Introduction
This bulletin is an examination
of the term and concept of “ecofascism.” It is a strange
term/concept to really have any conceptual validity.
While there have been in the past forms
of government which were widely considered to be fascist
- Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's
Italy and Franco’s Spain, or Pinochet's Chile, there
has never yet been a country that has
had an “eco-fascist” government or, to my knowledge,
a political organization which has
declared itself publicly as organized on an ecofascist
basis.
Fascism comes in many forms.
Contemporary fascist-type movements (often an alliance
of conservative and fascist forces), like the National
Front (France), the Republicans
(Germany), the Freedom Movement (Austria), the Flemish
Block (Belgium), etc., may have
ecological concerns, but these are not at the center
of the various philosophies and are but
one of a number of issues used to mobilize support -
for example crime-fighting, globalization
and economic competition, alleged loss of cultural identity
because of large scale immigration,
etc. For any organization which seeks some kind of popular
support, even a fascist
organization, it would be hard to ignore the environment.
But these would be considered
“shallow” not defining or “deep” concerns for deep ecology
supporters. None of these or
similar organizations call themselves ecofascists. (One
time German Green Party member,
ecologist Herbert Gruhl, who went on to form other political
organizations, and to write the
popular 1975 book A Planet Is Plundered: The Balance
of Terror of Our Politics,
did develop what seems to be an intermeshing of ecological
and fascist ideas.) While for
fascists, the term “fascist” will have positive connotations
(of course not for the rest of us),
“ecofascist” as used around the environmental and green
movements, has no recognizable
past or present political embodiment, and has only negative
connotations. So the use of the
term “ecofascism” in Canada or the United States is meant
to convey an insult!
Many supporters of the deep
ecology movement have been uncomfortable and on the
defensive concerning the question of ecofascism, because
of criticism levelled against them,
such as for example from some supporters of social ecology,
who present themselves as
more knowledgeable on social matters. (The term “social
ecology” implies this.) This bulletin
is meant to change this situation. I will try to show
why I have arrived at the conclusion,
after investigation, that “ecofascism” has come to be
used mainly as an attack term, with
social ecology roots, against the deep ecology movement
and its supporters plus, more
generally, the environmental movement. Thus, “ecofascist”
and “ecofascism”, are used not
to enlighten but to smear.
Deep ecology has as a major
and important focus the insight that the ecological crisis
demands a basic change of values, the shift from human-centered
anthropocentrism to
ecocentrism and respect for the natural world. But critics
from within the deep ecology
movement (see for example the 1985 publication by the
late Australian deep ecologist
Richard Sylvan, A Critique of Deep Ecology and
his subsequent writings like the 1994
book The Greening of Ethics, and the work by myself
in various Green Web publications
concerned with helping to outline the left biocentric
theoretical tendency and the inherent
radicalism within deep ecology), have pointed out that
to create a mass movement informed
by deep ecology, there must be an alternative cultural,
social, and economic vision to that
of industrial capitalist society, and a political theory
for the mobilization of human society
and to show the way forward. These are urgent and exciting
tasks facing the deep ecology
movement, and extend beyond what is often the focus for
promoting change as mainly
occurring through individual consciousness raising, important
as this is, the concern of much
mainstream deep ecology.
The purpose of this essay is
to try and enlighten; to examine how the ecofascist term/
concept has been used, and whether “ecofascism” has any
conceptual validity within the
radical environmental movement. I will argue that to
be valid, this term has to be put in very
specific contexts - such as anti-Nature activities as
carried out by the “Wise Use” movement,
logging and the killing of seals, and possibly in what
may be called “intrusive research” into
wildlife populations by restoration ecologists. Deep
ecology supporters also need to be on
guard against negative political tendencies, such as
ecofascism, within this world view.
I will also argue that the
social ecology-derived use of “ecofascist” against deep ecology
should be criticized and discarded as sectarian, human-centered,
self-serving dogmatism,
and moreover, even from an anarchist perspective, totally
in opposition to the open-minded
spirit say of anarchist Emma Goldman. (See her autobiography
Living My Life and in it,
the account of the magazine she founded, Mother Earth.)
