Neo-fascism and religion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of the Neo-fascism series. This series is linked to the Politics and Elections series

Definition Definitions of fascism Varieties of Neo-fascism Neo-Nazism Neofascism and religion Crypto-fascism Neo-Nazi groups of the United States Origins of Neo-fascism Fascism Nazism Clerical fascism Neo-fascist political parties and movements American Nazi Party Aryan Nations British Movement British National Party Creativity Movement Deutsche Reichspartei Hrisi Avgi (Greece) International Third Position Italian Social Movement National Alliance National Renaissance Party National Social Front National Socialist Front National Socialist Japanese Workers and Welfare Party National Socialist Movement (United States) National Socialist Party of America Noua Dreaptă (Romania) November 9th Society Official National Front Russian National Unity Social Action Socialist Reich Party Union Movement World Union of National Socialists Relevant Lists List of fascists Related Subjects Anti-fascism Fascist symbolism Holocaust denial Nazi punk Nazi-Skinheads Political Soldier Roman salute Strasserism Third Position White nationalism White Power

Fascism Portal Politics Portal ·  v • d • e

Religion and neo-fascism refers to the relationship between neo-fascism and religion.

Some scholars, using the term neo-fascism in its narrow sense, consider certain contemporary religious movements and groups to represent forms of clerical or theocratic neofascism, including Christian Identity in the United States; some militant forms of politicized Islamic fundamentalism; some militant forms of Jewish nationalism; militant Hindu nationalism in India (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh); and a variety of pagan alternative religions.

Contents 1 Definition of fascism 1.1 Fascism as vague epithet 2 Origins of fascism 3 Christianity in the United States 4 Islam 5 Judaism and Zionism 6 Hinduism in India 7 Paganism 8 See also 8.1 Christianity 8.2 Islam 9 References 9.1 Footnotes 9.2 Bibliography 9.2.1 General 9.2.2 Christianity 9.2.3 Islam 9.2.4 Judaism 9.2.5 Hinduism 9.2.6 Paganism 10 External links

[edit] Definition of fascism

Main article: Fascism

The term fascism was first used in Italy during the 1920s, and like Nazism, its meaning came to refer to a type of union of right wing concepts of authoritarian political controls with capitalism and welfare state economic policies. The term neo-fascism is used to describe fascist movements active after World War II.

Modern colloquial usage of the word sometimes extends the definition of the terms fascism and neo-fascism and Neo-Nazism to refer to any totalitarian worldview, regardless of its political ideology. Although the assertion that religious fundamentalists and militants are fascists can often be understood as hyperbole, some scholars have used the term when academically discussing certain religious movements.

[edit] Fascism as vague epithet

Main article: Fascist (epithet)

Some have argued that the term fascism has become hopelessly vague in the years following World War II, and that it has become little more than a pejorative epithet used by supporters of various political views. George Orwell wrote in 1944:

...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 ... almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’.^[1]

[edit] Origins of fascism

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, authoritarian ideals saw a resurgence in the context of political upheavals across Eurasia, typically anti-aristocratic socio-political revolutions promoting ideologies that were rooted in social and economic idealism. The grim reality of warfare corrupted these idealistic notions, and the ethnic-rooted conflicts of World War I and World War II arose from the political circumstances brought about by internal societal battles, usually between left-wing revolutionaries and right-wing traditionalists.

In addition to the authoritarian political model, most scholars classify fascism as an extreme right ideology, along with ethnic-populist movements that call for increased traditionalism. In the context of civil conflicts, the demand for increased traditionalism typically promotes ethnocentrism, and in extreme cases this ethnic unity resulted in the persecution of those not within the chosen ethnic group. Religion has often been an aspect of ethnicity, whose moral foundation and message may grow corrupted by the societal acceptance of convergence between political and religious populism.

