Islamo-fascism, a more nuanced perspective

"Islamic terrorist attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane. Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it's called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom."

George W Bush, President of the United States speaking before the National Endowment for Democracy, October 6, 2005

The insistence of various American officials, including US President George W. Bush, on using the term Islamo-fascism has generated much heated discussion over the last few weeks and months, despite the attempt of President above to differentiate between the religion of Islam and Islamo-fascism. We offer here two more nuanced yet complimentary perspectives on this term, which question the usefulness of this term in helping us better understand the motivating ethos of radical Islamic movements.

"Are they the Islamists representing popular forces or those trying to contain them and mobilize support for strong-armed tactics?"

Clement M. Henry

"I've been very interested in the recent debate about fascism, Islamo and otherwise, over the past few weeks, and I wish my government were not so suddenly eager to contribute to this discourse, by brandishing the term Islamo-fascism."

Mary Ann Tetreault

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What Clement M. Henry says bears out what I have read. I am currently involved in teaching a course called "Postmodern Fascism and Media." We have discovered that Mussolini explicitly rejected socialism in familiar "class war" language, and democracy, on the basis of the incompetence of the masses to make good decisions (!). He offered a Herderian view of the organic state and used corporatist institutions to confect cross-class national(ist) unity, advocating constant expansion as evidence of the health of the state. Hitler is harder because he wasn't so theoretical, although he too emphasized an organic state and a unified Volk. Nazism also was explicitly anti-Marxist and expansionist.

From what we've been able to work out so far (one reason we teach is to see if our students have ideas any better than ours, and it’s early days yet in this class), fascism really is/was postmodern. How it was expressed differed quite a lot in content and style. The constant things about it were its brutality, its masculinism, its pathological nationalism, and its highly sexualized aesthetic (these are related, of course). Even religion was managed differently in Italy and Germany, although both regimes had concordats with the Vatican, but Nazi Germany was much more of a Hobbesian state in that regard than fascist Italy.

If movements/parties we agree are fascist are so divergent, it's probably possible to classify any violent, masculinist regime that relates to its supporters through iconic, sexually coded performances as fascist. There are Islamist groups I would call fascist. I don't see them as religious although, as Hobbes recommended, they use religion to legitimize themselves and what they are doing. In and outside the Middle East, qualities like religion and gender are as often idioms of conflict as elements of identity. A lot of Christianist outfits also are fascist in that sense. One resemblance across "confessions" is the entrepreneurial quality of these individual organizations. For example, I live in the same town as John Hagee, who was defrocked as a Baptist minister for various transgressions and now has his own family-business mega-church with all sorts of ancillary enterprises and, along with his branded aesthetic, even his own foreign policy.

I've been very interested in the recent debate about fascism, Islamo and otherwise, over the past few weeks, and I wish my government were not so suddenly eager to contribute to this discourse, by brandishing the term Islamo-fascism. 

Mary Ann Tetreault
Professor of International Affairs
Trinity University

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It is always tricky to transpose western concepts on non-western societies. In his seminal Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton University Press, 1963) Manfred Halpern labeled Muslim Brothers in Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, along with analogous movements in Pakistan, "neo-Islamic totalitarian movements [that] are essentially fascist movements" (page 135). Halpern was thinking within a totalitarian paradigm that conveniently discredited both our Axis enemies of World War II and our new Communist rivals in the Cold War. Communists and neo-Fascists also threatened some of the more fragile postwar democracies of Western Europe.  Pushing the parallel a bit further, Muslim Brothers could be viewed as corresponding to fascists threatening fragile governments from the Right, just as Communists threatened them from the Left.

Against this primitive Cold War view of totalitarianism, however, the Marxist tradition offers a more historical analysis of fascism. Coming in response to Marxist movements, fascism in Italy and elsewhere represented a counter-mobilization of elements of society that viewed - or could be persuaded to view - organized workers as a threat. Fascist movements played on the fear of popular forces much like Guillermo O'Donnell's bureaucratic authoritarian regimes (without the mass mobilization) in the 1960s and 1970s.

On this understanding of the historical roots of fascism, which political forces might be labeled fascist in the contemporary Middle East? Are they the Islamists representing popular forces or those trying to contain them and mobilize support for strong-armed tactics? Some regimes that have felt threatened by Muslim Brothers and analogous movements have indeed resorted to the fear tactics of the fascists, telling their westernized "secular" or moderate elements that their repressive regimes constitute the most effective barrier against Islamist masses bringing their extremist leaders to power and wreaking havoc.  Labeling these challengers "Islamo-fascist" is like the pot calling the kettle black. And dare we in turn transpose these analogies back home?


Clement M. Henry
Department of Government
University of Texas at Austin