NM's blog

A selection from a long interview The most productive way to understand fascism —an approach that allows us to think about both historical fascisms and twenty-first-century neo-fascisms — is to start with fascism’s social and political project, which stems from its worldview (rather than a doctrine  per se ). This ideological core is what endures, despite the different strategies used, which represent forms of adaptation to the particular and changing political circumstances and cultural contexts.  This worldview can be encapsulated in a set of elements which are in ways also articulated with each other: An obsession with decline, decadence and the decomposition of a community considered to be organic and fixed … A civilisational and/or racial paranoia that makes it possible to connect this decline to the presence on ‘our’ soil of immigrants, minorities and groups considered fundamentally alien… Hatred of equality and of all movements that push for it… The idea that a national...

 

The march of fascism

“On one hand, we have the symbolic violence of intellectual gatekeeping, where certain voices—usually elite, often Western—decide which suffering is legitimate and which resistance is ‘too Western’, ‘too liberal’, or ‘not authentic enough’. On the other, we have the remnants of Orientalism living on in reverse: an unwillingness to confront tyranny when it wears traditional clothes or speaks the language of anti-imperialism. “Bourdieu showed us how elites define what counts as legitimate knowledge. Said exposed how empire produces false knowledge in order to rule. But what neither could have fully foreseen is this third form: where knowledge cloaked in anti-imperialist jargon becomes a tool to delegitimize resistance .” Here is an example: Tariq Ali cannot being himself to go beyond 'geopolitics' to sociology . There is not a single mention of the Iranian society, power relations, repression, etc., and how all that is related to 'geopolitics'. 

“[O]ver time, Holocaust memory in Germany progressively transformed into a policy of unconditional support for Israel. What was once an example of historical reckoning has become a framework that, in my view, contributes to the erasure of critical perspectives and enables actions that contradict the very principles of justice and accountability that this memory was meant to uphold. “The focus on the Holocaust, while important, has overshadowed or minimized the memory of colonialism, creating a tension that became more apparent after October 7. “This ‘aporetic’ memory politics is the premise for ignoring the colonial dimension of Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. In the German and Western European discourse, Netanyahu is depicted as the representative of the Jews as victims. Therefore, Palestinians are not a dispossessed people, but a new embodiment of antisemitism. “Germany is today complicit in the genocide in Gaza, just like France, Italy, and the UK. However, Germany’s ...

Note there is an error here: “In keeping with the patriarchal norms of colonial and Caribbean life, Suzanne’s own ambitions came second to Aimé’s, who eventually became the first president of Senegal.” Aimé Césaire was never a president of any country. I have emailed the editors to rectify it. Uncensoring the subconscious

One name, many lives

Israel has reached an unimaginable peak of evil. And indeed many people all over the world find it hard to imagine that this is so… The only possible conclusion must be that Israeli evil has nothing to do with Judaism and that what is manifested in Israeli behavior is not Jewishness. It is pure colonialist, nationalist and chauvinistic racism and should be treated as such.“ — Nurit Peled-Elhanan , Israeli academic and author

“We are living through a moment when the ‘F’ word is no longer taboo and the threat of fascism lurks everywhere.”  Alberto Toscano “reminds us that liberalism is no enemy of fascism , and fascists flower in the hot house of capitalism.”

This will not happen soon, Cori, especially when accommodating voices, if not complicit ones, of people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are betraying their own principles. But in exposing the crimes and the complicity in crimes of power and wealth,   words of defiance against nefarious outfits   are always needed.

The mainstream press has been afraid to say this directly and succinctly.  As it was argued when Trump lost to Biden, Trumpism is here to stay even if it looses to Harris.

“The Western world’s last settler-colonial regime, committed to an ideology born in nineteenth-century Europe, remains remarkably adept at diffusing a story that erases Palestinian humanity,  including in the realm of higher education . Most students, however, no longer buy this Eurocentric erasure – nor does most of the global population.”

As ever, the ‘legitimate concerns’ brigade includes a well-heeled faction of the lumpencommentariat, such as Carole Malone, Matthew Goodwin, Dan Wootton and Allison Pearson. Notably, however, these ‘concerns’ aren’t about the ‘bread and butter’ issues that many leftists seem to think will defuse racist agitation: as I’ve said many times before, it isn’t the economy, stupid. What the two recent moral panics have in common is the coprological image of matter out of place: borders and boundaries eroding and people being were they ought not to be. As was proven when the court revealed that the suspect is a British minor and the riots persisted, it doesn’t matter what ‘the facts’ are: we can’t ‘fact-check’ this phenomenon into oblivion. It would be instructive to ask one of these ‘whiteness’ or ‘Englishness’ rioters what they would have done had the suspect been white. One of the rationalisations of rioters claiming not to be racist was that, because the suspect killed children, he was not ...

“ Europe’s military arsenal is not well prepared for war  … because for the last thirty years we thought that war was not coming back to Europe.”  But has war ever left Europe?

Excellent! Is there continuity? Useful artifacts for understanding the imperialist worldview

“ Why do the majority of Western mainstream media outlets continue to adopt and defend the Israeli narrative? Why is there a tendency towards dehumanising Palestinians and placing disproportionate blame upon them for current events? What interests do Western mainstream media organisations have in maintaining this type of coverage?”

At issue is not an accidental, negligible or ‘unfortunate’ streak of racism in the works of a stellar European philosopher.

An interview with Malaika Jabali Correction:  “I feature Frida Kahlo, who was a part of the Communist Party.” She was in the Mexican Communist Party, not the American one.

“In The New Age of Empire: How Colonialism and Racism Still Rule the World , Kehinde Andrews explores how the intellectual, political and economic frameworks inherited from colonialism are still governing today’s world, resulting in a new age of empire that perpetuates racism, white supremacy and global economic inequalities.”

So many Germans did ignore the genocide against the Jews. So many stood by when the Rwanda genocide was taking place. So many have ignored the Rohingya genocide. Responses to genocide are often determined by where the crime is committed, and what the victims look like .