Reflections on Fascism
(For Anarchists)
written inwritten in February 2005
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From 1997 to 2002, I virtually ran the Fukuoka branch of the "Failures' Federationh, which was then a hot topic in Tokyo. After the Aum incident in 1995, I was seriously terrified that Japanese society was rapidly becoming a vigilante society, and I made a number of attempts to somehow counter that trend. For me, the ideal figure of the Fukuoka branch of the "Failures' Federation" was "a vigilante group to protect itself from a society that is turning into a vigilante that", or to be more precise, "a vigilante to protect itself from vigilantes". And at the same time, all the established leftists had greatly engaged in this "vigilantization of society," though many might have lacked self-awareness. All of the above I was clearly conscious of at that time. The only thing I was not conscious of was that what I would try to create was, in essence, a fascist movement. In hindsight, my Fukuoka branch of the "Failures' Federation" was clearly a fascist movement.
There are two films that are good for sensory understanding of fascism. One is "Fight Club". Fascism is like that. Anyone who can get excited about that film has some fascist potential. The other is "Starship Troopers". I love that movie. From the first time I saw it, I found it irrepressibly funny, and I've probably seen it five But I have been unable to articulate the fun of that film for a long time. When I was in prison, I read in a magazine that someone had written something like, "Many people say that film is belligerent and offensive, but in truth it is an anti-war film", which made me feel intensely uncomfortable. First of all, I didn't think there were so "many" people who would have a direct reaction to that strange touch as "belligerent and offensive," but on second thought, I agreed with the point, thinking that, well, surely the left would make such a low-level critique. Nevertheless, the counterargument that "this is in truth an anti-war message" is just at the same low level. No matter how it may be seen, there is not a shred of any "anti-war" motif in that film. It joyfully portrays fascism as fascinating, obviously positive. I thought it over and managed to come up with an answer. That was, in essence, a "fascist self-mockery". The filmmaker's "I think this is the ideal society, but maybe it's not good enough, ugh" kind of attitude caused the indescribable and exquisite taste of the film. This means that there are very few people who can understand the fun of that film. Those who can have some fascist potential as well. Come to think of it, I recently learned that the director of "Starship Troopers" is the same person who directed "Total Recall", which once I was very excited by. "Total Recall" was straightforwardly left-wing revolutionary science fiction. Not to mention Mussolini's example, genuine fascism is born via left-wing ideology.
Fascists collude with nationalism with conviction. But fascists are nationless people by their own nature. There is a well-known saying. The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land. In analogy to this, fascists are those who, having reached the last stage, attempt to create (not "re-build") their own homeland with their own will. The biggest ideological change that took place in me before and after my "conversion" to fascism was that about "freedom". I had always thought that freedom is in resistance to all things powerful. Or that freedom is to stay as far away from the powerful as possible. But I now consider thus. Freedom equals power. To be free is to have power. I want freedom, that is, I want power, wholeheartedly. I believe that my close encounter with yakuza members in prison had a significant influence on my opening my eyes to fascism. The fascist party is, to put it bluntly, a political yakuza group, that is, a yakuza group united by the political ideology of fascism instead of chivalry. Of course, all governments are essentially no different from yakuza, and there are a large number of political scientists who do not understand this point, but they are all idiots. However, ordinary governments in the modern era behave as if they are not yakuza, covering up their yakuza nature in various ways. The fascist party dismisses such deceptions as spiteful. The one-party dictatorship government of the fascist party is aware of its yakuza nature, nor does it care to hide the fact. This may sound like an outrageous idea, but it is not so far-fetched. In short, you could imagine something like a medieval shogunate. It is irredeemable because most people are idiots who do not understand what the state of law is, and the idiots include legal professionals and legal scholars. All laws exist to constrain the activities of government. For example, the provisions for murder in the Penal Code do not prohibit people from killing, but define how the government must deal with those who kill (e.g., how many years or more they must sentence the assailant to) or how they must not (e.g., the government must not abandon the investigation because the victim is, for example, a traitor to the state). All laws are like that, and therefore, for example, demanding such incomprehensible things like "law-abiding spirit" from private individuals must be the act of idiots who do not understand what the law is at all. The fascist party is free from all restrictions and therefore its dictatorship dismisses the principle of nomocracy. There is no law in its proper definition under the fascist regime. The antonym of nomocracy (the rule of law) is the rule of virtue. Individuals responsible for dealing with wrongdoing or arbitrating civil disputes are free to decide, not by law, but by individuals in charge whose ability to make fair and impartial judgments has been recognized and authorized by the party. Fascism and anarchism are like two sides of the same coin, and one of the ideals of anarchism, "a society without laws", is realized under the fascist regime. < p> >I > I >F >
