Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières ✏ Written by Gilbert Achcar.

With each passing day and at an accelerating pace in recent years, it becomes increasingly obvious that we are witnessing a new era of rise of the far right on a global scale, similar to the era of the rise of fascist forces between the two world wars of the twentieth century. 

The label “neofascism” has been used to designate the contemporary far right, which adapted to our time, out of its awareness that repeating the same fascist pattern witnessed in the past century was no longer possible, in the sense that it was no longer acceptable to the majority of people.

Neofascism claims to respect the basic rules of democracy instead of establishing a naked dictatorship as its predecessor did, even when it empties democracy of its content by eroding actual political freedoms to varying degrees, depending on the true level of popularity of each neofascist ruler (and thus his need or not to rig elections) and the balance of power between him and his opponents. 

There is today a wide range of degrees of neofascist tyranny, from near absolute in the case of Vladimir Putin to what still retains a space of political liberalism as in the cases of Donald Trump and Narendra Modi.

Continue reading @ ESSF.

The Age Of Neofascism And Its Distinctive Features

Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières ✏ Written by Gilbert Achcar.

With each passing day and at an accelerating pace in recent years, it becomes increasingly obvious that we are witnessing a new era of rise of the far right on a global scale, similar to the era of the rise of fascist forces between the two world wars of the twentieth century. 

The label “neofascism” has been used to designate the contemporary far right, which adapted to our time, out of its awareness that repeating the same fascist pattern witnessed in the past century was no longer possible, in the sense that it was no longer acceptable to the majority of people.

Neofascism claims to respect the basic rules of democracy instead of establishing a naked dictatorship as its predecessor did, even when it empties democracy of its content by eroding actual political freedoms to varying degrees, depending on the true level of popularity of each neofascist ruler (and thus his need or not to rig elections) and the balance of power between him and his opponents. 

There is today a wide range of degrees of neofascist tyranny, from near absolute in the case of Vladimir Putin to what still retains a space of political liberalism as in the cases of Donald Trump and Narendra Modi.

Continue reading @ ESSF.

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