In the context of social conflict in which religious figures and institutions come under partisan influence, religion often becomes a political tool by which principled authority is replaced by authoritarian violence. Early fascism was a mixture of syndicalist notions with a Hegelian or idealistic theories of the state. Both early and later fascists viewed the state as an organic entity rather than as an institution to protect collective and individual rights. Fascists often defined themselves in opposition to laissez-faire capitalism, socialism, Marxism, and democracy. Roger Griffin argues that

Fascism is best defined as a revolutionary form of nationalism, one that sets out to be a political, social and ethical revolution, welding the 'people' into a dynamic national community under new elites infused with heroic values. The core myth that inspires this project is that only a populist, trans-class movement of purifying, cathartic national rebirth (palingenesis) can stem the tide of decadence. (Griffin, Nature of Fascism, p. xi)

This concept of fascism as palingenesis is complementary with the idea of James Rhodes that fascism is a form of apocalyptic millenarianism — and with the work of Emilio Gentile, who argues that fascism is a form of "political religion" that involves the "sacralization of politics."^{[citation needed]}

During World War II, Karl Popper described fascism as different from Hegelianism, which was bound to a specific "traditional religious form" (Lutheran Christianity in Frederick William's Prussia).^[2] Popper suggests that in fascism, religion is usually replaced by a form of evolutionist materialism: "Thus the formula of the fascist brew is in all countries the same: Hegel plus a dash of nineteenth-century materialism (especially Darwinism in the somewhat crude form given to it by Haeckel)."^[3]

He argues that as a consequence of the popularity of Marxism in the first half of the 20th century, traditional fascism is not endorsing any specific religion. He wrote that while Marxism is seen as atheistic, fascism is not necessarily atheistic; usually only agnostic:

...fascism has not much use for an open appeal to the supernatural. Not that it is necessarily atheistic or lacking in mystical or religious elements. But the spread of agnosticism through Marxism led to a situation in which no political creed aiming at popularity among the working class could bind itself to any of the traditional religious forms.^[3]

[edit] Christianity in the United States

The linking of Christianity with fascism or neo-fascism has generated debate among scholars and in the media; and some consider it offensive to Christians. Stanley Kurtz called comparisons of the Christian Right with fascism an ill-advised attack on conservative Christians:

The most disturbing part of the Harper’s cover story (the one by Chris Hedges) was the attempt to link Christian conservatives with Hitler and fascism. Once we acknowledge the similarity between conservative Christians and fascists, Hedges appears to suggest, we can confront Christian evil by setting aside 'the old polite rules of democracy.[1]

Calling some portion of the Christian Right fascist has become an increasingly popular tendency in the political left, including the Christian Left. Reverend Rich Lang of the Trinity United Methodist Church of Seattle gave a sermon titled "George Bush and the Rise of Christian Fascism", in which he said, "I want to flesh out the ideology of the Christian Fascism that Mr. Bush articulates. It is a form of Christianity that is the mirror opposite of what Jesus embodied.".^{[citation needed]}

Christian fascism or Christofascism are terms used by some leftists and libertarians to describe what they see as an emerging proto-fascism and possible Theocracy in the United States.^[4] Advocates of this view include Carl Davidson, who has written an essay, "Globalization, Theocracy and the New Fascism: Taking the Right's Rise to Power Seriously^[5]

More extreme than the Christian Right are two movements where there is more scholarly support for charges of neo-fascism: Christian Identity and Christian Reconstructionism. There are versions of the Christian Identity movement that adopt openly neo-Nazi ideologies.

Some scholars consider Christian Reconstructionism a quasi-fascist movement because it is explicitly opposed to religious liberty and human rights. Chip Berlet and Lyons have witten that the movement is a "new form of clerical fascist politics."(Right-Wing Populism in America, p. 249) Karen Armstrong sees a potential for fascism in Christian Reconstructionism, and claims that the system of dominion envisaged by Christian Reconstructionist theologians R. J. Rushdoony and Gary North is totalitarian: "There is no room for any other view or policy, no democratic tolerance for rival parties, no individual freedom." (Armstrong, Battle for God, pp. 361-362)

[edit] Islam

See also: Mohammad_Amin_al-Husayni#Nazi ties and activities during World War II and Hama Massacre

