Observing Sunday
That superb accompaniment to Sunday, The Observer newspaper, has some choice readings today for all of us who are concerned about the great challenges currently facing open societies. Solutions are possible says Jason Burke, who offers "Seven ways to stop the terror". Here's his penultimate point:
6 "We need to look for new allies in the Islamic world. We should be developing major programmes to develop civic society, with a particular emphasis on involving women, beyond the state. There are thousands of under-resourced groups involved in everything from literacy to human rights to micro-credit that can be assisted, with or without the consent of local governments, from the Maghreb to the Far East. They can help us to show the Islamic world that our way of life does not mean 'neo-imperialism' or 'moral corruption' but is about tolerance, justice and empowerment of the weak. They will help form a critical pro-Western, moderate and locally authentic bloc that in time will become a strong and important voice."
Meanwhile, Nick Cohen demands that the left must face up to the historical challenge we're now dealing with in "I still fight oppression":
Auden noticed a retreat from universal principles in the 1930s — communism was fine in 'semi-barbaric' Russia but would have been a screaming outrage in a civilised country. He should have been alive today. With no socialism to provide international solidarity, good motives of tolerance and respect for other cultures have had the unintended consequence of leading a large part of post-modern liberal opinion into the position of 19th-century imperialists. It is presumptuous and oppressive to suggest that other cultures want the liberties we take for granted, their argument runs. So it may be, but believe that and the upshot is that democracy, feminism and human rights become good for whites but not for browns and brown-skinned people who contradict you are the tools of the neo-conservatives."
Finally, in light of what happened in London in July and in anticipation of legislation to come, Jeffrey Jowell QC declares that "Our (human) rights define us":
"No one would reasonably deny the need for the government to act firmly against anyone who might promote or plan the kind of attacks we saw last month in London, or the need for governments to reassure the public that they are 'doing something' about terrorism. But the reality is that no society, liberal or oppressive, is immune from increasingly inventive forms of assault from those who live and happily die for terror.Accepting that unfortunate fact is by no means an argument for inaction. It is, however, an argument against the temptation to unravel the rights-based model of democracy introduced by Blair just a few years ago, and which should be recorded as one of his most impressive legacies."
In some ways, these are not the kind of arguments we want to have to deal with on a Sunday afternoon, but there's no escaping them anymore. We should be grateful for The Observer.
