Peter Hartcher

Julia Gillard began her last year as prime minister with a statement on national security declaring that “Australia enters a new era of national security imperatives”.

Pronouncing the end of the 9/11 decade, she looked to the future: “It will be an era in which the behaviour of states, not non-state actors, will be the most important driver and shaper of Australia’s national security thinking.”

In other words, time to get beyond a preoccupation with terrorism and look to the old-fashioned business of statecraft. She pointed in particular to the tensions between the United States and China as the defining question.

Tony Abbott, opposition leader at the time, took issue with her: “The most important security threats we face are Islamist terrorism and an unstable world.”

Two years on, Abbott has given his own prime ministerial statement on national security. It was wholly about terrorism and the rise of a “new dark age”. There was not a single word in last week’s speech on the dangers of competition between nations.

The rise of the barbarians of the so-called Islamic State is rightly concentrating a lot of time and energy in the civilised world.

Yet while we remain preoccupied with this new danger, the old ones are rampant.

Russia invaded Georgia in 2008. Today it is invading its neighbour, Ukraine, while pretending it is not. Russia has resumed long-range patrols of the US coastline by its nuclear-armed bombers. It is intimidating Europe with aggressive military manoeuvring.

A leader of the opposition movement, Boris Nemtsov, was gunned down in Moscow at the weekend. He was to lead a major protest rally against Vladimir Putin this week. Putin denies involvement in the murder.

Nemtsov was planning to unveil information, the opposition veteran said, about the Russian forces invading Ukraine, and this information would create “deep disgust” with Putin among the army and the security services.

China continues to advance its claims on the territory of its neighbours. Although it’s been smart enough to tone down its rhetoric in recent months, it has quietly raced ahead with building military bases and fortifications in four separate parts of an island chain that is also claimed by five other nations of Asia.

Satellite photos of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea last month show that “where it used to have a few small concrete platforms, it now has full islands with helipads, airstrips, harbours and facilities to support large numbers of troops”, said an analyst at IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly, James Hardy, reported in the Wall Street Journal.

“We can see that this is a methodical, well-planned campaign to create a chain of air and sea-capable fortresses across the centre of the Spratly Islands chain”, parts of which are also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Beijing had promised these countries that it would make no provocative moves on the Spratlys while it negotiated a code of conduct with all claimants. The US has described the accelerated Chinese construction program as “destabilising” and asked Beijing to desist. China, the world’s second-biggest military spender, has paid no heed.

Abbott was right to criticise Gillard for being too narrowly focused on one type of threat. But Abbot, similarly, was too narrow in his own statement. Both prime ministers were guilty of the same sin – faddism.

The truth is that Australia, and the world, have to face squarely all the threats to peace and stability. “States” and “non-states” alike. There is no need to divide them into separate baskets, with one in fashion and one out at any given moment. In fact, these rising risks can all be classed under the same broad political rubric. The world has seen it before.

The regimes in Russia, China and the so-called Islamic State are all fascist. The defining characteristics of fascists? First, they are authoritarian. Freedoms are curbed. The people are allowed no rights to resist the will of their rulers. Dissent is crushed, and crushed violently if necessary.

Second, power is highly centralised. Third, the nation is exalted above the people. Hypernationalism or jingoism is powered by a sense of historical grievance or victimhood. Putin says the West is intent on “tearing out the claws and teeth” of the Russian bear. His chief cause is restoring Russia to greatness.

China is overcoming its “century of humiliation” at the hands of Western imperialism. To this day, Chinese children are exhorted to “never forget national humiliation”. IS has declared its purpose is to “restore the caliphate”. Its leader and self-declared caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, announced that “the West has reduced the Islamic world to nothing”. His aim: “We want to restore the greatness of Islam.”

There are many differences. Russia is notionally a democracy; China is run by a party that is nominally communist; the so-called Islamic State claims to act in the name of Allah.

Yet all three operate as fascist entities. Fascism “abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion”, as Robert Paxton put it in his book, The Anatomy of Fascism.

In short, there is no need for Western leaders to play word games and declare security fashions. All three of these rising threats are enemies of freedom. They deny freedom to their own people, and they ride roughshod over the rights of other peoples.

The world confronts a resurgent fascism. It doesn’t seem that the West, absorbed with economic crises in Europe and political dysfunction in the US, comprehends fully the force and fury rising against it.

Peter Hartcher is the international editor.

Comments:

•   Describing all three threats mentioned above as ‘Fascism’ strikes me as satisfying moralistic, yet completely useless as a diagnosis of the roots of each threat, and even more useless as a guide to practical action. We fought Fascism in WWII by fighting the most terrible war in history. Is Hartcher suggesting that as a remedy for these new Fascisms? I hope not! But what is he suggesting, other than the obvious fact that they are baddies?

Commenter

Nick Maley

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 02, 2015, 9:14PM

• Peter Hartcher – Preventing Islamic Fundamentalists from forming a New State is a whole lot easier than preventing the big boys from flexing their muscles. With America’s military and economic might diminishing and many of its Allies in the same boat a stronger China and Russia see an opportunity for diplomatic payback and expansion.