Some commentators and politicians use the terms Islamofascism or Islamic fascism to describe militant Islamic fundamentalists such as the Taliban, al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Critics of such comparisons to fascism say that that political ideologies in the Middle East derived from fascism — such as the Kataeb Party, the Baath party, and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) — have been explicitly secular, and usually violently opposed to Islamism.^{[citation needed]}

They point out that those fascistic groups have drawn their strongest support from minority groups in the Arab world who feared the consequences of an Islamist government. Those movements have tended to have their strongest Muslim support from religious minorities like the Sunni Arabs of Iraq or the Alawites of Syria. The founders of the SSNP and the Kataeb were all Christians, and the founders of the Baath Party were Christian and Sunni.^{[citation needed]}

Some commentators, such as Daniel Pipes, say they only use comparisons to facism when describing a small number of militant Islamist zealots and terrorist.^{[citation needed]} In 2001, Christopher Hitchens wrote, "[T]he 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."^[6] Robert S. Wistrich has described Islamic fascism as adopting a totalitarian mindset, a hatred of the West, fanatical extremism, repression of women, loathing of Jews, a firm belief in conspiracy theories, and dreams of global hegemony.^[7]

In late 2005, President George W. Bush and other high United States government officials began to use the terms Islamo-fascism or Islamic fascism, and suggested that opposing militant Islamic terrorism was similar to opposing the Nazis during World War II.^{[8] [9] [10]} This created storm of controversy as supporters and opponents debated these contentions.^{[11] [12] [13]}

Although the concept of clerical fascism originated in reference to Roman and Orthodox Catholicism, some scholars apply it in Islamic contexts. Walter Laqueur discusses fascistic influences on militant Islam in his book Fascism: Past, Present, Future.^{[citation needed]} Some writers claim that certain strands of Wahhabi or Salafi Islam display some of the signifiers of fascism or totalitarianism.^{[14][15] [16]}

Some commentators have compared groups such as Muslim Brotherhood and similar movements in Sunni Islam inspired by the writings of Sayyid Qutb to fascism, and some have use the term neo-fascism to describe all highly politicized strains of Islam, including Shi'a radicalism as practiced in Iran, where the government practices partial control of the economy, nationalism and leader worship.^{[citation needed]} J. Sakai has suggested that some middle class Islamists have formed groups that can be called fascist.^[17]

Academic Roger Griffin believes the word fascist is being stretched too far when applied to "so-called fundamentalist or terrorist 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)."^{[citation needed]} However, he concedes 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, and says that "in this case we are rather dealing with a variety of 'fascistized clericalism.'"^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Judaism and Zionism

See also: List of political epithets#JewNazi, Judeo-Nazi, Zionazi

Because Jews suffered their worst persecution in modern times during the Holocaust carried out by German Nazis and their fascist allies, the conflation of Judaism with fascism raises hackles well beyond the conflation of other religions with fascism.

Some find it difficult to disentangle religion from nationalism in relation to this group because there is a strong correlation between the religion Judaism with what has historically been viewed as a people, a nation, or even a race — the Jews. Another reason is that a substantial portion of the world's Jews are citizens of Israel and/or are supporters of the (largely secular) ideology of Zionism. Except in the case of an explicitly religion-based movement, it is difficult to say whether a particular Israeli political movement is Jewish in the sense of the religion or of the people.

The terms Judeofascism and Zionazism are political epithets. Those who use the terms sometimes say they are referring only to certain groups or individuals alleged to have fascist or totalitarian tendencies. Critics of these terms argue that they are merely used to smear Jews or Zionists, and to inflame public sentiments, with the highly negative connotations. These terms are sometimes used as an expression of anti-semitism, and often wrongly conflate the religion, Judaism, with Zionism, the state of Israel, Israeli government policies, and Jews around the world (and with United States foreign policy).[2] [3]

Nonetheless, some scholars have pointed to what they consider fascistic elements in the Israeli Kach and Kahane Chai parties, as well as in certain Israeli settler movements and their supporters in the United States. Both political parties were outlawed under Israeli anti-terrorism laws in 1994. Kach had already been banned from electoral politics for "incitement to racism" against Arabs. Their leaders have advocated policies of "transfer" that would forcibly expel Arabs from Israel proper — and even from territories under Israeli control. However, at no time^{[citation needed]} did any of the founders or leaders of the parties advocate outright genocide comparable to the Holocaust.

