The Issue of Islamic Party is too Normative

For less than a year now, political parties which will compete in gaining constituents in the 2004 election have consolidated themselves. However more recently, several Islamic parties or parties based on Islamic constituents, have experienced a worrying fragmentation. Why are Islamic parties so susceptible to fragmentation when unity of ummat (community) has been such a vocal issue? What factors determine the marriages and divorces amongst politicians within Islamic parties?
Syafi’i Anwar MA, Executive Director of International Center for Islam and Pluralism (ICIP) analyzed this phenomenon through a political and cultural approach in an interview with Ulil Abshar-Abdalla (25/9/03). To this PhD candidate at Melbourne University, in many developing countries the primordial political culture is often unable to rationally resolve institutional matters.
ULIL ABSHAR-ABDALLA: Brother Syafi’i, How do you respond to the phenomenon of the susceptibility for dissent within these Islamic parties?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: I notice that the fundamental problem is one of leadership. If we observe the background to the problem further, we’ll find that the starting point is an issue of leadership culture. I don’t know exactly what is the internal situation within those parties since I am not a member of an Islamic party, but I have many friends in them. As far s I can tell from my observations the conflicts often begin from insubstantial problems such as personality conflicts.
ULIL: You have said that the problem is with the leadership in the parties. Now there is Hamzah Haz in PPP, PBB has Yusril Ihza Mahendra, and there is Gus Dur in PKB. What is the crucial distinction between each leader such that they cannot function as a united entity as the community wishes?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: In my observation, the problem is not about the mission or vision of any one of these leaders but one of competing styles of leadership. Amin Rais speak out frankly, uninhibitedly and sometimes he is not wise. Yusril on the other hand is sometimes too rigid. Hamzah Haz is different, he is a politician who blows with the wind, easily-changing views, and that maybe natural for a politician. The problem is why fragmentation happens. I simply think it is not about the vision and mission but about conflicting styles of leadership.
I said it is because the leadership style is central to the leadership, and because every party has a leader figure. I agree that the constituents are important, but as long as the performance of the leader is not good, he will not be easily accepted by all parties.
ULIL: Why do their leadership styles bring them into dispute?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: Because our culture is primordial. We are often incapable of solving personal differences in rational ways. This actually is the common problem facing politicians in developing countries. The matter is that they are not talking about substantial issues.
ULIL: Actually establishing unity is easier at the level of the community than at the level of leadership.
SYAFI’I ANWAR: That’s right. As I’ve said, from observing the political culture, the Indonesian community is actually moderate, tolerant, and appreciative as long as the leader is a good leader.
ULIL: What is the type of political culture among our leaders that they can’t meet up?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: It is competition which is empty in terms of any clear ideology, vision and mission of the party. The matter of vision and mission of these Islamic parties is a problem and is not clear.
ULIL: A disease in our political culture is the clash among the leaders which then influences the base. Why is this so?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: I agree. But I want to emphasize that it’s not only a disease in the Islamic parties but of leaders of parties who prefer to be politicians than statesmen. It’s the biggest problem facing the nation. So, the Islamic party is rich in politicians but poor in terms of statesman.
ULIL: Do politicians always have bad images?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: No. but a politician should think to be statesman. It means, he does not only think in terms of his party, but in the future he should appear as credible, honest, as a man of integrity acting for the state’s best interests.
ULIL: It is all right if a politician is not a statesman.  But if he is a position and salary hunter, he confuses the community.
SYAFI’I ANWAR: Yes. Sometimes they used to read the verse of kursi… hahaha (Quranic verse named kursi which means position). So their orientation is not based upon the people’s interest. This is a big problem for Islamic parties. Besides, the problems concerning the Islamic party are normative and unrelated to really important matters, for instance human rights, employment, removing corruption and so on. Those issues are and should be more fundamental than issues about the enforcement of Islamic sharia which is a normative issue they concentrate upon.
ULIL: We even have seen the emergence of an Islamic Sharia Party.
SYAFI’I ANWAR: I think it will be contra productive. People currently wish for real solutions to real problems. At least the Islamic parties should have clear agendas for facing real problems. As Olivier Roy writes in his book The Failure of Political Islam, the main failure of Islamic parties which we can learn from other state’s experiences, especially Pakistan, is that they have no real agendas for solving the fundamental problems in society, like human rights, corruption and so on. They always focus on normative issues like the obligation of enforcing God’s law and so on.
ULIL: There are many stories about unpromising Islamic parties. My question is this, could we have any expectations for a better performance from Partai Keadilan Sejahtera/PKS (Justice and Welfare Party)?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: I want to see the matter critically. I agree if it is said that PKS is good enough from the aspect of organization, mission, vision, and in having an exemplary board. Here I’m in agreement with Martin Van Bruinessen, an Indonesianist from Netherlands. But the problem is related to the social base of PKS which is limited if it wants to compete in the 2004 election. I have observed that its mass base is on campuses which means PKB is not convincingly populist. Furthermore, PKS concentrates on normative matters as well.
Secondly, even though I am a member of Muhammadiyah, I am interested in Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa/PKB (a party delivered by Nahdlatul Ulama’) as it has a real social base. PKB’s constituency is clear, but the problem there is due to internal friction. As an observer, I must say that it is pitiable. I hope this problem can be resolved, otherwise, it will not only harm the Nahdliyyin, but also the nation in general. The internal clash can be utilized to the advantage of many parties.
ULIL: The problem of PKB is related to the strongman figure of Gus Dur. How do you read the situation?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: Gus Dur’s domination is really a big problem. When we talk about political matters, PKB has a real social base. My concern in PKB is great since it has a more real community. The friction and the splitting potential could have major implications.
What worries me is that this problem is not specific to PKB, but also is occurring in PPP involving Hamzah Haz and Zainuddin MZ. It is the same case there with the reconciliation between them who daily talk about the unity of community.
ULIL: PKB’s mass in the villages is wide and influenced by primordial views about leadership. If their leaders split, they would split as well. How are they to overcome this?
You are right. That’s why the leaders of party should be istiqamah (act in a straight forward way) and maintain a low profile. They should emphasize how to think about and give priority to future prospects. But in politics, keeping a low profile seems to be very politically expensive by nature.

