A new world is on its way. We are building it, one day at a time. As natural resource limits and rising social movements incapacitate the once-invincible machine of global capitalism, the world of the future is not written. It will be made by the victory of one set of competing actors: either the frightened few desperate to maintain their privileges, or everyday people organising in their communities for justice. We are living through one of the most transformative periods in history, and our actions will likely determine the outcome.
In a barely-noticed story published in the Army Times, the US Army announced that beginning 1 October 2008 an active-duty unit just back from 3 years fighting in Iraq - the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade - has been deployed for the first time ever inside the United States. It was initially reported that their mission would include helping with "civil unrest and crowd control". Unfortunately this militarisation against dissent is a reflection of a larger trend within the "War on Terror" starting in 2001, to harass and disrupt free speech.
Riot police like this now appear at every major protest to violently discourage dissent. This frightening assault on civil liberties started shortly after 11 September 2001 with the USA PATRIOT Act. As the generals invaded the oil-rich Middle East, killing thousands of civilians and torturing more from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib, the National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on millions of innocent Americans' phone calls and emails. Many of these measures have been flatly unconstitutional, giving the government and military more power to police US citizens, including detentions without warrant or access to trial.
But the government's callous disregard for human and civil rights displayed itself most disturbingly after Hurricane Katrina. When the levees broke and drowned the city of New Orleans, the mostly African American residents who were left behind languished for over a week in filth and squalor, as humanitarian aid was refused entry by the authorities. Food, water, and other necessities poured in to the Gulf coast before and after Katrina hit, from sources as diverse as the Red Cross, Venezuela, and Wal-Mart, and many more. All were prevented from reaching the desperate people in New Orleans. Nevertheless, the Army, National Guard, and a squadron of Black water mercenaries invaded the city to defend private property and shoot black people taking necessities from abandoned stores. White vigilantes even shot and killed numerous black neighbours trying to escape. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the father of modern fascism, is famously quoted as saying "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power". Another definition for fascism would be the militarisation of society for the protection of property and the social privileges of the few.
Rooted in authoritarian patriarchy, the control of women's bodies and sexuality, what distinguishes fascism from simple authoritarianism is its mass character. Drawing upon the fears of the upper and middle classes, whites, straights, and men, fascism promises security and the protection of property and conservative "family" ideals. Once in power, fascist regimes can be characterized by: (i) glorification of patriarchal masculinity, aggression, violence, and militarism, (ii) nationalism, xenophobia, and/or racism, (iii) dictatorship and centralisation of power, (iv) appeal to a mythical higher power or cause, and often a cult of personality, (v) elimination of democratic rule, civil liberties and freedom of expression, (vi) terrorising the public through surveillance, secret police and/or gangs of thugs, imprisonment and torture, (vii) violent crackdown on organised labour and grassroots social movements, (viii) state/corporate control over production, rapid plunder of natural resources through industrialisation, (ix) deflecting losses to the poor and vulnerable while protecting the wealth of the powerful, (x) social exclusion or even attempted elimination of racial, ethnic, sexual, gender, differently-abler, or political "undesirables".
Typically these regimes take power during times of economic crisis, and draw attention to a perceived threat of external or internal enemies as demonstrating the need for a powerful State and Leader to "save the Nation." Usually they come to power through violence, but sometimes, as with Hitler, they are elected legally. Fascism appeals to those who wish to maintain their privilege, wealth and power in times of crisis, by deflecting the costs of the deteriorating economy towards those on the bottom of the social pyramid. The corporate and financial bailouts illustrate this crisis-diversion perfectly: shifting risk from wealthy investors, whose irresponsible actions caused the chaos, to the taxpayers and home owners, who are being doomed to perpetual debt.
Already we've witnessed the US's absolute defiance of public opinion in refusing to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Terrorising domestic dissent in order to secure the world's largest oil fields for US corporations, and flagrantly violating international law, certainly foreshadows twilight of democracy. At the same time, we've seen the racist demonisation of people of colour, particularly immigrant populations. In 2007 alone, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested some 35,000 undocumented immigrants, more than double the number in 2006. The purpose of these raids, and the militarisation of the Mexican border, is not to benefit average Americans, but to drive a racial wedge of fear into the public and co-opt the whites into supporting the militarisation of society. Classic divide and conquer.
As the capitalist iron giant stumbles, the fearful will propose desperate solutions to keep the system running. There is no available replacement for oil, but some even more ecologically destructive fuels like tar sands, ethanol, and liquefied coal (used by the Nazis in WW2) are being substituted. These require mega-scale industrial projects, but because the fuels provide such low rates of return, there is little appeal for capital investment unless the government absorbs the risks. Such an arrangement is impossible in a strictly free-market capitalist economy but becomes eminently possible if corporate and state interests merge into an arrangement that could be called state capitalism, or fascism. Reviving the industrial Frankenstein's monster in this way would be a disaster for the planet earth and humanity, but there are those who would rather cling to what was than face the future with humbleness and courage.
The good news is that this monstrous corporate resuscitation can be stopped. Fascism is not inevitability, only a possibility which grows increasingly unlikely as we organise, demonstrate, and take direct action for sustainability, justice, freedom and democracy. We can do this by replacing fear with love. All around the planet as the capitalist system breaks down, millions of everyday people are refusing to pay for the failures of those in power. In the wake of the economic crisis, as governments respond by favouring wealthy elites at the expense of their own populations, people are getting together to solve problems themselves, even if it means working outside the realm of established politics.
Workers are organising in their workplaces for better wages and benefits, students are organising on campuses for more accessible and democratic education, community members are organising in their neighbourhoods to save their land, homes and communities, and women and queer- and trans-folks are organising to reclaim their bodies and sexualities. Defeating fascism and reorganising society around human and ecological needs will take all working together, each in their own way. For example, we need people willing to occupy buildings or streets, but we also need people willing to hold a banner, or organise a petition. We can't do it if we don't have people who will be willing to go to prison, and we're lost if we don't have people who will send emails to their friends and family. In short, people need everyone to step up to the degree that they can, and contribute in the way they know best. This requires a holistic approach to social change.
A holistic strategy requires that people take leadership from those most directly affected. In other words, those on the front lines of every struggle should call the shots. When people's homes are facing eviction, no outside group or organisation should attempt to speak for them or make deals behind the scenes. The homeowners must decide. This principle applies to issues of social oppression, like racism, patriarchy, class, or heterosexism. Those in power will always try to extinguish grassroots movements by dividing people along racial, gender, class or sexuality lines. To avoid this, there must be a constant effort to squash oppressive forces within the movement, as well as in society. We must model the world we wish to see, since "verily never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves" (Qur'an, 13:11).
The writer is a retired Professor of Economics, BCS General Education Cadre. Email: sarwarmdskhaled@gmail.com
The world of the future is not written
Sarwar Md Saifullah Khaled | Published: April 25, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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