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To many people, I am afraid, fascism is just a word to describe things they do not like.

Lately, the American blogosphere has been full of talk about the Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. For a while, I though the intention of this event was to tell people that Ahmadinejad is the leader of a totalitarian country, and that his ideology sucks big time. Personally, I had an impression that many people were already aware of these simple facts, but what the heck – at least it could have been a good excuse for drinking beer and walking around with a cowboy hat.

However, the point of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, according guide to hosting the event, is neither to drink beer nor to walk around with cowboy hats. It is not even about telling nasty stories about Iran (there would have been plenty). Nope. The point of the event is to “confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat”.

Yep. That’s right. Global warming, which could potentially screw up the economy, the climate, the whole friggin’ world and Ann Coulters hairdo, is nothing compared to a bunch of reactionary extremists keeping themselves busy with blowing up bombs in Iraq. I have to admit, guys: I wasn’t aware of that.

Now, Islamofascism does exist. But that does not mean every single reactionary extremist of the Muslim world is a fascist.

Others talk about income tax as a variant of fascism. This guy, for instance. Has he spent much time studying fascism to reach that conclusion? What about the people who spend their time talking about Environazism – do they actually know much about real-life fascism, about the kind of fascism that killed millions during WWII or even about the kind of fascism which merely involves firebombing the local mosque in the middle of the night?

Did I forget about the tons of blogs claiming that Bush is Hitler, and reposting the same essays over and over and over and over again? Or the guys who keep on comparing 911 with the Reichstag fire? These guys are no better than the “buhu-the-bad-environazi-feminazi-Muslim-gay-activists-are-going-to-kill-us-all-lot”.

Having spent some time surfing around on the blogwaves, you can soon come to conclude that in the blogosphere everyone is a fascist.

That is not true. In fact, it’s quite ridiculous. And it really makes it difficult to use Technorati to do any sensible research into actual fascism around the world. Because, guess what, it does exist. Fascism as a political ideology is alive and in some cases alarmingly well. Although it is mostly hiding away at the fringes of politics it has a lethal potential: hatred, violence, terrorism… it all follows in the footsteps of fascism. Today.

So, here’s my prayer: Stop writing nonsense about fascism. Either drop the subject in its’ entirety. Or do some proper research.

This post is mostly a test of an interesting new publishing system I stumbled upon – if the test is successful I might write more about it on my personal blog (oyvindstrommen.be). But for know, such a test is a poor excuse to bother my readers, so I decided to include a link to an interesting article written by Thomas Sheehan in January 1981 instead.

This article is one of the earliest references to “Eurofascism” I can find on the Internet. Although Sheehan uses the term in a different way than I do, the historical ties of what I call Eurofascism are to be spotted also in this article on extreme righ terrorism from 1981.

Indeed the Flemish Order of Militants, mentioned by Sheehan, was a breeding ground for a number of politicians in today’s Vlaams Belang. And lines can also be drawn – without many dots on the way – from the terrorist attack in Bologna in the summer of 1980 to today’s British National Party.

In my upcoming book on “Eurofascism”, you will have a chance to follow those lines for yourself. I’d say it’s a pretty scary ride.

Hear the political upholders
how they pray, those beggars, for an extra vote!
Soon they’ll fold again,
nod and flipflop in the parliament!
They’ll catch each other’s fleas again,
and the Lion(1) will let itself be caged
by the guild of politics.
the red ones, the yellow and the blue
the black ones too
do nothing but yawning
tame, submissive, bent

(Ward Hermans, Flemish nationalist writer, 1979)(2)

As Stanley G. Payne points out in his «A History of Fascism 1914-1945»(3), fascism ‘remains probably the vaguest of the major political terms. This may stem from the fact that the word itself contains no explicit political reference, however abstract, as do democracy, liberalism, socialism and communism. To say that the Italian fascio means ‘bundle’ or ‘union’ does not tell us much’.

