Neofascism and religion
Encyclopedia
Neo-fascism and religion refers to debates about the relationships between neo-fascism
and various religion
s.
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
; State Shinto
as a political cult in Imperial Japan and some neopagan
alternative religions advocating white supremacism.
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 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 & neo-fascism
and Neo-Nazism
to refer to any totalitarian
worldview, regardless of its religious ideology. Although the assertion that religious fundamentalists and militants are fascists can often be understood as a hyperbole
, some scholars have used the term when discussing certain religious movements.
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 revolution
s. 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.
Between the two world wars, there were three forms of fascism: Italian economic corporatism; German racial nationalist Nazism
; and clerical fascist
movements such as the Romania
n Iron Guard
, the Spanish National Catholicism
and the Croatia
n Ustashi
.
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 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
, Marxism
, and democracy
.
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
). 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)."
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:
Later scholarship took several different approaches. Roger Griffin
argues that
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."
Roger Eatwell sees a complex relationship between fascism and religion, noting that "Religions…involve some form of belief in a supernatural being(s). However, this misses a point that all modern ideologies exhibit dimensions of religions." Eatwell questions "liberal historiography's demonization of fascism as an un-intellectual creed...." According to Eatwell:
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:
Some Christian organizations believe that the Christian Right has become fascist. 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."
Some leftists
and libertarians
use the term Christian fascism or Christofascism
to describe what some see as an emerging proto-fascism and possible theocracy
in the United States. 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."
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 to be a quasi-fascist movement because it is explicitly opposed to religious liberty and human rights. Berlet and Lyons have written that the movement is a "new form of clerical
fascist politics." Author 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."
.
In 2001, Christopher Hitchens
opined, "[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." 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.
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 they suggested that opposing militant Islamic terrorism was similar to opposing the Nazis during World War II
. This created a storm of controversy as supporters and opponents debated these contentions and the term Islamofascism
.
Some writers claim that certain strands of Wahhabi
or Salafi
Islam display some of the signifiers of fascism or totalitarianism.
J. Sakai has suggested that some middle class Islamists have formed groups that can be called fascist.
Academic Roger Griffin
believes that 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)." 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.'"
Author Malise Ruthven
, a Scottish writer and historian who focuses his work on religion and Islamic affairs, opposes redefining Islamism as `Islamofascism`, but finds the resemblances between the two ideologies "compelling," both embracing spirituality and rejecting reason. He compares Islamism first to Marxism
but then draws a stronger comparison with fascism.
has written that the Hindutva
movement as it has emerged is "classically fascist in class support, methods and programme" Patnaik bases this argument on the following "ingredients" of classical fascism present in Hindutva: the attempt to create a unified homogeneous majority under the concept of "the Hindus"; a sense of grievance against past injustice; a sense of cultural superiority; an interpretation of history according to this sense of grievance and superiority; a rejection of rational arguments against this interpretation; and an appeal to the majority based on race and masculinity
.
Some scholars contend that the traditional meaning of the term fascism does not apply to Hindutva
groups, and may hinder an analysis of their activities.
Academics Chetan Bhatt and Parita Mukta reject the identification of Hindutva with fascism, because of Hindutva's embrace of cultural rather than racial nationalism, because of its "distinctively Indian" character, and because of "the RSS's disavowal
of the seizure of state power in preference for long-term cultural labour in civil society
". They instead describe Hindutva as a form of "revolutionary conservatism" or "ethnic absolutism".
Before World War II
, Sadashiv Golwalkar, head of the RSS from 1940-1973 opined
However, anti-semitism plays no role in post-1947 Hindutva. Golwalkar in 1966 wrote:
Contemporary Hindutva groups are overwhelmingly supportive of the Jewish State of Israel
. Savarkar himself supported Israel during its formation. Golwalkar too supported Israel in his statement:
Jerusalem based scholar Seth J. Frantzman writes that opposition to Hindu Nationalism
and it's denunciation by leftists as "fascist" or "racist" are related to their own antisemitism and opposition to Zionism
, and that both Zionism
and Hindu Nationalism
are "united in the aspirations of unique peoples and states", and "both grew out of a long suppressed and colonized peoples' dreams for their own country free from foreign rule".
or Odinism
ideologies, but as a minority inside the Germanic Neo-Pagan, Odinist and Asatru movements,. Examples of groups in which fascism and Paganism intersect include the White Order of Thule
. Another example was the Wotanism
of David Lane, who promoted WOTAN as an acronym for the "Will Of The Aryan Nations.".