Germany and France's Muslim Problem: Is Political Frustration the Cause?

The idea of a “Muslim siege,” stemming from the belief that all Muslims are challenging European’s assimilation policies, is driven primarily by islamaphobia, fear, and populism. Boukhars concludes by arguing that the absolute assimilation of Muslims in France and Germany must stop, and integration with political representation must be promoted.
Author Boukhars explains French anxiety over Muslim culture. He reminds the reader that this anxiety is “not a new phenomenon’ (Boukhars, 298). Instead, this anxiety has at least existed since the 1995 bombings of the Paris metro, and was only furthered with the 9/11 attacks and the terrorist attacks on Madrid and England’s pubic transit (Boukhars, 299). This anxiety has created xenophobia, and Muslim communities are stereotypically seen (by European citizens) as communalistic and anti-government. This is termed as “symbolic ghettoization” and Boukhars says the French see Muslim youth as “scum that must be simply rubbed out” (Boukhars, 299).
This mindset grows from events like the 2005 riots in Paris. Boukhars points out the riots were indeed comprised of Muslims, but instead of chanting scripture or other familiar jihad intifada they chanted “liberte, egalite, fraternite” (Boukhars, 299). France’s biggest political Muslim group, the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF), is not doing its job of uniting Muslims across France politically. Instead, youth see the UOIF’s image as polluted, since it has constructed deals with the Ministry of the Interior, and failed to loudly voice critical opinions on important Muslim issues (Boukhars, 300).
Anger with already established Islamist groups, Boukhars argues, is evidence of political frustration with the usual mouthpieces.
Boukhars identifies three different salafi groups in France, their stances on French integration, and their attractiveness to Muslims in France. The Salafist (generally a Sunni Muslim) puts emphasis on the piousness of ancestors and follows the Quran in both “action and deed…” (Boukahrs, 300). The three types of salafism in France are broken down into predicative, political, and jihadist.
Predicative salafism is a return to political Islam, a rebirth, and is a-political. Predicative salafism seeks a transnational (global) Muslim identity, founded in individualization. This is the biggest of the three Muslim groups in France, and is non-violent and leadership-less.

Journal of the Turkistan Islamic Party Urges Jihad in China

The latest issue of a journal entitled Turkistan al-Muslimah (Muslim Turkistan) was recently published by a jihadi web forum (muslm.net, March 26). The journal is identified as the work of al-Hizb al-Islami al-Turkistani (Turkistan Islamic Party - TIP). The first issue of the journal was originally published on July 2008 by al-Fajr Institute for Islamic Media, which usually publishes materials on the activities of al-Qaeda affiliated groups in regions such as Afghanistan, North Africa and “East Turkistan” (China’s Xinjiang province). The first issue was republished on jihadi websites in January, with the second issue following in February (almedad.com, January 26; al-faloja.info, February 20).

