Terror and Liberalism
Between one thing and another, I didn't get around to reading Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism when it appeared early last year. The topic and the thesis are as relevant now as then, however, and the opening pages suggest that this is a completely original and important book. Berman is a gifted writer with a lyrical style, through which a wicked humour shines. Take this brief example from early in the first chapter in which he's discussing foreign policy "realism":
"Bush the Elder laboured earnestly at assembling his coalition, and did so with enormous skill, too, until, by the time he had finished, his alliance stretched all the way, ideologically speaking, to the Baathist dictatorship in Syria, which was not much different from the Baathist dictatorship in Iraq. The mediaeval despots of Saudi Arabia took their place in the grand coalition. The alliance turned out to be a pirate crew of terrorists, dictators, kings and anti-Zionists, oil moguls, and one-eyed gangsters. It was terrifying to behold. It was the United Nations General Assembly."
Don't you love that punch line? In Terror and Liberalism, Paul Berman presents us with a philosophical guide to the era that began on 11 September 2001. What is provocative about his analysis of the totalitarian cult of death, which has been embraced by Islamic extremists, is that he sees this as a Western and not an Eastern phenomenon. Writes Berman: "Ali Benhadj said, 'Principles are reinforced by sacrifices, suicide operations and martyrdom for Allah,' Surely this, you will say, cannot be Western — surely this kind of talk, at last, is exotic! But this is how the leaders of Germany used to speak, sixty years ago. Bolsheviks were not afraid to speak like this."
The terror war says Paul Berman is a war of ideas. It's a war that pits liberalism against its enemies.
