Fascist Pagans...
Part I
   

   By Axiom

Ethics (A) A set of principles of right conduct. (B) A theory or a system of moral values. The study of the general nature of morals and of the specific moral choices to be made by a person. The rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession. ~ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition.

It runs in cycles...the linking of Pagans with Nazis and fascism and other such unpleasant political ideologies. The accusations are always there, but every now and then they rear up and seems to be everywhere. The last month or so I seem to be continually running into Northern Traders who are obsessed with Aryan purity and websites linking Paganism with Hitler and showing how Pagans have always been violent, bloodthirsty, unethical people.

This week I received a PM from Weft (a new writer for the magazine) with a link to a board discussing The Pagan Roots Of The Fascist Culture. It's been around for a while but recently it's begun cropping up on a few boards I frequent again - and also at least one other Weft visits. The author, Harun Yahya (aka Adnan Oktar), is theoretically a renowned Muslim intellectual. I say 'theoretically' since this page, The Pagan Roots Of The Fascist Culture, displays a serious lack of knowledge and understanding of the history, philosophy, religious beliefs, and social evolution of the people he is criticising. If one is going to criticise successfully one needs to have the facts right. Otherwise the resulting flaws tear down one's work with little effort.

After reading Yahya's page I took a pot shot at critiquing its content. Because of the large number of errors, I ended up really only commenting on the specifically Pagan material - and not even all of that. If you're interested in further research into the topic there's a list of reputable URLs at the end of this article where accurate information on the points Yahya makes can be found. I have not quoted the entire article, simply the salient points I wish to comment on. Feel free to take a look at it - the author is interested in feedback too. Along the top menu bar can be found a "write your comments" option. Please avail yourself of this. In the meantime here is the first part of my response to this page and all others like it:

   

The Pagan Roots Of The Fascist Culture By Harun Yahya Fascism is an ideology which has its roots in Europe....in order to examine the roots of fascism, we must turn to the history of Europe. European history has naturally gone through many stages and periods. But looking at it in the broadest sense, we can divide into three fundamental periods from the cultural point of view: The pre-Christian (pagan) period. The period when Christianity assumed cultural dominance in Europe The post-Christian (materialist) period The idea of what we have described as 'The post-Christian period' may strike many readers as odd....But many ideologies and philosophies opposing Christianity, materialist philosophy being the most important, had become increasingly influential by the 19th century. Looking at these three periods, we see that fascist culture belongs to the first and third....There was no fascist ideology or practice throughout the thousand or so years when Christian culture dominated Europe. This is because Christianity is a religion of peace and equality. Christianity, which believes in and tries to bring people to live by love, compassion, sacrifice, affection and humility, is the complete antithesis of fascism.

Initially I wasn't sure what period represented the thousand or so years of Christian dominance. However after further reading I came to realise Yahya meant from around the sixth century to the fifteenth, give or take a few years. After all it is "in the 16th and 17th centuries, (that) a number of European thinkers, influenced by the works of ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato or Aristotle, began to carry concepts from the pagan world back to Europe".

So, according to Yahya, the period 600-1600CE represented the culturally dominant time of Christianity, a time of peace and equality. Putting aside the claim to Christianity being the antithesis of fascism for now, and focusing upon the balance of that concept, Yahya is proclaiming the time known for some of Christianity's bloodiest years as a time of peace, compassion, affection, humility, and sacrifice.... Well, he got the sacrifice bit right at least - the sacrifice of others to advance the Christian agenda.

What about Charlemagne and the Saxons in the C8th? Certainly not a peaceful conversion. What about the Inquisitions? Beginning with the Episcopal Inquisition from 1184 CE, the Inquisitions of the Catholic Church were as follows: the Papal Inquisition of the 1230s; the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834); the Roman Inquisition (1542 through to today); and the Portuguese Inquisition (1536-1821). While the Roman Inquisition in its modern incarnation (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) is not into torture and death, until the abolishment of the Spanish Inquisition such methods were certainly employed - at times in great numbers.

