Worried about the return of fascism? Six things a dissenter can do in 2016

Anti-Pegida march in Vienna, 2015. Christian Michelides/Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.2015 was the year that concerns about the return of fascism
went mainstream, thanks to the popularity of the likes of Donald Trump, who
leads the polls to be the Republican presidential candidate in the US, and
Marine Le Pen, whose Front National topped the polls in the first round of the
French regional elections (before defeat in the second).

How should we understand and respond to these phenomena?

First, see the bigger
picture

For all the liberal soul-searching, most of the commentary
missed the key point: the legitimacy of Trump, Le Pen and the like comes not
from the sudden appeal of a new brand of right wing populism, but the wider legitimisation
of their core views by mainstream politics. Ben
White summed this problem up perfectly:

When you dehumanised the people of Afghanistan and Iraq so that their
fatalities weren't even worth counting.

When you applauded drone attacks on nameless “combat-age men”.

When you insisted that we really *must* have an "honest
conversation" about "Muslim extremists".

When you asked in total ignorance “where are the Muslim voices
condemning X, Y and Z”?

When you singled out something called the "Muslim community"
as having a "problem" with "radicalisation".

When you justified all of the above by swearing you weren't against
*Islam*, just *Islamism*.

Yes, Western liberals, when you did all of this and more, you were the
warm up act for the main show now being brought to you by Donald Trump.

 

Muslims have long borne the
brunt of the new fascism. Muslims have long borne the brunt of the new
fascism, but a greater political decoupling predates their current predicament.
Before the collapse of the USSR, western liberal democracy had to be seen to embody a genuine alternative to
Soviet authoritarianism. That included civil liberty, free movement and respect
for international law and universal human rights. As Tony Bunyan
explained after 9/11, following the triumph of capitalism over communism and
the end of the Cold War, the west did not have to live up to these ideals to
anything like the same extent, if at all.

And so it was that the ‘end of
history’ has been characterised by rampant neoliberalism, a creeping
authoritarianism, a hollowing out of democracy, the degradation of
international law, and latterly a return to racist populism. Gary
Younge and others are spot on in pointing out that Trump and his ilk are
the product of this shift, not the cause. Until the mainstream recognises this,
the neo-fascists will continue their ascent. 
  

Secondly, resist the ‘war
on terror’

The declaration of a global ‘war on terror’ was a blank
cheque to proto-fascist democracies and dictatorships everywhere. With too many
of the guardians of the international legal order now more concerned with devising
and disseminating international “counter-terrorism” standards than the founding
principles of the UN or EU Treaties they are supposed to uphold, it is the gift
that keeps on giving.

But in failing to seek or find international consensus on what
‘terrorism’ does and does not entail, we have simultaneously empowered
governments across the world with new tools of political repression and left those
governments entirely at liberty to decide who the ‘terrorists’ are. We have left governments entirely at liberty to decide
who the ‘terrorists’ are.

At a stroke, the GWOT thus legitimised Israel’s occupation and
apartheid in Palestine, Sri Lanka’s merciless extermination of the Tamil Tigers,
Turkey’s relentless attacks on legitimate Kurdish demands for basic
self-determination, even Saudi Arabia’s beheading of its political opponents (to
name but a fraction of those cashing-in on George Dubya’s largesse). The flagrant
disregard for international law and human rights statutes in the name of
counter-terrorism by western countries is particularly ironic given those
statutes are the very
product of the “flagrant violation of human rights by Nazi and Fascist
countries [which] sowed the seeds of the last world war”. 

While counter-terrorism has become a servant of tyranny, the
narratives underpinning the ‘war on terror’ have filled the troughs of the neo-fascists.
Arun Kundnani has demonstrated with
peerless clarity the way in which government counter-terrorism messages
have developed in symbiosis with the reinvention of neo-Nazism as a “counter-Jihadist”
movement. With the emergence of the Islamic State group and the morphing of the
‘war on terror’ into a wider (and much more pernicious) “war
on extremism”, their messages
are increasingly one and the same.

There are two kinds of Muslims: moderates who practise their religion
in a peaceful way and share our values, and extremists/Islamists who interpret
Islam as a political ideology, believe in rejecting our values and aim to
impose sharia law on Muslims and non‐Muslims; 

Political correctness and multicultural tolerance have weakened the
defence of our values and thereby aided extremist Muslims;

We have suffered terrorism because of Islamist extremism;

We now need to put aside multicultural sensitivities and be tougher in
opposing Islamist extremism.

This crib sheet is now shared by democrats, racists and
fascists everywhere. This crib sheet is now shared
by democrats, racists and fascists everywhere. If we want to counter the
appeal of the latter, we have to start with the embrace of the ‘war on terror’
by the former. This includes the outright rejection of Bush’s greatest triumph:
the premise that “you’re either with us or with the terrorists”. Oppose the
bombing of Syria? You’re a “terrorist
sympathiser”. Believe that the prosecution of the ‘war on terror’ (at home
and abroad) is itself among
the drivers of ‘’radicalisation’’? You’re an “apologist”. Uncomfortable
with the
glorification of Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons? You’re a “victim-blamer” (who
hates freedom).

