The term ‘fascism’ has returned with a vengeance, even though fascism was once considered to be a defeated idea, vanquished in 1945 with the fall of Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. 

Fascism’s remnants in the shape of ‘neo-fascist’ groups were largely seen as fringe entities. They were often infiltrated by agents of the state and dismantled. However, it is also true that, in the 1970s, some were actually facilitated by the state in order to neutralise radical left-wing outfits. This was quite common in Turkey and Italy between 1969 and 1980, when the state used certain neo-fascist outfits to stall the growth of left-wing militancy. 

Recent populists, such as Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, the former US president Donald Trump, former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan and India’s current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have all been referred to as ‘fascists’ by their left and liberal opponents. These leaders retaliated by describing their critics as ‘leftist/liberal fascists’. 

On June 15 this year, when the candidate of the right-wing Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) lost the mayoral election in Karachi to the left-liberal Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the JI accused the PPP of using ‘fascist’ tactics to win the slot. Ironically, ever since the early 1970s, it is the JI that has been frequently accused of being a ‘fascist’ party.

Several political parties and leaders in Pakistan exhibit fascist tendencies, particularly the ones that are busy labelling their opponents as ‘fascists’

Scholars studying fascism suggest that what one saw in Italy, Germany and Spain in the 1930s and 1940s was ‘classical fascism’. This form of fascism does not exist anymore. But certain mainstream parties and leaders may still exhibit one or more tendencies associated with classical fascism.

The Italian philosopher Umberto Eco, in his highly influential 1995 essay Ur-Fascism, outlined ‘14 properties of fascism’. Here, I will mention 12 of these because some overlap. I will do so to explore which Pakistani political outfits carry these ‘properties’.

1. The cult of tradition: According to Eco, fascism believes that all truth has been revealed by ancient traditions and there are thus no new truths, just interpretations. Certain segments in Pakistan insist that all truths were present within Islam’s sacred texts and therefore there is no need to look for anything outside these texts. This idea was once prominent in fringe ‘Wahabi’ groups who even went to the extent of advocating the burning of all other books. 

2. The rejection of modern­ism: Fascism rejects modernism, even though it was okay with industrialisation. The issue was with modernism’s emphasis on rationality. The South Asian poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal was uncomfortable with rationality because, to him, it undermined action born from passion. JI’s founder Abul Ala Maududi understood many social and political aspects of modernism as being ‘Western’, and inherently secular, and thus ‘anti-religion’. Imran Khan too holds similar beliefs.

3. The cult of action for action’s sake: Fascism glorified ‘action’ whether that action was born from any rational reason or not. To Eco, this tendency celebrates irrationalism. Khan’s party was always in activist mode — even when it was in power. However, on May 9 this year, this mode landed him into trouble because this time an ‘irrational’ action by him was directly addressed by a powerful state institution looking to reset its own mode back to ‘rational’. 

4. Disagreement is treason: Fascism detests opposing views, treating them as treason. The state of Pakistan is often guilty of this, viewing opposing views as a threat to the country’s integrity. Parties such as Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) too became notorious for this, especially on social media. In the past, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and JI were infamous for violently stifling opinions against their beliefs. The first PPP regime (1971-77) also saw all dissent against it as treason. However, this tendency in the PPP largely evaporated from the 1980s onwards. 

5.  Fear of difference: Fascism encourages racial, ethnic and religious biases and uses these to create existential ‘enemies’. Ethnic-nationalist, sectarian and sub-sectarian outfits in Pakistan largely bolster their politics by highlighting and exploiting ethnic and sectarian differences. 

6. Appeal to a frustrated middle class: According to Eco, fascism magnifies middle class fears of being overwhelmed by the classes below. Khan’s party and the JI do this. The MQM has always positioned itself as a party of Mohajir middle classes which have supposedly been ‘victims’ of PPP’s ‘Sindhi chauvinism’.  

7. Obsession with a plot: Fascism is obsessed with (largely imaginary) plots. It wants its followers to continue feeling besieged. Almost every non-Punjabi ethnic party speaks of a ‘plot’ by Punjabi elites to undermine the democratic rights of non-Punjabis. 

8. Life is permanent warfare: Fascism abhors pacifism. It sees it as a weakness. Therefore, it constantly creates ‘enemies’ to fight against. Khan’s politics were largely driven by this sentiment. 

9. Chauvinistic elitism: Fascism sees the community that it is championing as superior to others. In Pakistan, MQM once held similar views while comparing Mohajir and Sindhi societies. To the state and Punjabi elites, on the other hand, Punjabi society is superior to non-Punjabi societies. 

10. Cult of death: According to Eco, fascism glorifies death. Eco wrote that a fascist is thus impatient to die. But “in his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.” We have seen various militant and even mainstream Islamist parties recruit young men and women to embrace death in the name of ‘jihad’. 

11. Machismo: Fascists often hold disdain for women and refuse to see them in any role other than that of a homemaker. All Islamist parties in Pakistan advocate this.

12. Newspeak: A term coined by the British author George Orwell, it means gradually decreasing vocabulary so that the language needed to develop critical thinking is limited.  According to Eco, it was frequently employed by fascists. In Pakistan, parties have developed limited vocabularies to explain opposing parties. Islamist parties employ a handful of words to describe opponents: ‘secular’, ‘liberal’, ‘fascist’, ‘anti-Islam,’ ‘infidel’. Khan’s party often used words such as ‘corrupt’, ‘looters’ and ‘cheats’ for parties opposing him. Newspeak reduces a debate into becoming a meaningless contest between a handful of catchwords. ‘Fascist’ has become the most frequent, used by all parties against each other. 

One must add that a lot of these tendencies are also ripe within the country’s intelligentsia and media. Both have played a role as well in proliferating these tendencies, despite many of them claiming that they are ‘constitutionalists’ and ‘democratic’. 

One can say that they are perhaps evolving into becoming what they claim, but many often slide right back into Eco territory. Such is the weight of these tendencies embedded in them.

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 25th, 2023