From there, Payne goes on trying to find a working definition. He writes of the ideology and goals of fascism, which include «an esposular of an idealist, vitalist and voluntaristic philosophy, normally involving the attempt to realize a new modern, self-determined, and secular culture», the idea of creating «a new nationalist authoritarian state not based on traditional principles or models», a positive evaluation of and use of, or willingness to use, violence and war, and the goal of empire, expansion, or a radical change in a nationa’s relationship with other powers. Further, Payne writes, fascism is anticonservative, anticommunist and antiliberal, has an extreme stress on the masculine principle and on male dominance and a tendency towards an authoritarian, charismatic, personal style of command, whether or not the command is to some degree initially elective.

The Maltese Imperium Europa, for instance, fits nicely into that definition. But there is a problem with it. It lets some fascists off the hook.

Much of the material available on the fascist ideology, and much of the research done, does however have much the same focus as Payne’s book, studying fascism in the time period from the beginning of World War I to the end of World War II. But fascism did in no way die with Hitler in his bunker. It wasn’t buried with the fall of the Third Reich. It continued to evolve and to develop. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it must be a duck, the proverb goes. But today’s ducks aren’t necessarily obsessed with male dominance, and they might even call themselves liberals or conservatives. In many cases the dreams of empire building has also faded away, being replaced by inwardly-looking politics strongly opposed to the foreign.

This is also the reason I have chosen to use Eurofascism as a term, for instance in this article. Those who focus on the fascism of Mussolini’s Italy will of course see fascism as a European movement from the begin with, and the same thing applies for those who see fascism in a wider, but historically limited, context: including for instance the Nazi party in Germany, Hungary’s Arrow Cross Movement, Romania’s Iron Guard and Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists.

In truth, however, fascism has spread across the world. In Turkey, for instance, the ultra-nationalist Bozkurtlar(4) drew inspiration from the Italian fascist Giovannia Gentile’s and his «Actual Idealism»-theory. The group, formally named Ülkucu Hareket, or the Idealist Movement, played a role in the 1980 military coup in the country. The group supports the idea of a great Turkish empire referred to as Turan, in effect a gathering of all Turkic peoples in one nation state(5).

In the United States, fascism comes in a variety of forms, including the American Nazi Party, various offshoots of the Ku Klux Klan, the National Socialist Movement, a number of skinhead groups, etc. Seemingly more mainstream gruops, such as the Liberty Lobby, has also been part of the neo-fascist movement in America, and so has the Institute for Historical Review, which – while describing itself as a «public interest educational, research and publishing center dedicated to promoting greater public awareness of history, and especially socially-politically relevant aspects of twentieth century history» is little but a gathering place for Holocaust deniars of various form and shape.

In South Africa, there is also a rather noticeable neo-fascist scene even today, and with ties back to the early days of the apartheid regime. As World War II broke out there was a short-lasting, but heated discussion in South Africa on whether the country should join the war at all. Although constitutionally obligated to join the British side, the anti-British prime minister Barry Hertzog, also known as the father of apartheid, wanted to keep South Africa out of the war. Eventually Hertzog’s old rival, the pro-British Jan Smuts pulled the longest straw. Hertzog was ousted as prime minister and Smuts took over, declaring South Africa officially at war with Germany.

Pro-German sentiments were strong amongst the Boers, though. The nationalist and pro-Nazi Afrikaner movement Ossewabrandwag(6) had approximately 350.000 members by 1941(7), and had become increasingly militaristic, also creating a paramilitary subgroup referred to as the Stormjaers. The Stormjaers were modelled on the Nazi Brown Shirts, and carried out sabotage within South Africa as a protest against the pro-British government of Smuts. Members of the organisation were rounded up and placed in camp. Amongst them was the Stormjaers ‘general’ B.J Vorster and P.W Botha, both of them future prime ministers of the country.