Commenter

Darcy

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 8:48AM

• Nick, Tony Abbott is banging on and on about Islamic State, the death cult, and Islamic terrorism. Abbott would have us believe that the greatest threat to us all is terrorism which is not true. We are all far more likely to die in a car accident, or at the hands of a loved one as a result of family abuse or mental health issues. Abbott and his team would have us believe that we should give up our hard fought for freedoms for the sake of safety these terrible terrorist, a state that would take us towards a more fascist world.

The pursuit of policies like the “metadata” shambles will not make us all safer, it will restrict our freedom of speech far more than 18C, yet both Labor and the Liberals are hell bent on pushing it through. This is not good policy it is fear mongering and ass covering and it is not in the interest of Australian. We just seem to be missing politicians with a backbone to stand against it.

Commenter

Both Eyes Open

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 9:14AM

• ….the historical circumstances since the late twentieth century bear out some of the lessons of the inter-war period, namely, that fascism breeds from conditions of crisis, uncertainty and disorder. Modern fascist ideologies are still in existence in Australia, “…(and have) often through underground militant or revolutionary groups, alternated forms of pluralism or ‘neo-fascism’, it still possesses the ability to advance a politics of organic unity and social cohesion in the event of political instability and social dislocation brought by further, and perhaps deeper crises in the global capitalist system”. [Heywood A., Political Ideologies pg224]
  …in layman’s terms, ‘Might is always right!”

Commenter

Shadylayman

Location

Sydney NSW

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 10:13AM

• Peter,
  US, China, Russia, Japan are sovereign countries and have got individual issues / territorial disputes. They are also key trading partners to Australia.
  Its a fine line to thread between lecturing them on their sovereign issues and maintaining friendship

Commenter

rick

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 10:50AM

• Peter, fascism begins at home. Australia’s proposed data retention laws are the biggest threat to journalism, ever. Review last night’s ABC Media Watch for more detail (2-March). Doesn’t that worry you as a journalist? You write about Putin and the Ukraine, but I haven’t read that you are showing concern about what’s happening right here.

Commenter

Les

Location

Pyrmont

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 11:24AM

• Considering when Tony did try and stand up to Putin and Russia he was slammed by the press and made to look like a fool. Why would he bother doing it again. Yea he didn’t do it all that well but at least he stood up to him. No one else did.

Commenter

Why bother

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 11:33AM

• I find our hostility to what should have been new allies like post-Soviet Russia, which we managed to turn into another Cold War thanks to elements in the State Department and US Administration that wanted revenge for the Soviet experience – as if making Russia suffer even more was a good thing – with other Western states following in a mindless way, and our eagerness to intervene in states that are not democracies, as deeply paranoid. With China, it also looks like an excuse for our glowering resentment over their economic success. It may feel more sophisticated to draw attention to “statecraft” than the “simplistic” threat of terrorism which can be dismissed as peripheral. But reality is the opposite of what Peter says. The threat of turning the entire West into flames is what Islamism represents, and we need the united support of the legitimate powerful states with which he would prefer us to get into a pissing contest. That form of “statecraft” is our resentment against successful neighbours, waxing furious after we mess around at their borders trying to whittle them down even further, and they bite back.

Commenter

adboughton

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 12:25PM

• @Nick: “Describing all three threats mentioned above as ‘Fascism’ strikes me as satisfying moralistic, yet completely useless as a diagnosis of the roots of each threat”

Yes, I tend to agree. There is one other essential element of Fascism that Peter Hartcher didn’t mention. It is a movement of the ruined middle classes, aimed at the complete crushing of working class organisation. Out of the forces mentioned by Peter, Da’esh is the one that comes closest, but even there the parallel isn’t exact. In Russia, Putin’s regime makes use of Fascists, but it is not yet Fascist itself. And China is a different kettle of fish entirely. There, the so-called “Communist” Party regime is attempting to construct a Confucian capitalism while maintaining the old Stalinist monopoly on political organisation. It is not at all helpful to describe it as Fascist.

Peter’s error is one he shares in common with the old Stalinist parties themselves. Stalin greatly underestimated the Fascist danger in Germany in the early 30s, getting the KPD to spend most of its time denouncing the Social Democrats as “Social Fascists”. When Hitler came to power and suppressed all opposition, Stalin reacted in panic and went about attempting to find anybody and everybody who didn’t like Fascism and draw them into a Popular Front. What at no point changed was Stalin’s incomprehension of Fascism, which resulted in CPs around the world using the term unscientifically, as little more than a term of abuse for those they didn’t like.

There are, though, Fascists on the rise. The most spectacular examples are Golden Dawn in Greece and Jobbik in Hungary, but there are numerous other European countries where the Fascists are growing, too. In France, the FN says it has shed its Fascist past, but it statements are unconvincing.