Fascism Defined
“Fascism” as a political
term, without the “eco” prefix, carries some or all of the following
connotations for me. I am using Nazi Germany as the model
or ideal type:
- Overriding belief in “the Nation”
or “the Fatherland or Motherland” and populist
propaganda at all levels of the society, glorifying individual
self-sacrifice for this nationalist
ideal, which is embodied in “the Leader”.
- Capitalist economic organization
and ownership, and a growth economy, but with heavy
state/political involvement and guidance. A social security
network for those defined as citizens.
- A narrow and exclusive de facto
definition of the “citizen” of the fascist state. This might
exclude for example, “others” such as gypsies, jews,
foreigners, etc. according to fascist
criteria. Physical attacks are often made against those
defined as “others”.
- No independent political or
pluralistic political process; and no independent trade union
movement, press or judiciary.
- Extreme violence towards dissenters,
virulent anti-communism (communists are always
seen as the arch enemy of fascism), and hostility towards
those defined as on the “left”.
- Outward territorial expansionism
towards other countries.
- Overwhelming dominance of the
military and the state security apparatus.
What seems to have happened
with “ecofascism”, is that a term whose origins and use
reflect a particular form of human social, political
and economic organization, now, with a
prefix “eco”, becomes used against environmentalists
who generally are sympathetic to a
particular non-human centered and Nature-based radical
environmental philosophy -
deep ecology. Yet supporters of deep ecology, if they
think about the concept of ecofascism,
see the ongoing violent onslaught against Nature and
its non-human life forms (plant life,
insects, birds, mammals, etc.) plus indigenous cultures,
which is justified as economic
“progress”, as ecofascist destruction!
Perhaps many deeper environmentalists
could foresee a day in the not too distant future
when, unless peoples organize themselves to counter this,
countries like the United States
and its high consumptive lifestyle allies like Canada
and other over‘developed’ countries,
would try to impose a fascist world dictatorship in the
name of “protecting their environment” -
and fossil fuel-based lifestyles. (The Gulf War for oil
and the World Trade Organization
indicate these hegemonic tendencies.) Such governments
could perhaps then be considered
ecofascist.
Social Ecology and Ecofascism
Since the mid 80's, some writers
linked with the human-centered theory of social ecology,
for example Murray Bookchin, have attempted to associate
deep ecology with “ecofascism”
and Hitler's “national socialist” movement. See his 1987
essay “Social Ecology Versus
‘Deep Ecology’” based on his divisive,
anti-communist and sectarian speech to the
National Gathering of the US Greens in Amherst Massachusetts
(e.g. the folk singer Woody
Guthrie was dismissed by Bookchin as “a Communist Party
centralist”). There are several
references by Bookchin in this essay, promoting the association
of deep ecology with Hitler
and ecofascism. More generally for Bookchin in this article,
deep ecology is “an ideological
toxic dump.”
Bookchin’s essay presented
the view that deep ecology is a reactionary movement. With
its bitter and self-serving tone, it helped to
poison needed intellectual exchanges between
deep ecology and social ecology supporters. This essay
also outlined, in fundamental
opposition to deep ecology, that in Bookchin’s social
ecology there is a special role for
humans. Human thought is “nature rendered self-conscious.”
The necessary human purpose
is to consciously change nature and, arrogantly, “to
consciously increase biotic diversity.”
According to Bookchin, social arrangements are crucial
in whether or not the human purpose
(as seen by social ecology) can be carried out. These
social arrangements include a non-
hierarchical society, mutual aid, local autonomy, communalism,
etc. - all seen as part of the
anarchist tradition. For social ecology, there do not
seem to be natural laws to which humans
and their civilizations must conform or perish. The basic
social ecology perspective is human
interventionist. Nature can be moulded to human interests.
Another ‘argument’ is to refer
to some extreme or reactionary statement by somebody of
prominence who supports deep ecology. For example, Bookchin
calls Dave Foreman an
“ecobrutalist”, and uses this to smear by association
all deep ecology supporters - and to
further negate the worth of the particular individual,
denying the validity of their overall life's
work. Foreman was one of the key figures in founding
Earth First! He went on to do and
promote crucial restoration ecology work in the magazine
Wild Earth, which he helped found,
and on the Wildlands Project. Overall he has, and continues
to make, a substantial
contribution. He has never made any secret of his right-of-center
original political views and
often showered these rightist views in uninformed comments
in print, on what he saw as
“leftists” in the movement. The environmental movement
recruits from across class, although
there is a class component to environmental struggles.