Or the Jesuits and their various missions to "primitive peoples"? Or various other missionary groups for that matter? Truth be told I could sit here for a few hours and pull up historically verified example after example of the sort of Christian compassion and non-violence Yahya is avoiding referring to. Examples that the modern churches do not deny. I could pull up large-scale examples of Christian violence starting with Constantine and ending with Bush if I wished. Examples that are clearly authorised, supported, and enacted on the national or denomination-wide level. But I see no reason to since we all know the truth of this.

The glaring generalisation and inaccuracy of this statement is laughable while at the same time being scary and horrific. This belief in Pagan attitudes and history while lauding Christian action is common amongst our Christian brethren. It's a little unexpected to see a Moslem professing it as well - but it shows the lengths some of those belonging to mainstream monotheistic religion may go to destroy our faith.

Fanatics like Yahya scare me simply because they sound so reasonable and knowledgeable. He speaks with a voice of authority - how many ignorant dupes have read his words and believed them?

Before I move on, let's refer back to that fascism claim...There was no fascist ideology or practice throughout the thousand or so years when Christian culture dominated Europe. According to various dictionaries, fascism is:

1. (A)A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
   (B)A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
2. Oppressive, dictatorial control.
   The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

1. a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism)
   WordNet 2.0, Princeton University

Interesting. So let's compare this definition to archaic Paganism. Well, some Pagan societies were certainly marked by stringent social and economic control through a strong, centralised government vis a vis Rome and Greece's city-states. But many others were not (the Germanic, Gaelic, and Scandinavian tribes for example who were famed for their fierce individual independence within the tribes). Such a definition is not universal to Paganism but rather specific to various groups.

Interestingly the Romans, the Pagan group that adopted Christianity and took it to the world, show a strong prediliction for what could be termed fascist behaviour. They were a violent race that overran every nation they came in contact with and forced submission to the Roman government. They were also very centralised and stongly controlled. Although the Romans practiced an apparent 'live and let live' policy with their subjects, closer examination shows a subtle drive to conform. Native deities were identified with Roman ones and over time became hyphenated gods and ultimately lost their native names. Native governments were subject to Roman rule. Inhabitants of new territories were second-class Roman citizens. Over time the conquered peoples became Roman, adopted Roman ways, and fought for Rome. Even when Rome threw them to the wolves and left (ie Britain and the invading hordes of Germanic tribes).

In contrast the Christian church of Yahya's chosen time period was highly centralised and hierarchical. The authority of the Pope was (and within today's Catholic church still is) penultimate. Stringent socioeconomic control was maintained through a variety of tactics including lack of education, terror, suppression of all opposition through violence and censorship, and religion's version of racism - all other faiths are false, inferior, and unworthy of respect. Christian respect for other belief systems is still developing today and certainly wasn't prevalent in the period under discussion.

   

The most fundamental feature of pre-Christian Europe was that it possessed pagan beliefs, in other words polytheistic religions. Europeans believed that the false gods they worshipped revealed many aspects of life to them and helped to them. Among the most important of these were the gods of war, who appeared in just about every pagan society. This prestige that gods of war enjoyed in pagan belief was the result of these societies' regarding violence as sacred. Pagan peoples were all barbarian and lived in a permanent atmosphere of war. To kill and spill blood in the name of the people was seen as a sacred duty. Savagery and violence of almost all kinds could find a justification in the pagan world. There was no ethical source to forbid violence or say that it was wrong....The barbarian pagan peoples of the north, such as the Vandals, Goths, and Visigoths were even more savage. These peoples tried to wreak devastation on each other, and also to plunder Rome. The pagan world was one where only violence ruled, where the use of violence of all kinds was counted as quite ethical, and even where there was no serious concept of ethics at all.

First of all, just to be pedantic, Pagan does not equal polytheistic. I know Yahya is talking about European Pagans and in general they tended to be. But he has singled out those simply because he considers Europe to be the birthplace of fascism. His comments on Pagans are general ones except where he specifies a group. And in general he views the archaic (and presumably modern) Pagans as being polytheistic.

Polytheistic is a common form of Pagan worship for sure, but there are examples of Pagan faiths that do not involve multiple gods. The Zoroastrians, some branches of Hinduism (that view the gods through a panentheist understanding), and Buddhism are all faiths commonly referred to as Pagan. Some of the Greek Pagans were definately henotheistic in their practices as well, and the Egyptians went through henotheist periods as well as one (known) abortive period of monotheism (although it's doubtful how sincere the worship of the Aten really was).