Four decades before the founding of Kach, the armed Zionist faction known as Lehi (commonly referred to as the Stern Gang) — which played a key role in events leading to the creation of the state of Israel — took part in the notorious Deir Yassin massacre of April 1948. Members of the faction also assassinated the United Nations mediator, Count Bernadotte, in Jerusalem in September 1948. Lehi embraced a set of doctrines called "18 Principles of Rebirth" that are said to resemble fascism.

[edit] Hinduism in India

Some critics of militant Hindu nationalism in India see elements of fascism in the Hindutva ideology, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) religious movement, and the related Bharatiya Janata Party. However, some scholars contend that the traditional meaning of the term fascism does not apply to Hindutva groups — and that analysis of such groups must be performed objectively, without the use of politically loaded terminology.^[18][19].

[edit] Paganism

Paganism, pantheism, Odinism, and groups celebrating Nordic warrior myths do not automatically intersect with fascism, white supremacy or antisemitism. Only a few followers of these Pagan belief systems are white supremacists or neo-Nazis. Many Pagan websites post disclaimers denouncing hate.

However, examples of groups in which fascism and Paganism intersect include the White Order of Thule and the Creativity Movement (formerly the World Church of the Creator). Members of the White Order of Thule practice a form of Odinism or Asatru. Wotan is one of the many names for the Norse god Odin, and in fascist and white supremacist circles the word WOTAN is also used as an acronym for "Will Of The Aryan Nations."

[edit] See also

• Creativity Movement
• Hindutva
• Kach
• Kahane Chai
• Nazi mysticism
• Nazism in relation to other concepts#Nazism and religion
• Neo-Nazi groups of the United States
• Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
• Theocracy
• White Order of Thule

[edit] Christianity

• Clerical fascism
• Christian Identity
• Christian Reconstructionism
• Dominionism
• Dominion theology
• German Christians
• Protestant Reich Church

[edit] Islam

• Islamism
• Islamic Fundamentalist
• Islamic State
• Sharia
• Islamic democracy
• Islamophobia
• Islamic extremist terrorism
• Islamofascism

[edit] References

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] General

• Armstrong, Karen. 2001. The Battle for God. New York: Ballantine.
• Cohn, Norman. [1957] 1970. The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages. Revised and expanded. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Ellwood, Robert. 2000. "Nazism as a Millennialist Movement." In Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases, ed. Catherine Wessinger, 241-260. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
• Gentile, Emilio, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1994.
• "Fascism, "Totalitarianism and Political Religion: Definitions and Critical Reflections on Criticism of an Interpretation," Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, special issue on Fascism as a Totalitarian Movement, 2004, vol. 5, no.3, pp. 351–56.
• Jurgensmeyer, Mark. 2000. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Kaplan, Jeffrey. 1997. Radical Religion in America, Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press.
• Rhodes, J. M. 1980. The Hitler movement: A modern millenarian revolution. Stanford, Calif: Hoover Institution Press / Stanford Univ.
• Robbins, T., and S. J. Palmer, eds. 1997. Millennium, messiahs, and mayhem. New York: Routledge.

[edit] Christianity

• Armstrong, Karen. 2001. The Battle for God. New York: Ballantine.
• Clarkson, Frederick. 1997. Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage. ISBN 1-56751-088-4
• Gorenberg, Gershom. 2000. The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. New York: The Free Press.
• Barkun, Michael. 1994. Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill NC. ISBN 0-8078-4451-9
• Stanley R. Barrett, Is God a Racist?: The Right Wing in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987).

