"Fascism", in its current hyphenated repackaging, gets bandied about quite a bit these days. So, it may surprise you to learn that the populist appeal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad depends in part on a Persian concept, "gharbzadegi" ("weststruckness" or "occidentosis") whose roots are located in an Iranian adaptation of Martin Heidegger's proto-fascist concept of "The Darkening of the World" by the intellectuals Ahmad Fardid and Jalal Ali Ahmad.
posted by felix betachat on Nov 23, 2007 - 32 comments

Martin Amis on 9/11 and the cult of death: [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin on Sep 11, 2007 - 71 comments

Bin Ladin's Former 'Bodyguard' Interviewed on Al-Qa'ida Strategies. An interview taken by the Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper in London with one of Bin Ladin's former bodyguards brings out many interesting things, such as him admitting that Al Qaida is no longer an entity, but an ideology. Another strong point of the interview is his summary of Al Qaida tactics: Al-Qa'ida pursues a method or principle that calls for "centralization of decision and decentralization of execution.".
posted by Masi on Aug 7, 2004 - 13 comments