Fascist regimes and ways of legitimizing

Today, on my way to the library, I was speaking with a friend on the phone. He asked me a question about the recent Taliban's digital authoritarianism, the wholesale internet blackout in Afghanistan. I said, this is what fascist and authoritarian regimes do to their citizens. They take away the basic needs/rights of their citizens and then return it back to them.

I gave him an example of the recent crises of the ethno-religious fascist Taliban regime created. They shut down the internet and telecommunication for two days in the entire country. When they restored it, people poured into the streets of Kabul and celebrated the return of the internet. This is what anthropologists call "manufacturing gratitude."  Fascist regimes like the Taliban first create a crisis, and then they themselves provide the solution. What happens in this kind of performance is that it leads to manufacturing consent among citizens, and this is how fascist regimes legitimize their power and control over the population.

Also, today, I saw videos on the internet showing Gazans pouring into the streets and dancing with joy that the Israeli occupying regime has finally decided not to kill innocent people. On the other side of the border, Israelis have also poured into the streets and held celebrations because their government may stop dropping bombs on the people of Gaza, and maybe there is a possibility that hostages might return home through an exchange.

These street dances and celebrations grant more legitimacy to the Israeli regime. For the regime, it means that, yes, we can carry out a genocide in Gaza in front of the eyes of the world, and with the help of the United States, we can kill as many innocent people as we can, and we don't even care. To fascist regimes, street dances and the celebration of the cessation of violence are a symbolic act of submission. This is a classic example of the legitimization method of fascist and apartheid governments that manufacture. 

Afghanistan's internet blackout and the anatomy of fascism

For the past few days, I have not been able to talk to my family members, and like me, thousands of diaspora Afghanistanis have not been able to speak to their loved ones.

Two days ago, the Taliban, an ethno-religious fascist group, imposed a wholesale internet blackout in Afghanistan. First, they severed the fiber-optic internet connection, and then yesterday, they shut down the telecommunication.

So, why did the Taliban shut down the internet in the entire country?

This act of digital authoritarianism is clearly linked to the core tenets of historical fascism. To grasp it, let's do an autodidactic practice. Copy and paste the following questions one by one on Google and press enter, and see what comes up.

What constitutes the core of fascism? What is fascism, anyway? What is the goal of a fascist system?

Whatever answer you get, you will learn that one of the key features of fascist regimes is relying on controlling information to suppress citizens and cement their centralized control.

The Taliban is a fascist group based on a Pashtun-ethnonationalist agenda, which at the core promotes an exclusive "Afghanness" (a euphemism for Pashtun supremacy) and a Pashtun tribal form of Sunni Islam. Controlling and restricting the internet has no reason other than keeping the people in the dark and severing their connection with the outside world. This way, it is easier to control and govern them.

Now, the media has reported that the reason for the internet blackout, according to the Taliban, is "morality." Morality from the Taliban's point of view is: anti-woman, anti-religious and ethnic minorities, anti-Hazara, anti-education, anti-modern values, anti-human rights—basically anti-anything they had not seen in the caves and mountains over the past few decades. Some commentators, clinging to civility, describe the Taliban as merely an extreme group. The raw reality, however, is that this is a terror group that descended from the mountains and caves.

So, what does the Taliban's "morality" look like? It is a heinous strategy used as a tool for social engineering. By implementing their own "morality," they want to create a specific moral subject, one whose worldview, interactions, and consciousness are being shaped solely by the Taliban's ideology.