Fascism and the Taliban

Despite the similarities striking similarities, I would not consider the Taliban a fascist regime. A fascist regime needs to be an official government, not just an organized group of terrorists. Some of the values are that they are based on are the same, but the overarching ideas of them are very different. As a government system, a fascist regime focuses on the wellbeing of its people. The people may have no power, but the leaders are still focused on what they believe is best for the majority of the population. These leaders are often very misguided, but the main goal of fascism, and any government system in fact, is to preserve it’s own people and let them live in an ever more prosperous world.

However, the Taliban are not like this. Their goals are based more around squashing their opposition and wiping out everyone who disagrees with them. Both systems are trying to destroy people who are different from them, but fascists destroy the minorities that are different, whereas the Taliban themselves are the minority and try to destroy everyone else. This connects to another main difference between them, fascism is very paternal and that Taliban is not. The Taliban try establishing supremacy above everyone else, but the leaders of a fascist regime take their power and use for what they believe is good.

There are some huge similarities that would make them seem the same. They are both very violent political movements. And they’re not just violent, but their main ideas center around violence, which is an important distinction to make. Some countries are violent simply because they are threatened by other countries so often, but both of these political groups are centered on violence. Most of their ideology would be taken away if you made them peaceful. Despite their similar focus on violence, they have very different types of violence, as well as different reasons for it. A fascist regime would use violence to prove their greatness and their strength, but the Taliban use violence simply as a political tool to assert their power and eliminate the opposition. This is a subtle, but very important divide. If everybody agreed with the Taliban and wanted to live by their rules, they would not fight. However, if everyone agreed with fascism, there would still be wars because of it’s foundation. For the Taliban there is an ideal situation where they can exist in peace with the rest of the world. Their perfect world is peaceful and has only people like themselves. This is obviously unattainable, but still important. On the other hand, the fascist ideal is to be at war and to prove their greatness over other countries. They believe that war brings out the best in a nation, so their ideal state is to be at war.