Islamism is a fascism? (was "Herman responds")

[Hakki Alacakaptan]

Calling medieval zealots in a precapitalist society fascist is not terribly
smart but your two points actually do coincide with two different types of
political islamist: The guerilla/terrorist islamists and the parliamentary
islamists. The West's hutchinsonian concept of islamism is that of the
jihadist militant type. However in Turkey, Bosnia, and Bangladesh, there are
political islamist parties and extraparliamentary movements that are
perfectly willing to operate within the rules of capitalism, and for whom
the jihad is empty rhetoric, much like world revolution was for the CPSU.
Turkey's parliamentary islamists, for example, are now split into two
parties, one traditionally aligned with the Saudi-financed Muslim
Brotherhood and the other with the US State Department. Both are vying for
control of the National Association of Industrialists and Businessmen
MUSIAD, an islamist counterpart of the larger and secular TUSIAD. The
islamist business sector in Turkey took off in the 90's and its recent
downturn has purely economic causes.

The other type of islamist is also present on the Turkish political scene in
the form of the Turkish Hezbollah, which unlike the Iranian-controlled
Lebanese Hezbollah is sunnite and its cadres are mainly afghansis. They were
allowed to operate as semi-autonomous death squads in the 90's because they
were competing with the PKK for the control of the southeast. After the
defeat of the PKK they started operating in other parts of the country as
well and were accordingly stamped out, but not before they assassinated a
very popular police chief (go figure) in Kurdish Diyarbakir.

The true fascists in Turkey - the guys the West mistakenly knows as the
"Grey Wolves" - have a pedigree that goes right back to the Turkish Nazis of
the 1940's, who were bankrolled by German Ambassador von Papen. The
irrational amalgam of racism, historical mythicism, anticommunism, islamism,
etc., which constitutes their so-called "nine lights" ideology is a
typically fascist concoction and is radically different from the koranic
zealotry of the islamists. Elements of the Turkish bourgeoise financed these
fascists in the 70's to combat what they saw as an imminent communist
takeover, but today the bourgeoisie is almost unanimously pro-democracy and
the fascists are supported by small-town tradesmen and rural peasantry.

Hakki

 || -----Original Message-----

 || From:  Grant Lee

 ||

 || Briefly, it seems to me that the crucial difference between present day

 || Islamists and (say)  the Italian and German fascists of the

 || 1920s and 30s,

 || is that the latter managed to: (1) hit enough populist notes with a

 || substantial proportion of the masses, prior to taking power;

 || while also (2)

 || winking at the (then) dominant layers of international capital

 || (e.g. heavy

 || industry, FIRE, etc.), as shown by their relations with GM, IBM, German

 || cartels, Swiss banks etc.

 ||

 || Islamists have achieved (1), at least to the extent of becoming

 || rulers in a

 || few semi-industrialised states and powerbrokers in many more.

 || However (and

 || in spite of Bin Laden's own family background), their relationship with

 || capital in general seems uneasy, at least as long as Islamists maintain

 || their traditional antipathy to usury, etc.

 ||

 ||