islamism

"I have nothing against the people. I don’t hate Muslims. But Islam is a totalitarian ideology. It rules every aspect of life — economics, family law, whatever. It has religious symbols, it has a God, it has a book — but it’s not a religion. It can be compared with totalitarian ideologies like Communism or fascism. There is no country where Islam is dominant where you have a real democracy, a real separation between church and state."

"In 1984 Said Amir Arjomand, an Iranian American sociologist at SUNY–Stony Brook, also pointed to “some striking sociological similarities between the contemporary Islamic movements and the European fascism and the American radical right….It is above all the strength of the monistic impulse and the pronounced political moralism of the Islamic traditionalist and fundamentalist movements which makes them akin to fascism and the radical right alike.”"

"There is no sense in which jihadists embrace fascist ideology as it was developed by Mussolini or anyone else who was associated with the term. . . . This is an epithet, a way of arousing strong emotion and tarnishing one’s opponent, but it doesn’t tell us anything about the content of their beliefs."

"The pairing of “Islam” and “fascism” has no parallel in characterizations of extremisms tied to other religions, although the defining movements of fascism were linked to Catholicism–indirectly under Benito Mussolini in Italy, explicitly under Francisco Franco in Spain. Protestant and Catholic terrorists in Northern Ireland, both deserving the label “fascist,” never had their religions prefixed to that word. Nor have Hindu extremists in India, nor Buddhist extremists in Sri Lanka."

"That same thing which they call fascism when they wrongly attribute it to Hindu Rashtra, is effectively accepted in the case of a Muslim Rashtra, such as Pakistan. I at least have never heard any of them refer to Pakistan as fascist."

"Any use of Islam to develop supremacist ideas, which are political in nature and subjugate people who are not from that philosophy, is fascism. Fascism involves whipping up people under a certain order by employing non-state actors to implement policies of supremacy, whether it is the concept of Aryan supremacy in Germany or Italian Blackshirts. Islamofascism is a new form of fascism where the religion is implemented and used as a political tool to implement the goals of a worldwide caliphate, in which the Muslims will rule supreme and non-Muslims will either have to submit by paying a tax or convert or die. The Muslim Brotherhood, Jamat-i-Islami, Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, SIMI, Taliban, Al Qaeda or ISIS, they are all different shades of the same animal; a worldwide Islamofascist ideology."

"[Islamofascism is] 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."

"We can now return to the NCERT guideline which proclaims that the conflict between Hindus and Muslims in medieval India shall be regarded as political rather than religious. There is no justification for such a characterisation of the conflict. The Muslims at least were convinced that they were waging a religious war against the Hindu infidels. The conflict can be regarded as political only if the NCERT accepts the very valid proposition that Islam has never been a religion, and that it started and has remained a political ideology of terrorism with unmistakable totalitarian trends and imperialist ambitions. The first premises as well as the procedures of Islam bear a very close resemblance to those of Communism and Nazism. Allah is only the predecessor of the Forces of Production invoked by the Communists, and of the Aryan Race invoked by the Nazis."

"Does Bin Ladenism or Salafism or whatever we agree to call it have anything in common with fascism? ... I think yes. The most obvious points of comparison would be these: Both movements are based on a cult of murderous violence that exalts death and destruction and despises the life of the mind. (“Death to the intellect! Long live death!” as Gen. Francisco Franco’s sidekick Gonzalo Queipo de Llano so pithily phrased it.) Both are hostile to modernity (except when it comes to the pursuit of weapons), and both are bitterly nostalgic for past empires and lost glories. Both are obsessed with real and imagined “humiliations” and thirsty for revenge. Both are chronically infected with the toxin of anti-Jewish paranoia (interestingly, also, with its milder cousin, anti-Freemason paranoia). Both are inclined to leader worship and to the exclusive stress on the power of one great book. Both have a strong commitment to sexual repression—especially to the repression of any sexual “deviance”—and to its counterparts the subordination of the female and contempt for the feminine. Both despise art and literature as symptoms of degeneracy and decadence; both burn books and destroy museums and treasures... Technically, no form of Islam preaches racial superiority or proposes a master race. But in practice, Islamic fanatics operate a fascistic concept of the “pure” and the “exclusive” over the unclean and the kufar or profane. In the propaganda against Hinduism and India, for example, there can be seen something very like bigotry. In the attitude to Jews, it is clear that an inferior or unclean race is being talked about ... This makes it permissible, it seems to me, to mention the two phenomena in the same breath and to suggest that they constitute comparable threats to civilization and civilized values."

"There isn't actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it's not an ideology; it's a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t."

