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The extremism of the centre
Wednesday, January 8th, 2003 12:41 amBack in the 1970s, a friend of mine, Laurence Otter, wrote an article claiming that the newly-formed Social Democratic Party was potentially fascist. It was alarmist but well-written, and although the case in question was, in the light of subsequent events, vaguely ridiculous (the SDP was a tiny splinter group from the Labour Party who faded into obscurity soon after) he made a good point: fascism is the extremism of the centre. I don't remember if this was his idea or if he was quoting someone, but it rings true. Fascism is generally thought of as a far right ideology, but extreme right-wingers, such as armed-to-the-teeth Idaho conservatives, have no truck with its corporate state ideology. Fascist movements, diverse though they are, have certain prototypical qualities, including group solidarity, sentimentalism, naive moralism and paranoia. They are prepared to ignore class differences in order to form a partnership between labour and capital for the common good. They glorify war, but are careful to portray it as essentially defensive, a matter of national survival. They may invoke racism, but do not need to; a fascist movement can be built on cultural solidarity as much as racial purity. And of course they indulge in the cult of personality, under the excuse that strong leadership is necessary to save us in this critical situation (and for fascists, all situations are critical).
Now, I am probably being alarmist too, but it strikes me that New Labour has many characteristics of a fascist movement, though "movement" is probably too strong a word to describe a party that has such desultory support (the Labour Party won two elections with strong majorities largely because they weren't the Conservative Party). We have the cult of Blair, though as charismatic leaders go, he is only there because British politics are generally so bereft of charisma. There is "partnership" between labour and capital. National identity looms so large we could be forgiven for thinking we were at a Tory Party conference. And above all, there is national paranoia and glorification of war.
During the Kosovo conflict, I was reluctantly cheering Blair on for dragging America into a just war that had nothing to offer in the way of economic gain. We could argue interminably about the conduct of the war, but as wars go, it had all the criteria for a just war, if you believe in such a thing at all. Now, however, in the build-up to another war, Blair's true colours are shining.
Many people have accused Blair of being Bush's poodle: America wants a war, so Britain will support it; Bush says "frog" and Blair jumps. I have serious doubts about this. Blair is not supporting Bush's war effort because he loves Bush, but because he loves war. I'm not saying that he is an evil person who loves carnage and mayhem; he is a highly moral person who loves a good fight between Good and Evil, and mistakenly assumes that a war with Iraq would be like the ents destroying Isengard, to use a currently popular simile.
The appeal of fascism is its sentimentality, its solidarity, its paranoia and its dualism. While New Labour was involved with windy rhetoric and fiscal conservatism, its posturings could be safely ignored by all but the British public, who have had to suffer the consequences of an increasingly hypocritical and divided society pretending to be a utopia in the making. Now, however, the British government is falling into the delusions of imperial grandeur that it never left completely behind, and is actively supporting a war in a part of the world that has already had too many wars. By playing on an Islamic/Arab/nasty-foreign-person threat that never came anything near to what the IRA achieved, Tony Blair is, in his featherweight way, tipping the scales towards another war in the Gulf.
I am not saying that Blair is a fascist. I am sure he is a perfectly nice person who shares the horror most of us feel at what happened in Europe in the 1930s. To come back to the Lord of the Rings comparison, he is not Sauron, or even Saruman. He is Boromir, an upright fellow who is seduced by the potential power to do good into doing evil.
Note: If you enjoyed this, or any of my other Gulf war related posts, please do something. Talk to your friends, link to, or even slashdot, this post, post something of your own, write to your MP/Congressman - whatever. The Internet has a ripple effect - if everybody who is opposed to this war does something about it on the Net, it may just get back to Bush and Blair, or at least to their spin-doctors.
Now, I am probably being alarmist too, but it strikes me that New Labour has many characteristics of a fascist movement, though "movement" is probably too strong a word to describe a party that has such desultory support (the Labour Party won two elections with strong majorities largely because they weren't the Conservative Party). We have the cult of Blair, though as charismatic leaders go, he is only there because British politics are generally so bereft of charisma. There is "partnership" between labour and capital. National identity looms so large we could be forgiven for thinking we were at a Tory Party conference. And above all, there is national paranoia and glorification of war.
During the Kosovo conflict, I was reluctantly cheering Blair on for dragging America into a just war that had nothing to offer in the way of economic gain. We could argue interminably about the conduct of the war, but as wars go, it had all the criteria for a just war, if you believe in such a thing at all. Now, however, in the build-up to another war, Blair's true colours are shining.
Many people have accused Blair of being Bush's poodle: America wants a war, so Britain will support it; Bush says "frog" and Blair jumps. I have serious doubts about this. Blair is not supporting Bush's war effort because he loves Bush, but because he loves war. I'm not saying that he is an evil person who loves carnage and mayhem; he is a highly moral person who loves a good fight between Good and Evil, and mistakenly assumes that a war with Iraq would be like the ents destroying Isengard, to use a currently popular simile.
The appeal of fascism is its sentimentality, its solidarity, its paranoia and its dualism. While New Labour was involved with windy rhetoric and fiscal conservatism, its posturings could be safely ignored by all but the British public, who have had to suffer the consequences of an increasingly hypocritical and divided society pretending to be a utopia in the making. Now, however, the British government is falling into the delusions of imperial grandeur that it never left completely behind, and is actively supporting a war in a part of the world that has already had too many wars. By playing on an Islamic/Arab/nasty-foreign-person threat that never came anything near to what the IRA achieved, Tony Blair is, in his featherweight way, tipping the scales towards another war in the Gulf.
I am not saying that Blair is a fascist. I am sure he is a perfectly nice person who shares the horror most of us feel at what happened in Europe in the 1930s. To come back to the Lord of the Rings comparison, he is not Sauron, or even Saruman. He is Boromir, an upright fellow who is seduced by the potential power to do good into doing evil.
Note: If you enjoyed this, or any of my other Gulf war related posts, please do something. Talk to your friends, link to, or even slashdot, this post, post something of your own, write to your MP/Congressman - whatever. The Internet has a ripple effect - if everybody who is opposed to this war does something about it on the Net, it may just get back to Bush and Blair, or at least to their spin-doctors.