The endless reinforcing of these preposterous binaries by populist
politicians, the gutter press and an army of “terrorologists” is creating a political culture that cannot tolerate any
discussion of its own culpability in helping to fuel the very things it claims
to counter. The problem we face after 15 years is not just that the ‘war on
terror’ is as intellectually bankrupt and
counter-productive as ever, but that the censorship
and repression it has spawned has now permeated our universities, the arts and even our playgrounds. This is what a “war on
extremism” looks like – and this where it leads. Dissent and you too must be an
extremist who should fall in line.

It is
something of an aside, but when your own citizens can’t express religious
or ideological beliefs,
or study or debate terrorism without fear of a visit from the police, forcing a
parliamentary debate on banning Donald Trump
from Britain for his vile politics is the hollowest of victories for anti-fascism.
Ban the poisonous toad by all means, just don’t be surprised when today’s “no
platform” politics forms the basis of tomorrow’s immigration policy. Oops, spoke
too soon. Just don’t be surprised when today’s “no platform” politics forms the basis of
tomorrow’s immigration policy.

Thirdly,  demand rights for refugees

Among
the stand-out high points for progressive politics in Europe in 2015 was
the outpouring of solidarity towards refugees. European citizens who organised
transport, delivered aid, and declared refugees welcome in their millions. All
of this while their elites – with honourable exceptions – consigned the
progressive ideals on which the European Union was founded to the dustbin by continuing
the pandering to the Far Right that created “Fortress
Europe” in the first place. In doing so, they took European immigration
policies much closer to their logical, nationalist destination.

Yet as beautiful as it is to see ordinary people acting with
such humanity, our charity is a mere a sticking plaster on a gaping wound inflicted
by racist politics. As Steve Cohen argued a decade ago in Standing on the Shoulders of Fascism,
there is a linear ideological and political connection between the popular
acceptance of the brutality and repression of immigration controls and the softening-up
process that enables other authoritarian legislation to be enacted.

Right now refugees need political change more than loose
change. Right now refugees need political change
more than loose change. The outpouring of solidarity toward them provides
a foundation that must now coalesce around political demands for rights and
justice. This means nothing less than full respect for the rights to which they
are entitled under the Geneva Convention on Refugees to seek and find asylum. The
alternative is a world in which that convention continues to hurtle towards the
shredder.

Fourth, deliver for Ed
Snowden

History tells us that fascists arrive promising to sort out
your immigrant problem before occupying and expanding the coercive arms of the
state and stripping back the checks and balances that restrain their innate
authoritarianism. So if you are at all worried about the return of fascism, probably
wise not to entrust the most powerful surveillance apparatus the world has ever
seen to the would-be fascist rulers of the 2020s. Probably
wise not to entrust the most powerful surveillance apparatus the world has ever
seen to the would-be fascist rulers of the 2020s.

Why anyone who cares about democracy and human rights would
trust today’s generation of sprawling, secret intelligence agencies with the unchecked
powers of Orwell’s nightmares is beyond me (because of things like e.g. this,
this and this). But I’ve
met far too many people who either do hold that trust or don’t care enough to
believe that in the current climate anyone other than software
developers and principled
tech companies are capable of giving Edward Snowden anything like the
legacy his revelations deserve. This is because the balance of political and economic
power is so massively weighted in favour of mass surveillance.

Support the organisations fighting surveillance and avail
yourself of privacy enhancing technologies – or just sit there feeding the
surveillance machine. Just don’t do anything naughty.

Fifth, beware the
boots on the ground

Walking around Paris in December I was shocked if not especially
surprised by the sheer number of heavily armed soldiers and Front National posters.
As France moves to change its constitution to accommodate the demands of its
state of emergency – with the support of all main political parties – you don’t
have to be a political scientist to see the direction of travel. France is but a terrorist atrocity or two ahead of its EU
counterparts.

Of course, France is but a terrorist atrocity or two ahead
of its EU counterparts, and those who orchestrate such atrocities know this perfectly
well. They know too that the far right marched from strength
to strength in 2015, and seeks to use democracy to destroy democracy. So when
the next horror show materialises, we would do well to think very carefully
whose interests our responses serve, and act accordingly.

Six, confront fascism
on the streets

“There are so many Nazis, I’ve come out because I want to
stop them,” said
a teenager on an anti-fascist demo at the weekend. “If
their side gets bigger, our side needs to”. And so it must.

This article was prepared for
the Transnational Institute’s “Outlook for 2016”

There is an acute and growing tension between the concern for safety and the protection of our freedoms. How do we handle this? Read more from the World Forum for Democracy partnership.