Commenter

Greg Platt

Location

Brunswick

Date and time

March 04, 2015, 4:14PM

•   Islamic bannered activity in Africa, where government response appears, at best, ineffective,at worst, non existent, could develop into another major and distinct threat of a fascist nature. Sounds hackneyed, but how does all this play out for our grandkids, given that the political divide in the West is yet another source of instability.

Commenter

BJ

Location

Date and time

March 02, 2015, 9:36PM

•   This is very simplistic argument regarding Russia and Ukraine. The finger prints of the United States, the United Kingdom and NATO are all over what is happening there. They are just as guilty, if not more so of causing the catastrophe that the people of eastern Ukraine are currently enduring. And things aren’t all that great for the ordinary citizens of western Ukraine and Kiev either. They are beholden to the supposedly democratically elected oligarchs that are doing the bidding of there western masters. This is a west versus east power play if there ever was one.

Commenter

James Morrison

Location

Clontarf

Date and time

March 02, 2015, 9:47PM

• Yes indeed JM – thank you – all freedoms are constantly under threat from all kinds of governments even in the 1st world including Australia – it’s just more subtle & achieved by manipulation & distortion of facts rather than overt means.

Commenter

Lorraine

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 7:11AM

• hi James Morrison,

Thank you.

As I understand it, there was a compact between Gorbachev and Bush when the Berlin Wall came down that the west would not expand east towards Russia – as it has subsequently done.

In 1963, the US was rightly alarmed when the USSR stationed missiles close to the US border in Cuba. While I cannot condone the Russian invasions of Georgia or Ukraine, Russia has not tried until recently to threaten the West as Nato has Russia.

Commenter

Ross

Location

MALLABULA

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 7:26AM

• For the most part, western nations have exchanged the brute force of the truncheon for the soft absorbency of the sponge. However, this is changing. The rise of universal surveillance and the Deep State coupled with growing economic inequality, total regulatory capture where the interests of the nation and the interests of big business are regarded as equivalent by lawmakers, and the gradual militarization of police forces, means that a kind of ‘soft fascism’ is creeping across the Western nations. The best we can hope for is an authoritarian future similar to Singapore where everything is clean and the trains run on time, but political dissent is not tolerated beyond certain “approved” expressions. The worst case scenario is an Orwellian nightmare where automation gradually destroys the economic and political power of the Middle Class and we see a return to Victorian-era class relations – only with no possibility of dissent that leads to reform. It’s a grim meathook future we face here in Australia where our political class is increasingly divorced from the will of the people and merely goes through the ceremony of democracy to lend legitimacy to what is in effect a closed political elite. Sadly, our children will face the twilight of democracy. And there’s not much we can do to avert this fate.

Commenter

Crypt0punk

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 7:42AM

• crypt0punk

Very well articulated. George Orwell said it of Big Brother in 1984:

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”

It still works when the boot is disguised as a soft shoe.

Commenter

Banjo

Location

Eden

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 5:47PM

• Ross – it seems to me that it is a chicken and egg problem: does West/NATO seek to contain Russia because of their expansionist policy, or does Russia seek expansionist policy because it feels threatened by West’s containment policy? In any event, one of the most interesting things written about Russia is US ambassador George Kennan’s “long telegram” from Moscow in 1947. Its worth a careful read

Commenter

Alex

Location

Date and time

March 04, 2015, 11:07AM

•   The fact that Russia and China are fascist states is an elephant in the room that no-one seems to notice. Islamic fascism is not recognised for what it is either.
  All three are pandered to and we and the peoples under their jackboots will pay the penalty for our foolishness.

Commenter

Assoc Prof Raymond J. RITCHIE

Location

Prince of Songkla University-Phuket

Date and time

March 02, 2015, 10:12PM

• Dammit thar, boy, we should bomb them. Do Something! Panic! Where’s that red button?

Commenter

Axis

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 8:23AM

• I don’t think China would be considered a fascist state by most educated and non-biased people. The fact that Peter Hartcher and others hold this belief says more about their self-interest and motivations than the experience of people in China.

In fact, most of us who have been in China and have experience interacting with their people know they have more freedoms than we do in Australia. Certainly not great for civil society and social security, but a far cry from fascism and being brainwashed and forcefed poisoned-apple free trade deals like we have in Australia.

It’s interesting to note that several so-called democracies now restrict freedom of the press and freedom of travel, but continue to hypocritically accuse others of fascism. It’s hard to overcome the brainwashing we get from the mainstream media and inherited prejudices, but the soldiers who will be doing the dying if the rhetoric turns more nasty won’t be the ones doing the namecalling.

Commenter

Jon

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 9:45AM

•   What is it exactly that you would like the Abbot government to say or against China and Russia?

The current government has criticized both countries when the opportunity has presented themselves. Remember the exchange between Julie Bishop and the China representative about China’s ridiculous air defense zone? I need not remind you of Abbott’s very strong language towards Putin. Abbott is often mocked about how he handled it in Australia, unfairly so, given he was clear from the outset that Russia was involved in the downing of the MH flight.

