ICC Note: This piece is more political than we typically like (dealing with conservative/liberal issues) but it deals with an issue that is close to our heart. That is, the need for journalists as well as the average citizen to confront the evil of fundamentalist Islam. Unfortunately, too many individuals give fundamentalist Islam a pass since their evils are cloaked with religion.
THE GHOSTS OF APPEASEMENT
Christian Realism and the Rise of Islamic Fascism
By JosephLoconte
Let me begin, if I may, with a few lines from Tolkiens Lord of the Rings:
A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings. Yes, sooner or later the dark power will devour him.
Whatever we may think of America s war on radical Islam, there is a darkness to this ideology that shocks the conscience. I believe weve seen this darkness before, or at least something like it.
In the fall of 1940, the landscape across the Atlantic must have looked surreal. The German military machine, devastated and humiliated barely 20 years before, was on the move. Wehrmacht tanks occupied major European capitals. France , arguably the lead power in the region, had collapsed almost overnight. Thousands of British troops barely escaped with their lives at Dunkirk . German bombers were terrorizing London .
At one point President Roosevelt asked Winston Churchill what the conflict should be called. The British prime minister replied at once: the unnecessary war. There never was a war more easy to stop than that which has just wrecked what was left of the world from the previous struggle, he wrote much later. Virtuous motives, trammeled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness.
Of all the lessons to be drawn from the Second World War, perhaps none is more apt for our own time: The failure to face international terrorism realistically only invites dangers on our own shores. My point here is not that Nazism is exactly the same kind of threat as radical Islam. My point is that the inertia and timidity of the democracies in the face of European fascism did not arise out of a vacuum. It grew from the soil of a political and religious ideology. That ideology is utopianism. And it is alive and well in our contemporary culture.
At its heart, utopianism is the denial of radical evil. It is a naïve vision of social and political life that ignores the realities of history and human nature. Though it is an age-old temptation in politics and religion, utopianism reached a high-water mark in the years after the First World War. Utterly revolted by the carnage of that conflict, thousands of ministers vowed never to support American entry in another European war.
Most political leaders felt the same way. They hailed the League of Nations as the surest way to keep the peace. By 1928, fifty-nine nations had signed the Pact of Paris, promising to abandon war as a tool of national policy. Editors at The Christian Century, the leading religious journal in America , opined, Today international war was banished from civilization. Not quite banished: Within a decade, most of the nations that signed the pact would be mobilizing for war.
The utopianism of the era produced a fog of peace that engulfed political and religious leadership on both sides of the Atlantic . By the late 1930s, this outlook had severely weakened the resolve of the Western democracies to resist a new form of tyrannythe rise of the fascist totalitarian state.
Fascism with an Islamic Face
What does this have to do with America s present struggle against radical Islam?
Quite a lot, I think. There are no exact historical parallels, of course. And theres always a danger of mining the historical record for partisan or ideological reasons. That usually leads to bad history and bad politics.
Yet there are enough similarities between European fascism and radical Islamwhat many now call Islamic fascismto revisit the lessons of that decade of appeasement.
True, European fascism elevated the State above all else, while todays Islamists regard the State as a means to an end: the establishment of a vast, borderless caliphate. Nevertheless, Mussolinis mottoniente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contra lo Stato (nothing outside the state, nothing against the state)aptly describes the totalitarian desires of Osama bin Laden and his allies.
An American observer, writing in 1939, saw in fascism a deliberate return to barbarism. The new barbarians share much with their European counterparts: a remorseless savagery, an obsession with blood and death, and a utopian vision of purity and power. If we just consider, for example, the Iranian presidents vow to wipe Israel off the map, or the recent plot to blow up 10 airliners bound for the United States, or the Time magazine photo spread of Lebanese boys, arms outstretched like Hitler Youth as they pledge martyrdom for Hezbollahdo we not see the stigmata of fascism?
It is not only the Bush administration or political conservatives who make the charge. Christopher Hitchens, the leftist intellectual and columnist for Vanity Fair, described the appearance of fascism with an Islamic face within days of the 9/11 attacks. Bernard Lewis, one of the greatest living Islamic scholars, has traced the influence of the Nazi party on the Islamist movements in the Middle East .