öhör I I am primarily depending on Mussolini's fascism, not Hitler's Nazism. I made this point clear in two articles at the end of my new book ("Are You Unhappy?") , "The war is not in distant Afghanistan or Iraq, it happens right here in Japan" and "Ideology X". The reason I can't agree with Hitler's ideology is of course because of his series of shitty policies toward Jews, and almost exclusively on that point. Yet, of course, Hitler's Nazism was also one form of fascism. The persecution of Jews is inexcusable, but it is not hard to understand the motivation behind it. That was probably, and quite certainly, what we now call "anti-globalism". Japanese right-wingers often say that the prewar system of Japan was not fascism like that of Germany or Italy. Of course, they would like to draw the conclusion that "So Japan was not bad". It is absolutely right that the prewar system of Japan was not fascism. I would argue to the contrary. "That's why Japan was bad". Although totally taken from Fukuda Kazuya, the prewar Japanese system, especially the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, is, in essence, "failed fascism". In trying to learn from Germany and Italy, they ended up creating something "similar but not the same". In the first place, fascism is a revolutionary ideology, and both Mussolini and Hitler were at first leaders of anti-establishment movements. It would be quite difficult for the regime itself to choose fascism of its own initiative. For example, had the "February 26 Incident" officers' revolt been victorious, Japan also could have become a fascist regime. Come to think of it, Kita Ikki, who was regarded as their theoretical leader, started his ideological career as a leftist, just like Mussolini. It was in 1919, the same year that Mussolini founded the "Italian Fasces of Combath, the former organization of the Fascist Party, that Kita wrote the "Outline of the Plan for the Reform of Japan" after his frustrated efforts to support the Chinese Revolution. The reason I "converted" to fascism was, above all, because, after having been in the experience of being the victim of a (seemingly) singular incident in which the state power and leftists colluded to imprison "someone they disliked", I decided that I must surely triumph over "them" in the future. Prior to that, I had fallen into nihilism, if I confess honestly. I had no concrete vision for the fulfillment of revolution. The enemy was so huge that I had a despair that I could not do anything about the total situation from the position as an even more miniscule pariah in the anti-mainstream faction of the left. I was quite serious about "anti-imperialism and anti-Stalinism" even in the 90s, or rather, because it was the 90s when the typical Stalinist state had approximately disappeared. The "Stalinists" I speak of include all established leftists, even self-described "independent" civic movements. In short, the idea was to simultaneously identify the state power and the established left as the main enemies and to seek to overthrow both of them, but I myself did not believe that such a thing was actually possible. Kasai Kiyoshi's thought (blanquism) was a refuge for such me. The existing anarchism movements in Japan during the same period was completely cozy with the established left (what Yoshimoto Takaaki called "soft Stalinists"), so they were out of the question, and I was too embarrassed to call myself an anarchist even once during that period, However, the original anarchism movement must have been "anti-imperialism and anti-Stalinism", which is exactly the same position as mine. So, in history, have there ever been any cases in which movements of anarchism have triumphed and accomplished any revolution? No. My despair was so deep. But it finally occurred to me. There is only one movement in history that has fought against both the state power and the established left at the same time and won. Thus I became an "anti-imperialism and anti-Stalinism" fascist. Now, if we don't kill them, they will definitely kill us. We must absolutely win this time. While the Marxist-Leninist states collapsed from within, the fascist states merely lost the war. I don't think the possibility of fascism has been exhausted. A fascist party is substantively an anarchist party. The closest ideology to fascism is anarchism, and anarchists have the potential to "convert" to fascists. As I wrote elsewhere, fascists are anarchists who have decided to break with the left and stand in solidarity with the right. Of course, there are hurdles that must be overcome to achieve it. One of the highest hurdles may be to change the negative evaluation of nationalism, especially in Japan, of the Emperor System. But in fact, this is not such a high hurdle. If you think about it, you should realize that it was only after the 70s (i.e., after the left wing of our country entered a corrupt process that could not be turned back) that the overthrow of the Emperor System emerged as one of the central themes of the leftist movements, in the postwar era. I have been aware of this fact for quite some time. On this basis, a cursory study of Japanese history (including mythology) will make you feel that the Emperor System is not so bad. Before I became a fascist, I thought "the Emperor System is better not to exist, but I don't mind if it to". Now that I have become a fascist, I think "the Emperor System is better to exist, but I don't mind if it not to". As I wrote above, no anarchist movement has ever triumphed in history, and such a thing can never happen in the future. The only possibility for anarchists to break away from being nothing more than rebellious lapdogs of Stalinists and emerge triumphant can only come by transforming themselves into fascists. I look forward to the "determination" of you anarchists. |