Bookchin’s comments about Foreman
(of course social ecology is without blemish and has
no need for self criticism!), are equivalent to picking
up some backward and reactionary
action or statement of someone like Gandhi, and using
this to dismiss his enormous
contribution and moral authority. Gandhi for example
recruited Indians for the British side
in the Zulu rebellion and the Boer War in South Africa;
and in the Second World War in
1940, Gandhi wrote an astonishing appeal “To every
Briton” counselling them to give up
and accept whatever fate Hitler had for them, but not
to give up their souls or their minds!
But Gandhi's influence remains substantial within the
deep ecology movement, and
particularly for someone like Arne Naess, the original
and a continuing philosophical
inspiration. Naess is dismissed by Bookchin as “grand
Pontiff” in his essay.
Other spokespersons for social
ecology, like Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier, have
later carried on this peculiar work. (See the 1995 published
essays: “Ecofascism: Lessons
from the German Experience” by Staudenmaier
and Biehl; “Fascist Ecology: The
‘Green Wing’ of the Nazi Party and its Historical
Antecedents” by Staudenmaier;
and “‘Ecology’ and the Modernization of Fascism
in the German Ultra-right” by
Biehl.) For Staudenmaier and Biehl, in their joint essay:
“Reactionary and outright fascist
ecologists emphasize the supremacy of the ‘Earth’
over people.” Most deep ecology
supporters would not have any problem identifying with
what is condemned here. But this
of course is the point for these authors.
Staudenmaier’s essay is quite
thoughtful and revealing about some ecological trends in the
rise of national socialism, but its ultimate purpose
is to discredit deep ecology, the love of
Nature and really the ecological movement, so it is ruined
by its Bookchin-inspired agenda.
For Staudenmaier, “From its very beginnings, then,
ecology was bound up in an
intensely reactionary political framework.” Basically
this essay is written from outside the
ecological movement. Its purpose is to discredit and
assert the superiority of social ecology
and humanism.
At its crudest, it is argued
by such writers that, because SOME supporters of German
fascism, liked being in the outdoors and extolled nature
and the “Land” through songs, poetry,
literature and philosophy and the Nazi movement drew
from this, or because some prominent
Nazis like Hitler and Himmler were allegedly “strict
vegetarians and animal lovers”, or
supported organic farming, this “proves” something about
the direction deep ecology
supporters are heading in. Strangely, the similar type
argument is not made that because
“socialist” is part of “national socialist”, this means
all socialists have some inclination towards
fascism! The writers by this argument also negate that
the main focus of fascism and the Nazis
was the industrial/military juggernaut, for which all
in the society were mobilized.
Some ideas associated with
deep ecology like the love of Nature; the concern with a
needed spiritual transformation dedicated to the sharing
of identities with other people,
animals, and Nature as a whole; and with non-coercive
population reduction (seen as
necessary not only for the sake of humans but, more importantly,
so other species can remain
on the Earth and flourish with sufficient habitats),
seem to be anathema to social ecology and
are supposed to incline deep ecology supporters towards
ecofascism in some way. Deep
ecology supporters, contrary to some social ecology slanders,
see population reduction, or
perhaps controls on immigration, from a maintenance of
biodiversity perspective, and this
has nothing to do with fascists who seek controls on
immigration or want to deport
“foreigners” in the name of maintaining some so-called
ethnic/cultural or racial purity or
national identity.
A view is presented that only
SOCIAL ecology can overcome the dangers these social
ecology writers describe. Yet even this is wrong, although
one can and should learn from
this, I believe, important theoretical tendency. Deep
ecology has the potential for a new
economic, social, and political vision based on an ecocentric
world view. Whereas all these
particular social ecologists seem to be offering as the
way forward, is a human-centered and
non-ecological, anarchist social theory, pulled together
from the past. Yet the basic social
ecology premise is flawed, that human-to-human relations
within society determine society's
relationship to the natural world. This does not necessarily
follow. Left biocentrism for
example, argues that an egalitarian, non-sexist, non-discriminating
society, while a highly
desirable goal, can still be exploitive towards the Earth.