When Abbott said Japan was our “best Friend” he was again mocked as his words were seen as some sort of slight against China. Even though Japan has been a strong ally since the end of WW2. China has not been. He was seen as interfering in the Island dispute between the 2 countries, even though the Islands are clearly Japan’s.

Abbott and his government are damned if the do and damned if they don’t.

And Abbott was right, the most important security threat that WE face is from IS and their sympathisers. Not China, and not Russia.

Commenter

bzzz

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 02, 2015, 10:21PM

• People who have the knowledge of history of WWII do understand Dialyu Island is a U.S. planted bomb between China and Japan. The administration power was granted to Japan but the ownership and territorial sovereignty has been belonging to China.

Commenter

David

Location

Date and time

March 04, 2015, 5:34PM

•   In fairness, we should probably have some context to the Russian/Ukrainian conflict. In a 1995 CFR article, US Foreign Policy adviser Zbgniniew Brzezinski foretold the eastward expansionism of the EU and NATO, including their absorption of Ukraine, right up to the frontier of Russia – this would economically isolate and militarily encircle Russia (http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/50579/zbigniew-brzezinski/a-plan-for-europe-how-to-expand-nato). Then you have George Soros in 2011 saying he wanted to ferment a Libyan-style scenario in Ukraine (http://rt.com/politics/leading-party-soros-prepares/) together with all the evidence of US/NATO involvement with Ironmaiden protesters, such as the leaked Nuland call, the subsequent $17bn IMF bailout followed by Soros’ op-ed calling for a further $20bn to the indebted Ukraine, and of course the ordinary propaganda through our mainstream press.

Commenter

Lawyerman

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 02, 2015, 10:29PM

•   To be fascist a government also has to be extreme right wing as well. If it is left wing it can not be fascist. The governments of China and Russia are left wing and therefore do not qualify as fascist governments. The US government on the other hand is right wing, both Democratics and Republicans, so the US by definition can easily be defined as a fascist government.

Commenter

Davo333

Location

Date and time

March 02, 2015, 10:40PM

• Hi Davo,

I would argue that the Russian Government is right wing. Don’t confuse Russia with the USSR.

Commenter

Ross

Location

MALLABULA

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 7:13AM

• Hi Davo & Ross,
  You are both a bit off track. Just as it is true that Pol Pot and Stalin don’t represent “communism”, equally, there are some “fascist” states that could be termed of “the left”.

Columbia University Professor A. James Gregor has written extensively on the subject and demonstrated that even some allegedly “Marxist” states are closer to fascism (in the academic, not pejorative sense) than they would acknowledge. Singapore, Cuba and North Korea would all comfortably fit into this paradigm.

Commenter

Scott

Location

Canberra

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 8:06AM

• What does it matter if they are left or right. If they suppress or kill their citizens, bully, harras their neighbour’s, muzzle the press and are currupt etc they are all bad. Left or right. As much as these pages moan about both sides of government we are pretty lucky.

Commenter

J Walker

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 6:05PM

•   There are quite a few “Fascist states in the world besides those three.

Heavens, Singapore’s authoritarian Peoples Action Party, which has dominated Singapore since independence, even uses the same identical red, white and blue Lightning flash insignia as the British Union of Fascists, which inspired Lee Kwan Yew when he was a young student in Britain.

Commenter

Scott

Location

Canberra

Date and time

March 02, 2015, 11:08PM

•   So Brandis wanting everyones metadata is not a move towards fascism.
  Abbotts party wanting to get rid of Section 18c is not fascism.
  Abbotts party wanting to silence the ABC and Professor Gillian Triggs is not fascism.
  Abbott wants the labor party to pass all of his legislation but somehow that is not a 1 party State.

Next we will be told that Australia has to move with the rest of the world or be left behind.

Commenter

A Green

Location

Date and time

March 02, 2015, 11:59PM

• Thanks, A Green. You forgot the changes to our laws that now prevents us from protesting against unfair government policies (or government actions).
  What about the fact that they can detain anyone, arbitrarily, if “they” determine there is an activity “they” label as “a risk”.
  And, that the majority of them are willing to take away the right of some women to wear religious/ culturally-based head coverings or clothing.

Commenter

Jump

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 6:26AM

• The most fascist act I have witnessed in the last 20 years was a war looking for imaginary weapons of mass destruction with a sub plot of bringing ‘democracy’ to the middle east. Now we have supporters of the invasion and the unintended consequences claiming to be the solution, very strange days.

Commenter

Bruce

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 7:22AM

• Isn’t fascism the government doing anything I disagree with? At least if I am a commenter on Fairfax message boards.

Commenter

Olaf

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 7:43AM

•   Climate change is the other big threat to security. Australian government is doing little to address it. Abolition of carbon price has brought increased emissions and decreased investment in green industries but no great economic benefits.

Commenter

Michael

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 1:21AM

•   Let’s not forget the need to be vigilant about the increase in fascism in so-called Western democracies, such as Australia, where governments are using ‘National Security’ as an excuse to take away our privacy and curb our freedom.

