Fascism and wealthy backers

There are two kinds of Fascists: those who give orders and those who take them. A popular base gives Fascism the legs it needs to march, the lungs it uses to proclaim, and the muscle it relies on to menace – but that’s Fascism from the neck down. To create tyranny out of the fears and hopes of average people, money is required, and so, too, ambition and twisted ideas. It is the combination that kills. In the absence of wealthy backers, we likely would never have heard of Corporal Mussolini or Corporal Hitler. In the absence of their compulsion to dominate at all costs, neither would have caused the harm he did.

The above was written by Madeleine Albright in her book Fascism: A Warning (2018). We in Pakistan need to stay clear of demagogues with ambition and twisted ideas.

Tariq Khosa
Director CGR
23 June 2022.