[edit] Islam

• 2001. "Jihad and Martyrdom Operations as Apocalyptic Events." Paper presented at the Fifth Annual Center for Millennial Studies Conference, Boston University, November.
• 2002. "America, the Second ‘Ad: The Perception of the United States in Modern Muslim Apocalyptic Literature." Yale Center for International and Area Studies Publications 5:150-93.
• Armstrong, Karen. 2001. The Battle for God. New York: Ballantine.
• Cook, David. 1996. "Muslim Apocalyptic and Jihad." Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 20:66-104.
• Esposito, John L. 2002. Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Gorenberg, Gershom. 2000. The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. New York: The Free Press.
• Laqueur, Walter. 1996. Fascism: Past, Present, Future. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Rashid, Ahmed. 2001. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. New Haven: Yale Nota Bene.
• Wistrich, Robert S. 2002. "The New Islamic Fascism", in Partisan Review 69 (1), pp32-34 or Jerusalem Post 16 November 2001. Online (payment required)

[edit] Judaism

• Armstrong, Karen. 2001. The Battle for God. New York: Ballantine.
• Gorenberg, Gershom. 2000. The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. New York: The Free Press.
• Robert I. Friedman, The False Prophet: Rabbi Meir Kahane From FBI Informant to Knesset Member, (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Lawrence Hill Books, 1990);
• Robert I. Friedman, Zealots for Zion: Inside Israel's West Bank Settlement Movement (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994);
• Raphael Mergui and Philippe Simonnot, Israel's Ayatollahs: Meir Kahane and the Far Right in Israel (London: Saqi Books, 1987);
• Michael Karpin and Ina Friedman, Murder in the Name of God: The Plot to Kill Yitzhak Rabin (New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 1998).

[edit] Hinduism

• Andersen, Walter K. 1998. "Bharatiya Janata Party: Searching for the Hindu Nationalist Face." Pp. 219-232 in The New Politics of the Right: Neo-Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies, Hans-Georg Betz and Stefan Immerfall, eds., New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• Banerjee, Partha. 1998. In the Belly of the Beast: The Hindu Supremacist RSS and BJP of India. Delhi: Ajanta.
• Elst, Koenraad: Decolonizing the Hindu Mind. Ideological Development of Hindu Revivalism. Rupa, Delhi 2001.
• -: The Saffron Swastika. The Notion of "Hindu Fascism". Voice of India, Delhi 2001. [4] [5]
• Embree, Ainslie T. 1994. "The Function of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: To Define the Hindu Nation." Pp. 617-652 in Accounting for Fundamentalisms, The Fundamentalism Project 4, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Sarkar, Tanika, and Urvashi Butalia, eds. 1995. Women and the Hindu Right. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
• Hansen, Thomas Blom. 1999. The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Review
• Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar: Hindutva. Bharati Sahitya Sadan, Delhi 1989 (1923).

[edit] Paganism

• Gardell, Mattia. 2003. Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
• Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. 2002. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity. New York: NYU Press.

[edit] External links

General

• Terms & Concepts: Use with Caution - By Chip Berlet.
• White Supremacist, Antisemitic, and Race Hate Groups in the U.S. - By Chip Berlet.
• Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt - By Umberto Eco.
• Set of articles about allegations of Hindu fascism - By Koenraad Elst
• What is Fascism? - By George Orwell.

Judaism

• Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict - By Obadiah Shoher

Islam

• Against Rationalization - By Christopher Hitchens
• Christopher in Khaki - By Dave Renton
• The Last Totalitarians - By Brink Lindsey, Cato Institute
• Winning the War - By Victor Davis Hanson
• Andrew Sullivan Interview - From INDC Journal
• The Islamofascist Agenda - By Deroy Murdock in National Review.
• 1-0 in the propaganda war - By Albert Scardino in The Guardian
• The 'Religion' of Usamah bin Ladin: Terror As the Hand of God - By Jean E. Rosenfeld, Ph.D.
• Islam and the Theology of Power. - By Khaled Abou El Fadl, Omar and Azmeralda Alfi.
• Bin Laden and Revolutionary Millennialism - By Catherine Wessinger, Loyola University New Orleans.