Iranian Regime and Palestinian Nationalist ties to Nazism

[Tahuti]

This isn't an argument against Nazism being a Western phenomenon, only for it being a destructive one. It's entirely possible to regard Nazism as the culmination of a self-destructive tendency within Western history. That was the orthodox left-wing view for decades, in fact. These points only amount to an "anti-Western" tendency if "the West" is imagined as an ideal towards which societies progress or away from which they regress, a Platonic deity inexplicably reimagined as a secular political order, and that seems ridiculous on the face of it.

That is a far point. However, when I use 'Western', I do mean a concrete cultural genealogy that has descended from European ethnic groups as well as Pre-Islamic Middle Eastern ethnic groups, which includes Persians and Jews. It isn't a secular political order, and any secular political order that may correspond to has boiled entirely from that succession of cultures.

There is arguably a case to be made that the region now termed Arab countries are fallen Western countries, and what the Nazis did - to culturally remove all traces of Western thought from Germany - actually happened there well before the Nazis even existed. There is a strong influence of Ancient Greek, Jewish and Persian culture on the Arab one, and if it weren't for radical Islam (which probably existed as early as the period shortly after Muhammad and included such groups as the Khawarijites) it might have continued to be considered Western. Of course, I am well aware that I am relativising Nazism, as a movement that wasn't unique and could be termed as one of many groups of Self-hating Westerners that may or may not be interrelated.

 

[Traitorfish]

That is a far point. However, when I use 'Western', I do mean a concrete cultural genealogy that has descended from European ethnic groups as well as Pre-Islamic Middle Eastern ethnic groups, which includes Persians and Jews. It isn't a secular political order, and any secular political order that may correspond to has boiled entirely from that succession of cultures.

I have no idea what this means.

 

[Tahuti]

I have no idea what this means.

It means that certain countries have a definitive influence on what can nowadays be considered the West.

 

[ParkCungHee]

In all seriousness though, it can't be helped but noticed that Hitler often criticised Western civilisation for being decadent and wanted to remodel it, in part on Islamic civilisation.

There is a single line of Hitler lamenting the fact that Germany had been Christianized, not that he wanted Germany to be Islamized.

In many ways, Nazis are self-hating Westerners, although in contrast to the multicultural thought police, not because the West wasn't naturally exploitative, though rather because it wasn't exploitative enough. Hitler himself expressed feelings of kinship towards Arabs compared to the open hostility to the ethnic groups of Western civilisation, such as French, Russians and Jews.

Except he expressed open hostility to Russians and Jews for being Oriental, and the French for being in the way of his ambitions. Besides if simply having hostility towards any members of "the west" opposition to Nazism ALSO constitutes Anti-Westernism.

Then focus on what Nazism actually did: You are certainly aware that the Nazis eliminated the traditional subdivisions Germany (i.e. Prussia, Bavaria), and sought to dismantle Germanic polities such as the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Norway and commit genocide against kindred ethnic groups such as Poles, Russians and Jews. As much as they claim to be German nationalists, the Nazis pretty much spoiled the very essence of German statecraft in order to remake Germany into something similar to the current terrorist state that is now rampaging Syria and Iraq.

By this standard, Churchill, Bismarck, Napoleon, Julius Ceasar, Henry VIII, Hugh O'Neil, Garibaldi, Hindenburg, hell, pretty much Every Western head of state has been Anti-Western.

 

[civman110]

After how Britain exploited them, can you blame them for not liking Britain?

During the post-WWI and WWII eras no, but that was 70 years ago now. It's time to move on, but their politics haven't progressed since that point in time. The world has changed a lot since then. Then again a lot of Muslim countries aren't particularly known for being "recent" when it comes to their politics. Things that happened hundreds of years ago are regularly brought up and made into political issues.

Take Ireland, India, USA, for example. All of these countries have fought Britain at one point in time, but they have all moved on from what their political positions were towards Britain during those conflicts.

Could you imagine if Germany was still stuck in it's WWII politics? or any of the allied powers really... Europe would be a ********.

Iran was more interested in spiting their British oppressors than loving Nazi ideology. That said I don't mind condemning the Shah, but what we replaced him with is obviously even worse. In any case just one more proof why the USA should stop meddling in world affairs.

1) That is not true, Iran was about both the Nazi ideology and fighting the British. The shah during this time period was well known for being a Nazi sympathizer.

2) The US didn't replace the shah with the regime in Iran that's there now. He was replaced with another shah, who was overthrown in the 70's by the Islamic fanatics who control Iran today.

The shah was overthrown because they refused to suck up to the USA, it wasn't because they were afraid they'd lose WW2. Iran was not in a position to hold much sway in WW2 much one way or the other.

This is not true.

No one in their right mind would want to fight another axis power if they didn't have to, or view overthrowing a leader of such a country as a negative given the circumstances.

But they did, anyway what's your point?

It's just interesting to note the huge role Russia played in defeating the Nazis. I find it's often left out entirely in Western history. It gives people a really warped view of the entirety of WWII.

 

[ParkCungHee]

During the post-WWI and WWII eras no, but that was 70 years ago now. It's time to move on, but their politics haven't progressed since that point in time.

If it's time to move on, why exactly are you so hung up on Nazism? That was 70 years ago!

 

[Traitorfish]

It means that certain countries have a definitive influence on what can nowadays be considered the West.

Well, I understood that much. "The West" as a civilizational lineage, it's a standard mythology, c.f. every Civilization game. What I don't understand is how it relates to anything out in meat-world, to any actually-existing beliefs or behaviours or institutions outside of the story. I don't understand how one culture projecting its aspirations onto the past, discovering in their fractured image of Rome or Persia or big-tribe-next-valley-over a model to imitate, amounts to a tangible let alone exclusive inheritance of "Western-ness".