Remember Australia has no Bill Of Rights to protect it’s citizens from the excesses of governments.

Commenter

Be Alert And Alarmed, Not Distracted.

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 1:41AM

•   You might like to define it as fascism but I prefer totalitarianism, of which fascism is just one manifestation. Your quote from Robert Paxton is on the Wikipedia site. I hope your research was more thorough than that.
  Having said that, mine wasn’t – and I found this in the same Wikipedia entry: “George Orwell wrote in 1944 that “the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless … almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist'”. Richard Griffiths said in 2005 that “fascism” is the “most misused, and over-used word, of our times”.
  “Bully”? Isn’t that what they said about Abbott and Brandis over their treatment of Triggs?

Commenter

Doug

Location

Canberra

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 2:14AM

• Third most over-used and misused word after “racism” & “sexism”….

Commenter

Evil Whitey

Location

Church of the Latter -Day Sinners

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 1:13PM

•   Again facts are irrelevant to our Tones acts are irrelevant, an Islam based terror threats plays out much better with the punters.

Commenter

Matt

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 3:02AM

•   What about the threats to our democratic way of life in Australia? I think that the real threat to social harmony and cohesion in this country is secularism, and the attempts by secularist evangelists to advocate their ideology as the only acceptable position in Australia’s public space. Religion is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as a cause, principle, or belief held with ardor and faith. In this sense, modern secularism (the claim that God has no place in a particular setting) is just another religion, and the imposition of any one religious position (Christianity, Islam, secularism, postmodernism, communism or any other) on everybody as the only acceptable position – in our public school curricula for example – is misguided and intolerant in a pluralistic country like Australia.

Commenter

mkedd

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 3:10AM

•   Your definition of fascism is very loose Peter. Fascism by definition is the merger of state and corporate power. Ever heard of the phrase “too big to fail” ? Too big to fail is “fascism” in capitalism governments don’t let institutions get to be “too big to fail” There was a certain documentary that won an Oscar recently that explains what Fascism is, it’s about a guy who seeks refuge in Russia, you should watch it.

Commenter

Harry

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 3:45AM

•   While IS and Russian fascism might be similar in effect, they arrive there via opposite routes. IS revolutonary zealots are a reaction to a corrupt Russian style junta as found in Syria/Iraq. Maybe to thwart the rise of Junta style fascism, Australia should keep an eye out for parties whose sole purpose is the defense of established wealth, are deceitful by nature, opaque by design and vindictive by instinct.

Commenter

Wallace

Location

Ultimo

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 4:34AM

•   Well, the solution is easy. Invade Russia, then China, then IS. Not necessarily in that order. But that will cost money so the Medicare co-payment will have to stay

Commenter

Clown in town

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 4:44AM

• I would have to agree with you. However after close inspection of the world map I would say lets invade China first, that way we can invade all three in one swoop without having to ever backtrack our troops.

Commenter

Ying Huang

Location

Date and time

March 04, 2015, 12:30PM

•   And by the way here is your democracy regarding the TransPacific Agreement:
  “More than 20 chapters long, the text won’t be made public until after the trade ministers shake hands at a meeting in Hawaii set down for next month.”

Commenter

Clown in town

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 4:46AM

•   And the Abbott govt response is to become more fascist-like with metadata laws, military spending, curtailing people’s rights and crushing any opposition eg Prof Triggs.

Commenter

Realist

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 5:20AM

•   You haven’t noticed the descriptions of fascism you provided are slowly but surely being adopted under our current tea party-IPA government?
  – they are authoritarian. Freedoms are curbed. The people are allowed no rights to resist the will of their rulers. Dissent is crushed
  – power is highly centralised
  – nation is exalted above the people (team Australia???)

Commenter

Discarded

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 5:44AM

• Don’t forget the ole scapegoat thing. Pick on a group and blame them for all your troubles. In our case Muslims, the bludging unemployed and those silly enough to be born poor or sick.

Commenter

em

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 8:52AM

•   Thanks for putting me straight on that one. I thought it was Neo Liberalism increasing inequality marginalizing a large chunk of society condemning millions to abject poverty and accelerating the number of billionaires that was the threat.

Commenter

Greven

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 7:08AM

•   Mmmmm. It only seems like yesterday where I reading your condemnation of all things Tony Abbott on Russia. Crickets chirping me thinks.

Commenter

The Village Idiot (Reformed)

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 7:24AM

•   I believe the western worlds biggest threat comes from within with daylight second. And I am not talking about one thing but our systems (be they economic, social, cultural) that strain under various forms of intrinsic and growing instability and unsustainability fueled by our own collective excesses and luxuriousness.