The three issues are similar to other jihadist journals such as Sawt al-Jihad (Voice of Jihad), published by al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia between 2004 and 2007, Sada al-Malahim (The Echo of Battles), produced by al-Qaeda in Yemen, or Qaddaya Jihadiyh (Jihadi Issues), published by al-Yaqeen Media Center.  Turkistan al-Muslimah follows the practice of dividing the articles between political and religious topics, serving as both “alternative” media and a recruitment tool for jihadis.

Turkistan al-Muslimah focuses on Chinese government discrimination against the Turkic Uyghur Muslims of China, while excluding mention of China’s Hui (Han Chinese) Muslims. The journal has the stated aim of revealing “the real situation of our Muslim nation in East Turkistan, which is living under the occupation of the Communist Chinese and to disclose the falsehood of the Chinese government, exposing its crimes [against Muslims] to the world… [we want the] world to understand our cause and rights, that we are seeking our freedom and independence and to be ruled by God’s Shari’a” (Issue 1).

Like other jihadi journals, Turkistan al-Muslimah publishes an obituary in each issue for a mujahid killed by the Chinese. The first issue devoted several pages to a profile of the late Hasan Mahsum (a.k.a. Abu Muhammad al-Turkistani - referred to in the journal as “Hasan Makhdoom”), leader of the radical East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) until his death at the hands of Pakistani security services in 2003.

The journal also published a multi-part interview with the leader of the TIP, Amir Abdul Haq. In the first part of the interview, Abdul Haq gave details of his early life and religious education and described his passage to Pakistan and then to Afghanistan. In the second part of the interview, the Amir spoke about the training camps he and his Uyghur colleagues attended in Khost, Bagram, Kabul and Herat in the late 1990s, when Afghanistan was still controlled by Taliban. He informed the readers that the Uyghur group was part of the military wing of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) led by the late Uzbek jihadi commander, Juma Namangani (Issue 3 pp 10-11). The TIP was unknown before it emerged last year to make unsubstantiated (and often implausible) claims of responsibility for various terrorist actions across China. It also issued threats of biological, chemical and conventional attacks on the 2008 Beijing Olympics, though the group apparently failed to carry out any operations during that period. Little has been heard from the movement since.

In the three issues published so far, the journal shows a proclivity for using the rhetoric favored by al-Qaeda and its affiliate Salafi-Jihadi groups. This can be noticed in the quotes from Salafi theological materials, in the publication of news of jihadi operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and in the political rhetoric the journal has adopted. In a section entitled: “Sayings of the Leader Hasan Makhdoom (i.e. Hasan Mahsum),” the second issue of the journal quotes the ETIM leader as saying “preparation for jihad” is an Islamic duty. [1]

The journal has also adopted al-Qaeda’s understanding of the global economic crisis. In an article about the crisis, “Abu Khaled Saifallah” wrote, “The causes of this crisis are: 1) the September 11 [attack] and the destruction of the World Trade buildings, which served as the treasury for the world, thus it speeded up the collapse of the capitalist system of free banking and the destruction of all banks and foreign investment; and 2) The riba [usury]-based system, which is called interest, and is prohibited in Islam” (Issue 2, p.32).

In an article written by an individual identified as Abu Ja’afar al-Mansour, the Qaeda style message appears to be more clear, with the writer issuing a warning to Beijing;  “China beware… take a lesson from those who preceded you, the Americans and [their] allies, who were defeated badly in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. Do not walk on the same road and do not use the [same] approach in prejudices [against] God’s subjects and in looting their wealth and fortunes, and in shedding the blood of the children…as America is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan” (Issue 3).

The language of the journal is loaded with concepts and phrases used by al-Qaeda and affiliated groups. Abu Umar al-Farouq wrote an article in the third issue of the journal describing Hasan Mahsum as a jihad leader comparable to Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi and Omar al-Baghdadi in Iraq or Abdul Malik Droukdel (a.k.a. Abu Mus’ab Abdul Wadood) in Algeria. The existing issues of the journal show that either the “Turkistan Islamic Party” is trying to associate itself with al-Qaeda and allied Salafi-Jihadi groups or al-Qaeda is aiming to attract “Turkistanis” to their global jihadi movement.