The government of B.J. Vorster (1966-78) was, however, also to be criticised by Boer extremists. A group calling itself the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging(8), saw the government as «too left-wing», rallied against softening of the apartheid laws. The group survives to recent day. In the wake of apartheid it clashed violently with South African police in the socalled Battle of Ventersdorp 9. August 1991(9).

On its website, it describes itself as «fearless, Christian and unashaedly nationalistic [...] the new rightist – antithesis to the ANC – battlement for its people – bulwark against liberalism, Marxism and communism». The group has also been publishing a newsletter called Storm. In a 2002 issue of the newsletter it is speculated in whether Jews were involved in the 911 terror attacks:

The American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), belives that Israeli intelligence could be responsible for or deeply involved in the tragedy of the World Trade Centre of the 11th September 2001. This is according to an American journalist, Jim Galloway, whose article was printed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Austin American-Statement 25. November 2005. Of the 1.100 foreigners that have been arrested by the FBI in connection with the 11. September slaughter, close to a hundred are Jews (10).

An interesting, but little-reported, part of the story of the AWB involves also European neo-fascist movements. According to Martin A. Lee(11), there was «extensive contact between German neo-Nazis who had fought in Croatia and members of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement». Flemish nationalists were also reputedly involved in weapon transactions meant for the AWB(12).

Fascism also spread to other non-European countries. In Latin America it has been represented by groups such as the Falange Socialista Boliviana – a party founded in the 1930s and initially close to Spanish falangism – or the more recent Partido del Nuevo Triunfo(13) in Argentina. In Iran, the party Hezb-e Sosialist-e Melli-ye Kargaran-e Iran14 was founded in 1952. The party looked to the works of José Ortega y Gasset for inspiration, as well as to Hitler, and built up a minor support base in Iranian universities. However, the party soon disappeared. In recent years, the Iranian Nazi party has surfaced again on the Internet, featuring anti-American and anti-Semitic symbolism and claiming to be «relentless enemies of Arabs and Muslims», «extremely anti-Arab». According to the party, «all the races possess some capabilities; but, from amongst them the White Race, especially the superior Aryan Race, have characteristics that others lack»(15).

When studying many of these movements from across the world, one thing becomes fairly obvious. Many of these movements are openly Nazi, even including «National Socialist» or «Nazi» in their official names. Others use symbols that are easily recognisable and often very similar to the symbols of the German NSDAP. The National Front of New Zealand uses the Hitler Salute and quite openly endorses classical Nazi viewpoints.

There are – of course – a number of groups in Europe that do the same, such as the Norwegian Odinist Nazi group Vigrid which is openly enthusiastic about the Waffen SS and also publishes much of Adolf Hitler’s artwork on their webpage. As the climate of European politics these groups have to a certain degree been gaining support, but they remain miniscule and sometimes pariodical. They are not Eurofascists.

The Eurofascist parties are not openly supporting neither fascism as an ideology nor calling themselves «fascist» or «Nazi». And Eurofascism also differs notably from the fascism of the 1930s. First of all, its agenda is not revolutionary, at least not openly so. Eurofascism very often operates under the guise of conservatism.

The Brussels Journal – a web newspaper which has published articles portraying Muslim immigration as «the rape of Europe»(16) and Turkish voters in the Netherlands as a «Trojan horse»(17) – is for instance often seen as a «conservative» voice. The webzine itself claims to «defend freedom» and to «strive to acquire as much knowledge as possible by presenting facts and views that are hard to find in the ‘consensus-media’ of Europe». Its contributors allegedly «all write with an earnest desire for the truth» and what binds them together is their «defence of liberty and the conviction that the state exists to serve man and never the other way round»(18). One of its contributors is a celebrity Islamophobe writing under the name Fjordman, and with him the hint of revolutionary politics is not always very far away. On his own blog he writes:

When I look at Europe today, I see democracies under threat because of an elaborate Eurabian bureaucracy and Islamic fanaticism. I see countries unwilling or unable to defend themselves against massive immigration/colonization, and the possible dawn of neo-barbarism. Has democracy become too soft to function?‘(19)

In an article called «How the West Was Lost», published in the Brussels Journal he writes:

The democratic states of the West are losing the ability to protect their citizenry, and are in some cases turning into enemies of their own people. That is a situation that cannot and will not last forever(20).