Commenter

eyeswideopen

Location

earth

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 8:20AM

•   These conflicts are historical related to spheres of influence by countries that were historical great powers, Russia, China and the former Ottoman Empire. What is happening today is a reaction to the encroachment of Euro/American powers into their historical spheres of influence and have very little to do with the fascism of the expansionist states, the Third Reich under Hitler, Fascist Italy under Mussolini and militaristic Japan under Togo that led to WW2. China is now economically enmeshed with the West and will ultimately regain its historical position of being the largest economy in the world. Russia has always been authoritarian. Under Putin there is little difference. The West, encroaching into areas where it lost 10s of millions of men reconquering them from the Nazis in WW2 is asking for trouble. The US wouldn’t tolerate it in the Americas, Russia will not tolerate it near its borders, and China will not tolerate it in its traditional waters. The West keeping this encroachment up is just driving China and Russia together much to the detriment of the West. As for IS, they offer nothing with respect to the former Ottoman Empire. They are more like the barbarians that used to ravage through the area in times past. They destroy cultural artefacts, many being significant to human history. They have no respect for anything other than their own blind ideology. They are more like Pol Pot under the Khmer Rouge than anything like the old Caliphate under the Ottomans, which had a respect for their historical culture and traditions. They arose because of the West’s encroachment into the Middle East without caring for its peoples and traditions. To simplistically equate what is happening today with fascism of the past is a naive superficial analysis indeed. Of course there is always North Korea.

Commenter

mancan18

Location

Central Coast

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 8:43AM

•   Fascism v democracy ?
  A democracy is a society in which the people are sovereign with true democratic democratic ….are we???
  Fascism is a society in which the people are irrelevant and in every decision or “power by the few”. remember “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.”

Oligarchy: a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.

Politocracy:a form of government in which all power is vested in a few political parties.

Theocracy or Islam a form of government in which God or a deity is recognized as the supreme civil ruler, the God’s or deity’s laws being interpreted by the ecclesiastical authorities.or a system of government by priests claiming a divine commission.

If there is one country where democracy is democracy and the people are sovereign and the people have the right to decide the sort of country they want to live it is Switzerland.

What type of country do you think we are and what type of country would you like to have if you feel insecure now?

Commenter

half

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 8:44AM

• What I would really like to see is our politicians being held accountable if they break an election promise. Something written into our constitution like, if you break an election promise you lose your job, the generous life-long pensions, and have to return all electoral monies taken from our taxes.

An election promise is what the people vote on in a democracy to determine what we want for our society. By breaking an election promise, the politician is subverting the democratic vote, since what we the people vote for is sidelined. This would have been considered treason in another age and time.

Commenter

Jon

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 10:02AM

•   So what exactly is the point of this article? Yeah, China, Russia & IS are all regimes that are authoritarian and dissenters tend to “disappear”. Are they a threat to world peace. Probably. But so are many other nations as well. So what does Hartcher want us to do? Start World War 3?

Are they fascists? Not really. I would argue that our own government has fascist tendencies. Create a scapegoat to blame all our ills on? Done. Tighten freedom of speech? Done. Silence dissenters or people who disagree with you? Done. Hand power to your cronies & control the media? Done.

Hartcher seems to want us to lumber Russia , China & ISIS all into Abbott’s Baddies category. This may be true but I don’t see much we can do about it. We are a little, piddling nation with no real power. We’d best keep our heads down and worry about our own problems before we start playing any drums of war.

Commenter

em

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 8:50AM

• Being more familiar with China, I will just point out that China doesn’t “disappear dissenters” as our mainstream media and political editors seem to love saying. This self-perpetuating meme is easily disproved if one simply interact with people in China or join their social web for a day. Dissension is fine. Organising socially disruptive groups and activities is not. People in different parts of China protest all year round, criticism of the Chinese government occurs every second.

They do, however, understand well from their own history how many people can die from rebellions and revolutions, and actively stop history repeating itself. It is part of their law, nothing illegal about it. In fact, the jailed dissenters are usually the ones acting against the law. We do the same with protests and rallies. We do the same with potential terrorists. The difference is, we have been brainwashed to think we live in a democracy where we are allowed to do whatever we pleased, without recognising the limitations we subconsciously impose on ourselves.

Commenter

Jon

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 9:54AM

•   Yes, Fascism is on the rise, as it was in the 1930s. You can smell it in the air everywhere, not only in those 3 places that you mention. Major war can result, unless we are very, very careful. WW 2 was caused by the mess of WW 1 and the Depression. Hopefully we have learnt lessons from the past in how to manage this. As some commenters have said, the response of the West has already made things worse.

Commenter

lola

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 8:58AM

• Peter,

The facts around the Russian “invasion” of Georgia are as follows:

” The basic facts are not seriously in dispute. South Ossetia, along with the much more significant region of Abkhazia, were assigned by Stalin to his native Georgia. Western leaders sternly admonish that Stalin’s directives must be respected, despite the strong opposition of Ossetians and Abkhazians. The provinces enjoyed relative autonomy until the collapse of the USSR. In 1990, Georgia’s ultranationalist president Zviad Gamsakhurdia abolished autonomous regions and invaded South Ossetia. The bitter war that followed left 1000 dead and tens of thousands of refugees, with the capital city of Tskhinvali “battered and depopulated” (New York Times).