The Four Imams: Leaders of a Third Way

If we look back on the lives of the four imams – Abū Hanifah, Mālik b. Anas, al-Shāfi`ī, and Ahmad b. Hanbal – we find that they were extremely tolerant people. They were respectful of their contemporaries, predecessors and the earlier generations of Muslims, whether they agreed with their views or not. Indeed, they followed the example of their predecessors in being tolerant of differences.

Allah says: “And those who came (into the faith) after them say: Our Lord! Forgive us and our brethren who were before us in the faith, and place not in our hearts any rancour toward those who believe. Our Lord! You are full of kindness, most merciful.” [Sūrah al-Hashr: 10]

The four imams -- the leading scholars who founded the four canonical schools of Islamic Law -- never allowed past disagreements to cause them to disparage or raise suspicions about the people of an earlier generation who held divergent views. Likewise, they never called for an inquest of their contemporaries who disagreed with them and they never got involved in their affairs except in a positive way.

The four imams certainly disagreed with one another and with other jurists of their day, but they always maintained their calm in debate and disagreed respectfully. They never permitted others who spread their ideas to use their teachings as a source of conflict or as a means to cause division.

It could possibly be that the principle they developed of coexistence in the face of changing political and social circumstances came as a result of their engaging with the substantial societal changes they witnessed during the era in which they lived. They recognized a need to develop a clear and precise approach to respond to such changes.

It can be observed that none of the four imams ever accepted an official political post, not as judge nor magistrate nor anything else. At the same time, they also never constituted themselves as a political opposition. They never gave their support to the government’s political opponents, even though all four imams times suffered government persecution on account of accusations that they did. However, a close examination of the imams’ historical circumstances shows that such accusations were baseless. Instead, they were victims of the old idea: “You are either with us or against us.”

Their insistence on intellectual autonomy is what brought such suspicion upon them, along with how unscrupulous people would sometimes manipulate their statements and interpret their juristic verdicts for various political ends.

In truth, the four imams represented a third way: neither aligning themselves with the interests of those in power nor with the political opposition. This allowed them to carry out a vital leadership role of their own in maintaining social stability in a society made up of a number of contending factions: between the ruling class and the populace, as well as between a bewildering array of ideological factions and intellectual movements, not to mention ethnic and tribal differences. After all this, we can understand how they were so good at tolerating the disagreements of their colleagues among the various schools of Islamic jurisprudence!

They all kept a measured distance from the various contending elements in society while remaining fully connected to society. This made it possible for them to be a point of stability and balance, which protected Islamic civilization from a great deal of conflict, strife, and social disintegration.

The role they played in their times is all the more needed today with our widening social and class disparity and a weakened culture of tolerance, conditions that promote conflict whenever conditions are ripe for it.

The presence of an autonomous knowledge-based mediating authority is needed to act as a a source of strength for the weak and a moderating influence on the strong, to arbitrate in matters, and to impart to society the vales of tolerance and mutual understanding. There is a need for those who can speak out for justice and the inalienable rights that are needed to ensure peace and security in any country, and which can prevent violent factions and extremist movements of whatever persuasion from developing.

The world contains nations where you find a strong government and an equally strong civil society. They are held together by organizing principles and their vital, political, social, and charitable institutions. This is what makes the government strong through its people and the people strong through their government.

Most Muslim countries do not enjoy this balancing of institutional power, essential for stability and continuity, which comes from the presence of mediating institutions that are widely recognized and accepted on both an official and popular level, institutions whose role is often only appreciated when their loss leads to the erosion of society.

Ideological and partisan disagreements, religious differences, and other potential sources of division do not inevitably lead to conflict and strife. Allah says in the Qur’ān: “It is He who has spread out the Earth for all His creatures.” [Sūrah al-Rahmān: 10]

Within the sphere Islam, matters are referred back to universal principles and the legitimate life needs that Islam upholds. When such a reference becomes impracticable due to the severity of the disagreement tor disparity of the parties involved and the matter cannot be brought to a resolution through dialogue, there still remains a broader circle for coexistence: the one of: “knowing one another” referred to in the verse: “O humankind! Lo! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that you may come to know one another.” [Sūrah al-Hujurāt: 13]

This coming to know one another, this mutual and reciprocal knowledge of the other, is the foundation for social relationships necessitating goodwill, justice, and kindness.

It is possible that through such relationships you will realize your own best interests as well as those of the people you disagree with at one and the same time. We see this in so many aspects of life: commercial dealings, in public administration, health, development, and industry.