French philosopher Bernard-Henry Levy has employed the phrase to reject the suggestion that Arab humiliation somehow justifies Islamist rage: Arab or Muslim fascism deserves, in my view, to be condemned just like any other fascism. And Farid Ghadry, president of the Reform party of Syria , has taken to task those who defend these Islamic fascists and fail to confront the true attackers of Islam.
Its worth remembering that Christian Europe enabled the growth of fascism in the 1920s and 1930sin states such as Austria , Belgium , Croatia , Germany , Italy , Portugal , and Spain . Indeed, the fascist virus even managed to invade the bloodstream of the Christian church.
Immediately after seizing power in 1933, Hitler and his National Socialist Party infiltrated the state-supported Protestant churches in Germany . Soon church bells bore Nazi swastikas, crosses were draped in Nazi flags, and a new priesthood the storm troopers of Jesus preached martial sermons of racial purity and holy martyrdom. In Slovakia , a Catholic monsignor emerged as the fascist dictator. In Croatia , the Ustache openly presented itself as a Catholic movement.
Why fascism found support among political and religious leaders pro-fessing Christianity is a complex and much-disputed issue. Yet its clear that many fascists, Hitler pre-eminent among them, were masterful at enlisting religious imagery to advance their vision of a re-moralized and re-militarized society. The Aryan Christian movementcall it Christian
It is not only the Bush administration or political conservatives who make the charge. Christopher Hitchens, the leftist intellectual and columnist for Vanity Fair, described the appearance of fascism with an Islamic face within days of the 9/11 attacks. Bernard Lewis, one of the greatest living Islamic scholars, has traced the influence of the Nazi party on the Islamist movements in the Middle East .
French philosopher Bernard-Henry Levy has employed the phrase to reject the suggestion that Arab humiliation somehow justifies Islamist rage: Arab or Muslim fascism deserves, in my view, to be condemned just like any other fascism. And Farid Ghadry, president of the Reform party of Syria , has taken to task those who defend these Islamic fascists and fail to confront the true attackers of Islam.
Its worth remembering that Christian Europe enabled the growth of fascism in the 1920s and 1930sin states such as Austria , Belgium , Croatia , Germany , Italy , Portugal , and Spain . Indeed, the fascist virus even managed to invade the bloodstream of the Christian church.
Immediately after seizing power in 1933, Hitler and his National Socialist Party infiltrated the state-supported Protestant churches in Germany . Soon church bells bore Nazi swastikas, crosses were draped in Nazi flags, and a new priesthood the storm troopers of Jesus preached martial sermons of racial purity and holy martyrdom. In Slovakia , a Catholic monsignor emerged as the fascist dictator. In Croatia , the Ustache openly presented itself as a Catholic movement.
Why fascism found support among political and religious leaders pro-fessing Christianity is a complex and much-disputed issue. Yet its clear that many fascists, Hitler pre-eminent among them, were masterful at enlisting religious imagery to advance their vision of a re-moralized and re-militarized society. The Aryan Christian movementcall it Christian fascismswept through Germany and other parts of Europe with blitzkrieg-like efficiency.
If fascism could entice and manipulate the Christian religion as it did in the 1930s, why is it hard to imagine it could pervert the religion of Islam? If liberal political regimes could accommodate an ideology of militarism and racial supremacy, surely Islamic states are no less inclined to tolerate the theology of suicide and spiritual supremacy of the new fascists.
The Utopian Fallacies
With all of this in mind, its essential that we consider the core beliefs and attitudes of the utopians of the 1930s, and how they enabled the military aggression of Hitler and his allies. For Im convinced that the utopian spirit is alive and well, and its affecting the way many religious and political leaders view the threat of radical Islam.
So, three lessons from a previous era of struggle, three responses, and some thoughts on the way forward.
First, the utopians were obsessed with the failings of the Western democracies, especially the United States and Great Britain .
Peace activist A.J. Muste compared the Allies to the men who tortured and killed the victims of the Inquisition, mistakenly believing they were advancing the cause of God.
Even as Hitler launched his Blitzkrieg, for example, editors at The Christian Century savaged the mistaken and irrational assumption that the Allied cause could be a war for the preservation of anything good in civilization. As late as November 1941, the editors declared an Anglo-American alliance to defeat Nazism as a war for imperialism.
