics do not "worship" the Virigin Mary or the Saints.
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