This is why for deep ecology
supporters, the slogan “Earth first” is necessary and
not reactionary. Left biocentric deep
ecology supporters believe that we must be concerned
with social justice and class issues and
the redistribution of wealth, nationally and internationally
for the human species, but within a
context of ecology. (See point 4 of the Left Biocentrism Primer.)
Deep ecology and social ecology
are totally different philosophies of life whose
fundamental premises clash! As John Livingston, the Canadian
ecophilosopher put it, in his
1994 book Rogue Primate: An exploration of human domestication:
“It
has become popular among adherents to ‘social ecology’ (a term
meaningless
in itself, but apparently a brand of anarchism) to label those
who
would dare to weigh the interests of Nature in the context of human
populations
as ‘ecofascists.’”
Rudolf Bahro
The late deep-green German ecophilosopher
and activist Rudolf Bahro (1935-1997) has
been accused by some social ecology supporters - for
example Janet Biehl, Peter
Staudenmaier and others, without real foundation, of
being an ecofascist and Nazi
sympathizer and a contributor to “spiritual fascism”.
Yet Bahro was a daring original thinker,
who came into conflict with all orthodoxies in thought
- particularly left and green
orthodoxies. The language he used and metaphors as shown
in his writings, display his
considerable knowledge of European culture. But one would
have to say that he took poetic
license with his imagery - for example, the call for
a “Green Adolf”. He saw this as perhaps
necessary, to display the complexity of his ideas and
to shake mass society from its
slumbers! But this helped to fuel attacks on him. Bahro
was interested in concretely building
a mass social movement and, politically incorrect as
it may be, sought to see if there was
anything to learn from the rise of Nazism: “How
a millenary movement can be led, or can
lead itself, and with what organs: THAT is the question.”
(Bahro, Avoiding Social &
Ecological Disaster, p.278)
This concern does not make
him a fascist, particularly when one considers overall what he
did with his life, his demonstrated deep sentiment for
the Earth, and his various theoretical
contributions. Bahro was also open-minded enough to invite
Murray Bookchin and others
with diverse views (for example the eco-feminist Maria
Mies), to speak in his class at
Humboldt University in East Berlin!
The social ecologist Janet
Biehl, in her paper “‘Ecology’ and the Modernization of
Fascism in the German Ultra-right”, has
a four-page discussion on Rudolf Bahro. I
come to the opposite conclusions about Bahro than she
does. I see someone very daring,
who raised spiritually-based questions on how to get
out of the ecological crisis in a German
context. Bahro was not a constipated leftist frozen in
his thinking. Bahro saw that the left
rejects spiritual insights. Biehl comes to the conclusion
that Bahro, with his willingness to
re-examine the national socialist movement, was giving
“people permission to envision
themselves as Nazis.”
Bahro, himself a person from
the left, came to understand the role of left opportunists in
undermining and diluting any deeper ecological understanding
in Green organizations, in the
name of paying excessive attention to social issues.
They often called themselves
“eco-socialists”, but never understood the defining role
of ecology and what this means for
a new radical politics. For many leftists, ecology was
just an “add-on”, so there was no
transformation of world view and consciousness was not
changed. This is what happened
in the German Green Party and Bahro combatted it. It
therefore becomes important for
those who see themselves as defending this left opportunism,
to try to undermine Rudolf
Bahro, the most fundamental philosopher of the fundamentalists.
By 1985 Bahro had
resigned from the Green Party saying that the members
did not want out of the industrial
system. Whatever Bahro’s later wayward path, the ecofascist
charge needs to be placed
in such a context.
Bahro did become muddled and
esoteric in his thinking after 1984-5. This is shown, for
example, by the esoteric/Christian passages to be found
in Bahro’s last book published in
English, Avoiding Social & Ecological Disaster:
The Politics of World Transformation,
and also by his involvement with the bankrupt Indian
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Yet Bahro
saw the necessity for a spiritual and eco-psychological
transformation within society,
something which social ecology does not support, to avoid
social and ecological disaster.
