Don’t Feed the Eco-fascists
Sloppy, badly researched comments by environmental activists are playing into the hands of eco-fascists. Let’s face it very few people self identify as fascists. Fascists don’t usually start out acknowledging their belief in their own superiority and the expendability of others. Fascism sneaks up. Fascism builds on fear to progressively chip, chip, chip away at the rights of marginalised and exploited communities until before people even realise it, there is active support for a politics that sees extreme authoritarianism as a legitimate way forward.
Fascist messaging by the same token does not start out as blatant as it ends up. It carefully places the seeds of fear and misinformation into people’s heads in a way that over time, builds a picture of others as the enemy. This is why it is essential for environmental campaigners to leave no room for any interpretation of their words that might support eco-fascism. It is not okay to have something which is not ‘overtly fascist’ but which conveniently gives fascists the tools they need to progress their agenda.
So, if we avoid eco-fascist co-option of messaging, we had better know what eco fascism is. As ever there are lots of definitions and here are a couple:
Zimmerman, Michael E (2008) describes it as
‘a theoretical political model in which an authoritarian government would require individuals to sacrifice their own interests to the “organic whole of nature”,
lexico.com describes is as
“Radical environmentalism of a type perceived as excessive, intolerant, or authoritarian.”
The thing all the definitions have in common is that it is environmentalism used to justify Fascism. Eco-fascist ‘manifestos’, organisations and individuals typically share a number of common attributes: authoritarianism, utilitarianism, Nationalism, white supremacy and nostalgia. Fear is utilised to justify the removal of rights, liberties and resources from individuals and groups in the name of ‘the greater good.’
Fascism has a long tradition of using environmental messaging to justify its ideology. ’Blut and Boden:’ (blood and soil’) being a Nationalist slogan of Nazi Germany emphasising the view that a racially pure population ‘blood’ have the inherent right and connection to specific land ‘soil’ and the concept of ‘Lebensraum’ (‘living space’) asserting that the ‘superior’ race has a natural right to space and resources it needs to grow and that ‘inferior’ races in the required territory can justifiably be exterminated.
Jeff Sparrow’s Article on Eco Fascism published in the Guardian, Nov 2019 gives a historical overview of how several Nazi thinkers positioned their environmentalism in terms of ‘preservation’.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/30/eco-fascists-and-the-ugly-fight-for-our-way-of-life-as-the-environment-disintegrates
But this is all way in the past right? Wrong, several recent attacks by terrorists have been underpinned by an eco-fascist ideology: The El Paso shooter in Texas (22 deaths and many injured) spoke of over-harvesting and environmental destruction- claiming, “if we can get rid of enough people, then out way of life can be more sustainable.”; Anders Breivik , 2011 attack (77 deaths) made eco-fascist references in his ‘manifesto and the Christchurch shooter who killed 51 people when opening fire on two Mosque’s in Christchurch Newzealand in March 2019, described himself as an eco-fascist.
So how are environmentalists who are not (one hopes) eco-fascists, feeding into eco-fascist narratives? Here are some key narratives to be extra careful with:
Scarcity Narratives
These focus on the fragility of our food chain, the depletion of our land and the idea there is ‘ not enough for everyone’. The great toilet paper rush of 2020 demonstrates perfectly how scarcity narratives promote fear and hoarding and surprise surprise, there was plenty of toilet paper the whole time, with the hoarding literally creating the scarcity. By the same token, there is can be enough food it is currently just not all in the right places and sometimes it is not being grown at all.
We need to focus on changing the agricultural system to generating more quality food. We need to stop destroying land and water systems with pollution, mining and industrialisation and change our diet. This will address food issues, hoarding baked beans and terrifying people that we are ‘running out’ of will not. It will cause people to say ridiculous things like “we are an island, we can’t feed any more people” (nobody told these people about the swathes of unfarmed land on country estates and golf courses clearly, also they must have skipped the lesson on imports and exports).
Overpopulation theories
This one seems to be the favourite of the moment amongst the angry middle-aged white man brigade. Apparently, everyone else is ‘stupid’ and doesn’t understand the ‘science/maths’ behind the alleged fact that the planet will not sustain population growth. There are so many things wrong with this simplistic argument it is hard to know where to start but I’ll give it a go. The target of these rants is usually placed where the population is growing fastest (Global South) and not the Global North. This ignores the fact that a very very small population of people are using up the vast majority of the resources. So reducing the population would only work if targeted to those high consumers…you know, the wealthy and successful, strangely none of the arguments focus on the ‘population’ issue in that group.
Another issue with the population argument is that it assumes that we carry on using resources as we are now and nature stays out of balance. If we carry on as we are, eventually we will run out of resources, regardless of the size of the population. Less people simply means it will take longer. Focusing on system change (finance, agriculture, development etc) will resolve the imbalance, repair damage, vastly increase the amount of food it is possible to produce on Earth and also, given the balance of nature, be highly likely to lead to a natural stabilisation of population. Nature is clever like that.
Finally, let’s face it, never in the course of human history has an argument suggesting we curb population growth led to a positive outcome, it has led to single child policies ( mass abandonment and infanticide), some genocide and a massive chunk of racism and Nationalism (those people, coming over here, taking up our space and resources etc).
The way to talk about the impact of the climate emergency on population is to highlight how we are actively reducing the places people can live and the areas we can cultivate for food. We need to talk about restoring land for farming and habitation (as opposed to mining it and bombing it). We need to talk about how nature was abundant until human beings started taking apart the very natural systems that were sustaining us. Focusing on solutions is the only way. Suggesting in any way that the number of human beings, as opposed to their behaviour, is the problem is literally a gift to eco-fascism as well as being utter nonsense.
Societal collapse stories
Nothing is as sure to induce panic as running into a space and shouting “Don’t Panic!.”
Narratives of impending societal collapse are a consistent feature of Fascist narratives. They run this risk of feeding panic. At the point of panic, the state moves in to reassure people that they can ‘take control’. Forcing people (well, everyone except themselves and the wealthy elites) to act in certain ways, supposedly to protect them from their own destructive tendencies. When talking about possible societal collapse, it important to highlight how this can be avoided without authoritarian intervention. We must highlight how our current social structures are ill-equipped to cope with the climate emergency and what sort of structures we can create to transform the situation. Not doing this is like running into a room and shouting “fire” without calling the fire brigade or opening the fire doors. There is a school of thought that this panic without referencing solutions will “make people sit up and take action”….I do agree with that, but those people will be fascists and that action will be fascism. So maybe, don’t do it that way?
So, following this merry dance through the corridors of eco-fascism, I would like to suggest that as your finger hovers over the ‘repost’ button for that meme about how “we are the virus” or “the earth will be unable to support the population by ‘insert random near future date’” you simply ask “Is there a chance this post could be used by eco-fascists to justify some pretty nasty stuff?”, if the answer is yes, don’t post it. It is all too easy for fascists to sit back and let us feed their narratives for them. Don’t fall into that trap.
We need to stand together on this, across borders, across cultures and across continents. Working with other people is the only hope we have of tackling the climate and ecological emergency and making out we don’t have to share resources or need to control, instead of transform, how people live is the first step into the Abyss.
