Spoken uit het verleden? Over de strijd tegen het 'nieuw fascisme'

Abstract

Ghosts from the past? On the struggle against 'new fascism'. The concept of 'fascism' serves both a an analytical tool and a political weapon. It aims to describe various anticommunist totalitarian dictatorships during the interwar period and links 'classical fascism' to contemporary forms of right-wing radicalism. This article focuses both on ideological continuities and historical discontinuities. It criticizes the use of  historical analogies for the purposes of  the anti-Fascist struggle. New concepts need to be elaborated in order to come to terms with new political phenomena, like the rise of contemporary populism. The general attitude towards democratic norms serves as a decisive criterion to distinguish the classical forms of fascism from populism nowadays.