Bahro, like Gandhi, believed it necessary to look inward,
to find the spiritual strength to break
with industrial society. This needed path is not invalidated
by spiritual excess or losing one's
way on the path.
As additional support for opposing
the slander that Bahro was an ecofascist, I would
advance the viewpoint of Saral Sarkar. He was born in
India, but has lived in Germany since
1982. Sarkar was a radical political associate of Bahro
(they were both considered
“fundamentalists” within the German Greens) and fought
alongside of him for the same
causes. (Saral is also a friend who visited me in November/December
of 1999 in Nova
Scotia, Canada.) Although Sarkar writes with a subdued
biocentric perspective, I would
not consider him yet an advocate of deep ecology. But
he does know Bahro’s work and
the German context. Sarkar left the Green Party one year
after Bahro. Sarkar, and his
German wife Maria Mies, do not consider Bahro an ecofascist,
although they both distanced
themselves from Bahro’s later work. Sarkar has written
extensively on the German Greens.
(See the two-volume Green-Alternative Politics in
West Germany, published by the
United Nations University Press, and his most recent
book Eco-socialism or
eco-capitalism? A critical analysis of humanity's
fundamental choices, by Zed
Books.)
Bahro was a supporter and,
through his ideas, important contributor to the left biocentric
theoretical tendency within the deep ecology movement.
(See my “Tribute” to Bahro on his
death, published in Canadian Dimension, March-April
1998, Vol. 32, No. 2 and elsewhere.)
In a December 1995 letter, Bahro had declared that he
was in agreement “with the essential
points” of the philosophy of left biocentrism.
Legitimate Use of Ecofascism?
A. “Wise Use”
I mainly associate the
term “ecofascism” in my own mind, with the so-called “Wise Use”
movement in North America. (The goal is “use”, “wise”
is a PR cover.) Essentially, “Wise
Use” in this context means that all of Nature is available
for human use. Nature should not
be “locked up” in parks or wildlife reserves, and human
access to “resources” always must
have priority. One has in such “Wise Use” situations,
what might be considered “traditional”
fascist-type activities, used against those who are defending
the ecology or against the
animals themselves. This, in my understanding, makes
for a legitimate use of the term
ecofascist, notwithstanding what I have written above.
At a meeting in Nova Scotia
in 1984 (an alleged Education Seminar organized by the
Atlantic Vegetation Management Association), three ideologues
of the “Wise Use” movement
spoke - Ron Arnold, Dave Dietz and Maurice Tugwell. The
message was “It takes a
movement to fight a movement.” In other words,
neither industry nor government
according to Arnold, can successfully challenge a broadly
based environmental movement.
Hence the necessity for a “Wise Use” movement to do this
work.
The fascist components of the
“Wise Use” movement are:
- some popular misguided support
of working people who depend on logging, mining,
fishing, and related exploitive industries who see their
consumptive lifestyles threatened;
- backing by industrial capitalist
economic interests linked to the same industries, who
provide money and political/media influence;
- the willingness to be influenced
by hate propaganda, to demonize/scapegoat, and to use
violence and intimidation against environmentalists and
their supporters;
- the tacit support of law enforcement
agencies to “Wise Use” activities; and
- an unwillingness to publicly
debate in a non coercive atmosphere the deeper
environmental criticism of the industrial paradigm, where
old growth forests, oceans and
marine life, and Nature generally, only exist for industrial
and human consumption.
In Canada, I see mainly two
kinds of “Wise Use” activities. One concerns the actions of
logging industry workers against environmentalists, for
example in British Columbia, often
concerning blocked access to logging old growth forests.
Whereas the other ecofascist
“Wise Use” activity is directed against seals mainly,
and only secondarily against those who
come forward to defend seals. So one “Wise Use” example
is human-focussed and one is
wildlife-focused. For a recent example of what could
be called ecofascist activity, see the
accounts of the physical attacks in September of 1999,
by International Forest Products
workers and others in the Elaho Valley in British Columbia,
against environmentalists
blockading a logging road, as reported in the Winter
1999 issue of the British Columbia
Environmental Report and more fully in the December-January
2000 issue of the
Earth First! Journal. These were ecofascist activities
directed at environmentalists.