Examples in Europe include the Belgian Werkgroep Traditie and the German Deutsche Heidnische Front
and Artgemeinschaft
. The Ausar Auset Society
is a Kemetic neopagan group advocating Black supremacy
.
Christianity
Christianity
Islam
Judaism
Hinduism
Paganism
Islam
Neo-Fascism
Neo-fascism is a post–World War II ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. The term neo-fascist may apply to groups that express a specific admiration for Benito Mussolini and Italian Fascism or any other fascist leader/state...
and various religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
s.
Some scholars, using the term neo-fascism in its narrow sense, consider certain contemporary religious movements and groups to represent forms of clerical
Clericalism
Clericalism is the application of the formal, church-based, leadership or opinion of ordained clergy in matters of either the church or broader political and sociocultural import...
or theocratic neofascism, including Christian Identity
Christian Identity
Christian Identity is a label applied to a wide variety of loosely affiliated believers and churches with a racialized theology. Many promote a Eurocentric interpretation of Christianity.According to Chester L...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
; some militant forms of politicized Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism is a term used to describe religious ideologies seen as advocating a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam: the Quran and the Sunnah. Definitions of the term vary. According to Christine L...
; State Shinto
State Shinto
has been called the state religion of the Empire of Japan, although it did not exist as a single institution and no "Shintō" was ever declared a state religion...
as a political cult in Imperial Japan and some neopagan
Neopaganism
Neopaganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe...
alternative religions advocating white supremacism.
Terminology and history
The term fascismFascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
was first used in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
during the 1920s, and like Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, its meaning came to refer to a type of union of right wing
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
concepts of authoritarian political controls with welfare state
Welfare state
A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
economic policies. The term neo-fascism
Neo-Fascism
Neo-fascism is a post–World War II ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. The term neo-fascist may apply to groups that express a specific admiration for Benito Mussolini and Italian Fascism or any other fascist leader/state...
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 & neo-fascism
Neo-Fascism
Neo-fascism is a post–World War II ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. The term neo-fascist may apply to groups that express a specific admiration for Benito Mussolini and Italian Fascism or any other fascist leader/state...
and Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism consists of post-World War II social or political movements seeking to revive Nazism or some variant thereof.The term neo-Nazism can also refer to the ideology of these movements....
to refer to any totalitarian
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
worldview, regardless of its religious ideology. Although the assertion that religious fundamentalists and militants are fascists can often be understood as a hyperbole
Fascist (epithet)
The word fascist is sometimes used to denigrate people, institutions, or groups that would not describe themselves as ideologically fascist, and that may not fall within the formal definition of the word. The Fascist party that developed in Italy in the 1920s rigidly enforced conservative values...
, some scholars have used the term when discussing certain religious movements.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, authoritarian
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
ideals saw a resurgence in the context of political upheavals across Eurasia
Eurasia
Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...
, typically anti-aristocratic socio-political revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
s. The ethnic-rooted conflicts of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
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
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
as an extreme right ideology, along with ethnic-populist
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
movements that call for increased traditionalism. In the context of civil conflicts, the demand for increased traditionalism typically promotes ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to believe that one's ethnic or cultural group is centrally important, and that all other groups are measured in relation to one's own. The ethnocentric individual will judge other groups relative to his or her own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with...
, and in extreme cases this ethnic unity resulted in the persecution
Persecution
Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another group. The most common forms are religious persecution, ethnic persecution, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms. The inflicting of suffering, harassment, isolation,...
of those not within the chosen ethnic group. Religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
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.
