Dismantling Eco-Fascism

We came together in this workshop to discuss the meaning and forms of eco-fascism, and what it might take to oppose and overcome it. We found that eco-fascism has many dimensions: From right-wing nationalist ecology, to the lifeboat ethic and overpopulation narratives that even parts of the left sometimes promote, to rabid fascists who call ecological movements “eco-fascist,” to eugenicist narratives about covid, and the willingness of some to try to decide who has the right to live and who has the right to die; to the history and present of forced sterilization by colonialist and racist regimes deciding who has the right to reproduce – and so on, to the exploitation of migrants left to suffer or die in the workplace or at sea. 

Eco-fascism has many facets. And the “eco” in it always refers to both ecology and economy, as capitalism is intertwined with colonialism in defining what life – and whose home – is valued.

In our workshop, we talked about the importance of memory in understanding how many worlds and lives have been destroyed in the past, and by whom. To remember that when we panic about the destruction of ecosystems, we’re preceded by a long line of peoples and communities that have been plundered, cleansed, destroyed, poisoned – sometimes by our ancestors. For so many people in the majority world, catastrophe is ancestral. Beyond the guilt this can cause, we need ways to see connections and build solidarities that never forget where we are, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going. And for all this we need memory and counter-memory. That is why we ended up making a memory game, with pairs of cards that reflect different aspects of eco-fascism and different ways of exposing and opposing it. Often we don’t see eco-fascism at first because it claims to protect life: until it becomes clear that eco-fascism is always about valuing one life over another. We have enough memory and presence to resist.

Join us in flipping through these cards, an unfinished and open repository – where different memories connect, not just in pairs, but in chains and webs. See what cards you can connect as you flip through, and how there’s always more than two aspects to the story. This is an invitation to play and talk with others!