A desultory debate on the extent of totalitarianism within Islamism has reemerged in the blogosphere due to President Bush saying " Islamic Fascist" in reference to Islamist terrorist groups. There's a lot of objections to that term on pragmatic as well as technical grounds ( some Islamists are quietists, others accept democracy, some are "moderate" authoritarians, some are takfiri extremists with scores to settle against "apostate" Muslims) or the utility of the analogy.
Twentieth century totalitarianism in its Marxist, Nazi and Fascist manifestations have some commonalities with radical Islamism, notably opposition to liberal democracy, as well as important fundamental differences, radical atheism being a noteworthy example. Juan Cole's assertion that Fascism is incompatible with Islamism because Islamists reject the nation-state ignores the fact that Nazis emphasized not the state ( that was Mussolini's version) but the "Aryan race". Hitler himself was emphatic on that point, that the German state was an inconsequential thing before the wellbeing of the German" racial community". "Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Fuhrer" puts the state at the bottom of the pyramid.
Quite frankly, the most radical Nazis looked forward to a postwar, de-Christianized, Judenfrei, European racialist superstate that incorporated all "teutonic" nationalities under Nazi dominion. State, race, religion - fascism is a collectivistic and exclusivist creed and religion is probably at least as durable an emotive basis for Fascism as nationalism or racism. While some radical Islamists have been " eucumenical" in their desire to build a united, Islamist, Ummah others like the psychopathic Zarqawi took a violently takfiri and exclusionary approach to Caliphate-building.
Nevertheless, "Islamic Fascism" as a term has a number of problems given the diverse, at times inchoate and dynamic nature of radical Islamist movements...
Islamists vs. "Islamofascists"
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