Between the two world wars, there were three forms of fascism: Italian economic corporatism; German racial nationalist Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
; and clerical fascist
Clerical fascism
Clerical fascism is an ideological construct that combines the political and economic doctrines of fascism with theology or religious tradition...
movements such as the Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
, the Spanish National Catholicism
National Catholicism
National Catholicism was part of the ideological identity of Francoism, the dictatorial regime with which Francisco Franco governed Spain between 1936 and 1975...
and the Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
n Ustashi
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
.
Controversies over linking fascism and religion
Since WWII, neofascists have reinterpreted fascist ideology and strategy in various ways to fit new circumstances.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 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
Laissez-faire
In economics, laissez-faire describes an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including restrictive regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies....
capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, and democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Karl Popper
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...
described fascism as different from Hegelianism, which was bound to a specific "traditional religious form" (Lutheran Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
in Frederick William
Frederick William IV of Prussia
|align=right|Upon his accession, he toned down the reactionary policies enacted by his father, easing press censorship and promising to enact a constitution at some point, but he refused to enact a popular legislative assembly, preferring to work with the aristocracy through "united committees" of...
's Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
). Popper suggests that in fascism, religion is usually replaced by a form of evolutionist materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
: "Thus the formula of the fascist brew is in all countries the same: Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
plus a dash of nineteenth-century materialism (especially Darwinism
Darwinism
Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution, including some ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....
in the somewhat crude form given to it by Haeckel)."
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
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
, fascism is not necessarily atheistic:
...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.
Later scholarship took several different approaches. Roger Griffin
Roger Griffin
Roger D. Griffin is a British academic political theorist at Oxford Brookes University, England. His recent efforts have focused on a definition and examination of fascism...
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 which inspires this project is that only a populist, trans-class movement of purifying, cathartic national rebirth (palingenesis) can stem the tide of decadence.
This concept of fascism as palingenesis
Palingenesis
Palingenesis is a concept of rebirth or re-creation, used in various contexts in philosophy, theology, politics, and biology. Its meaning stems from Greek palin, meaning again, and genesis, meaning birth....
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."
Roger Eatwell sees a complex relationship between fascism and religion, noting that "Religions…involve some form of belief in a supernatural being(s). However, this misses a point that all modern ideologies exhibit dimensions of religions." Eatwell questions "liberal historiography's demonization of fascism as an un-intellectual creed...." According to Eatwell:
- "A more fruitful way of distinguishing between ideology and religion is to adapt Søren KierkegaardSøren KierkegaardSøren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...
's view that the essence of a religion is not the persuasion of the truth of the doctrine, but a leap of faith to accept a view which is inherently absurd.... Fascism’s essential syncretism meant that it was possible to find forms, which overtly married ideology and religion - for example, in the Iron Guard, or among a limited number of Italian and German clerics (though most failed to see the radicalism at the core of fascism). Moreover, there were aspects of fascism, which were absurd - especially the belief of some Nazis that there was an international Jewish conspiracy against Germany, which encouraged a belief in apocalyptic holy war against the Jew. However, most fascists were not driven by such affective sentiments. Indeed, there is nothing absurd about the core ideology of generic fascism namely the quest to forge a holistic nation and create a radical syncretic Third Way state." "Reflections on Fascism and Religion".
Christianity in the United States
The linking of Christianity with fascismFascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
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
Christian right
Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe "right-wing" Christian political groups that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies...
with fascism an ill-advised attack on conservative Christians:
The most disturbing part of the Harper’sHarper's MagazineHarper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
cover story (the one by Chris HedgesChris HedgesChristopher Lynn Hedges is an American journalist, author, and war correspondent, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies...
) 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."
Some Christian organizations believe that the Christian Right has become fascist. Rich Lang of the Trinity United Methodist Church
United Methodist Church
The United Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination which is both mainline Protestant and evangelical. Founded in 1968 by the union of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church, the UMC traces its roots back to the revival movement of John and Charles Wesley...
of Seattle gave a sermon titled "George Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
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."
