 |
Why We Shouldn't Use The Term "Christo-Fascism" |
|
 by Ali Eteraz, March 25, 2008 |
||
In Chris Hedges' New York Times bestselling, Oprah-endorsed book American Fascists, Hedges repeatedly uses the term 'Christo-fascism'.
Hedges essentially equates fundamentalist Christians in the deep South with Nazis and Japanese fascists. I have no love for Evangelicals -- especially given my time among them -- but it's obvious that Hedges has not read any Yukio Mishima. Fascism was directly connected with racial purity and physical prowess. Christian fundamentalism is not. If it's not okay to use the term 'Islamo-fascist' because Islamists aren't corporatists, then it's not okay to use 'Christo-fascist' because fundamentalist Christians aren't concerned with biology.
It's sad that men like Rove and Bush, who cared nothing for
Evangelicals, have given
Should read "No to 'Bush Christian Fascists'" Evangelicals such a bad rap that you can now
reach bestseller status by calling them names. But 'Fascism' is a term with a particular meaning and reference, and shouldn't be inflated to include just any extremist movement.
It certainly shouldn't be inflated to include a movement that is not universally malign. There are some great Evangelicals like Jim Wallis, and even Mike Huckabee
is intellectually honest (as per his appearance on the Tyra Banks
show). During the Pastor Wright flap, Huckabee said that it was unfair
to read too much into Obama's connection with Wright. That doesn't sound
like the making of totalitarianism.
Those who (like me) oppose using the term 'Islamo-fascist' and opposed "Islamo-fascism Awareness Week" ought to have the intellectual consistency not to use 'Christo-fascist'. (Encouragingly, another Muslim writer, Shadi Hamid of the Project for Middle East Democracy, agrees.)
The case is different with the terms 'Islamist' and 'Christianist', frequently used in in political parlance as synonyms for 'Islamo-fascist' and 'Christo-fascist'. That conflation is mistaken. Islamism is political Islam of the non-violent variety, i.e the sustained political program by conservative Muslims to acquire --- not impose --- theocratic rule within their nation-state.
It is unhelpful, even from a pragmatic perspective, to collapse 'jihadism' (which refers to a violent movement) and 'Islamism'. The reason is that equating Islamism with violence ruins the opportunity to encourage post-Islamist groups -- who are roughly akin to Germany's Christian Democratic Party and represent a case of Islamism defeating itself using self-evaluation. On the same grounds, if Hedges had been more careful with his language, he would have used the term 'Christianism' to apply to the Evangelicals in his book, since by his analysis, they too are seeking to acquire --- not impose --- theocratic rule using non-violent means.
Teaching my son to think like a TV critic
How Hilly Kristal’s Jewish roots birthed a music revolution
News and views about the newest nation on the block
I want my kid to grow up utterly intolerant of creationism.
| Dev Blog | Privacy | Submissions | Contact | |  | | Comment Policy | About Us | FAQ | Masthead |
| Hosting provided by Tilted Planet | ||
Shlomotion
Abrahamists vs. Abrahamo-fascists
I have also always disliked the term "Islamo-fascist" for the same reason Eteraz gives: It's not accurate.
I remember when the Islamic theocrats were called "fundamentalists," but I also remember that the Christian theocrats were unhappy when the same term was applied to them. I don't think they had a problem with the word "fundamentalist." They just didn't like being put in the same category as their Islamic counterparts. They did have a point there, since many of the "Islamic fundamentalists" were not just hyper-religious or theocratic. Many of them were also violent. The "Islamist" vs. "Jihadist" distinction would have been useful them.
However, that raises another question: What do you call the Christianists who also support violence to achieve their goals? "Crusadists"?
Also, what are all the analogous terms for Jews. "Zionist" doesn't seem like the proper term for a theocratic Jew, since the term is already used to describe something else. "Orthodox" doesn't work either, since one can be a fundamentalist without supporting theocracy. Maybe "Judaist"?
What, then, do you call Judaists who support violence to achieve their goals? "Amalek-smiters"?
Finally, what about the term "Judeo-fascist" for extreme Zionists? Their philosophy does contain a biological element, which Eteraz points out is a necessary part of fascism which is lacking in Islamo-"facism" and Christo-"fascism."
naftali
Mesovocabulary
I remember the definitions of fascism I learned in PoliSci 101, the government strongly aligned with industry, belief in mythical if not fabricated past, notions of racial superiority, mass murder, all that. And this definition just crumbled to pieces when I started reading Marcuse, Adorno, Horkheimer, and Fromm--books like One Dimensional Man, Dialectic of Enlightenment, and Escape From Freedom.
These Jews, exiles, were trying to figure out what the hell just happened in their native Germany. The point here is that using the PoliSci definition, which Ali uses, always leads to confusion, the word fascism being tossed around like a baseball, a sticky baseball at that, since people throw it at anything that moves and it seems to stick. I also think it has kept Jews from really coming to grips with the Holocaust.
I'm just saying that if you use the Marcuse et al definition, the discussion can be more focused, much less confusing, and should even lead to greater understanding. That being said, there is definitely a strain of thinking in the Arab world that uses literal Nazi texts as its theoretical foundation, and they manage to join this strain with classic Islamic texts and beliefs. So that has to be addressed. It's a problem. For a Jew, it's a problem, and I do believe that if I were Muslim, it would also be a problem.
There is also a strain of American thought that uses Nazi texts too, joins it with Christian texts--but they just call themselves Nazis, so there's no problem figuring out who's who.
It would take a long while to explain all of which Marcuse et al spoke, but if anyone is interested, it can be done. It's worth the research.
Post new comment