"Islamic Fascists" - Shameful For All The Islamic Leaders

05 September, 2006

Daniel Pipes' Weblog

More on the Term "Islamic Fascists"

August 14, 2006

George W. Bush had used "Islamic fascists" and "Islamofascists" often before but, for reasons that elude me, his statement on Aug. 10 turned this wording into a major issue, with dozens of articles, pro and con, debating the term. I myself weighed in today with an article titled "‘At War with Islamic Fascists'." Here are some of the discussions that struck me as particularly worthwhile, with additions as they appear:

• Charles Recknagel, "U.S. President's 'Islamic Fascists' Remark Sparks Controversy." August 11, 2006. A useful survey of reactions.
• Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, "بالتأكيد هم فاشيون" ("They Certainly Are Fascists"). August 13, 2006. The general manager of Al-‘Arabiya news channel, who has already proven his bravery, asks "What's wrong with describing terrorists with any negative term?"
• Timothy R. Furnish, "‘Islamic Fascism': Well, It's Half Right." August 14, 2006. Argues that this term "should be avoided because it's simply another way to let Islam off the hook."
• Janet Daley, "‘Fascistic' is the right word for Islamic fundamentalism." August 14, 2006. Argues that "Islamic fundamentalism is fascistic in the precise, technical sense of the word."
• Nihad Awad executive director of CAIR, on Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor, on August 14, 2006, replying to the question, "why are all the terrorists Muslims?" "They are Muslim, but they're not Islamic. Their actions are not inspired by Islam." When asked whether the Taliban in Afghanistan were fascists, Awad replied, "They were fascists." "And they were practicing Sharia Muslim law," said Bill O'Reilly. Awad replied: "No. No. They - they deviated when they mistreated women, when they did not allow people to go to school."
• Stephen Schwartz, "What is ‘Islamofascism'?" August 16, 2006. The "first Westerner to use the neologism in this context" argues in favor of the term Islamic fascists.
• Roger Scruton, "Islamofascism." August 17, 2006. Finds utility in a term that "enables people on the left to denounce our common enemy."
• National Review Online symposium on "Word Choice: Are we at war with ‘Islamic Fascism'?" August 17, 2006. Eight writers muse on the term and generally endorse it but with many reservations, taking a position similar to my own.
• David Ignatius, "Are We Fighting ‘Islamic Fascists'?", August 18, 2006. Argues that "the phrase is misleading, both in its broad reference to Islam and in its evocation of another century and another war."
• Perhaps related to this flap is an August 21, 2006, story, "Bush Desires Deletion of Quran Jihad Verses, says ayatollah Hamedani," from the Iranian Quran News Agency (IQNA) reporting that "Bush has impertinently asked Saudi Arabian authorities to delete – or not to teach – those Quranic verses that refer to jihad, disobeying the infidel, encouragement to do good and discouragement to do evil."
• P.K. Abdul Ghafour, "Shoura Chief Wants Bush Apology." August 21, 2006. A Saudi newspaper notes a Saudi cabinet statement that "Fascism is a product of Western culture" and paraphrases the Shoura Council chief saying that it is "the growing popularity of Islam that had provoked enemies to launch smear campaigns" against it.
• Tamar Tesler, "Fuel for Radicalism?" August 22, 2006. Notes the comment by the head of a Saudi-based organization, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, to the effect that Bush's comments makes its task fighting extremism more "difficult," then shows how extremist WAMY itself is.
• Katha Pollitt, "The Trouble with Bush's ‘Islamofascism'." August 26, 2006. Nation columnist wants to preserve fascism "as a term with specific historical content" and condemns Bush for having enraged "to no purpose the dwindling number of Muslims who don't already hate us."
• Trudy Rubin, "‘Islamo-fascism': A blurring label." August 27, 2006. Philadelphia Inquirer columnist finds that the term "obscures the complex nature of the struggle Americans will face over the next decade. It misleads more than it informs."
• Ibn Warraq, "Islam, Middle East and Fascism" (along with part two). August 30, 2006. Reviews 14 features of facism as enumerated by Umberto Eco and ties Islam (not radical Islam) to each of them.
• Omran Salman, "Misguided Muslim groups: Focus should be on extremists' war against the West." August 31, 2006. Salman quotes the open letter of CAIR's chairman, Parvez Ahmed, to President Bush ("You have on many occasions said Islam is a ‘religion of peace.' Today you equated the religion of peace with the ugliness of fascism") and then asks: "But what would Ahmed suggest calling people who intend to blow themselves up in commercial airplanes, taking thousands of innocent lives with them? Flying angels? Kamikazes?"
• Two Democratic senators weighed in on the term, August 31, 2006. Jack Reed (Rhode Island): "I don't think it's particularly accurate. … I think the analogy is very, very weak. … It's meant, I think, more for political consumption in the United States than to adequately describe what's going on in the world." Chuck Schumer (New York): I basically agree with Jack."
• Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, an Islamist group, September 1, 2006. Disapproving of "Islamic fascism," she suggests instead such words as terrorism, crime, or violence – notably without the word Islamic.
• Patrick J. Buchanan,"Fascists Under the Bed." September 11, 2006. Argues against the term on the grounds that it is a propaganda term "designed to inflame passions rather than inform the public of the nature of the war we are in."