Another “Wise Use” ecofascist-type
activity concerns the killing of seals, particularly on
the east coast of Canada. There seems to be a hatred
directed towards seals (and those
who defend them), which extends from sealers and most
fishers, to the corporate
components of the fishing industry and the federal and
provincial governments, particularly
the Newfoundland and Labrador government (see for example,
the extremely rabid
“I hate seals” talk of provincial fisheries minister
John Efford). The seals become scapegoats
for the collapse of the ground fishery, especially cod.
A vicious government-subsidized
warfare, using all the resources of the state, becomes
waged on seals. The largest annual
wildlife slaughter in the world today concerns the ice
seals (harp and hooded seals), which
come every winter to the east coast of Canada to have
their young and to mate. Quotas of
275,000 harps and 10,000 hoods, are allocated. Every
honest knowledgeable person is
aware that these quotas, given suitable ice killing conditions,
are vastly exceeded. There is
also a “hunt” with bounties, directed at grey seals,
which live permanently in the Atlantic
marine region.
In addition to the above, there
are additional seal execution plans in the works. The so-
called Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, in its
April 1999 Report to the federal
minister of fisheries giving as justification the protection
of spawning and juvenile cod, seeks to:
- reduce seal herds by up to
50 percent of their current population levels;
- establish an experimental seal
harvest for grey seals of up to 20,000 grey seals on Sable
Island; and
- define a limited number of
so-called “seal exclusion” zones where all seals would be killed.
These zones seem to include the Northumberland Strait,
the marine waters off New
Brunswick and Prince Edward Island and other areas.
I regard the pronouncements
of the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council on seals as
ecofascist mystification: “We need to kill seals for
conservation”. I also regard as
ecofascists those who actively work to remove seals from
the marine eco-system because
“there are far too many of them.”. (It seems that for
such people there are never too many
humans or fishers.)
With industrial capitalist
societies having permanent growth economies, increasing
populations, increasing consumerism as an intrinsic part
of the economy, non-sustainable
ecological footprints etc., and no willingness to change
any of this, the struggle over what little
wild Nature remains and whether it is going to be left
alone or put to “use”, is becoming
increasingly brutalized. Those who refuse to rise above
suicidal short term interest, whether
workers or capitalists, see themselves as having a stake
in the continuation of industrial
capitalism and are prepared to fiercely defend this at
the expense of the ecology. Yet despite
this “on the ground” reality which many environmental
activists are facing, there seems to be
an ongoing attempt to link the deep ecology movement
and its supporters with ecofascism -
that is, to malign some of the very people who are experiencing
ecofascist attacks!
B. Intrusive Research
Another example of where the
term “ecofascist” can be applied, will be much more
controversial within the deep ecology movement, since
it is directed at some in our own
ranks - that is, some of those who work in the field
of conservation biology! The ecofascist
activity here is directed at wildlife, not humans. But
I have come to believe it to be true, and
that it is necessary to speak out about it. It concerns
in a general way, Point 4 of the Deep
Ecology Platform (by Arne
Naess and George Sessions), “Present human interference
with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation
is rapidly worsening.”
Specifically it concerns activities carried out by conservation
biologists which can be called
“intrusive research” into wildlife populations. This
is generally done in the name of restoration
ecology. (Of course, industrialized society and its supporters
inflict far worse intrusive
horrors, for example, on domestic animals destined for
the food machine.)
In a sense wildlife becomes
“domesticated” by some conservation biologists, so that it can
be numbered, counted, tagged, and manipulated. This does
not appear, so far, to have been
challenged from a deep ecology perspective. Conservation
biology, like any other profession,
if looked at sociologically, has its own taken-for-granted
world view justifying its existence.
The world view seems to be, not that “Nature knows best,”
but that “Nature needs the
interventions of conservation biologists to rectify various
ecological problems.”
The intrusive research practices
engaged in by some conservation biologists and traditional
“fish and game” biologists, seem to be remarkably similar.
They both use computer-type and
other technologies, such as radio-collars, implanted
computer chips, banding, etc. The main
defense of intrusive research seems to be two-fold:
- the first is that habitat is
crucial for wild animals (no disagreement here), and that
radio-collaring and the use of other tracking and computerized
devices have been helpful in
establishing the ranges of the wild animals being studied.