He goes on to say that if this is allowed to continue, it might have consequences «most of us» would not like to contemplate.

Another difference is the fact that Eurofascism does not rely on physical violence and campaign of gross intimidation to obtain power and suppress opposition. That does not mean that violence has never been taken in use by people in the Eurofascist parties, and it definitely does not explain away general xenophobic violence coming in the wake of this modern fascism. And still, Eurofascist parties will have an extreme focus on «law and order» and «safety».

Even more importantly is the fact that Eurofascist parties, in spite of having historical and current ties to everything from pro-apartheid movements and Holocaust deniers to neo-nazi groups, WWII collaborators and pre-WWII fascist parties will not describe himself as a fascist. If someone else did so, he would probably be offended – or he would use it as another means for attacking the «politically correct», who are afraid to be confronted by «truth». A Eurofascist calls himself a «nationalist», or a «national democrat». The Eurofascist political parties will also refer to the nation, either by including that very word or by including the name of the country or national group in question: Vlaams Belang, Sverigedemokraterna, Dansk Folkeparti, Front National, Alleanza Nacionale, España 2000, Nationaldemokraterna, British National Party, Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschland etc.

However, there are some very obvious similarities between Eurofascism and classical fascism, too. It wraps itself in the flag, and believes in the primacy of the group represented by that flag, whether French, British, Flemish or Swedish. It also sees its own group as a victim of internal and external enemies alike. It dreads the group’s decline under the corrosive effect of alien influences. Eurofascism, like classical fascism, brands it opponents as traitors or cowards, and it usually scorns intellectuals, academics and artists. Eurofascism is hostile to leftist and labour movements, and is often obsessed with a mythic «better time» of the past.

In many ways, Eurofascism has much in common with classical fascism. But clad in a suit and a tie, and in the robes of conservatism, it has become much more likely to gain broad acceptance within stable democratic countries.

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Comments are welcome on email oyvindstrommen at gmail dot com.
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^Footnotes:

^{1. A reference to the Lion in the Flemish flag.}

^{2. Quoted in Spruyt, Marc: «Wat het Vlaams Blok verzwijgt», 2000. Translated to English by the author – the original in Flemish is as follows: Hoor de politieke pooiers! / Hoor ze bedelen, de schooiers, om en voorkeurstem! / Straks dan staan ze weer te plooien / te knikken en te flikkeflooien in het parlement / Vangen weer malkanders vlooien,/ En de Leeuw… die laat zich kooien / door de politieke bent; / Roje, gele, blauwe leeuwen, / Zwarte ook, doen niets dan geeuwen, / tam, gedwee, getemd.}

^{3. Payne, Stanley G: «A History of Fascism 1914-1945», 1996}

^{4. Grey Wolves.}

^{5. Interestingly, the Bozkurtlar is said to have ties to both the Turkish mafia, Turkish intelligence services and the CIA, as well as to the CIA-backed Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, a coalition also involving erstwhile fascist collaborators from Eastern Europe. See for instance Martin Lee: «Les liaisons dangereuses de la police turque», Le Monde Diplomatique, March 1997, available here: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/1997/03/LEE/8019.html}

^{6. The Brigade of Oxwagon Sentinels}

^{7. According to africanhistory.about.com}

^{8. The Afrikaner Resistance Movement}

^{9. Ventersdorp was a stronghold for the AWB and the home town of its leader, Eugene Terre’Blanche. When then state president F. W. De klerk was to speak at the town hall, armed AWB members confronted police lines. In the ensuing violence, a passerby and three AWB supporters were killed.}

^{10. Storm, Feb-Mrt, 2002. Translated from Afrikaans by the author. This example, incidentally, also demonstrates the blatant anti-Semitism of many of the conspiracy theories surrounding 911.}