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The term 'fascist' correctly applied to Bush is co-opted
Reader comment on blog entry: More on the Term "Islamic Fascists"

Submitted by Lee, Aug 19, 2006 at 18:41 The purpose of Bush's emphasis on the word "fascist" to describe the enemy is an attempt to override the word as it is used increasingly to describe the Bush administration itself. The use of the word fascist, until recently not taken seriously, termed sophmoric, is increasingly acceptable to correctly describe our corporate government, trends in US government policy, and Bush himself.

"FASCISM" BY MUSLIMS IS DIFFERENT FROM FASCISM BY CHRISTIANS
Reader comment on blog entry: More on the Term "Islamic Fascists"
in response to reader comment: You know a great deal, but are still wrong

Submitted by Allan E. Mallenbaum, Aug 20, 2006 at 18:06 Dear Ayan, Let's clarify: Christians kill, war, rape, decapitate, destroy, etc, DESPITE and AGAINST their proclaimed "Christianity." Muslims kill, war , rape, decapitate, destroy, etc, IN THE NAME OF their Islam and "prophet." See the difference? A cursory reading of history will show you that Islam thrived and spread BY MEANS OF Ethnic Cleansing (Invented by Muslims!) and Genocide (Ordered by Muhammad.) It's foolish to state that they don't exist in Islam; it shows that you haven't bothered to learn your history. It's like saying that Islam opposes slavery while history shows that Muslims were the world's most prolific slave traders (and still retain slavery today, despite all civilized prohibitions!)

Islamic Fascism Is An Oxymoron: It's Like A Yellow Blackboard!
Reader comment on blog entry: More on the Term "Islamic Fascists"

Submitted by Allan E. Mallenbaum, Aug 17, 2006 at 20:00

It is understandable that Muslims object to the term IslamoFascist, or any of its variants. It is not only objectionable; it is wrong.

For true accuracy, and to avoid offending Muslims, we must use the only correct term, "Islam."

Let’s take an in-depth, analytical look at the “Fascist” appellation so glibly applied by President Bush and, of greater significance, by news commentators who should know better. Some of those who use the term actually try to define Fascism but they rarely understand what is meant by the term.

In an article in the 1932 Encyclopedia Italiana, written by Giovanni Gentile and attributed to Benito Mussolini, Fascism is described as a system, founded by Benito Mussolini on March 23, 1919, in which “The State not only is the authority which governs and molds individual wills with laws and values of spiritual life, but it is also the power which makes its will prevail abroad.... For the Fascist, everything is within the State and . . . neither individuals nor groups are outside the State.... For Fascism, the State is an absolute, before which individuals or groups are only relative....” This is the basic principle of Fascism. In Fascism, it’s all about “the state.”

“Islam,” as is well-known, means “submission.” Muslims submit to the will of their Allah alone, never to any man-made government. All secular governments, according to Islam, must derive their power from Allah, from the Qur’an, rather than from mere human concepts. How can human leaders, Islam inquires, exercise greater control than the “creator of the world?” How can a Fascist state exist under true Islam?

Mussolini, the guiding proponent of the Fascist philosophy, in a speech delivered on October 28, 1925, stated the following maxim which encapsulates the Fascist creed: “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato.” (“Everything in the State, nothing outside of the State, nothing against the State”.) I don’t think that anyone can argue that he or she is more of an expert on Fascism than Benito Mussolini himself!

So we understand that Islam, in its very essence, diametrically opposes the Fascist philosophy. The “State” is nothing in the tribal-universalist sect; Islam is everything. When Islam, the sect of submission, prevails over the entire planet, it teaches that all states will be subservient to the “True Faith,” to Islam, to shari’a, to the Qur’an.

The key to rejecting any association between the two systems is simple: Fascism permits no religion to control any aspect of the state. Islam permits no state to control any aspect of the religion. The concept of Islamo-Fascism, when analyzed, is just a spoof, a joke, a Purim-spiel! I’m certain that the practice of denominating any group of Islamic terrorists as “Fascist” is offensive to all true Fascists.

The use of hyphenated terms merely lets Islam "off the hook." IslamoFascists can be made responsible for all the evil of Islam! We have to be honest. We have to get rid of these meaningless adjectives relating to Fascism, and let’s look at the unadulterated truth: we’re talking about Islam, not some hyphenated sect, just Plain Old Islam!

For those who can't bring themselves to the truth, who can't use the no-hyphen -Islam term, I suggest "totalitarian Islam" as weak and imprecise substitute.

Islam is the sect which initiated the Third World War. Islam is the Terrorist sect attempting to subvert Western civilization. Islam alone is responsible for world terror. As practiced ab initio by their prophet. As practiced by Muslims today.

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When asked why are all the terrorists Muslims
Reader comment on blog entry: More on the Term "Islamic Fascists"

Submitted by John Philips, Aug 18, 2006 at 01:09

He should have just said "They're not." The Sri Lankan Hindus invented suicide bombing (notice how the Muslim Tamils have nothing to do with the LTTE) and Shoko Asahara (of Aum Shinrikyo) was just in the news again in Japan. Tim McVeigh wasn't Muslim either. Many, maybe most, terrorists are not Muslim, certainly the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists. It's just that the Muslim terrorists seem to be better at it, and seem to have an affinity for attacking the United States.

Posted by geminimay_no 20:47 | Tragedies | Comment(0) | Permalink

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