“Why have large carbon-consuming countries allowed the systematic murder of thousands of children in Gaza? Because Hitler has already entered their homes and they are getting ready to defend their high levels of carbon consumption and reject the exodus it causes.”
Loads of good stuff in this article.
“He who does not wish to discuss imperialism … should stay silent on the subject of fascism.” - Nicos Poulantzas
In a recent interview addressing the Biden-Trump rematch, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) declared that, while she was horrified by what’s happening in Gaza, when it comes to the election, “at the end of the day, we have to acknowledge that we just can’t allow this fascist movement to grow in this country.” Talk of fascism here establishes an order of priorities: that a vote for Biden is the lesser evil when faced with Trumpism. A similar sense of the primacy of fascism’s electoral threat was voiced by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison during a recent debate, as he recalled conversations with friends who told him that “one day in Gaza is worse than four year under Trump,” to which Ellison responded, “Who says four years? This could be a long-term problem.” Neither Ocasio-Cortez nor Ellison minimized Israeli violence or U.S. complicity, but for both the threat of Trumpian despotism blunted opposition to Biden. That a student encampment was attacked first by a vigilante mob shouting “Second Nakba!” and, 24 hours later, by police shooting rubber bullets at unarmed students, has many reaching for the “F word” with no reference to Trump or his cronies.
By contrast, take Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s speech at the COP28 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai in December. In his remarks, Petro called on the audience to consider the Gaza genocide as “a rehearsal of the future,” in a world where climate collapse, migration, racism and war are inextricably connected. “Hitler is knocking on the European and American middle-class homes’ doors and many are letting him in,” Petro said. “Why have large carbon-consuming countries allowed the systematic murder of thousands of children in Gaza? Because Hitler has already entered their homes and they are getting ready to defend their high levels of carbon consumption and reject the exodus it causes.”
While these aren’t exactly comparable statements, and they originate from very different leadership capacities, the distance between their conclusions helps illuminate a significant dynamic. For left-wing Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez and Ellison, the focus is primarily national, while for Petro it is planetary. In the United States, the threat of a fascist movement’s electoral consolidation can serve to relegate the genocide in Palestine to a secondary consideration. Petro instead summons Hitler to jolt his audience into seeing how the Global North’s collusion with Israel’s war is grounded in a capitalist mentality that treats most of the world’s population as both threatening and disposable.
The effect of the first invocation of fascism is to delink the questions of climate, war and fascism; that of the second to view them as indissociable, not just in our analyses but in our politics. There is a bitter irony in granting primacy to the national fight against fascism over the campaign to stop a U.S.-funded genocide when the current Israeli government — in its exterminationist rhetoric, patronage of racist militias, colonizing drive and ultranationalism — fits textbook definitions of fascism far more neatly than any other contemporary regime.
If we believe that fascism is something that takes place only at the level of the nation-state, we might be persuaded that resisting fascism at home necessitates ignoring complicity with genocide abroad. But it is exactly this hopelessly cramped horizon being challenged in solidarity encampments worldwide.
Yeah, it's extremely well written and does such a good job showing the difference between socialist international perspective and fascist western view.
