Memes

I agree that most people, ourselves included, have vulgarized the concept of fascism and use it as a crude synonym for capitalist tyranny. Strictly speaking, régimes such as Imperial America and the Zionist neocolony are not, nor are they turning, fascist… but even so I do not feel the need to speak up every time we characterize our oppressors as such. That we recognize our oppression and struggle against it matters more to me than our imprecise categorization of it. If we need to characterize the ongoing superexploitation of the Southern world as ‘fascism’, even if that is not the correct term for it, then so be it.

Rather than explicitly disapproving of leftists for vulgarizing fascism, we can—and maybe we should—instead take it as an opportunity to show them how the most effective way to prevent neofascism is by abolishing capitalism; we can take it as an opportunity to show them how European colonialism inspired fascism. Take, for example, this extract from German Rule in Russia, 1941–1945:

Hitler continued, ‘if we speak of new lands, we are bound to think first of Russia and her border states’.^2^

His favourite analogy in this connection was a comparison of the future German East with British India.^3^ To him, India provided an object lesson of colonial exploitation and Machiavellian virtuosity; he used it to buttress his conviction that the population of ‘Germany’s India’ — the Soviet Union — was likewise no more than ‘white slaves’ destined to serve the master race. Characteristic of his landlocked outlook, he proclaimed that Germany’s primary colonies were to be found not overseas but in Russia.^4^ Along with its manpower, the resources of the East were to assure the material well‐being of the German people.

(Emphasis added.)

We are less aware of how the status quo—with or without (neo)fascism—already superexploits the South, and that is a problem. It is frustrating how many are more concerned with the possible rise of neofascism at home than with the superexploitation already going on right now, but the two concerns need not be antagonistic at all.

We can show others, through their crude antifascism, how the superexploitation of the South was not only similar to but also inspired fascism, and how we can prevent more neofascism by ending the South’s superexploitation once and for all. Let us invite them to learn more, and dare them to upgrade their antifascism.