Some leftists
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
and libertarians
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
use the term Christian fascism or Christofascism
Christofascism
Christofascism is a concept in Christian theology first mentioned by Dorothee Sölle, a Christian theologian and writer, in her book Beyond Mere Obedience: Reflections on a Christian Ethic for the Future in 1970. To Sölle, Christofascism was caused by the embracing of authoritarian theology by the...
to describe what some see as an emerging proto-fascism and possible theocracy
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....
in the United States. Advocates of this view include Carl Davidson
Carl Davidson
Carl Davidson is a former student leader of the new left of the 1960s, serving as a Vice President and National Secretary of Students for a Democratic Society. From 1968 to 1976, he worked on the Guardian newsweekly as a writer and news editor. Born in 1943, he graduated with a B.A...
, who has written an essay, "Globalization, Theocracy and the New Fascism: Taking the Right's Rise to Power Seriously."
More extreme than the Christian Right are two movements where there is more scholarly support for charges of neo-fascism: Christian Identity
Christian Identity
Christian Identity is a label applied to a wide variety of loosely affiliated believers and churches with a racialized theology. Many promote a Eurocentric interpretation of Christianity.According to Chester L...
and Christian Reconstructionism
Christian Reconstructionism
Christian Reconstructionism is a religious and theological movement within Evangelical Christianity that calls for Christians to put their faith into action in all areas of life, within the private sphere of life and the public and political sphere as well...
. There are versions of the Christian Identity movement that adopt openly neo-Nazi ideologies. Some scholars consider Christian Reconstructionism to be a quasi-fascist movement because it is explicitly opposed to religious liberty and human rights. Berlet and Lyons have written that the movement is a "new form of clerical
fascist politics." Author Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong FRSL , is a British author and commentator who is the author of twelve books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic nun, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical faith...
sees a potential for fascism in Christian Reconstructionism, and claims that the system of dominion
Dominionism
Dominionism is a term used to describe politically active conservative Christians that are believed to conspire and seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action, especially in the United States, with the goal of either a nation governed by Christians, or a nation...
envisaged by Christian Reconstructionist theologians R. J. Rushdoony
Rousas John Rushdoony
Rousas John Rushdoony was a Calvinist philosopher, historian, and theologian and is widely credited as the father of Christian Reconstructionism and an inspiration for the modern Christian homeschool movement...
and Gary North is totalitarian: "There is no room for any other view or policy, no democratic tolerance for rival parties, no individual freedom."
Islam
The contemporary religious movements in Islam that have been compared to fascism include Islamic terrorism and WahhabismWahhabism
Wahhabism is a religious movement or a branch of Islam. It was developed by an 18th century Muslim theologian from Najd, Saudi Arabia. Ibn Abdul Al-Wahhab advocated purging Islam of what he considered to be impurities and innovations...
.
In 2001, Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
opined, "[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." Robert S. Wistrich
Robert S. Wistrich
Robert Solomon Wistrich is the Neuburger Professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the head of the University's Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism. Wistrich is "a leading scholar of the history of antisemitism."-Early...
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.
In late 2005, President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and other high United States government officials began to use the terms Islamo-fascism or Islamic fascism, and they suggested that opposing militant Islamic terrorism was similar to opposing the Nazis during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. This created a storm of controversy as supporters and opponents debated these contentions and the term Islamofascism
Islamofascism
The term Islamofascism is a neologism which draws an analogy between the ideological characteristics of specific Islamist movements from the turn of the 21st century on, and a broad range of European fascist movements of the early 20th century, neofascist movements, or totalitarianism.-Origins of...
.
Some writers claim that certain strands of Wahhabi
Wahhabism
Wahhabism is a religious movement or a branch of Islam. It was developed by an 18th century Muslim theologian from Najd, Saudi Arabia. Ibn Abdul Al-Wahhab advocated purging Islam of what he considered to be impurities and innovations...
or Salafi
Salafi
A Salafi come from Sunni Islam is a follower of an Islamic movement, Salafiyyah, that is supposed to take the Salaf who lived during the patristic period of early Islam as model examples...
