What
is fascism? Perhaps one way to answer this question is to say that
fascism is a political logic that assumes that there is an easy
solution to complex political, economic and societal problems, and
that this solution is grounded in being ‘honest’ and ruthless
about who ‘us’ and ‘them’ are.

Political
practice is then understood as a necessity and even a moral
obligation to pursue this reductive identity-based vision to its
logical conclusions. In this view, the complexity of society and all
structural socio-economic conditions are rendered ultimately
unimportant, while identity is equated with ideology and political
action. 
Hence,
for example, in classic Nazism, an integrated, baptised and
‘Germanised’ Jew, who had nothing to do with any ‘Jewish
community’, was seen as ultimately representing the same coherent
entity, conceived as a conscious and malevolent political agent, as a
traditional religious Jew, who spoke Yiddish and practised
Judaism. 
No
matter what their appearances were, they were all the same at some
level and must have been treated as an alien element in the body of
the nation.

Today,
a very similar logic is propagated by those who are obsessed with the
connection between Islam and terrorism. 
Charlie
Hebdo’s recent editorial ‘How did we end up here?’ is a perfect
example of it. 
The
article’s main argument is that every Muslim, who publically
reveals her or his religion, engages in an act of terror and is,
therefore, complicit in violent terrorism.

A
peaceful intellectual, a polite baker who does not serve ham
sandwiches or a woman daring to wear the veil in public – they all
are members of the same entity that is not only different from ‘us’,
but is also attacking ‘us’, either with their alien cultural
practices or their bombs, a distinction between the two turned into a
difference of scale, not of quality.

A
conclusion, which is offered implicitly, is that to end terrorism we
must admit that ‘Muslims’ are a problem, alongside those
‘politically correct’ lefties who do not want to acknowledge
that. The only thing that is still missing here is an explicit form
of biological racism: we are not yet told that everyone of ‘Muslim
descent’ is guilty by definition. 
For
now, we are ‘only’ sold comprehensive cultural discrimination.

At
least, this is the case at the level of discourse. 
When
one looks at it in practice, the situation is already more blurred,
as police forces across western countries are systematically
harassing those citizens and immigrants who look ‘Muslim’. For
many liberals and leftists, the far-right undercurrent of Charlie
Hebdo’s editorial is obvious in its attempt to build a case for a
comprehensive discrimination against, in fact, a heterogeneous group
of people mainly engaging in harmless activities. 
But
we should notice that there is more to it. Fascism is not only a form
of prejudice, it is also a political logic. A logic that reduces
complex problems to ‘us and them’ issues. 

Multiple
factors, homegrown and otherwise 

Terrorism
is a complex problem. Any attempt to deal with it cannot be separated
from understanding its multiple roots, causes and structural
conditions. As even security services admit, Islamist terrorism in
the west is linked to western countries’ foreign policies across
the globe. This is logical in the most basic common-sense way: if you
claim to wage a war, how can you be so surprised that there will be
people who would want to bring it back to you?
But
there is also a more complex socio-economic and geo-political
dimension, related to both the west’s historical support of various
Islamists movements, as well as its ongoing support of the most
oppressive dictatorships across the world. Next, although systematic
poverty and exclusion of (post) immigrant communities in Europe is
not the only explanation of terrorism (neither is it its
justification, for that matter), terrorism is indeed inseparable from
the structural conditions imposed on those communities by European
states and societies.
Finally,
one should not dismiss the role of Islamism as a form of
religiously-sanctioned political ideology and practice that attracts
alienated individuals seeking empowerment. 
In
that sense, all well-meaning proclamations that ‘terrorism has
nothing to do with Islam’ are not only a form of wishful thinking,
but also an explicitly harmful contribution to the reification of
‘Muslims’ as a coherent and uniform group.

The
key point here is that none of the reductive singular explanations
will do. Islamism and its rise in the Middle East, Central Asia,
Africa and Europe is a complex story. 

The
attractiveness of violent Islamism to a certain segment of immigrant
and post-immigrant communities in the west (a very small segment, one
should add) cannot be understood outside the long history and
immediate politics of the west’s actions in Muslim-majority
regions, those regions’ own political, socio-economic and
ideological dynamics, as well as the systemic poverty and exclusion
affecting minorities in the west itself. These are just three
interconnected factors causing and shaping Islamist terrorism
today. 
There
are many more, as well as many more forms of terrorism, both in the
west and in the world as a whole. 

Banal
binaries 

All
this should be fairly banal, but instead, we are constantly being
sold a different identity-focused narrative. 
It
is assembled in a few simple steps. There is a terrifying problem of
terrorism, terrorism perpetrated by ‘them’ against ‘us’, and
the only solution is to admit that there are ‘us’ and ‘them’
and stop pretending that ‘they’ are not a threat, with all their
veils, refusal to serve ‘us’ ham sandwiches, smart talk of Muslim
ethics and bombs.

Only
when we admit that can we somehow get rid of the actual physical
threat of terrorism. 
For
now, nobody is yet telling us how exactly to solve this problem in
practice (although Trump with his suggestions of banning Muslims from
entering the US is coming close).
That
is the difference between fascism as political practice and fascism
as logic and rhetoric. But the latter is of course enabling the
possibility of the former. This is why it should be resisted
fiercely. To everyone who insists on a direct link between Islam,
‘the Muslims’ and terrorism, we should reply that there are no
‘Muslims’ as a coherent group, that religion itself,
independently of whether we like it or not, is not a cause of
political violence and that the problem of terrorism will never be
solved by an insistence on any reductive identity-based approach to
it. 

Serious
solutions 

Of
course, a genuine solution to the problem of terrorism is difficult
to imagine short of a radical transformation of the world. Such a
transformation would address the three problems singled out above and
involve at least three massive structural changes.

First,
ending the neo-colonialist practices of the west, Russia and China.
Second, opening up a political space for going beyond the wrong
choice between phony-capitalist murderous dictatorships and thuggish
Islamism in the Middle East (and other post-colonial regions). Third,
resurrecting the social state in Europe, one able to efficiently
address the appalling conditions and exclusion of its post-immigrant
communities. 

While
these changes remain utopian, the problem of terrorism is going to
stay with us and will influence where we are going to end up. 
Its
actual influence has nothing to do with challenges to ‘our way of
life’ or any other pseudo-threats, omnipresent in the rhetoric of
mainstream politicians.

The
real danger is in what must be called the myth of terrorism: a view
that terrorism is the ultimate form of evil, simultaneously an act of
war and the most despicable vile crime, somehow both cunning and
meaningless. 
This
emotional and a-political understanding of terrorism is widespread
and makes the job of those who want to reduce politics to
scapegoating imagined communities easier.
The
potential harm here is not only in increasing prejudices against
people who are already discriminated against, but also in the
replacement of necessary struggles over the forms of
political-economic organisation and the distribution of wealth with
reductive and simplistic politics of ‘us and them’. This is why
we must prevent the supporters of fascist logic from using it to
enable a new age of fascist politics to prevail in the west.