from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamo-fascism ...
The word is included in the New Oxford American Dictionary, defining
it as "a controversial term equating some modern Islamic movements
with the European fascist movements of the early twentieth century".
Although Islamofascism is usually a reference to Islamism or radical
Islamism, rather than Islam in general, comparisons have been made
between fascism and Islam, as far back as 1937, when the German
Catholic emigré Edgar Alexander compared Nazism with "Mohammedanism",
and again, in 1939, when psychologist Carl Jung said about Adolf
Hitler, "he is like Mohammed. The emotion in Germany is Islamic,
warlike and Islamic. They are all drunk with a wild god."
According to Roger Scruton, the term was introduced by the French
historian Maxime Rodinson to describe the Iranian Revolution of 1978.
Scruton claims that Rodinson "was a Marxist, who described as
'fascist' any movement of which he disapproved", but credits him with
inventing a "convenient way of announcing that you are not against
Islam but only against its perversion by the terrorists."
In 1990 Malise Ruthven wrote:
"Nevertheless there is what might be called a political problem
affecting the Muslim world. In contrast to the heirs of some other
non-Western traditions, including Hinduism, Shintoism and Buddhism,
Islamic societies seem to have found it particularly hard to
institutionalise divergences politically: authoritarian government,
not to say Islamo-fascism, is the rule rather than the exception from
Morocco to Pakistan."
Albert Scardino attributes the term to an article by Muslim scholar
Khalid Duran in the Washington Times, where he used it to describe the
push by some Islamist clerics to "impose religious orthodoxy on the
state and the citizenry".
The related term, Islamic fascism, was adopted by journalists
including Stephen Schwartz and Christopher Hitchens, who intended it
to refer to Islamist extremists, including terrorist groups such as al
Qaeda, although he more often tends to use the phrases "theocratic
fascism" or "fascism with an Islamic face" (a play on Susan Sontag's
phrase "fascism with a human face", referring to the declaration of
martial law in Poland in 1981). The terms Islamic fascism and Muslim
fascism are used by the French philosopher Michel Onfray, an outspoken
atheist and antireligionist, who notes in his Atheist Manifesto that
Ruhollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution "gave birth to an authentic
Muslim fascism".
Some commentators[attribution needed] including Paul Berman and
Christopher Hitchens, believe there are similarities between
historical fascism and Islamofascism:
* rage against historical humiliation;
* inspiration from what is believed to be an earlier golden age
(one or more of the first few Caliphates in the case of Islamism);
* a desire to restore the perceived glory of this age — or "a
fanatical determination to get on top of history after being underfoot
for so many generations" — with an all-encompassing (totalitarian)
social, political, economic system;
* belief that malicious, predatory alien forces (Jews in the case
of Nazi Fascists or Islamofascists) are conspiring against and within
the nation/community, and that violence is necessary to defeat and
expel these forces;
* exaltation of death and destruction along with a contempt for
"art and literature as symptoms of degeneracy and decadence", and
strong commitment to sexual repression and subordination of women.
* offensive military, (or at least armed) campaign to reestablish
the power and allegedly rightful international domination of the
nation/community.
Received on 2008-02-24 09:26:54