Although Ming Hoe's attempt to define fascism is praiseworthy, it is not very right.

According to him or her, fascism generally "stands for a centralised autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader with severe economic and social regimentation and exercises forcible suppression of opposition".

If that coffee-shop definition of fascism stands, we could categorise the Malacca Sultanate, Ming Dynasty and other dynasties in ancient China, Tsardom in pre-Revolution Russia and the absolute monarchy in pre-1932 Thailand as "fascist". Unfortunately, however, no serious political science or history scholarship support that coffee-shop definition of "fascism".

The muddle-headed definition of "fascism" leads the writer to conclude that communist China is "fascist". Its absolutely wrong! We may not like communism or even oppose it, but we certainly cannot label the People's Republic of China as "fascist". It may be despotic, dictatorial or oppressive, but it is the despotism, dictatorship and oppression with a different ideological content.

Fascism is about the exaltation of "race", state and leader to the exclusion of all other social and universal values. Fascism has its historical context in the inter-war period in Europe (1919-1939).

The erosion of religious and universal values as social bonds caused the de-cultured and de-classed petit bourgeoisie in Italy, Germany and other less developed parts of Europe, psychologically oppressed by modernisation and modernity, to seek security of identity in "race", the state and the leader. Fascism is xenophobic racism, statism and cult of leadership combined. In Germany, Nazism (which is a form of fascism) was elected into power by the frightened, malleable and credulous German petit bourgeoisie .

It is time we respect history and establish scholarship in public discourses. Whatever one's case, it is wrong to "define" a word or a term expediently, or at one's whims and fancies, merely to fight a polemical war, without solid intellectual basis.