Choosing to focus on SWANA and SSEA Asia is an intentional choice to
challenge the invisibilization of fascist and fundamentalist actors that are
often overlooked and mischaracterized, obscuring their true infrastructure
and connections. While some regions are heavily scrutinized through
narrow lenses that may fail to name these actors for what they are, others
are significantly neglected in cross-regional spaces, obscuring important
links to regional and global counterparts where these forces are gaining
traction. It is important to acknowledge that movements, local activists,
researchers, and academics have long provided critical analyses,
mappings, and resistance to these movements. However, fragmented
knowledge production across regions often distorts the recognition of
this broader interconnected threat that transcends borders, limiting both
understanding and resistance.
In this mapping, we see fascist and fundamentalist narratives act as
iterations that harness economic crises, neoliberal policies and social
fractures to cement their fascist and fundamentalist power. Militarism,
as it manifests across both SWANA and SSE Asia, is not only the overt
presence of armed forces but a pervasive ideology that infiltrates every
facet of life, intertwining with national identity and economic survival. It
transforms the state into a perpetual war machine, justifying its existence
through the continuous production of enemies, both within and beyond
its borders. This militarized logic and narrative extend into the civilian
sphere, where the lines between governance and warfare blur, turning
populations into both subjects of control and instruments of violence,
all in service of maintaining a homogenized, compliant society. At the
same time, in both contexts, we see digital fascism operating as the
algorithmic extension of state power and the invisible hand that shapes
state narratives, turning data into weapons of social control, and making
the machinery of repression both flexible and invasive.
In both contexts, actors use narratives that weaponize misogyny,
homophobia, and transphobia as deliberate strategies to enforce a
rigid vision of ‘purity’ rooted in the protection of ‘family values’. These
ideologies do more than just marginalize; they are systematically
deployed to fortify a societal hierarchy where gender and sexual
conformity become symbols of national and cultural purity. In both
contexts, we see how the calculated emphasis on purity serves to
legitimize violence – both state-sanctioned and vigilante – against those
who challenge these oppressive norms of gender and sexuality, further
entrenching the power of fascist and fundamentalist projects.
6