 

[civman110]

There is a single line of Hitler lamenting the fact that Germany had been Christianized, not that he wanted Germany to be Islamized.

Yes, there is. Right here:

"You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?'" - Adolf Hitler


Hitler was without question a huge admirer of Islam:

"The only religion I respect is Islam. The only prophet I admire is the Prophet Muhammad." - Adolf Hitler

 

[Traitorfish]

That doesn't follow. He's saying that he wishes Germany could have come under the influence of a more vigorous religion in its youth, not that he wants to introduce a new religion in the present. He doesn't even specify Islam as a candidate, only that it would have been better-suited to what he imagines to be the German temperament.


I'm always a little baffled by how seriously people take Hitler's passing utterances, as if they're all expressions of some systematic philosophy he'd work out in advance. Do they actually know anything about this guy?

 

[civman110]

That doesn't follow. He's saying that he wishes Germany could have come under the influence of a more vigorous religion in its youth, not that he wants to introduce a new religion in the present. He doesn't even specify Islam as a candidate, only that it would have been better-suited to what he imagines to be the German temperament.

I wasn't claiming that Hitler wanted to spread Islam in Europe. ParkCungHee said:

There is a single line of Hitler lamenting the fact that Germany had been Christianized, not that he wanted Germany to be Islamized.

In this quote Hitler is lamenting that Germany had been Christianized and saying that he would prefer the Mohammedan religion (an outdated term for Islam).

"You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?'" - Adolf Hitler

 

[Traitorfish]

I wasn't claiming that Hitler wanted to spread Islam in Europe.

Eh? You explicitly quoted that text in favour of the argument that Hitler wanted to Islamize Europe.

There is a single line of Hitler lamenting the fact that Germany had been Christianized, not that he wanted Germany to be Islamized.

Yes, there is. Right here:

"You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?'" - Adolf Hitler

Either I've been struck by a sudden bout of illiteracy, or you're not making yourself clear.

 

[civman110]

Eh? You explicitly quoted that text in favour of the argument that Hitler wanted to Islamize Europe.

Either I've been struck by a sudden bout of illiteracy, or you're not making yourself clear.

I have stated twice already that Hitler was a huge admirer of Islam and that the lamented the fact that Germany is a Christian nation. In the quote he states his preference for Islam over Christianity as he feels it would have been more suitable for Nazi Germany. That is what the quote says, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Ajidica]

Hitler also gave speeches where he talked about how Christianity was integral for his vision of Germany; as Traitorfish mentioned, don't go looking for coherent political thought from Hitler. (Fascists did a better job then that, which is saying something considering the movement tried to be radical, progressive, reactionary, and traditionalist all at the same time.)


Ultimately, Hitler and the die-hard Nazis didn't want anything that wasn't Nazism in their view of the future. The future was Nazism and only Nazism.

That would be like saying Karl Marx supported Capitalism on the grounds that he was influenced by the Enlightenment.

I could have sworn Marx was a fan of capitalism, considering it superior to the systems that came before it. IIRC there is one quote from him marveling at streetlamps and electric streetcars saying that feudalism could never have given the world that.

 

[Tahuti]

There is a single line of Hitler lamenting the fact that Germany had been Christianized, not that he wanted Germany to be Islamized.

I wasn't saying that. Rather, I was saying that there was an Islamic influence on Nazi thought, not that Nazism was an Islamic movement. That would be like saying Karl Marx supported Capitalism on the grounds that he was influenced by the Enlightenment.

Except he expressed open hostility to Russians and Jews for being Oriental, and the French for being in the way of his ambitions.

That's the excuse commonly given, though I doubt that was Hitler's intentions, or the consequences of such had he succeeded, since the consequences would be very clearly the destruction of Western civilisation. In spite of all his plans for a world capital Germania, Germany would have turned into a horde nation. Even the Soviet Union was less wacky than that.

By this standard, Churchill, Bismarck, Napoleon, Julius Ceasar, Henry VIII, Hugh O'Neil, Garibaldi, Hindenburg, hell, pretty much Every Western head of state has been Anti-Western.

Wanting to reform the West, even if it is influenced by non-Western thought is not the same as wanting to remove it. Nazism's vision for German culture was rather alien to anything that previously existed in Germany or even Europe. The nature of the German state was to be altered completely. Changing boundaries isn't so much of a leap, it were the goals and the consequences of such that mattered.

Maybe you could explain what I am missing here.

 

[Traitorfish]

That's the excuse commonly given, though I doubt that was Hitler's intentions, or the consequences of such had he succeeded, since the consequences would be very clearly the destruction of Western civilisation.

What might beings these Nazis must have been, then, if a five-thousand year "genealogy" simply collapses before a bitter corporal from provincial Austria!

 

[Tahuti]

What's a "horde nation"?

Examples include those guys who overran what is now Russia from the East.

 

[civman110]

Examples include those guys who overran what is now Russia from the East.

Genghis Khan would also be a good example. So would Alexander the Great.

 

[aelf]

Do we seriously have people arguing about how Islam is more Nazi than Christianity here? You know what's more Nazi than any other religion? Buddhism. Hitler directly lifted the swastika from it!

I guess Western civilization can't fix stupid.

 

[JollyRoger]

Looks like this guy would do well in a GOP primary:

"The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to CHRISTIANITY as the very basis of our collective morality. Today CHRISTIANS stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the CHRISTIAN spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press -- in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of LIBERAL excess during the past years" -- Adolph Hitler (Taken from The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1, Michael Hakeem, Ph.D. (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pp. 871-872.)

 

[gay_Aleks]

On the bright side, we can only salute the Iranians and Palestinians for not going Commie. That would be plain unfortunate.