Islamofascism

Main article: Fascist (epithet)

The term "Islamofascism" is a controversial political epithet. Those who use the term argue that it refers only to certain sects of Islam that are alleged to have fascist or totalitarian tendencies. Its critics argue that it is merely used to smear Islam with the negative connotations of the term fascist.

The term is also commonly used in connection with Islamist regimes and organizations, whether outwardly terrorist or inwardly oppressive. Examples include Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, and Abu Sayyaf.

Origins of the term

Although the exact origins of the term are murky, it appears to have been coined either by Khalid Duran, Stephen Schwartz or Christopher Hitchens. The coining or popularisation of the term is frequently attributed to Christopher Hitchens based on his article in The Nation immediately following the 9/11 attacks, where he used the phrase "Islamic fascism". [1]. Hitchens also used the phrases "Islamic fascism" and "theocratic fascism" to describe the fatwa declared against Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses. After the 9/11 attacks, the concept of "Islamic fascism", later shortened to "Islamofascism", spread from neoconservative schools of thought to the blogosphere. +

Those who have attempted to flesh out the epithet often state that "Islamofascism" refers to strands of Wahhabi or Salafi Islam, which are claimed to display some of the signifiers of fascism or totalitarianism. It is additionally referenced often in relation to Islamist organizations such as Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda and in relation to Islamic regimes which deny basic human rights in the realm of freedom of religion.

Quotes

• "But the bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic face, and there's no point in any euphemism about it. What they abominate about "the West," to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state."[2] Christopher Hitchens, neoconservative commentator.
• "Islamofascism is nothing but an empty propaganda term. And wartime propaganda is usually, if not always, crafted to produce hysteria, the destruction of any sense of proportion. Such words, undefined and unmeasured, are used by people more interested in making us lose our heads than in keeping their own." [3]. Joseph Sobran, conservative Catholic commentator.
• "What we have to understand is ... this is not really a war against terrorism, this is not really a war against al Qaeda, this is a war against movements and ideologies that are jihadist, that are Islamofascists, that aim to destroy the Western world." [4] Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
• "...the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else." George Orwell, British essayist and novelist.
• "It is hard to see the difference between the bigotry of anti-Semitism as an evil and the bigotry that [Michael] Medved displays toward Islam. It is more offensive than I can say for him to use the word "Islamo-fascist." Islam is a sacred term to 1.3 billion people in the world. It enshrines their highest ideals. To combine it with the word "fascist" in one phrase is a desecration and a form of hate speech. Are there Muslims who are fascists? Sure. But there is no Islamic fascism, since "Islam" has to do with the highest ideals of the religion. In the same way, there have been lots of Christian fascists, but to speak of Christo-Fascism is just offensive." [5] Juan Cole, professor of modern Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan.
• "The idea that there is some kind of autonomous "Islamofascism" that can be crushed, or that the west may defend itself against the terrorists who threaten it by cultivating that eagerness to kill militant Muslims which Hitchens urges upon us, is a dangerous delusion. The symptoms that have led some to apply the label of "Islamofascism" are not reasons to forget root causes. They are reasons for us to examine even more carefully what those root causes actually are." He adds "'Saddam, Arafat and the Saudis hate the Jews and want to see them destroyed' . . . or so says the right-wing writer Andrew Sullivan. And he has a point. Does the western left really grasp the extent of anti-Semitism in the Middle East? But does the right grasp the role of Europeans in creating such hatred?" [6] Richard Webster, author of A Brief History of Blasphemy: liberalism, censorship and 'The Satanic Verses'writing in the New Statesman.

See also

• Islamism and Islam as a political movement — Islam as a political movement.
• Islamic democracy
• Islamophobia
• Islam and anti-Semitism
• Arabs and anti-Semitism
• War on Terrorism
• Islamist terrorism
• Fascist (epithet)

Islamic Concepts

• Dhimmi
• Jihad
• Wahhabism
• Salafi

Commentators on Islamofascism

• Christopher Hitchens — British journalist.
• Daniel Pipes — U.S. political scientist
• Victor Davis Hanson — U.S. historian and commentator on military affairs
• Andrew Sullivan — U.S. journalist and noted blogger
• Ibn Warraq — Muslim free-thinker and social critic.
• Oriana Fallaci — Italian journalist and author of The Rage and The Pride (La Rabbia e l'Orgoglio) and The Strength of Reason (La Forza della Ragione).
• Natan Sharansky Israeli politician and human rights activist. Author of The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror
• Dore Gold — Israeli political scientist. Author of Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism.
• Richard Perle — U.S. neoconservative.
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali Dutch MP and friend of murdered Theo van Gogh (film director). Scriptwriter for Submission: a film about violence against women in Islamic societies.
• Bat Ye'or British academic. Author of many works on dhimmitude and contemparary European-Islamic relations.

External links

• Andrew Sullivan Interview from INDC Journal
• The Islamofascist Agenda by Deroy Murdock in National Review
• How the right played the fascism card against Islam — The Guardian (4 February, 2005)
• What is Fascism?, by George Orwell