The ever witty lnp3 on chip and edward herman debating clerical fascism. http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2001/2001-December/027273.html Herman responds Chip Berlet cberlet at igc.org Wed Dec 5 13:11:14 PST 2001 Hi,
Let's reread some of Herman's rhetoric before dismissing my criticism so glibly.
Herman:
> >Anybody on the left recognizes that the real and
> >frightening "expansionism," now in an accelerating and violent
> >phase, is centered in Washington, and Bush's war is an ugly facet
> >of it.
So Islamic fascist expansionism is not "real" and not "frightening," although they just killed 3000 + people in a terrorist attck on the US. Anyone who worries about fascist terrorisn is apparently not on the left.
> > Bush is attacking the
> >"Islamic fascists," just as Clinton was getting the "Serb
> >fascists," and that is all that counts for the new Hitchens.
> >
According to Herman, concern over the rise of ethnonationalist violence and fascism is not about a real concern but is objectively a defense of US imperialism. Really? Maybe for Hitchens. But is Herman really just criticizing Hitchens in this letter, or is he attacking anyone who is concerned with clerical fascism and is Herman demonizing us as not really being leftists?
Read on.
> > Can't you see the humor of Hitchens speaking about "Taliban
> >expansionism" and proving it with nonsense about the Taliban trying
> >to infiltrate and take over Pakistan, when the United States is
> >spreading over the globe, has itself penetrated Pakistan and
> >entered into closer alliances with other regional goons of
> >convenience, and has always felt it to be its right to infiltrate
> >and subvert on a global basis?
Islamic supermacists are, in fact, trying to take over Pakistan, just as they have tried to take over Saudi Arabia and Egypt. They did take over Iran for a long time. This is not to defend any of those regimes, but to argue that to just flick off the reality of Islamic supermacist exapnsionism is absurd. That is the only humor I can find in this paragraph.
> >
> > The idea that the Taliban is a fascist and expansionist threat,
> >and that Islamic fundamentalism more broadly speaking is the same,
> >doesn't hold water (Louis Proyect's note to you deals with this
> >quite well). Hitchens has come to use "fascist" as an epithet to
> >apply to any enemy of the moment.
Actually, while there is disagreement, there are decent arguments to be made that these folks are clerical fascists, although you are not going to get them from Hitchens. I agtree with Herman that Hitchens is using the term in an opportunistic and problematic way.
See my discussion of clerical fascism at: http://www.publiceye.org/frontpage/911/clerical-911.htm Note this paragraph:
[ At PRA we feel the term clerical fascism can be defended for use in public discussions and when applied specifically to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda networks. However some caution is required. The term fascism is often overused, and currently some use it in a propagandistic way. Therefore we feel progressives should only use the term clerical fascism where: it is not a justification for excessive and aggressive militarism; does not demonize or scapegoat Arabs and Muslims; and is differentiated from inaccurate and sweeping misuse. ]
This is not a settled question for the left. Again, Herman is implying that attempts to call these folks fascist is eseentially just a form of scapegoating in support of imperialism.
Here's what I wrote in a discussion of clerical fascism:
Although the concept of clerical fascism is used widely in analyzing certain forms of fascism, is it fair to apply it to certain forms of theocratic Islamic fundamentalism? Armstrong mentions there are some similarities worth noting.8 Walter Laqueur discusses its usefulness as a concept at length in Fascism: Past, Present, Future.9 A number of academics, however, disagree with the use of the term fascism in this context. Roger Griffin believes it stretches the term fascist too far to apply the term `fascism' to "so-called fundamentalist or terroristic forms of traditional religion (i.e. scripture or sacred text based with a strong sense of orthodoxy or orthodoxies rooted in traditional institutions and teachings)." He does, however, concede that the United States has seen the emergence of hybrids of political religion and fascism in such phenomena as the Nation of Islam and Christian Identity, and that bin Laden's al Qaeda network may represent such a hybrid. He is unhappy with the term `clerical fascism,' though, since he says that "in this case we are rather dealing with a variety of `fascistized clericalism.'"10
In any case, the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda networks are revolutionary right-wing populists seeking to overthrow existing Muslim states. They not only want to rid all Muslim nations of the evils of secularism, humanism, and Western influence, but also seek to restore a "true" Islamic theocracy based on a militant fundamentalist version of Wahhabism. Saudi Arabia is an example of a repressive and reactionary orthodox Islamic theocracy, but it is not technically fascist. The point is not to be an apologist for the Saudi regime, but to suggest that theocratic Islamic fundamentalist totalitarianism would be worse than the already repressive Saudi oligarchy.
But according to Herman:
> > The Taliban is a nasty local authoritarian group with very
> >modest power and capabilities--before the U.S. attack, barely able
> >to cope with controlling its own terrain.
The Taliban and al Qaeda are part of an international movement of Ultra-Wahhabism and Salafism that seeks to overthrow the governments in numerous nations and replace them with even more authoritarian and patriarchal regimes. There is much scholarship on this issue.