But I digress - we are afterall looking at Europe.

Now war gods were certainly important. They cropped up in pretty much every pantheon and played a role in helping keep the tribe safe. However calling them the most important deities is misleading. Look at any pantheon and name the primary deity (and we'll stick with Europe for now)...names such as Zeus, Odin, The Dagda, and Dievas crop up...the primary gods tend to be sky and earth deities (and usually male - pointing to patriarchal societies. That is another discussion for another time though). The point is the pantheons were ruled by gods related to the elements and survival within the natural world. Gods who controlled rain, sun, earth...these deities were the primary ones. Great goddesses such as Danu, Juno, Demeter, Zemya, etc were usually viewed as equal if not more powerful than the primary god and crucial to the tribes' survival. War gods fell among the collection of secondary deities. And, of great interest, many of them were agricultural gods who had evolved into a war-aspect as the tribe evolved from agrarian to city-dweller. Mars is a good example of this.

War was not considered sacred in and of itself, although there were sacred wars and war was sacred to the war-gods. There was certainly no 'permanent atmosphere of war'. In most societies (especially the nomadic and agrarian ones) the seasonal cycles determined whether war could be fought. Growing seasons and harvesting seasons were usually free of warfare since the needs of the tribes as far as survival came before the desire to expand or punish some trangression. War would sometimes stop in the middle as the warriors left to go home and fulfill their farming obligations and then resume months later.

Some societies, such as Rome, seemed to have a conquering mentality that drove them to make war on others throughout their history. But in general warfare was limited to expanding or moving territory when the land a tribe occupied no longer supported them. Or to defend against those moving into their land. What literature we have of the pre-Christian Pagans shows treaties and connections enforcing peace to be more popular than war. Understandably as war has always been a great expense. For those living subsistance lifestyles, war is a luxury many could not afford and thus a last resort. Many societies considered hospitality to be a sacred duty and went to great lengths to foster ties with neighbouring tribes to increase the likelihood of peace. Peace, for agricultural societies, has always been more profitable. War destroys arrable land and decimates able bodies reducing the tribe's ability to farm, feed, hunt, and make babies.

Rome was the predator in the Pagan world. And Rome was the predator for many years in the Christian one. I think it highly likely that Christianity's drive to convert, missionise, and punish non-Christians is derived from its Roman roots. The Romans worked to Romanise everyone they met and they took that with them when they became a Christian nation - to the extent that they forced other Christian peoples to conform to their standards or die (the various 'heresies' of different groups such as the Coptics, Gnostics, Celtic Church, etc). This is not to say I don't admire the Pagan Romans. Their way often allowed conquered tribes to survive fairly intact - the less resistance a tribe offered the greater the benefits in their new role as Romans. But when Rome became Christian something previously fairly quiescent awoke to full ferocity.

As for the idea of ancient Pagans lacking ethics a simple look at any of the extant material left by those groups shows the lie to this. The Irish Brehon Laws would be the best example. Most of what we have from other Pagan paths is fragmentory - but what remains shows they too upheld the idea that oath-breaking, warmongering, lying, stealing, even laziness were all viewed as wrong. They had many ethical standards that were enforced in one way or another. But none of them seem to have held the Christian attitude towards those of other beliefs, let alone the Christian methods of punishment for those who failed to convert to the One True faith. Maybe that's why the Pagans are seen as unethical? Their willingness to allow others to live their own beliefs is taken as evidence they had no morals or ethics?

If so, let me be viewed as such!

Tune in next issue for Sparta: A Model for All Fascists and Fascism's Withdrawal in the Face of the Values of Monotheism

Further Research

Origins of Fascism

Fascism - the Truth!

Fascism's main characteristics; differences and similarities with communism

Legitimization under Constantine

Emperor Constantine Supports Christianity

The Conversion of the Pagans

The Crusaders

The Church and The Crusaders

Inquisition Timeline

Christian History Timeline of the Inquisition

The Inquisition