^{11. Lee, Martin A: «The beast reawakens», 1997}

^{12. Weapons were supposedly transferred in a pub in Roeselare, Belgium, 12. March 1994, were – amongst others – the Flemish nationalist Roger Spinnewijn was present. The Belgian police did look into the matter, and found no evidence for illegal trade in weapons. Spinnewijn was however convicted for the illegal possession of weapon. In connection with the case he was also arrested in Germany, but shortly thereafter released again. The socialist parliamentarian Patrick Hostekint asked minister of Justice, Stefaan de Clerck, about this case in a hearing in the Belgian Senate, 14. December 1995.}

^{13. The New Triumph Party. This party had «Una Nación, Un Pueblo, Un Lider» as slogan, and was banned in 2004, by a federal judge who stated that their identification with the Hitler regime was unconstitutional. The party subsequently went underground.}

^{14. Iran National-Socialist Workers Party. There was also a Nazi party in Iran in the early years of the war, Kabud. This party was outlawed in 1941.}

^{15. Quotes from sumka.blogfa.com}

^{16. «The Rape of Europe», 25. October 2006}

^{17. «Trojan Horse: Ankara Influenced Dutch Election Results», 8. December 2006. The story tells of how a politician from the social liberal party D66 got elected thanks to a considerable number of individual votes. She is of Turkish background, but is hardly what the newspaper describes as «a Trojan horse[s] of foreign nationalism and religious fanaticism».}

^{18. From the About-section of brusselsjournal.com}

^{19. Anon ‘Fjordman’: «The West in the 21st century»}

^{20. Anon ‘Fjordman’: «How the West Was Lost», 4. December 2006}

From salon.com:

On Nov. 28 — six days before the Times ran its photos of Padilla — Demetrius “Van” Crocker was sentenced to 30 years in prison. David Kustoff, the United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, where Crocker was prosecuted, tells Salon that “It was one of the preeminent anti-terrorism cases of 2006 nationwide.” Whether or not that is true, few outside of the greater Memphis metropolitan area have ever heard of Crocker. Only one reporter, John Branston of the weekly Memphis Flyer, even covered his entire trial. What is certain is that in every particular his case is a study in contrasts with the prosecution of Jose Padilla.

Previous post covering a similar topic:
White Terrorism Overlooked

^{A poster of the Polish neo-fascist party ‘National Rebirth of Poland’. This marginal party received 0.64% in the recent regional elections, and represents a quite recognisable form of fascism. But Eurofascism does not always look like that, more often it dresses in a suit and tie.}

An article in Newsweek, quoting a Taliban source, says that two Norwegian citizens have been trained by al Qa’eda. – Their task is to function as organisers for al Qa’eda in their homeland, a former Taliban intelligence chief told the magazine. It could be tempting to interpret his words as a propaganda effort, but I won’t. It is in no way impossible that people amongst Norway’s Muslim minority have found an ideological home in radical Islamism. Experiences from other European countries show that kids growing up in Western European countries have joined up with organisations that could be described as Islamofascist, and the terror attacks in Madrid and London were indeed conducted by such recruits to holy war.

Time to face the facts

But it is time to face the facts. Young radical Muslims are not the most significant modern-day anti-modernist group in Europe today. Even if attracted to terrorist groups, their potential at destroying the democratic fabric of Europe is limited, and worst of it all: these youngsters do in no way represent the largest challenge that Europe will have to face as a result of a growing number of immigrants. In other words, the focus of both the media and of the authorities is very often very wrong. Instead of worrying about Islamofascism, European politicians should worry about not-so-good, old-fashioned European fascism, which increasingly makes it presence known in a number of European countries. Groups on the socalled far right use the onesidedness of the media to their advantage; and are gaining a momentum. The spokesmen of fascism are once again being listened to as wise and daring voices, voices who speak out against the «occupation» of Europe by «strangers».