Returning to the four imams, it needs to be pointed out that the disagreements between them in Islamic Law were nothing compared to the disagreements that existed among the Companions and Successors. Moreover, they introduced through their own juristic efforts a number of opinions that were new to their generation. Therefore, it is wrong for anyone to claim that their views abrogate the views of their predecessors and exclude all views other than theirs.

The later scholars who worked within the framework of one of the four schools of law, though they did not usually go off in an entirely independent direction, never ceased to engage in choosing between different opinions and deducing new rulings on the basis of precedent. I have studied the legal preferences of the preeminent Hanbalī jurist Ibn Qudāmah, and found that he sometimes adopted a position that was at variance to what was adopted by all four schools of thought. He did so after acknowledging and discussing all of their received opinions His judgments in these cases are often quite erudite and impressive.

We can find similar cases among the jurists of all four schools of law. This is because the views of the Companions, Successors, and other jurists are no less important than the views of the four imams. They were also from the earliest Muslim generations and theirs is a rich and valuable legacy which has been preserved for us in works like the Musannaf of `Abd al-Razzāq, the Musannaf of Ibn Abī Shaybah, and the writings of Ibn Mundhir.

When we look at the magnitude of the changes taking place in the world today, we can appreciate the value of there being such a broad spectrum of opinion during the earliest days of Islam. Their contributions should not be ignored, since they enrich our understanding of Islamic Law. Though there may have been times in the history of Muslim civilization that such a plurality of opinion was unnecessary for society to function, our present age is certainly not one of those times.

Reclaiming The Issues: Islamic Or Republican Fascism?

In the years since George W. Bush first used 9/11 as his own "Reichstag fire" to gut the Constitution and enhance the power and wealth of his corporate cronies, many across the political spectrum have accused him and his Republican support group of being fascists.
On the right,The John Birch Society's website editor recently opined of the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretap program: "This is to say that from the administration's perspective, the president is, in effect, our living constitution. This is, in a specific and unmistakable sense, fascist."
On the left, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. specifically indicts the Bush administration for fascistic behavior in his book "Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and his Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy."
Genuine American fascists are on the run, and part of their survival strategy is to redefine the term "fascism" so it can't be applied to them any more. Most recently, George W. Bush said: "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."
In fact, the Islamic fundamentalists who apparently perpetrated 9/11 and other crimes in Spain and the United Kingdom are advocating a fundamentalist theocracy, not fascism.
But theocracy - the merging of religion and government - is also on the plate for the new American fascists (just as it was for Hitler, who based the Nazi death cult on a "new Christianity" that would bring "a thousand years of peace"), so they don't want to use that term, either.
While the Republicans promote the term "Islamo-fascism," the rest of the world is pushing back, as the BBC noted in an article by Richard Allen Greene ("Bush's Language Angers US Muslims" - 12 August 2006):

"Security expert Daniel Benjamin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies agreed that the term [Islamic fascists] was meaningless. "'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,' he said. '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.'"

Their beliefs are, quite simply, that governments of the world should be subservient to religion, a view shared by a small but significant part of today's Republican party. But that is not fascism - the fascists in the US want to exploit the fundamentalist theocrats to achieve their own fascistic goals.
Vice President of the United States Henry Wallace was the first to clearly and accurately point out who the real American fascists are, and what they're up to.
In early 1944 the New York Times asked Vice President Wallace to, as Wallace noted, "write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?"
Vice President Wallace's answers to those questions were published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan:

"The really dangerous American fascists," Wallace wrote, "are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."

In this, Vice President Wallace was using the classic definition of the word "fascist" - the definition Mussolini had in mind when he claimed to have invented the word. (It was actually Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said: "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Mussolini, however, affixed his name to the entry, and claimed credit for it.)
As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism." (The US dictionary definition has gotten somewhat squishier since then, as all the larger dictionary companies have been bought up by multinational corporations.)
Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled "The Doctrine of Fascism" he wrote, "If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government." But not a government of, by, and for We The People - instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation.
In 1938, Mussolini brought his vision of fascism into full reality when he dissolved Parliament and replaced it with the "Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni" - the Chamber of the Fascist Corporations. Corporations were still privately owned, but now instead of having to sneak their money to folks like John Boehner and covertly write legislation, they were openly in charge of the government.
Vice President Wallace bluntly laid out his concern about the same happening here in America in his 1944 Times article:

" If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. ... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."

