WHAT IS FASCISM?
The word ‘fascism’ comes from the Italian ‘fascio’, meaning a bundle or group, and is considered a term for a militant brotherhood. The word ‘fasces’ means an axe tightly bound with sticks, an image that became a symbol of the fascist movement.
Fascism uses propaganda techniques to promote anti-liberalism – rejecting individual rights, civil liberties, free enterprise and democracy – anti-socialism – rejecting economic principles based on socialist frameworks – exclusion of certain groups and nationalism that seeks to expand the nation’s influence and power.
Fascism promotes the concept of innate inequality and inescapable social hierarchies between groups. Underlying this hierarchy is the idea that a person’s rank in society is determined by aspects of identity that are beyond their control, such as ethnicity or gender.