The modern-day fascists come in all kinds of clothing, some of them dressing like liberals and some of them like conservatives. Many modern-day fascists will deny being so. But fascism is not as easy to recognise as in «V for Vendetta», not in most cases. European fascists have learnt to dress themselves in the robes of political correctness, that is – in a suit and with a tie. This is what Eurofascism looks like, and it even appeals to people who are not fascists at all. You will find both misguided conservatives and confused liberals joining forces with the descendants of brownshirts. Pointing out who they are hanging out with is sometimes contraproductive. The role of the martyr fits these people well.

From failed coup to close victory

Still, it is necessary to know the past of a number of the anti-immigrationist parties that are winning forth around Europe these days. Take the Italian Social Movement, Movimento Sociale Italiano, which was founded shortly after the war by veterans of Mussolini’s last-gasp Saló Republic. That party’s honorary leader was admiral Junio Valerio Borghese. In 1970, he had to flee Italy after an attempted coup on the night of 7-8. December. The attempted coup, referred to as Golpe Borghese, was planned and executed by a number of neo-fascists with the support of members of the Italian military, police and secret service.

What did Borghese do? He went to Spain, still ruled by the fascists under Franco. There he met up with an old friend named Otto Skorzeny. Skorzeny was the man personally selected by Hitler to lead the operation to free the captured Mussolini in 1943. He was a former Nazi officer. But he was also very much still a believer. Those who do not see fascism there, are probably quite blind. And yet, not more than a couple of decades later, in 1993, a representative for the same political party, Gianfranco Fini, ran for election as mayor of Rome. He came very close to winning, gaining 47 per cent of the votes. His big break was yet to come, soon he was to forge an alliance with Silvio Berlusconi, to start calling himself a post-fascist and to transform his party into the National Alliance. Fini, who in 1992 described Mussolini as «the greatest statesman of the century», went on to become deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Italy. Fini has surely become more moderate and probably have realised some of his earlier mistakes. His party is however still riddled with militants.

Why worry?

So, why should I be more worried about this than about Islamofascism, you might ask. There are a number of reasons. First of all, many of the smaller groups that exist in the wake of the neo-fascist wave flushing through Europe are perfectly capable of both violence and terrorism. It might not get the same attention as Islamist terrorism, but the terror of the socalled far right is already killing people. In August, for example, a bomb blast killed eleven (12, according to some sources) people at a multi-ethnic market in Moscow. Two young Russians were arrested, and admitted to targeting the market because of its largely Asian workforce.

“The explosion at Cherkizovo is the start of a campaign of street terrorism”, Dmitry Demushkin of the group Slavic Union told the newspaper Kommersant.

A second reason to be worried is the increased political importance of neo-fascist political parties. In Flanders, Vlaams Belang have gained a quarter of the votes. In France, Front National’s Jean Marie Le-Pen qualified for the second round in presidential elections, and will try doing that again. In Bulgaria, Volen Siderov of Ataka also qualified for the presidential election runoffs. In England, the British National Party is gaining support. In Germany, the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands.

Some of these parties are decidely more mainstream than others, and few of them are as obviously fascist as for instance the Maltese Imperium Europa or the Polish Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski. But in spite of having had limited success in their direct grasp for power, several of the above parties have had some political success. They have managed to change European politics in a more intolerant and more xenophobic direction. That xenophobia even targets other Europeans, like the Bulgarian and Romanian workers that are wanted as cheap labour in their homecountries, but not as a new face in the apartment building around the corner in Luton.

More than ripples

In the Muslim world, Islamofascism is very much capable of creating mayhem and might potentially topple governments. While only ripples are likely to be felt in Europe, even ripples of the large-scale political violence of today’s Iraq can be very bloody. Eurofascism, on the other hand, has the potential of changing Europe fundamentally, and might ultimately lead to both the fall of liberal democracy and to ethnic cleansing and war.

