Letters
Turkish fascism
I think comrade Conrad’s article on fascism fails to achieve all the sixfold intention he states (‘Misusing the F-word’, May 27). He’s certainly right to insist upon clear and historically rooted definitions and also on his remarks against broadening the scope of the term in an inflationary and only pejorative manner. However, he bends the stick too much on to the other side.
The main problem is that he’s too stuck in history and the ‘classical’ cases of fascism, to the extent that this leads him to ignore the obvious fascistic sides of current phenomena he investigates. He intends to evaluate it globally, but only touches on his own native British case. He seems to be right to assume that fascism is not a current threat in the UK. I’ll leave aside the internal strategic debates of the country’s leftist organisations and continue on Conrad’s passing remarks about Turkish leftists’ evaluations of the nature of Turkish regime.