This book is an urgent call to recognize the new masks of authoritarianism and intolerance. A political, moral, and humanist manifesto in defense of democracy, memory, intelligence, solidarity, and human dignity in the face of the normalization of hatred.
At Zenda we reproduce the opening pages of Manifesto Against Intolerance (Roca), by Rafael Narbona.
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THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF THE NEW FASCISM
Fascism is not a mere ideology. Although it often cultivates a strong affinity with a fundamentalist interpretation of Christianity, its secret ambition is to become a religion, complete with myths, dogmas, commandments, and mystical experiences. One only has to look at the mass rallies in Nuremberg and Hitler’s theatrical appearances to see that its nature is not purely political. Its craving for total domination includes the objective of redefining the concept of humanity. For Hitler, his enemies were “subhuman.”
In our days, Donald Trump, the undisputed global leader of the new fascism, does not hide his totalitarian tendencies, normalizing hatred and cruelty through his racist, misogynist, and homophobic insults. To him, his opponents are also subhuman. One of his usual targets is the Somali-born Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar, whom he has insulted crudely and repeatedly threatened with deportation to her “dirty and disgusting” homeland. He has also insulted the Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny, describing his performance at the February 2026 Super Bowl as an “affront to the greatness of the United States […] No one understands a word this guy says, and the dancing is revolting.” Laura Loomer, a prominent MAGA (Make America Great Again) commentator, was even more aggressive: “Illegal immigrants and Latina prostitutes twerking at the Super Bowl. Not a single white person or English translation at the Super Bowl. This isn’t white enough for me. I can’t even watch a Super Bowl anymore because immigrants have literally ruined it all.”
It is worth highlighting the expression “Not white enough for me.” We could substitute white with Aryan or Spanish and the essential message would remain unchanged: the others, those who speak another language or have a different skin color, pose a threat to national identity. They are foreign bodies that must be expelled. Only by doing so can we recover the original purity, that paradise where America belonged to Americans (that is, to whites, Anglos, and Protestants) or Germany to Germans (that is, to Aryans).
Tribalism is the quintessence of fascism and has resurfaced around the world with uninhibited freedom. Latinos, Muslims, and Black people are the “external enemy.” Meanwhile, those who welcome and protect have become a kind of “internal enemy.” Both must be neutralized in one way or another. Mass deportations are the only way to rid the country of poor foreigners (the rich do not bother), and control of the media and schools is the most effective tool to silence the “antifascists of various pelts” (socialists, feminists, social activists), whose ideas contaminate minds.
The United States, Russia, and Argentina have already begun a purge of language. Two months after Trump took office as the fortieth-seventh president of the United States, several federal agencies published a list of more than a hundred words that could no longer be used in official communication. Among them: activism, anti-racism, Black, gender, LGBTQ, feminism, multicultural, non-binary, immigrants, vulnerable populations, diversity. “The first thing an authoritarian regime seeks,” warned David I. Beaver, a professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, “is absolute power, and to achieve it it limits dissent and then criminalizes it.” In this way, the classic fascist division between “us or them” is established, paving the way for the crushing of dissent.
The term woke, which can be translated as “awake,” emerged in the sixties of the last century to advocate for the rights of minorities, especially the African American community in the United States, but today it is used as a symbol of everything the far right hates: freedom, diversity, pluralism, equality.
Vladimir Putin, who enjoys Trump’s sympathy despite some occasional frictions, continues the same agenda, but with more radical measures. At the end of 2023, the Russian Supreme Court declared the International LGBTI Movement illegal and rejected the use of feminine gender in language in favor of the generic masculine. Vitaly Milonov, a deputy in the Duma, compared inclusive language to Satanism and demanded that it be eradicated from classrooms.
The perversion of language is not new. Mussolini restricted the use of foreign words, insisting that terms with Latin roots be used. And the Nazis manipulated language to shape minds. As Victor Klemperer noted in his magnificent essay LTI. The Language of the Third Reich, words of Semitic origin were demonized and a positive meaning was attributed to terms previously vilified, such as fanatic. Fanaticism ceased to be a vice and became a virtue. A good German could only be a fanatical patriot and a fanatical anti-Semite, for the Jew was the cancer of nations.
In Don Quixote, Cervantes states that “history is like a sacred mother, an emulation of time, custodian of deeds, witness of the past, example and warning of the present, forewarning of what is to come.” Cervantes’s reflection is a perpetual invitation to compare the past with the present in order to understand the future that is taking shape.
And in light of that, it does not seem an exaggeration to reiterate that we are facing a renewed assault of fascism, a recurring movement that changes its appearance without altering its essence. In the 1930s, fascism preached radical nationalism, the cult of the leader and the party, the absolute power of the state, the suppression of the multiparty system, corporatism, the struggle against diversity, and the militarization of society. Some of these principles have survived, such as exclusionary nationalism, authoritarianism, or the fight against diversity, but it is impossible for a historical phenomenon to repeat itself with millimeter precision. All ideologies change their display to increase their appeal.
The tenets of fascism today are slightly different, but they spring from the same philosophy that has sown a history of blood, sweat, and tears. A restyling or rebranding does not lessen the danger of a threat. The only way to prevent a new act of this drama is to renew and strengthen democratic values, underscoring that freedom is an empty concept when it is not tied to solidarity and justice. To speak of democracy in deeply unequal societies is a mockery, for the citizen’s right to participate is not only about casting a vote in a ballot box, but about enjoying social provisions that guarantee a dignified life. The welfare state is the heart of democracy. If a citizen cannot access basic goods such as housing, work, healthcare, education, fair wages, and pensions, freedom is only a hollow ornament. It is of no use to be able to shout in a corner if you sleep under a piece of cardboard and medical care is a privilege.
“We have learned to fly like birds, to swim like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living as brothers,” Martin Luther King once said. We still have time to undertake that learning. It is not an unachievable utopia, but a long road that humanity will one day have to complete if it does not want to sink definitively into barbarism.
We can condense the ideology of the new fascism into ten commandments. They are not gathered in a political program, but they reside in the minds of its leaders. They are the essential core of a proposal that would liquidate democratic, open, and plural societies. Examining them will help us understand the current state of the world and look for ways out. As Albert Camus said, no matter how cold and dark winter is, an “invincible summer” always follows.
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Author: Rafael Narbona. Title: Manifesto Against Intolerance. Publisher: Roca. Sales: All Your Books.