Worth reading in connection with the below:

hjorthen (Norwegian): Hvit terrorisme
hjorthen (Norwegian): Medier dyrker religionskrig
The Phoenix: Quiet warfare

The facts should speak for themselves. Two men were arrested last month with an array of bomb-making components and weapons. A rocket launcher was found, though some reports indicate more than one, as was a biological suit and chemicals that could be used to make bombs. Surely this warranted front-page news? Actually no.

In an article in Searchlight Magazine, Nick Lowles looks at how possible plans for terrorism did not make the frontpages. And there is something odd about how little attention the arrests of Robert Cottage (49) and David Jackson (62) have gotten in the media.

In Cottage’s house, some 22 chemical components were discovered. At Jackson’s house a rocket launcher and a biological suit were found, as well as what in other cases might have been described as radical or extremist literature. In this case the literature came from the party mr. Cottage recently ran for election for: the neo-fascist British National Party.

I can not say whether plans for terror even existed, although I have some problems imagining legitimate reasons to stock up on chemical explosives and rocket launchers. It would have been interesting to know, though, whether the news stories would have been limited to this kind if the arrested men were named Muhammed and Said rather than Robert and David?

Would the story of a man “the largest amount of chemical explosives of its type ever found in the country” then have been extensively covered even in other newspapers than the Burnley Citizen?

In the Telegraph of India, Mukul Kesavan makes a number of very valid points.

As pundit after Western pundit from the left, right and centre tells us why Iraq can’t be a democracy or even a nation because it’s too poor or too fractious or too various, you suddenly realize that if India didn’t exist, no one would have the imagination to invent it. And even if they did, they wouldn’t have the inclination to because in the absence of India, the prejudices about the non-West that Anglo-American policy-makers and opinion-mongers peddle for a living, would pass for wisdom.

Many of those pundits are probably too busy writing on their latest book “Snappy Title: How I Expanded a Moderately Original Idea Into 300 Pages of Misleading Anecdotes“(*) to bother reading mr. Kesavans article. Too bad. Kesavan claims that India is the most important country in the world today. That might be an Indian variant of the European eurocentrism, of course, but it might also be true. India is special. In 1947, Kesavan writes, this desperately poor subcontinental polity born out of genocidal violence, freighted with more religious communities, language groups and cultural differences than any other part of the world set off to be a democratic, pluralist nation-state. And sixty years later, India is still a democratic, pluralist nation-state.

Now we’re the elephant in the room when Western commentators invoke the Free World or reach once more for that mythical beast, the Judaeo-Christian past of democratic peoples. It’s not merely that we’re free and not Western, democratic and conspicuously not Judaeo-Christian, though both these things are important in a world made claustrophobic by the self-congratulatory narcissism of the Anglo-American West. It is also that we are these things without being occupied by MacArthur, protected by CENTO or bailed out by the Marshall Plan. And what’s more, we’ve taken the West’s largest claim to political liberalism, the separation of church and state, or secularism, and turned it into a many-petalled pluralist flower.

And perhaps most importantly, Kesavan’s points are not merely valid, they are increasingly valid:

So when Holland, that bastion of ‘tolerance’ and ‘multiculturalism’ commits itself to banning the burqa because the practice of a hundred Muslim women subverts the foundations of Western democracy, when English politicians vie with each other to steal the white constituencies of the British National Party and when every leader in Europe from Romano Prodi to Ségolène Royal to Tony Blair feels free to publicly tell Europe’s Muslims that they need to behave, amid this hysteria, India stands out as a model of balance and sanity.

Despite a long history of communal riots and pogroms, despite secessionism, terrorist attacks on parliament and elsewhere, India still isn’t in the business of banning burqas or ordering Sikhs to present themselves for haircuts. No one should underestimate the occasional cruelty of the Indian state or the discrimination many minority populations face in India, but equally, Indians should take great pride in the country’s pluralist equilibrium, its remarkable poise. So when we hear a complacent Western voice divide the world into the civilized West and the unwashed Rest, we should raise our trunk and swish our tail and having made our enormous presence felt, politely ask if he could say that again.