Islam display some of the signifiers of fascism or totalitarianism.
J. Sakai has suggested that some middle class Islamists have formed groups that can be called fascist.
Academic Roger Griffin
Roger Griffin
Roger D. Griffin is a British academic political theorist at Oxford Brookes University, England. His recent efforts have focused on a definition and examination of fascism...
believes that 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)." 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
Nation of Islam
The Nation of Islam is a mainly African-American new religious movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930 to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African-Americans in the United States of America. The movement teaches black pride and...
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.'"
Author Malise Ruthven
Malise Ruthven
Malise Ruthven is an Irish academic and writer. He was born in Dublin of Irish-British parentage. He obtained an MA in English Literature at Cambridge University, before working as a scriptwriter with the BBC Arabic and World Service, and a consultant on Middle Eastern affairs. He also gained a...
, a Scottish writer and historian who focuses his work on religion and Islamic affairs, opposes redefining Islamism as `Islamofascism`, but finds the resemblances between the two ideologies "compelling," both embracing spirituality and rejecting reason. He compares Islamism first to Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
but then draws a stronger comparison with fascism.
... the fascist parallels go deeper than the Marxist ones. In his explicit hostility to reason (alluded to in the reference to Ahmad ibn HanbalAhmad ibn HanbalAhmad bin Muhammad bin Hanbal Abu `Abd Allah al-Shaybani was an important Muslim scholar and theologian. He is considered the founder of the Hanbali school of fiqh...
's struggle against the Mu'taziliMu'tazili' is an Islamic school of speculative theology that flourished in the cities of Basra and Baghdad, both in present-day Iraq, during the 8th–10th centuries. The adherents of the Mu'tazili school are best known for their having asserted that, because of the perfect unity and eternal nature of God,...
te doctrine of the `created` Quran) it is not Marx, grandchild of the EnlightenmentAge of EnlightenmentThe Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, but NietzscheFriedrich NietzscheFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, an anti-rationalist like the anti-Mu'tazilite al-Ash'ariAbu al-Hasan al-Ash'ariAbū al-Hasan Alī ibn Ismā'īl al-Ash'arī was a Muslim Arab theologian and the founder of the Ash'ari school of early Islamic philosophy and Islamic theology.-Biography:...
, whom `AzzamAbdullah Yusuf AzzamAbdullah Yusuf Azzam was a highly influential Palestinian Sunni Islamic scholar and theologian, who preached in favor of defensive jihad by Muslims to help the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet invaders...
echoes. The attachment to the lost lands of PalestinePalestinePalestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
, BukharaBukharaBukhara , from the Soghdian βuxārak , is the capital of the Bukhara Province of Uzbekistan. The nation's fifth-largest city, it has a population of 263,400 . The region around Bukhara has been inhabited for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time...
and SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
(unlike a rational and humane concern for Palestinian rights) is, like MussoliniBenito MussoliniBenito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's evocations of Ancient RomeAncient RomeAncient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
, nostalgic in its irredentismIrredentismIrredentism is any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. Some of these movements are also called pan-nationalist movements. It is a feature of identity politics and cultural...
, its `obliteration of history from politics` The invocation of religion is consistent with the way fascism and Nazism used mythical modes of thought to mobilize unconscious or psychic forces in the pursuit of power, a task made easier in a population sanctified by a millennium of Islamic religious programming. Georges SorelGeorges SorelGeorges Eugène Sorel was a French philosopher and theorist of revolutionary syndicalism. His notion of the power of myth in people's lives inspired Marxists and Fascists. It is, together with his defense of violence, the contribution for which he is most often remembered. Oron J...
, sometimes seen as the intellectual father of fascism, declared that `use must be made of a body of images which, by intuition alone, and before any considered analyses are made, is capable of evoking as an undivided whole the mass of sentiments which corresponds to the different manifestations of the war undertaken by SocialismSocialismSocialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
.` Mussolini, to whom Sorel in his later years lent his support, saw fascism as `a religious conception in which man is seen in his immanent relationship with a superior law and with an objective Will that transcends the particular individual and raise him to conscious membership of a spiritual society`.
