Fascism

How to defeat fascism and the far-right in Britain and elsewhere Gerry Hassan Sunday National, 27 October 2024 Twenty-five years ago, at the height of Blair, Bill Clinton and “The Third Way”, many felt that the future direction and progress of the world was safe and secure. Widespread optimism and belief in globalisation and economic freedom leading to political liberty ran from Thomas Friedman in the New York Times and Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker to cliché-filled PowerPoints by public agencies such as Scottish Enterprise. This was a mixture of projection, groupthink and propaganda. Fast forward to the present

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The Attack on Democracy and Breaking Out of the Empire State in the US and UK Gerry Hassan Sunday National, January 10th 2021 Democracy is under attack. It is being challenged by the likes of Trump and his fascist supporters and by authoritarians the world over – testing its strength and legitimacy. And it is not in great shape in the UK, with academic David Runciman saying that “American democracy is stuck and British democracy is stuck.” The events of 6th January 20201 and the storming of Congress by Trump’s far right supporters has appalled most of the world. Much

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How to organise and defeat the forces of fascism, racism and bigotry Gerry Hassan Sunday National, June 21st 2020 The popularity and power of the message ‘Black Lives Matter’ was always going to provoke a reaction. In the past fortnight there has been the emergence of the ultra-right on the streets of the UK. And in the past week, these ugly forces congregated in George Square, Glasgow on Wednesday disrupting a peaceful march in support of asylum seekers and refugees. This is unwelcome, ugly and not completely surprising. But it raises questions about the size and scale of the constituency

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How we should and shouldn’t commemorate VE Day Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, May 6th 2020 This coming Friday May 8^th is an important moment in the history of all of us - the 75^th anniversary of the defeat of fascism and Nazism in Europe in World War Two. It is important to mark, commemorate and remember those who gave their lives in the defeat of fascism - and to learn from what happened. This means not allowing the anniversary to be taken over by unchallenged official accounts that feed into the endless British obsession with 1939-45. The rise and defeat

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Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban: This is not an Age of Fascism Yet Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, October 31st 2018 A spectre is haunting the modern world: fascism. All around the world people are talking about and identifying fascists. Newspaper headlines abound in the US such as ‘Is Donald Trump a fascist?’, ‘How fascist is Donald Trump?’ and even more emphatically, ‘Donald Trump is actually a fascist’: all from mainstream liberal papers. The threat of fascism is now a worldwide phenomenon. We have just seen in the Brazil the victory of ‘strongman’ Jair Bolsonaro; the Hungarian authoritarianism of Viktor Orban; the rise

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Trump, Political Violence and when is it right to punch Nazis? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, February 8th 2017 It is a season of heated tempers and invective across the political world. One that matches the widespread atmosphere of confusion and disorientation. This is a mood in which there are winners and losers: people who crave this kind of moment, and many who lament the passing of the previous era. Mainstream political sentiment is uncomfortable and on the defensive. But radicals of the right and left celebrate this new found chaos as a once in a lifetime opportunity. Are they right

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