(But there are other non intrusive
methods, although more labour and knowledge intensive,
for the range tracking of wildlife.)
- the second justification, the
one that I feel has some ecofascist echos, is that “the larger
good” requires such research and any negatives to the
“researched” animals have to be
accepted from this perspective. (This larger good is
defined variously as the goals of the
Wildlands Project; the health of the wildlife populations
being studied; the well being of the
ecosphere; or work towards implementing the goals of
the Deep Ecology Platform.) One
thinks here of the fascist goals of “the nation” or “the
fatherland” as justification to sacrifice
the individual human or groups of humans considered expendable.
For me, the defense of
intrusive research on nonhuman life forms and their expendability,
in the name of a human-
decided larger good, although couched in ecological language,
is the ultimate
anthropocentrism and could legitimately be called an
example of ecofascism.
I have to come to see that,
as well as working for conservation, it is necessary to work for
the individual welfare of animals. This is an important
contribution and lesson from the animal
rights or animal liberation movement. Animal welfare,
as well as the concern with species or
populations and the preservation of habitat, must be
part of any acceptable restoration
ecology.
C. Inducing Fear
Perhaps another example
of ecofascist behaviour which could occur within our own ranks
might be carrying out activities which could deliberately
kill or injure people in the name of
some environmental or animal rights/animal liberation
cause. This seems to rest on using “fear”
to destabilize. Many activists of course know that the
state security forces also have
successfully used such tactics to try and discredit the
radical animal rights and radical
environmental movements.
More important philosophically
perhaps, such activities may rest on the deeper view that in
the chain of life, the human species does not have a
privileged status above other species, and
must be held accountable for anti-life behaviours. In
other words, why should violence be
acceptable towards nonhuman species, and non-violence
apply only to humans? We also
know that any state, whatever its ideological basis,
claims a monopoly on the use of violence
against its citizens and will use all its institutions
to defend this. Yet the term “terrorist” is only
applied against opponents of the prevailing system. Also,
many activists have experienced
“terror” from the economic growth and high consumption
defenders. However, the political
reality is that the charge of “ecoterrorist”, often used
as a blanket condemnation against radical
environmentalists and animal rights activists, seems
to be fed by such behaviour of attempting
to induce fear.
Conclusion
This bulletin has shown that
the concept of “ecofascism” can be used in different ways. It
has looked at how some social ecology supporters have
used this term in a basically
unfounded manner to attack deep ecology and the ecological
movement, and it also looked
at what can be called ecofascist attacks against the
environmental movement. So we can say
that the term “ecofascism” can be used:
- Illegitimately. This is the
use of the term which has been advanced by some social
ecologists who have tried to link those who defend the
Natural world, particularly deep
ecology supporters, with traditional fascist political
movements - especially the Nazis. The
“contribution” of these particular social ecologists
has been to thoroughly confuse what
ecofascist really means and to slander the new thinking
of deep ecology. This seems to have
been done from the viewpoint of trying to discredit what
some social ecologists apparently
see as an ideological ‘rival’ within the environmental
and green movements. This social
ecology sectarianism has resulted in ecofascism becoming
an attack term against those
environmentalists who are out in the trenches being attacked
by real ecofascists! I have also
defended the late Rudolf Bahro against the charge of
being an ecofascist or Nazi
sympathizer.
- Legitimately, to describe
“Wise Use” type activities, that is, against those who want to
exploit Nature until the end, solely for human/corporate
purposes, and who will do whatever
is seen as necessary, including using violence and intimidation
against environmentalists and
their supporters, to carry on. We should not be phased
by “Wise Use” supporters calling
their ecodefender opponents ecoterrorists, or saying
that they themselves are “the true
environmentalists.” This is merely a diversion. Also
I have raised in this bulletin for discussion,
what seem to me to be some real contradictions within
the deep ecology camp itself around
the ecofascism issue, e.g. intrusive research.
Hopefully this article will
also enable deep ecology supporters to be less defensive about
the terms ecofascist or ecofascism. These terms, if rescued
from social ecology-inspired
obfuscation, do have analytical validity. They can be
used against those destroyers of the
Natural world who are prepared to use violence and intimidation,
and other fascist tactics,
against their opponents.
February, 2000
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