In the same line of thinking Alfred RosenbergAlfred Rosenberg' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
, the Nazi ideologue, stressed the other-worldly, spiritual aspect of Hitler's racial theories: `The life of a race does not represent a logically-developed philosophy nor even the unfolding of a pattern according to natural law, but rather the development of a mystical synthesis, an activity of soul, which cannot be explained rationally.`
Hindu nationalism
Indian Marxist Prabhat PatnaikPrabhat Patnaik
Prabhat Patnaik is an Indian Marxist economist and political commentator, who has achieved international acclaim with his incisive analysis of economics and politics. He was teaching at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University in...
has written that the Hindutva
Hindutva
Hindutva is the term used to describe movements advocating Hindu nationalism. Members of the movement are called Hindutvavādis.In India, an umbrella organization called the Sangh Parivar champions the concept of Hindutva...
movement as it has emerged is "classically fascist in class support, methods and programme" Patnaik bases this argument on the following "ingredients" of classical fascism present in Hindutva: the attempt to create a unified homogeneous majority under the concept of "the Hindus"; a sense of grievance against past injustice; a sense of cultural superiority; an interpretation of history according to this sense of grievance and superiority; a rejection of rational arguments against this interpretation; and an appeal to the majority based on race and masculinity
Masculinity
Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
.
Some scholars contend that the traditional meaning of the term fascism does not apply to Hindutva
Hindutva
Hindutva is the term used to describe movements advocating Hindu nationalism. Members of the movement are called Hindutvavādis.In India, an umbrella organization called the Sangh Parivar champions the concept of Hindutva...
groups, and may hinder an analysis of their activities.
Academics Chetan Bhatt and Parita Mukta reject the identification of Hindutva with fascism, because of Hindutva's embrace of cultural rather than racial nationalism, because of its "distinctively Indian" character, and because of "the RSS's disavowal
of the seizure of state power in preference for long-term cultural labour in civil society
Civil society
Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...
". They instead describe Hindutva as a form of "revolutionary conservatism" or "ethnic absolutism".
Before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Sadashiv Golwalkar, head of the RSS from 1940-1973 opined
German national pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up purity of the nation and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic racesSemiticIn linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...
, the Jews. National pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into a united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by." ("We or our nationhood defined" 1938, p.37)
However, anti-semitism plays no role in post-1947 Hindutva. Golwalkar in 1966 wrote:
"The Christians committed all sorts of atrocities on the Jews by giving them the label "Killers of Christ". Hitler is not an exception but a culmination of the 2000-year long oppression of the Jews by the Christians."
Contemporary Hindutva groups are overwhelmingly supportive of the Jewish State of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. Savarkar himself supported Israel during its formation. Golwalkar too supported Israel in his statement:
"The Jews had maintained their race, religion, culture and language; and all they wanted was their natural territory to complete their Nationality"
Jerusalem based scholar Seth J. Frantzman writes that opposition to Hindu Nationalism
Hindu nationalism
Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expressions of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of historical India...
and it's denunciation by leftists as "fascist" or "racist" are related to their own antisemitism and opposition to Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
, and that both Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
and Hindu Nationalism
Hindu nationalism
Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expressions of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of historical India...
are "united in the aspirations of unique peoples and states", and "both grew out of a long suppressed and colonized peoples' dreams for their own country free from foreign rule".
