JEFFREY HERF
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and the Versailles Treaty, the Great Depression, and the threat from the
East of what Hitler called "Jewish Bolshevism" or "the Mongol storm."
Hence, mass murder, far from constituting an unprovoked act against a
defenseless civilian population, was merely one front in Germany's fully
justified war of defense and retaliation against the supposed previous
acts of Jewish aggression. This was a lunatic explanation which had no
relation to actual events. Nevertheless, millions of Germans came to
believe it. Today, in the fevered imagination of Islamic fundamentalism,
the United States and Israel, what bin Laden calls the "Zionist-Crusader
alliance," have replaced this older conspiracy theory, though clearly
there are elements of continuity in the lasting importance of the United
States, capitalism, and the Jews as leaders of the conspiracy. As in the
I930S and 1940s, such conspiracy theories invariably lead to mass mur–
der, for only if the powerful international conspiracy is crushed can an
ideal world be brought into existence. Communism having been van–
quished in I989-90, Islamic fundamentalism now focuses its rage on old
and familiar targets, capitalism and the Jews.
As noted earlier, despite the similarities of language with that of the
anti-imperialist Left of the past century, Islamic fundamentalist terror
today is closer to the fascist and Nazi past than it is to Communism.
(Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and the Iraqi regime have origins in
French fascist ideologies of the I930S, but that is a discussion for
another time.) Twenty years ago, I described Nazism as a form of "reac–
tionary modernism" in which a secular, fundamentalist movement
embraced modern technology yet rejected Enlightenment modernity.
Flying Boeing 757S loaded with fuel into the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon is a terribly clear act of reactionary modernist rage. Just as
fascism and Nazism were movements that emerged in societies chal–
lenged by rapid modernization and seeking to find a way to blend
modernity with tradition, so Islamic fundamentalism borrows the
West's technology in order to destroy it.
A second similarity to the fascist and Nazi experience evident in
Islamic fundamentalism today is contempt for women and rejection of
their equality, a stance which exceeds, yet recalls, the exaggerated mas–
culinity and backlash against female emancipation of the fascist and Nazi
movements. Like the paramilitary organizations of the fascist and Nazi
street fighters, the Islamic terrorist organizations are militant "brother–
hoods." (Mohammed Atta, one of the hijackers who flew a plane into
the World Trade Center, apparently left a request that no women attend
his funeral.) Where fascism and Nazism sought to restore the position
of women to their subordinate status before the advances made in the