The Rev. John Haynes Holmes, a progressive minister in New York , spoke for many when he called Hitler the incarnation of our nationalistic, capitalistic and militaristic era. A German victory, he intoned, should be viewed as the punishment for our transgressions.
Does that sound familiar?
Immediately after the attacks of 9/11, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson blamed gays, feminists and civil libertarians for inviting Divine judgment on America . Their utopian vision sees America as the new Israel , bound by a covenant relationship with the God of Abraham; the attack was a sure sign that America was thumbing its nose at the agreement. Under this vision, Islam is viewed as a club in Gods hands to deliver spiritual discipline. This is the right-wing version of contemporary utopianism.
There is a left-wing: After 9-11, Jim Wallis and Sojourners magazine produced a manifesto called Confessing Christ in a World of Violence. It was signed by scores of theology professors, ethicists and church leaders. The document rejects the crude distinctions being made between Islamic radicalism and Western democracy. The distinction between good and evil does not run between one nation and another, or one group and another, the petition reads. It runs straight through every human heart.
For some, there are no distinctions at all between America s democratic leaders and the leaders of al-Qaeda. Listen to Bruce Bartlett, a columnist and self-described libertarian. This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about al-Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy, he says. He believes you have to kill them all. They cant be persuaded, that theyre extremists, driven by a dark vision. [Bush] understands them because hes just like them.
Editors at The Christian Century held out hope that Hitlers Germany might give the rest of the world a system of interrelationships better than the trade-strangling and man-exploiting system of empire capitalism.
Who are their modern counterparts?
Writing in The New York Times Book Review, political scientist Ronald Steel scolds administration hawks for ignoring the essentially political causes of terrorism.
Feisal Abdul Rauf, a New York-based Imam, finds sympathy for the view of Osama bin Laden as a politically frustrated Robin Hood.
Had bin Laden had the opportunity to run for political office in Saudi Arabia , Rauf writes, he might have gained elective office and would then have had the opportunity to busy himself in the effort to build his nation and shape its direction. How bin Laden was actually busying himself in Afghanistan in the run-up to September 11 gets little attention.
Many Christian thinkers seem equally prone to these materialist assumptions about extremist Islam. The Rev. Tony Campolo, a leading progressive evangelical minister, railed against America in the days after the 9/11 attacks: Theres a swamp out there called poverty and injustice Osama bin Laden is our fault!
The United Methodist Council of Bishops issued a document explaining that peace and security would arrive, they wrote, when all have access to and enjoy food, housing, clothing, medical care and a living wage. No mention of how a living wage might tame bin Ladens cult of death.
The Rev. Bob Edgar, former General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, offered his Beatitudes of Peacemaking. To Edgar, the axis of evil is composed not of rogue states or religious movements, but the pandemic of poverty and the environmental degradation of planet earth.
In September of 2005four years after the attacks in New York and Washington England s House of Bishops released a report that never mentioned the horrific intentions of Osama bin Laden in the course of its 100 pages. Instead, al-Qaeda is likened to the Irish Republican Army. As the bishops put it: Terrorism, however destructive, has to be understood, first of all, in political terms. The real problem, they imply, is U.S. foreign policy. Their solution is a political settlement that meets some of the terrorist concerns.
Young men who blow themselves up at wedding ceremonies, who dismember civil servants, who set off bombs in mosques, who murder women commuting to work, who behead children on their way to school, who open fire on playgrounds and soccer stadiums, do not have concerns.
They have ambitions, stated openly and repeatedly: the eradication of all Western influence from Muslims lands; the forced conversion or elimination of alleged infidels; the establishment of a Taliban-like dictatorship extending from Iraq to Indonesia; and the use of nuclear weapons against civilian populations to help achieve this vision.
Modern utopians view Islamic terrorism as a response to unjust social conditions. They reject the possibility that something more fundamental is at work, something profoundly immoral, craven, and without conscience something irredeemably wicked.
Third, the utopians of the 1930s believed that diplomacy was the best way to tame the terrorist temptation.
If youve studied 20th century history at all, youve probably seen that iconic photograph of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, waving the paper agreement with Hitler to avoid war. The 1938 Munich Pact was, of course, the betrayal of Czechoslovakia into Nazi hands. Yet it was almost universally hailed as a triumph of reason over force.
End of part one. Part two will continue tomorrow.