Paganism and esoteric religions
Some white supremacist or neo-Nazi supporters also adhere to Germanic neopaganismGermanic neopaganism
Germanic neopaganism is the contemporary revival of historical Germanic paganism. Precursor movements appeared in the early 20th century in Germany and Austria. A second wave of revival began in the early 1970s...
or Odinism
Odinism
Odinism is a type of Germanic Neopaganism.Odinism may also refer to:*Norse paganism** the cult of Odin- See also :*Odinist Fellowship*Odinic Rite*The Odin Brotherhood*Wotanism, a Völkisch / White Nationalist movement*Wodenism...
ideologies, but as a minority inside the Germanic Neo-Pagan, Odinist and Asatru movements,. Examples of groups in which fascism and Paganism intersect include the White Order of Thule
White Order of Thule
The White Order of Thule was a loosely organized American society formed in the mid-1990s by federal prisoner Peter Georgacarakos, art school graduate Michael Lujan and New Age occultist, Joseph Kerrick. It described itself as an "esoteric brotherhood working toward the revitalization of the...
. Another example was the Wotanism
Wotanism
Wotanism is the name of an American Heathen religion or socio-political current based on Germanic paganism and the doctrines of David Lane. Wotan is the German name for the Germanic god known in Norse as Odin...
of David Lane, who promoted WOTAN as an acronym for the "Will Of The Aryan Nations.".
Examples in Europe include the Belgian Werkgroep Traditie and the German Deutsche Heidnische Front
Deutsche Heidnische Front
Deutsche Heidnische Front is a far right Neo-pagan group which was created in 1998 as the German section of the Heathen Front...
and Artgemeinschaft
Artgemeinschaft
The Artgemeinschaft Germanische Glaubens-Gemeinschaft is a German Neopagan and Neonazi organization, founded in 1951 by Wilhelm Kusserow...
. The Ausar Auset Society
Ausar Auset Society
The Ausar Auset Society is a Pan-African religious organization founded in 1973 by Ra Un Nefer Amen for the purpose of providing members a societal framework through which the Kemetic spiritual way of life can be lived and to promote Rosicrucian values...
is a Kemetic neopagan group advocating Black supremacy
Black supremacy
The term black supremacy is a blanket term for various ideologies which hold that black people are superior to people of other races.-Overview:...
.
Judaism
See also
- American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on AmericaAmerican Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on AmericaAmerican Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America is a non-fiction book by American author Chris Hedges, published in January 2007. Hedges is a former seminary student with a master's degree in divinity from Harvard and was a long-time foreign correspondent for The New York Times...
- ChristofascismChristofascismChristofascism is a concept in Christian theology first mentioned by Dorothee Sölle, a Christian theologian and writer, in her book Beyond Mere Obedience: Reflections on a Christian Ethic for the Future in 1970. To Sölle, Christofascism was caused by the embracing of authoritarian theology by the...
- Clerical fascismClerical fascismClerical fascism is an ideological construct that combines the political and economic doctrines of fascism with theology or religious tradition...
- IslamofascismIslamofascismThe term Islamofascism is a neologism which draws an analogy between the ideological characteristics of specific Islamist movements from the turn of the 21st century on, and a broad range of European fascist movements of the early 20th century, neofascist movements, or totalitarianism.-Origins of...
- Nazism in relation to other concepts#Nazism and religion
- Neo-völkisch movementsNeo-völkisch movementsNeo-völkisch movements, as defined by the historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, cover a wide variety of mutually influencing groups of a radically ethnocentric character which have emerged, especially in the English-speaking world, since World War II...
- State ShintoState Shintohas been called the state religion of the Empire of Japan, although it did not exist as a single institution and no "Shintō" was ever declared a state religion...
in Imperial Japan during WWII - TheocracyTheocracyTheocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....
Christianity
- German ChristiansGerman ChristiansThe Deutsche Christen were a pressure group and movement within German Protestantism aligned towards the antisemitic and Führerprinzip ideological principles of Nazism with the goal to align German Protestantism as a whole towards those principles...
- Protestant Reich ChurchProtestant Reich ChurchThe Protestant Reich Church, officially German Evangelical Church and colloquially Reichskirche, was formed in 1936 to merge the 28 regional churches into a unified state church that espoused a single doctrine compatible with National Socialism...
Further reading
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.
Christianity
- Armstrong, Karen. 2001. The Battle for God. New York: Ballantine.
