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Title: Ecofascism: What is It? Author: David Orton Date: 2000 Language: en Topics: Canada, deep ecology, fascism, eco-fascism, social ecology, not anarchist Source: Retrieved on September 9, 2011 from http://home.ca.inter.net/~greenweb/Ecofascism.html Notes: Green Web Bulletin #68 To obtain any of the Green Web publications, write to us at: Green Web, R.R. #3, Saltsprings, Nova Scotia, Canada, BOK 1PO E-mail us at: greenweb@ca.inter.net
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” 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:
and populist propaganda at all levels of the society, glorifying
individual self-sacrifice for this nationalist ideal, which is embodied
in “the Leader”.
but with heavy state/political involvement and guidance. A social
security network for those defined as citizens.
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”.
independent trade union movement, press or judiciary.
(communists are always seen as the arch enemy of fascism), and hostility
towards those defined as on the “left”.
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.
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 Næss, the original and a continuing
philosophical inspiration. Næss 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.’”
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.
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:
logging, mining, fishing, and related exploitive industries who see
their consumptive lifestyles threatened;
industries, who provide money and political/media influence;
demonize/scapegoat, and to use violence and intimidation against
environmentalists and their supporters;
activities; and
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:
levels;
grey seals on Sable Island; and
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!
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 Næss 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:
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.)
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.
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.
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:
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.
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