The next stop on the Islamist bandwagon?

Out go state-planned economies.

In comes economic liberalisation.

Social conservatism and economic liberalism? Now where have we seen that before…

Newsnight versus Policy Exchange

There is a a lot blogtivity regarding Newsnight’s investigation into the much publicised Policy Exchange report on extremist literature being sold inside British mosques. Briefly, Newsnight claimed that some of the evidence used or gathered by Policy Exchange was fabricated or of dubious origin, a claim Policy Exchange denies or deems irrelevant.

Dr. Gabriele Marranci (an anthropologist specialising in Muslim communities) had a post back in October when the report was first released questioning the methodology and approach of the report’s authors. This prompted a response from the report’s main author, Dr. Denis MacEoin (himself a specialist in Arab and Persian literature) [1, 2]. Another academic blogger at Remarks and culture had similar criticisms. Ministry of Truth, Obsolete [1, 2] and Brian Whitaker contribute with some analysis of their own. MacEoin’s own political viewpoints are noted by Garry Smith (1, 2), and a quick search of his name tells you a lot. (Indigo Jo, a keen reader of letters to the editor in newspapers, has come across MacEoin before.) Of course, MacEoin’s political viewpoints do not, in and of themselves discount, the findings of the report; but they provide context especially when the method and evidence is found to be suspect.

The general view from these and other bloggers seems to be that what is under question is not the availablity of ‘extremist literature’ at mosques which Policy Exchange researchers probably did find, but the presentation of the report as a rigorous academic exercise by the major media outlets in Britain. In other words, this Newsnight story is really about the standards (and perceptions) of journalism in Britain, which have taken something of a battering in the last few years, and not really about Muslims (although the Muslim institutions wrongfully implicated in the report have every right to feel aggrieved).

Interestingly, Dean Godson, the man wheeled out by the Policy Exchange to defend the report on Newsnight, was fired from the Telegraph back in 2004 when Conrad Black (now a convicted criminal) sold the paper to the Barclay brothers:

The Barclays[, says Martin Newland, then editor of the Telegraph,] have not laid down a clear political line. “There are occasional conversations. I might call about something. Normal, friendly conversations…” Nonetheless, the comment page has seen some of the biggest changes during the interregnum. “I soon came to recognise we were speaking a language on geopolitical events and even domestic events that was dictated too much from across the Atlantic. It’s OK to be pro-Israel, but not to be unbelievably pro-Likud Israel, it’s OK to be pro-American but not look as if you’re taking instructions from Washington. Dean Godson and Barbara Amiel were key departures.”

Spinwatch did an investigation into Godson’s ideological roots in September this year, which is very informative and provides a lot of context.

And, of course, Labour are seeking to profit from the suspicions cast over Policy Exchange, given the think-tank is linked to the Tory Party.

Islamofascism: a label for Dhummies

Umar Lee points to Islamofascism Awareness Week that will take place across the United States during October; unsurprisingly it is being organsied and led by the Dhummies.

There is a problem with the label ‘Islamofascism’. Let me quote extensively from Lawrence of Arabia:

It seems to me there must be at least two components in place to have a genuinely fascist government, party, organization or movement. First, and probably most importantly, there must be a desire to rally the citizenry and organize the political realm around the idea of the nation-family: some common racial, or ethnic heritage, some common, natural, language, possibly, within which the cultural inheritance is passed down across the generations. There must be, then, a very rigorous form of nationalism, where the idea of the nation is taken quite literally: nation as a reference to our natus, or birth.

Secondly, fascism relates to the economic reorganization of the nation along the lines of a state capitalism in order to revitalize the productivity of the worker, but also to provide security for that same worker. Ernst Jünger, one of the economic theorists of fascism, argued in The Worker (1932), for instance, that the revitalization of German industry was linked to the revitalization of German men, warrior-men, and thus the strength of Germany itself.

In both cases, what one sees is the nostalgia for roots in the midst of an uncertain, and economically unstable world, where one found one’s identity through conformity to one’s nature, one’s nation, one’s natus. Oswald Spengler’s “conservative revolution” was premised on the politics of natus, against the internationalism of liberalism and Marxism, and for Jünger, freedom was only found in giving oneself over in obedience to serving and protecting one’s natus. In both cases there was a longing for a strong leader who would rally and lead the people in this new nationalism.

From this it ought to be immediately clear that Islam is stridently anti-fascist. The Ummah, the unity of those who submit to God, is a unity of all peoples without regards to race, nation, or ethnicity. Politically speaking mainstream Islam has taken a variety of political forms, but none of them have been fascist: one could point to imperial or monarchical (with roots in the tribal organization) as perhaps the most common.

But of course this is not the way fascism is being used; instead it has been used to focus attention on elements at the Right extreme of Islam: Al-Qaeda, etc. Islamo-fascism: the enemies of liberalism. Now it is true, as already mentioned, that fascism was anti-liberal. Rightists from Spengler to Heidegger saw liberalism as decadent, promoting mediocrity and weakness. But this in and of itself is hardly fascist, it is a position shared by many Rightists. There is an abiding emphasis on the Ummah within Al-Qaeda, bringing together Arabs and Pakistanis and Afghanis and Southeast Asians in a way that is not always seen due to racial tensions that do persist among the various groups. Moreover the criticism of Anglo and Continental governments, the criticism of their decadence, is entirely religious in its basis, not nationalistic, and the same could be said for the criticism that one sees from the militant parties within Islam against certain Middle Eastern governments themselves, especially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Finally one must say that there is nearly no economic component to the critique or the ideological thrust of the militants. [emphases my own]

Source.

Put simply there are just better terms to describe al-Qa’ida (a ‘label’ itself now taken to mean all Muslim violence), Hizbollah, Muslim Brotherhood etc. But, of course, people who used ‘Islamofascism’ are not interested in analysing these groups or critiquing their ideologies. They merely want to attack anyone they hate and anyone who is critical of the War on Terror or the Bush regime can then be labelled an ‘appeaser’. Here I will cite Niall Ferguson (whose status on the American right I have noted before):

[W]hat we see at the moment is an attempt to interpret our present predicament in a rather caricatured World War II idiom. I mean, “Islamofascism” illustrates the point well, because it’s a completely misleading concept. In fact, there’s virtually no overlap between the ideology of al Qaeda and fascism. It’s just a way of making us feel that we’re the “greatest generation” fighting another World War, like the war our fathers and grandfathers fought. You’re translating a crisis symbolized by 9/11 into a sort of pseudo World War II. So, 9/11 becomes Pearl Harbor and then you go after the bad guys who are the fascists, and if you don’t support us, then you must be an appeaser.

This is really, really misleading, because I don’t think, in fact, 9/11 bares the slightest relation to Pearl Harbor. How long have you got? We could go through it point by point. It’s clearly something very, very different. I think this language is being used mendaciously to play on the very strong pull that World War II still has on our emotions.

Source.

Ferguson correctly goes onto to note that such labels tell us more about the culture in which they originate; in other words labels such as ‘Islamofascism’ tell us nothing about al-Qa’ida or any other Muslim group. (Ferguson and LoA suggest that a better comparison could be had with Bolshevism).

There also needs to be a tightening of the term ‘Islamist’, which is fast losing all meaning when it applies to everyone from the AK Party in Turkey to Muslim pseudo-jihadis. I might tap something on this later tonight if I have time.

Update: Gabriele Marranci offers his thoughts.