- Gorenberg, GershomGershom GorenbergGershom Gorenberg is an American-born Israeli historian, journalist and blogger, specializing in Middle Eastern politics and the interaction of religion and politics. He is currently a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, a monthly American political magazine...
. 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).
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 IslamJerusalem Studies in Arabic and IslamJerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam is a peer reviewed, international academic journal devoted to the study of classical Islam, Islamic religious thought, Arabic language and literature, the origins of Islamic institutions, and the interaction between Islam and other civilizations. The founding...
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)
- Horowitz, David, "Unholy Alliance:Radical Islam and the American Left", Regnery Publishing ISBN 089526076X
- Utz, Richard: "Remembering Ritual Murder: The Anti-Semitic Blood Accusation Narrative in Medieval and Contemporary Cultural Memory." In Genre and Ritual: The Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals. Ed. Eyolf Østrem. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press/University of Copenhagen, 2005. Pp. 145–62
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 BooksSaqi BooksSaqi Books is an independent UK publisher co-founded in 1984 by author and feminist Mai Ghoussoub to "print quality academic and general interest books on the Middle East". It now claims to be "the UK's largest publisher of Middle Eastern and Arabic titles"...
, 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).
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.
- Walter K Andersen, Shridhar Damie. Brotherhood in Saffron: Rashtriya Swayarnsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism (Westview special studies on South and Southeast Asia) 1987 ISBN 0813373581
- Banerjee, Partha. 1998. In the Belly of the Beast: The Hindu Supremacist RSS and BJP of India. Delhi: Ajanta.
- Tapan Basu Khaki Shorts: Saffron Flags 1993 Orient Longman ISBN 0863113834
- Elst, Koenraad. Decolonizing the Hindu Mind. Ideological Development of Hindu Revivalism. Rupa, Delhi 2001.
- Elst, Koenraad. "The Saffron Swastika. The Notion of 'Hindu Fascism'." Voice of IndiaVoice of IndiaVoice of India is a New Delhi publishing house, supportive of Hindu nationalist sentiment and political ideology. It was founded by Ram Swarup in 1983 and later joined by Sita Ram Goel, who themselves published extensively under the label...
, Delhi 2001. http://www.indiastar.com/rameshrao.html http://www.asianetglobal.com:8080/asianet/2004/news/detailedstory.jsp?catId=10&newsId=2 - 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.
- Golwalkar, A Bunch of thoughts
- Hansen, Thomas Blom. 1999. The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Review
- Rajesh Tembarai Krishnamachari "Decline of the Left in India", South Asia Analysis GroupSouth Asia Analysis GroupSouth Asia Analysis Group is a non-profit think tank based in India which conducts public interest and advocacy work. The group consists of Indian academics and former government officials...
- Sheshadri H. V.; Shri Guruji, A Life Sketch; Jalandhar, 2006
- Smith, David James, Hinduism and Modernity P189, Blackwell Publishing ISBN 0-631-20862-3
- Sarkar, Tanika, and Urvashi Butalia, eds. 1995. Women and the Hindu Right. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
- Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar. Hindutva. Bharati Sahitya Sadan, Delhi 1989 (1923).
Paganism
- Chip Berlet and Stanislav Vysotsky. (2006, Summer). Overview of U.S. white supremacist groups. Journal of Political and Military Sociology 34(1), 11-48.
- Devin Burghart and Justin Massa. 2001. "Damned, Defiant and Dangerous: Continuing White Su-premacist Violence in the U.S." Searchlight July, online archive.
- Devin Burghart, ed. 1999. Soundtracks to the White Revolution: White Supremacist Assaults on Youth Music Subcultures. Chicago, IL: Center for New Community [in cooperation with Northwest Coa-lition for Human Dignity].
- 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.
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 EcoUmberto EcoUmberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
. - Set of articles about allegations of Hindu fascism - By Koenraad Elst
- What is Fascism? - By George OrwellGeorge OrwellEric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
.
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 ReviewNational ReviewNational Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
. - 1-0 in the propaganda war - By Albert Scardino in The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- 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.