A small Russian force then supervised an uneasy truce, broken decisively on 7 August 2008 when Georgian president Saakashvili’s ordered his forces to invade. According to “an extensive set of witnesses,” the Times reports, Georgia’s military at once “began pounding civilian sections of the city of Tskhinvali, as well as a Russian peacekeeping base there, with heavy barrages of rocket and artillery fire.” The predictable Russian response drove Georgian forces out of South Ossetia, and Russia went on to conquer parts of Georgia, then partially withdrawing to the vicinity of South Ossetia. There were many casualties and atrocities. As is normal, the innocent suffered severely.

Russia reported at first that ten Russian peacekeepers were killed by Georgian shelling. The West took little notice. That too is normal. There was, for example, no reaction when Aviation Week reported that 200 Russians were killed in an Israeli air raid in Lebanon in 1982 during a US-backed invasion that left some 15-20,000 dead, with no credible pretext beyond strengthening Israeli control over the occupied West Bank.” Chomsky 2008)

Commenter

Lesm

Location

Balmain

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 9:09AM

• Les – I always used to think it was a battle of ideas between those involved in the contests, in the battle and in the decision making (and us commentators and observers also). But really (and firstly) its a battle of “the facts”. And even in a court of law you don’t get all the “true” facts – just the admissible ones!

Commenter

thefacts

Location

Date and time

March 04, 2015, 2:37PM

•   Using Peter Harcher’s definition of Fascism, Elizabethan England was certainly fascist, as have been most governments throughout history. This may certainly be true, but it seems to rob the term of any real analytical interest. The study of (modern) fascism has progressed considerably beyond Harcher’s simple-minded definition, and generally places at its centre the co-option and destruction of independent working class political organisations in the interests of the corporate state. While there’s an argument this has happened in Russia and China, there is no doubt it has been actively pursued by our major ally, the United States, and is also of considerable interest to our own conservative Government, suggesting that while our international competitors may be fascist, we are certainly in a hurry to catch up.

Commenter

Not I

Location

Parramatta

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 9:15AM

•   “On February 21, US Senator James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, introduced a bill that would authorise American arms for the Kiev regime. In his Senate presentation, Inhofe used photographs he claimed were of Russian troops crossing into Ukraine, which have long been exposed as fakes. It was reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s fake pictures of a Soviet installation in Nicaragua, and Colin Powell’s fake evidence to the UN of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
  The intensity of the smear campaign against Russia and the portrayal of its president as a pantomime villain is unlike anything I have known as a reporter. Robert Parry, one of America’s most distinguished investigative journalists, who revealed the Iran-Contra scandal, wrote recently, “No European government, since Adolf Hitler’s Germany, has seen fit to dispatch Nazi storm troopers to wage war on a domestic population, but the Kiev regime has and has done so knowingly. Yet across the West’s media/political spectrum, there has been a studious effort to cover up this reality even to the point of ignoring facts that have been well established ….If you wonder how the world could stumble into world war three – much as it did into world war one a century ago – all you need to do is look at the madness over Ukraine that has proved impervious to facts or reason.” (Pilger Counterpunch March 2015)

Commenter

Lesm

Location

Balmain

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 9:23AM

•   Fascism is the symbiotic relationship between government and corporate interests. Hmm, now who could that be?

Commenter

Max Gross

Location

Sapphire Coast

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 9:53AM

•   Hartcher is still living in the 1980s Cold War period. In the fascist scale Israel ranks on par with Russia, but of course they are good people being friend of US. Luckily we have World Peace Index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Peace_Index) which indicates that US(ranked 101) is just about as peaceful as China(ranked 108), depending on whether you have a trigger happy Republican or more peaceful Democrat president.

Commenter

hong

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 9:56AM

•   Why is the Government permitting and encouraging what amounts to a communist country to buy up property (” invest”) in our country, develop real estate , dump their somewhat inferior goods onto our market destroying our manufacturing industry, ( clothing and footwear, aluminium, steel, food, cars, ) supply cheap labour on work visas approved by Government , and export food which is a health risk, when with an obvious don’t care attitude, and such a huge number of conflicting values ranging from human rights to freedom and democracy is not in our best interests? Would you lend let alone give your valuable property to a neighbour if you knew him to be a less than desirable person who shows no respect? I don’t think so. So why is this Government who is supposedly elected by us to lead and manage the country heading up such agreements when the future of this country is being so seriously compromised? Our children & children’s children unemployed and homeless, unable to afford property, without a future or education, and what were once public assets owned by Australians (NOT the politicians) sold off by the politicians. Already there is a paucity of products available which are MADE IN AUSTRALIA – furniture, clothing, footwear, manchester, haberdashery, kitchenware, electrical goods, decor, solar panels, raw products such as steel, glass, building products, hardware, the list is endless… all now MADE where??? IN CHINA!!!!!!!! This is not about international trade it is about money, power and dominance. Time for national consensus.

Commenter

Possum 13

Location

Kiama

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 9:57AM

• Why is the Government permitting and encouraging what amounts to…..
  democracy is a government of the people, by the people for the people.
  Oligarchy or politocracy or mafiacracy … government of the few, by the few for the few.
  Do you get it now?

