BBC: It's a word much applied by opponents to the British National Party and other radical political movements, but what is a "fascist"?
"Fascist" and "fascism" are terms that one might suppose to be simple badges, but dig beneath the surface and there are myriad complexities and a morass of academic debate.
It is more than six decades since the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany, but those events are the prism through which the word "fascism" is still viewed.
The first "fascist" movement to gain power was Mussolini's Blackshirts in Italy in 1922. Their movement could certainly be said to be nationalist and authoritarian, as well as accepting of violence in the struggle for political power, but much of the rest of its characteristics have been subject to academic dispute.
"Frustratingly, I can't give a simple definition," says Kevin Passmore, reader in history at Cardiff University and author of Fascism: A Very Short Introduction. "It depends on definitions."
If your definition of "fascist" is someone who holds beliefs that can be categorised as "fascism", the terms fascism still needs to be defined. >>> | Tuesday, October 20, 2009
