This Ideology is Pure Fascism

An interview in Middle East Quaterly with Mohamed Sifaoui, an Algerian journalist now based in Paris, who infiltrated an Al-Qaeda cell in France to research his book, Mes frères assassins: Comment j'ai infiltré une cellule d'Al-Qaïda:

MEQ: Would you use the term Islamo-fascism to describe this threat?

Sifaoui: I certainly am one of the first Muslims to consider Islamism to be fascism. This is not a subjective decision but rather a serious, academic argument. Fascism and Islamism are comparable in many aspects: Fascism, without evoking all its particularities, bears similarities to trends also present in Islamism. I am, of course, making a reference to their will to exterminate the Jews. On this point, the Islamists may go even further in their doctrine than the Nazis did, considering that the end of the world could only occur when there are no Jews left on earth. In the three monotheist religions, apocalypse, end of the world, and doomsday exist and are liturgical events invested with a high degree of spirituality. Hence, the Islamists interpret the end of the world in a very special way. Whereas it is written nowhere in the Qur'an, exegetes describe the end of the world as the day when even the trees and rocks will be able to talk and tell the Muslims: "Come here, there is a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him." And this would go on, until there would not be any Jew left on earth. This ideology is pure fascism.

MEQ: Are there other similarities?

Sifaoui: The will to exterminate or do harm to homosexuals is another similarity between Nazism and Islamism. The Islamists, also, say that they are the best community in the world, a superior race thanks to their beliefs. They use political means to arrive at this erroneous exegesis. I do not fear to call it fascism. And there are many more similarities between fascism and Islamism.

MEQ: Do you believe it is possible to criticize Islamism without being called a racist?

Sifaoui: Absolutely, I would say that one must criticize Islamism. When I am criticizing Nazism, I am not being anti-German.

MEQ: When did you feel for the first time that you had to criticize Islamism?

Sifaoui: I have always felt that it was a moral duty.

MEQ: Do you believe that moderate Islam exists?

Sifaoui: Of course, it does. If the majority of Muslims were not moderate, Islamists would have destroyed the Western world a long time ago. Despite its technological lead, its nuclear power, and all its armies, the Western world would never be able to face an Islamist world entirely convinced by the terrorist cause. One billion people supporting Al-Qaeda would reduce the rest of the world to ashes. Islam contains violent texts that need not be applicable today. Islam is a religion of moderation. I know because I studied theology for four years.

Perhaps 20 percent of Muslims on the planet must be totally reeducated. We have to fight them politically, ideologically, and also militarily. Western societies do not fight them well; whenever they try to do so, they end up strengthening them.

And this:

MEQ: Given the Islamists' vision of apocalypse, do you believe that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would fear reprisal should Iran attack Israel? Should Western analysts rely on Iran's rationality?

Sifaoui: Too many Western analysts look at any adversary through a Western lens. Western analysts believe that Al-Qaeda is as rational as the Basque separatist group ETA [Euskadi Ta Askatasuna] or the Irish Republican Army. My personal history, culture, and investigative journalism work allow me to understand what Westerners cannot see: Iran will attack Israel as soon as it can.

MEQ: Doesn't Iran take into account the eventuality of its own destruction?

Sifaoui: No, it does not. Martyrdom is exalted in Iran. Iranians view annihilation positively. The Islamists' main purpose is to create the conditions for the West to believe that chaos is possible. The argument that says that Iran will not attack Israel because of immediate and massive retaliation from Israel and the United States is absolutely wrong. The Islamists would welcome such retaliation in order to cement coalitions among Muslim peoples and to encourage riots in the Arab street. U.S. military action, or even its prospect, coincides with Islamists' interests.

Comments

[Bob-B]

It's a bit odd to say that 'Iranians view annihilation positively' as if this was true of the vast majority of Iranians. Presumably it is only in fact true of section of those who have power and hopefully not too big a section.

[Richard Dell]

I feel this guy suffers from some of the residual delusions about Islam that Ed Husain does. There are also some logical inconsistencies in his position. For example, it is possible for some Muslims to be moderate while Islam is not, indeed that is precisely how Ibn Warraq describes the situation. "Islamism" is an invention of Western apologists attempting to avoid conflict with 1.5 billion people by exhoneration Islam from its responsibility for some 250 million deaths. Moderate Islam is no Islam.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/moderate_islam_is_no_islam.html

It is also true that Islam's attempts to conquer Europe were thwarted by superior military force, first at Tours in 732, and second at Vienna in 1683. Their desire to conquer Europe, and Rome in particular, has never diminished.

This link gives 8 direct parallels between the Koran and Mein Kampf:
http://pedestrianinfidel.blogspot.com/2006/05/koran-versus-mein-kampf.html

Here Matthias Kunzel analyses how Nazism easily infused the Muslim Brotherhood with virulent anti-semitism.
http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/hitlers-legacy-islamic-antisemitism-and-the-impact-of-the-muslim-brotherhood