Modern day fascism, the philosophy of hate, takes many forms but they all lead to death and destruction.
It was fascism that killed French cartoonists, exercising their right of free speech, who had the courage to ridicule the hypocrisy of dogmatic religious fundamentalism.
It was domestic intimidation fascism that exploded a bomb outside the Colorado Springs NAACP office last week hoping to silence those seeking social justice.
It is fascist fear that targets unarmed minorities with excessive force AND it is fascist vengeance that murders innocent police officers.
Gandhi said : ” An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.”
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Please share widely!
…that Fred managed to write a headline not using all caps:)
hadn’t noticed. Pardonez moi.
In my view, some combination of hate and religious fervor killed the french cartoonists.
Fascism, at least as I understand it, is irrelevant:
In my view, in order to be useful, the term “fascism” must also include an intimate binding of corporate and government interests. There are many authoritarian regimes that are not fascist.
I share your disgust with the ideology and practices that produce this violence. In my view, attempting to label it “fascism” distracts attention from what I see as an ugly and fundamental truth.
That ugly and fundamental truth is that combining religious fervor with an ideology that permits or encourages violence in the name of religion is a prescription for hate crimes like these. Facism has nothing to do with it.
I’d prefer that the term “fascism” continue to mean something fairly specific rather than something generically bad.
…but in practice that has never struck me as a significant factor. In other words when I think of Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, or Franco’s Spain, I don’t automatically think that their biggest problem was Wall Street style greed.
Is the heirs to those party’s in Europe taking advantage of these attacks to get themselves elected into power. We see the rise of the Golden Dawn in Greece, the rise of the FN and UKIP in France and the UK, and the rise of similar movements in Germany and Netherlands, some of which have erupted into anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish street violence.
The goal of these terrorists was to create the very climate of fear that would make this a war between the West and Islam. To the extent that was always the goal of Osama bin Laden, to take the fight to the West and radicalize it against all of Islam-it is a tactic that has largely worked. While we continually beef up our security and go on the offensive against radicals, travesties like Abu Gharib and Gitmo are bound to happen, reactionary forces like the FN or our own Fox News talking heads are bound to grow louder, and the fight becomes more and more polarized.
That is my fear. But my hope is that the millions marching in solidarity will crow out the voices of extremism within Islam on the one hand and within mainstream French society on the other. The same can be true in our own country.
There are two terrible double standards at play in this discussion of the aftermath of the Charlie Hedbo massacre. The first, is the idea that Muslims are collectively responsible for the violence perpetuated by extremists in their name. One of the slain police officers called to the scene and killed trying to stop the massacre was a Muslim, his brother eloquently stated today that his brothers killers were ‘pretend Muslims’. Similarly, it was a Muslim youth who saved hostages at the kosher grocery he was employed in. Muslims cannot be collectively blamed and we all have a responsibility to end this practice.
Neither should Charlie Hedbo be blamed for the massacre. I saw a lot of victim blaming calling the publication racist and Islamophobic in the aftermath, a critique I disagree with. It was definitely offensive, sometimes viscerally so, but it engaged in broad satire against all religions. As a Christian, I can find their offenses against my church and beliefs offensive to me personally without resorting to violence in the extreme or even calling for speech codes or censorship laws to protect me from them. I am more than capable of defending my own beliefs when they are attacked, and that is what the free marketplace of ideas is all about.
It’s a standard we should hold to all faiths. Religion is an ideology competing in the marketplace of ideas entitled to equal rights to compete and no special privileges or protections. It has a place in the public square-equal to all other ideologies. It cannot hide behind the first amendment when it’s provocative and then cower behind hate speech codes when it is attacked. And I strongly feel Islam deserves no exception from this standard, just as strongly as I believe the voices of moderation within that faith outweigh the voices of extremism. The rest of us are not compelled to follow it’s internal standards for blasphemy or respect it’s tenants of faith if we do not hold it ourselves.