For a serious study of the theology of Osama bin Laden, see: "The 'Religion' of Usamah bin Ladin: Terror As the Hand of God." Jean E. Rosenfeld, Ph.D., UCLA Center for the Study of Religion. http://www.publiceye.org/frontpage/911/Islam/rosenfeld2001.htm
Islam and the Theology of Power, Khaled Aabu El Fadl, Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Fellow in Islamic Law at the UCLA School of Law; Bin Laden and Revolutionary Millennialism. http://www.merip.org/mer/mer221/221_abu_el_fadl.html
Catherine Wessinger, Professor of Religious Studies, Loyola University New Orleans, editor of Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases (2000) and author of How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven's Gate (2000). http://www.mille.org/cmshome/wessladen.html
Jamal Malik. "Making Sense of Islamic Fundamentalism," ISIM Newsletter (International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World). http://www.isim.nl/newsletter/1/research/01AD30.html.
While fundamentalism is a reaction against the Enlightenment and modernity, it is ironically a distinctly modern phenomenon. Jamal Malik, (see above) who studies Muslim identity, explains that with Islamic fundamentalism "Islamic tradition is modernized, since the imagined Islamic society is to compete and correspond with Western achievements. This would only be possible in a centralized Islamic state over which they would wield control as the agents of God's sovereignty on earth. . . ."
The result is a form of Islamic fundamentalism that is very repressive. One leader of this movement, Abul Ala Mawdudi (1903-79) argued that his ideal Islamic State "would be totalitarian, because it subjected everything to the rule of God. . ." notes Karen Armstrong. In the most extreme case, this type of social totalitarianism based on theology has been called a new form of clerical fascism-similar to WWII European clerical fascist movements such as the Romanian Iron Guard and the Croatian Ustashi. This is a disputed view, but not a stupid non-leftist view. Herman trivializes this research.
>The general
>ideology of the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalists are no more
>proof of expansionism than any other ideology, like the Christian,
>Jewish, or communism.
And this, I argue, is where Herman ends up being an apologist for these groups. Perhaps this is based on a lack of research by Herman into the particular theology behind al Qaeda and the Taliban. Certainly there was no evidence in the Herman letter of any complex or nuanced understanding of this theology. Ultra-Wahhabism and Salafism are not just generic forms of Islamic belief or even typical of all Islamic fundamentalism--they are rooted in an expansionist notion of millenarian transformation that demands they overthrow the unpure governments in historic Muslim regions. This is their ideology/theology. The idea of clerical fasicsm is not just some fantasy spread by non-leftists dupes of US imperialism. This is what I thought was implied in the Herman letter, with its dismissive tone.
Herman has now responded with some (nasty) clarifications of his postion, and that was useful, but there was a substantial basis for my original criticism. I have tremendous respect for much of what Herman has written over the years, but I have a serious disagreement with him and others over this question. I read his letter to not just be about Hitchens, with whom we both disagree about the war, but a swipe at anyone who raised the issue of fascism. There is a difference between saying someone is a supporter of something, and arguing that someone is objectively serving as an apologist for something. I never suggested Herman was a supporter of these groups. His trivialization of the question of fascism serves an as apologia for these groups. He now claims that was not his intent. Fine, but I was responding to the content and tone of his original letter.
Finally, my list of points 9at the bottom of this post)was meant to unravel the set of issues involved, which I felt Herman had conflated, and I did not mean to suggest that he had articulated each statement. That was unclear, and I apologize for having left that impression.
-Chip Berlet
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Gar Lipow
> Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2001 2:37 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: Herman responds
>
>
> Doug, I think Herman's snippiness was more than justified
> given that the
> post he responded to attributed a number of really awful
> views to him he
> did not hold.
>
> If someone accused you of supporting Osmama bin-Laden, of being an
> apologist for Saddam, I bet you would get a bit snippy too.
>
> Herman seems to hold the view that a number of murderous
> thugs who are
> being called fascist are evil murderous thugs who do not fit the
> definition of fascist. Even if he is wrong - this does not
> make him an
> apologist for evil murderous thugs, just wrong about the
> definition of
> "facist"
>
> Also people are giving Herman a hard time for praising a post
> by Louis
> P. Now Louis P has extremely weird views on a number of
> issues, and some
> perosnality quirks too; but he is also extremely bright,
> and is quite
> capable of writing well on particular subjects without the weirdness
> showing.
>
> I would not judge something written by LP without seeing it -
> since it
> could range anywhere from completely bonkers to really first rate.
==================
Chip's earlier post:
Sloppy Logic / Slurpy Argument Alert # 666
Once more for the thrill of it:
Just because Hitchens abuses the term fascist does not refute its accuracy in terms of the Taliban or Al Qaeda.
Just because Hitchens uses the fascist to promote the US war does not mean all those who call the Taliban and Al Qaeda fascist support the US war.
Just because Clinton was "getting" the Serb fascists through NATO and criminal bombing raids, does not refute that some of the Serb leadership were fascists.
Just because some of us called the Serbian thugs "fascists" did not mean we supported the NATO/US bombing.
Just because the NATO attacks and the bombing were wrong, does not mean that we should be apologists for Serbian Orthodox fascism, (or Croat Catholic fascism or Kosovar Islamic fascism).
Just because the US attack on and bombing of Afghanistan were wrong, does not mean that we should be apologists for Islamic forms of fascism.
I find it sad for the left that Herman has to become an apologist for ethnic fascists in order to criticize US imperialism.
How about NO to both imperialism and fascism...is that too much to ask?
-Chip Berlet
p.s. anyone have Louis Proyect's note, I can hardly wait.
==========================