Commenter

half

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 3:06PM

•   The world might well be confronting a “resurgent fascism” , but as far as Australia is concerned, much of this is a side show. What is far more potentially confronting is the dilemma faced by countries that will in the very near future be faced with climate refugees.

In the last few years, millions of people have been displaced as a result of climate change. It is only a matter of time before Australia, if it hasn’t been already, is considered a safe destination for those fleeing the life threatening climate extremes.

Commenter

Nonrev

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 10:07AM

• In 1975, Charles Birch wrote an incredibly prescient book called Confronting the Future, in which he called on the term “lifeboat Australia” to suggest that northern hemisphere refugees of whatever kind would flee to our place of haven. Well, now.

Commenter

Banjo

Location

Eden

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 6:48PM

•   Incredibly simplistic to write China off as a fascist threat to international freedom. History, domestic politics, the context of regional security structures do actually matter believe it or not.

Commenter

Stu

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 10:07AM

•   Thank you Peter H. As usual, I don’t disagree with anything you say. But will add that we may be forgetting the power of the information age and what it can provide, even accidentally. The emergence of people in Moscow, almost immediately responding to the execution of Nemtsov is encouraging. Putin cannot ignore it . He is what he is and it is a pity that Obama’s self righteousness doesn’t allow him to accommodate what Ronald Reagan could – it is a case of managing the man – allowing him the disorder of his mind, but encouraging him in improving the lives of his people if only to satisfy his heightened sense of self regard and vanity. It can be done, it must be done. Eventually his time will end and the monster will breathe his last, but in the meantime, those who must, must move with wisdom.
  Regarding China I think it is actually worse -they are neither fish or fowl but something that is yet to emerge – there is a callousness, a disregard, an unwholesomeness that doesn’t sit well with me regarding their own people in the main –
  In South east asia, in particular in Sri Lanka, they bribed and swayed their way into infrastructure and trade and a lot of people there thought a whole takeover was imminent. I think India then began taking notice and began talks that ensured the change that has come.
  So communication is the key, Wisdom is the tool and keeping the Monsters caged but not fed too well is the crucial.
  All people, here, in Russia, China, India and the lesser states suffer in their own lifetimes, we need to know that and offer them help and sustenance. That is not understood enough.

Commenter

taylor of Sydney

Location

sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 10:17AM

•   Fascism? Let’s look at recent activities of the Abbott government.

1. Authoritarian; freedoms are curbed. Recent security legislation & internet metadata – Check. No threats of violence… yet. Unless you count Abbott’s “shirt-fronting” threat…
2. Power is centralised – check. I don’t think I need to add detail here.
3. Hypernationalism – check. 17 flags at Tone’s announcement of new security measures. Sense of victimhood – well, considering the Abbott government’s tendency to blame everything on Labor… marginal

It’s a stretch to call the Abbott government fascist but they are heading in that general direction.

Commenter

Ronny

Location

Sydney

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 10:33AM

•   The US has been overflying Russia’s borders with long range nuclear armed bombers for decades without a comment of any kind from the Western Press. Indeed, it has also been attempting to surround Russia’s borders with nuclear armed ballistic missiles and ABM’s for the last seventy years, again without comment by the Western Press. Yet when Putin decides to return the favour we get the usual suspects repeating the usual propaganda that paints the Russian President as a villain and Russia as this aggressive tormentor of small, helpless nations. Facts can often get in the way of such obvious propaganda. Since the collapse of the Berlin Wall Russia has invaded one country, Chechnya. In that same period the US has invaded, subverted, destroyed, overturned the government of, around 50 countries, and that is only the countries we know of that this has happened to.

Commenter

Lesm

Location

Balmain

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 10:33AM

•   The lesson that should be learned from IS and associated groups is that we should be very careful as to who we allow to come into Australia. In Britain and Europe they have not been sufficiently selective with the result that they have experienced terrorism and home grown terrorism that will only increase because certain groups have more children. Australia has had a history of copying overseas practices and not learning from their mistakes and, consequently, we must simply adjust to more terrorism on our shores and more legislation to combat it that restricts our traditional freedoms. It is a shame because the problems in Europe, Britain and Australia are all self-inflicted because of immigration policies that were imposed on the host populations without a vote or their consent.

Commenter

Wise Paronymous

Location

Date and time

March 03, 2015, 10:44AM

•   “The defining characteristics of fascists? First, they are authoritarian. Freedoms are curbed. The people are allowed no rights to resist the will of their rulers. Dissent is crushed, and crushed violently if necessary. Second, power is highly centralised. Third, the nation is exalted above the people.”

This sounds much like Australia and certainly like the USA.

Half has it exactly right. Switzerland and California are the only two democratic states in the world. Australia is certainly not a democracy. It’s high time Australia became a democracy and stopped this descent into fascism.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/is-russia-china-all-fascist-states-20150302-13szrz.html