Reading the article ‘Wartime ghosts haunt Ukraine’ (March 14), I once again was dismayed by the indiscriminate use of the term fascist. It seems you can apply it to whatever attitude or political situation you confront as long you dislike it.

To my mind, fascism, as a historical fact, had three components: nationalism, or extreme patriotism; clericalism, a set of ultra conservative values associated with a politicised religion; and one man willing and capable to subject and lead a state as a dictator.

Former US President George Bush Jr. defined Islamism, as seen in the Arab World, as fascism but only two of the three ingredients are there: the third, the dictator, is missing. Dictators thrive in the opposite camp, the secularist. Nazism was different as there was no clericalism in it.

All the three constituents are missing in Russia because President Vladimir Putin is a populist nostalgic of the Soviet Union’s lost power. He is no more patriotic that some US presidents. The occupiers of squares in Kiev apparently did not know where they wanted to take Ukraine so it is difficult to class them; they do not look like fascists: they were protesters or, if you will, ultra fans of the European way of life.

This deafening war of confused and misused words we are witnessing does not augur well for our future. The situation resembles 1914 when some European leaders’ sleepwalking led the world to a useless catastrophe.