19 Nov
I Never Know just what will get a debate going, so I am interested that my last post, about one of the biggest, if not the biggest, culture shocks of my life, is being widely read.
I lived in Franco’s Spain for a couple of years in the early seventies, and I lived here in Indonesia for Suharto’s last ten years. Outside those periods of necessary conformity, I stretched boundaries with an open mind. I marched with the Anti-Nazi League and Rocked Against Racism.
Yet I was still highly agitated upon seeing that display of racist ranting at the Indonesian Book Fair. Tedious though others say it might be, allowing Indonesian folk to be bored by Mein Kampf is not an option I approve of. As I say in the comments, the war against fascism, which started in Franco’s Spain three years before Hitler invaded Poland, is deeply ingrained in my personal history, if only because I was conceived the night that the war in European was won.
My father often said that he fought the war for the likes of me, and for that I’m grateful. However, I’ve been a lifelong pacifist, but like many others in my position, I do wonder how I would have reacted if I had been born as part of my father’s generation. Volunteered for a non-combatant’s position? ( My extreme myopia may well have disbarred me from actual combat duty, but who knows?) The war against fascism was, I feel, a righteous war ~ and still is.
In 2004, Laurence W. Britt published his The Fourteen Identifying Characteristics of Fascism in the Free Inquiry magazine.
We are two-and-a-half generations removed from the horrors of Nazi Germany, although constant reminders jog the consciousness. German and Italian fascism form the historical models that define this twisted political worldview. Although they no longer exist, this worldview and the characteristics of these models have been imitated by protofascist regimes at various times in the twentieth century. Both the original German and Italian models and the later protofascist regimes show remarkably similar characteristics.
For the purpose of this perspective, I (considered) the following regimes: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia.
As this is a copyrighted article (shame) I am just appending the list. For the clarifications, either fill them in yourselves, or go to the link.
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.
Change one or two words and phrases and you can come up with the definition of Marxist totalitarianism, which courtesy of messrs Mau, Stalin and Pol Pot made blokes like Franco, Salazar, Pinochet and Papadopoulos [ed. who he?] seem like Sunday afternoon amateurs.
Yet if I were to apply for a job as a lecturer at any western university or as a journalist with most major news organisations and made it clear I was a Marxist it would have little effect on my career prospects, try admitting you were a fascist and see how far it got you.
I am certainly not a fascist, I loathe them, but I also loathe the hypocrisy of the left when they refuse to admit the even greater evils of Marxist totalitarianism and genocide.
“Greater evils”, Miko? Or ‘same’ evils?
I totally agree that there’s very little difference in ‘result’ between extreme left or right -isms. Politics is circular, so the left and right wings end up together rather than far apart.
In a pure numbers game, you’d have to say Communism is the greater evil, furthermore fascism is a largely Eurocentric/western philosophy which is unlikely ever to cause much of a problem again.
Communism however is enslaving, imprisoning and murdering millions of people in Asia right now.
> 1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
> 2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
> 3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
> 4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
> 5. Rampant sexism.
> 6. A controlled mass media.
> 7. Obsession with national security.
> 8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
> 9. Power of corporations protected.
> 10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
> 11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
> 12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
> 13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
> 14. Fraudulent elections.
sounds like australia.
According to a couple of other sites I found, it sounds like George W. Bush’s America too.
And, Miko, allow me to comment on your comment that capitalism however is enslaving, imprisoning and murdering millions of people in Asia right now.
Of course, we’d have to define ‘murdering’ but perhaps we could get back to focussing on fascism for a while ~ if that’s all right with you.
Question: how would you label Hitler’s Asian ally, Japan?
If there was any serious threat of Bushido militarism rising again in Japan I’d agree fascism was a threat in Asia but there isn’t and it isn’t.
Communism on the other hand, ooops, I’ve done it again.
Surely the little twerps who run around in mobs smashing beer bottles because they’re beer bottles, ‘sweeping’ for foreigners, castigating ‘deviants’ and generally making a nuisance of themselves, are examples of proto-fascists.
Bigger twerps are those who cloak their bomb making in jihadist rhetoric.
Bigger still are those conglomerate owners who, often in league with elements of the military, employ vigilante mobs when they are criticised.
Giving any of them a seeming justification for their societal misdeeds through the rants of a long dead madman, and I do mean Hitler, is tantamount to smoking in a gunpowder warehouse.