Nonetheless, at that time there were few corporate heads who had run for political office, and, in Wallace's view, most politicians still felt it was their obligation to represent We The People instead of corporate cartels. The real problem would come, he believed, when the media was concentrated in only a few hands:

"American fascism will not be really dangerous," he added in the next paragraph, "until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information..."

Noting that, "Fascism is a worldwide disease," Wallace further suggested that fascism's "greatest threat to the United States will come after the war" and will manifest "within the United States itself."
In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel "It Can't Happen Here," a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated "conservative" radio talk show host. The politician - Buzz Windrip - runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy as anti-American. When Windrip becomes President, he opens a Guantanamo-style detention center, and the viewpoint character of the book, Vermont newspaper editor Doremus Jessup, flees to Canada to avoid prosecution under new "patriotic" laws that make it illegal to criticize the President. As Lewis noted in his novel:

"The President, with something of his former good-humor [said]: 'There are two [political] parties, the Corporate and those who don't belong to any party at all, and so, to use a common phrase, are just out of luck!' The idea of the Corporate or Corporative State, Secretary [of State] Sarason had more or less taken from Italy." And, President "Windrip's partisans called themselves the Corporatists, or, familiarly, the 'Corpos,' which nickname was generally used."

Lewis, the first American writer to win a Nobel Prize, was world famous by 1944, as was his book "It Can't Happen Here." And several well-known and powerful Americans, including Prescott Bush, had lost businesses in the early 1940s because of charges by Roosevelt that they were doing business with Hitler. These events all, no doubt, colored Vice President Wallace's thinking when he wrote in The New York Times:

"Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after 'the present unpleasantness' ceases."

Thus, the rich get richer (and more powerful) on the backs of the poor and the middle class, giant corporate behemoths wipe out small and middle sized businesses, and a corporate iron fist is seizing control of our government itself. As I detail in my new book "Screwed: The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class," the primary beneficiaries of this new fascism are the corporatists, while the once-outspoken middle class of the 1950s-1980s is systematically being replaced by a silent serf-class of the working poor.

As Wallace wrote, some in big business "are willing to jeopardize the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary advantage." He added, "Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise [companies]. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself."

But American fascists who would want former CEOs as President, Vice President, House Majority Whip, and Senate Majority Leader, and write legislation with corporate interests in mind, don't generally talk to We The People about their real agenda, or the harm it does to small businesses and working people. Instead, as Hitler did with the trade union leaders and the Jews, they point to a "them" to pin with blame and distract people from the harms of their economic policies.
In a comment prescient of George W. Bush's recent suggestion that civilization itself is at risk because of gays or Muslims, Wallace continued:

" The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice. It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination..."

But even at this, Wallace noted, American fascists would have to lie to the people in order to gain power. And, because they were in bed with the nation's largest corporations - who could gain control of newspapers and broadcast media - they could promote their lies with ease.

"The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact," Wallace wrote. "Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy."

In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism the Vice President of the United States saw rising in America, he added:

"They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection." Finally, Wallace said, "The myth of fascist efficiency has deluded many people. ... Democracy, to crush fascism internally, must...develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels."

This liberal vision of an egalitarian America in which very large businesses and media monopolies are broken up under the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act (which Reagan stopped enforcing, leading to the mergers & acquisitions frenzy that continues to this day) was the driving vision of the New Deal (and of "Trust Buster" Teddy Roosevelt a generation earlier).
As Wallace's President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, said when he accepted his party's renomination in 1936 in Philadelphia:

"...Out of this modern civilization, economic royalists [have] carved new dynasties.... It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction.... And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man...."

Speaking indirectly of the fascists that Wallace would directly name almost a decade later, Roosevelt brought the issue to its core:

"These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power."

But, he thundered in that speech:

"Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power!"

In 2006, we again stand at the same crossroad Roosevelt and Wallace confronted during the Great Depression and World War II. Fascism is again rising in America, this time calling itself "compassionate conservatism," and "the free market" in a "flat" world. The RNC's behavior today eerily parallels the day in 1936 when Roosevelt said:

"In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for."

President Roosevelt and Vice President Wallace's warnings have come full circle. Thus it's now critical that we reclaim the word "fascist" to describe current-day Republican policies, support progressive websites that spread the good word, and join together this November at the ballot box to stop fascist election fraud and this most recent incarnation of Republican-fascism from seizing complete and irretrievable control of our nation