"The word 'Islamofascism' never had any meaning, except as a catch-all for whatever regimes and groups the word's users wished to make targets for military action. Hitchens is also well known for his tendentious misunderstandings of all forms of religion, likening theism to a supernatural totalitarian regime and attributing all of the crimes of political totalitarianism to religion. It was therefore appropriate that he should promote the term 'Islamofascism' since it defines a religious movement in the language of secular totalitarianism."

"When Nehru returned after a brief visit to Europe in 1938, he was struck by the similarity between the propaganda methods of the Muslim League in India and the Nazis in Germany: 'The League leaders had begun to echo the Fascist tirade against democracy... Nazis were wedded to a negative policy. So also was the League. The League was anti-Hindu, anti-Congress, anti-national... The Nazis raised the cry of hatred against the Jews, the League [had] raised [its] cry against the Hindus.'"

"I argued over ten years ago that one could label the beliefs of the Islamic terrorists—or even Islam, tout court—fascist, in a precise way."

"Nationalism, then Islamism, both twentieth-century inventions, destroyed the Greek civilization in Egypt that had endured for three thousand years."

"Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society."

"As he continued to talk to me, I realized one of the fundamental points about Islamism that so many people fail to understand. The way Osman was speaking wasn’t in the orthodox, religious way of the with a stick; he was talking about politics, about events that were happening now. That’s crucial to understanding what Islamism is all about: it isn’t a religious movement with political consequences, it is a political movement with religious consequences."

"The one reason that I could not ignore, the one reason that grew deep inside me till it consumed me with guilt, was the realisation that I was abusing my faith for a mere political project. After learning in prison that Islamism was not the religion of Islam, but rather a dressed up as Islam, I no longer felt guilty simply for criticising a political system inspired by modern European constructs, while justified by seventh-century norms."

"If the dangers of racism are apparent, even in a non-violent form, then it was the same for Islamism. identity politics, self-segregation and group-think are far more damaging to societies in the long run than the odd bomb going off here or there, because it is such a milieu that keeps breeding bomb-makers."

"We are fighting against Islamism, not Islam. Islamism is the will to impose Shariah for all as civil, political and . … In reality, it's asking French people to increasingly submit themselves to the Muslim religion. That goes totally against the secular principles of the French republic."

"Even as the nation monitors the within its borders more closely for signs of Islamism, it must continue, of course, to protect the civil rights of law-abiding American Muslims. Political leaders should regularly and publicly distinguish between Islam, the religion of Muslims, and Islamism, the totalitarian ideology. In addition, they should do everything in their power to make sure that individual Muslims, mosques, and other legal institutions continue to enjoy the full protection of the law. A time of crisis doesn’t change the presumption of innocence at the core of our legal system. Police should provide extra protection for Muslims to prevent acts of vandalism against their property or their persons."

"Nazism and Islamism are on the opposite sides of the same coin – we oppose both. Nazism has been defeated and Islamism is spreading across the country."

"It is of the essence of a totalitarian ideology that it enforces its right to regulate the totality of life. The Koran, hadith, the fatwas represent one continuous endeavor in this respect; they aim at controlling every single aspect of life.…The ideology is premised not just on the belief that believers are eternally separate from, and eternally superior to non-believers. It is premised on eternal hostility between the two. Fanaticism and terrorism, aggression are inevitable results of this world view. Accordingly, the ideology makes it well-nigh impossible for Muslims to live peaceably in societies in which Muslims are just one of several communities. Indeed, it makes it impossible for an Islamic state to live peaceably in a world where there are non-Islamic States also."

"....As long as Islam evades its reformation we can expect more extremists in the future. Even if the Islamic State (IS) and Taliban, et al are dismantled, the religion itself will continue to radicalize new groups of terrorist organizations as there are religious scriptures that support their entitlement to violence as a practicing Muslim. Any religious person can succumb to fanaticism – however, we can factually confirm that there isn’t a worldwide trend among Hindus, Christians, Jews and Pagans constructing a global takedown to implement the totalitarianism of their ideology as the Islamists...."

"...What’s frightening about being an atheist in context to Islamism is the sheer volume of scripture that go a step further in disparaging atheists – it has numerous quotes that literally incite violence against them – and thus implying atheists are the most evil creatures in the kingdom of Allah that must be punished at all time. This is a well-respected sentiment held by a vast majority of Muslims – and it can be easily substantiated by all Islamic nations that have criminalised atheism and apostasy – where the resulting punishment is death...."

"A century ago it was the West’s great blunder to think it would not matter if Lenin and his confederates took over the Russian Empire. Incredible as it may seem, I believe we are capable of repeating that catastrophic error. I fear that, one day, we shall wake with a start to discover that the Islamists have repeated the Bolshevik achievement, which was to acquire the resources and capability to threaten our very existence."