Read the rest here.

^{(*) I have stolen that snappy title from an email I received from fellow Norwegian blogger Bjørn Stærk. I hope he does not mind too much.}

- It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.

Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, manager for the al-Arabiya tv channel, wrote this in the Arab newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat in september 2004, in an article where he argued the necessity of confronting radical Muslim leader figures such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

Little did al-Rashed know that he was to be used as an alibi for a thoroughly anti-Islamic view in a Danish school book for fifth-graders (10-11 year olds), “Os and kristendom” (We and Christianity). In this book for use in the classes on religion the pupils meet the second largest religion off the world in one chapter and one chapter only. That chapter is called “Terrorism”. And in that chapter, the pupils only meet Muslim terrorists. For, as they can see quoted in their schoolbook, “even if all Muslims are not terrorists, all terrorists are Muslim”. The sentence is not contradicted. The chapter does not mention the ETA, it does not say anything about Irish republican nationalists, it does not talk of extreme movements in Latin America, does not spare a word for the Red Army Fraction and says nothing on Christian separatists in Indian Nagaland.

But are all terrorists really Muslims? Not quite.

Al-Rashed is angry, and feels that his words have been taken out of context, to spread the exact opposite message of his own. He has all reason to be angry, but more people should be. There is something rotten in the Kingdom of Denmark. The chapter on terrorism in “We and Christianity” can not be described in any better way than as sneaky propaganda.

In an atmosphere where things like that can be printed in schoolbooks, it should not surprise anyone that someone places pig heads on a Muslim graveyard. It is no more a surprise than that young Palestinians grow up to be suicide bombers after reading the most horrible things about Jews in their schoolbooks. And, indeed, it should not be a surprise if – sometime soon – it shines like from crystals in the broken glass of immigrant stores in Scandinavian streets. The image of the immigrant as dangerous and threathening has already been created. The dehumanisation process is well underway. The Eternal Muslim is a violent and evil man.

The pictures from the “caricature war” flashes by: angry demonstrators, burning flags, attacks on embassies, bloggers that support freedom of speech, lying imams, murder threats, cowardly Norwegian authorities… but there is a piece missing in the jigsaw and all that is left is this nasty little image that does not seem to fit in: As far as I know, there was only one violent episode in connection with the socalled “caricature war” in Norway. I might be wrong, since this story, too, got little attention except in local media.

Just before midnight on the 4th of February a 35 year old Norwegian citizen of Palestinian background came home from work. He carried with him juice, that he was bringing home. On his way into his house he sees several young people standing outside. They’ve been to a party. One of the men takes the juice away from the 35-year old, who asks to have it back. He is then pushed towards a wall, and – when he asks his attackers to stop the nonsense – he is cut in the throat with a knife. The blood poured from an almost eight centimetres long cut.- You bastard, the guy with the knife says, – burning the Norwegian flag!

From the living room window the nine year old daughter of the Palestinian Norwegian saw what happened. But even she is seen as dangerous in much of what is written about Islam and Muslims today. Reduced to a number, even she is made into the Eternal Muslim, transformed into one of those who are bringing the downfall of Europe. There’s something rotten in many Kingdoms, and if Europe fully rediscovers its past of ethnic and religious hatred we should not forget where the smell first came from.

Alex Harrowell, A Fistful of Euros writes on the upcoming French elections, and – of course – on [Jean-Marie Le Pen]:

A few years ago, it was fashionable for the same liberal-hawk types to worry about the rise of the same politicians on the grounds that they were dangerous anti-semitic swine. Now, we are asked to believe that everyone else is anti-semitic, traitorous, etc and that they are heroic strugglers for Western civilisation. Which happens to be what they think themselves to be. Whether it is wise to take quasi-fascists at their own self-evaluation is left as an exercise to the reader.

Worth checking out in this connection: Jean-Marie Le Pen and the National Front, Jewish Anti-Defamation League