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AAI in the News

Feingold decries creation of term 'Islamic fascism'

By Craig Gilbert
Milwaukee Journal
Posted on Monday September 11, 2006

Washington – Five years after the U.S. was attacked by terrorists, the debate continues over what to call them.

Sen. Russ Feingold said Monday that President Bush and his administration should stop using the term “Islamic fascism” when describing the fight against al-Qaida, saying it is a flawed description, is “insulting” to Muslims and damages American efforts to make friends in the Muslim world.

“Call them whatever you want – monsters, butchers – but the use of the term ‘Islamic fascist’ puts the name of Islam . . . in an exceptionally negative light,” the Wisconsin Democrat said in an interview. “It’s insulting and extremely unwise from a tactical and strategic point of view.”

President Bush began using the term this year, and it has been echoed by supporters and officials of the administration. Appearing in Green Bay on Aug. 10 after the announcement of a foiled terror plot in Great Britain, Bush said the arrests were a “stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation.”

But the phrase has drawn fire from Muslims who complain it stigmatizes their religion. It also has generated debate among scholars and analysts over how apt the ideological parallels are between radical Islam and the fascist movements of 20th-century Europe.

At a press conference last week, Homeland Security adviser Frances Townsend defended the formulation.

“What the president was trying to capture was this idea of using violence to achieve ideological ends – and that’s wrong,” Townsend said. “Regardless of what label you pin on it, it is this form of radical extremism that really wants to deny people freedom and impose a totalitarian vision of society on everyone, that we object to,” she said.

Feingold acknowledged that Bush has sought to distinguish between Islamic radicals and ordinary Muslims. But he said this terminology “undoes that work” because “it causes people to believe their religion is under attack.” He suggested simply using the phrase “al-Qaida and its affiliates.”

Feingold said he planned to address the issue in remarks to the Arab-American Institute this morning in Washington. James Zogby, the president of that group, said Monday that “conflating Islam and fascism, which is Hitler and Mussolini, is not a good thing. . . . There is no understanding of what fascism really is (and) of what Islam really is.

“In an effort to build public support for an increasingly unpopular war, they’re using terms to inflame opinion here, (but) they’re also alienating people in the Middle East.”

Advocates of the term have argued that a subset of Islamic radicals shares some characteristics with fascists of the last century: a sense of historical grievance, violent means, hostility to individualism and pluralism, and hatred of Jews. Critics of the term note, among other things, that fascism was a nationalistic and racial phenomenon, not a religious one.

Bush has frequently drawn parallels between the terrorist threats of today and the 20th-century struggles against totalitarian fascism and communism, and he noted in a speech last October that some observers have used the term, “Islamo-fascism.” But his own use of “Islamic fascism” is more recent.

Some officials have used the word “jihadists” to avoid the “Islamic” label. Thomas Kean, chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, said Monday he thought terms such as “Islamic radicals” or “Islamic fundamentalists” were appropriate.

“They are Islamic terrorists. That’s a very descriptive term. You’ve got to separate it (from other Muslims) – use the word ‘radical’ or whatever, because they’re not like the rest of Islam,” said Kean, who was asked about the issue after speaking at the National Press Club.

But Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, said he had a problem with “Islamic fascism.”

“Fascism, to me, is Nazi Germany. I just don’t put that together, personally,” he said.

Lee Hamilton, vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, said the chief problem with such terms is that they treat different groups and different threats as if they were one thing.

“I really don’t know what it means,” Hamilton, former Democratic chairman of the House committee on internal relations, said of Islamic fascism. “These threats are multifaceted. Al-Qaida is multifaceted. It’s not a single organization. It’s a network of networks. Hezbollah is different from al-Qaida,” Hamilton said.

“If you do not analyze the question of ‘Who is your enemy?’ properly – and we have been struggling with that question from Day One – then it is much more difficult to put together an effective strategy,” he said.