Terror and Liberalism
The collapse of the Soviet Union was hailed as the triumph of liberal democracy. It was the final defeat of 20th century totalitarianism. Here was The End of History.
And yet, at the very moment that this victory was being trumpeted, totalitarianism was still gaining momentum in the Muslim world, both in its Baathist and Islamist forms. From Algeria to Iran to Indonesia, the death toll since the 1960s from these movements has been astonishing. Yet almost nobody in Europe and North America acknowledged this was happening. In Terror and Liberalism (2003), Paul Berman asks the trenchant question: why?
“Totalitarianism in decline? It was a spectacular error to have imagined any such thing in 1989—a curious error, an almost laughable example of the self-absorbed delusions of the Eurocentric imagination. As if the Muslim world didn’t exist!”
Berman’s latest work is Flight of the Intellectuals, a sustained and withering assault on the inclination among Western intellectuals to slobber over Tariq Ramadan but turn viciously on Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Terror and Liberalism is a useful introduction to his genre.
Berman frames the post-9/11 wars as the latest episode in one long struggle, a battle that began in the aftermath of the First World War between liberal society and those who rebel against it. In fact, Al Qaeda operates on the same framework. Berman notes that bin Laden referred to “80 years of humiliation” in his 9/11 videotape, a comment that was misunderstood or unnoticed by those unfamiliar with Islamist thought. This "80 years" has nothing to do with Israel or American military actions; it was in reference to Kemal Ataturk’s abolishment of the Caliphate and the entrenchment of secularism in Turkey.
To consider Islamist violence as a reaction to our foreign policy, what Berman calls the “naive rationalization” of the West, is to fundamentally misunderstand the terms of this fight. Sayyid Qutb, the pioneer of Islamist ideology, understood what liberalism meant to an astoundingly sophisticated degree. He described it as the product of a Christianity torn apart by schisms and reformations, and the increasing tolerance of dissent against religious leaders, to the point where religion in Christian countries was eventually relegated to a private sphere of society. As Berman puts it, “Qutb's deepest quarrel was not with America's failure to uphold its principles. His quarrel was with the principles.”
George W. Bush and others have often been mocked for saying that Osama and friends “detest us for our freedoms”, for cutting this conflict down to a crude slogan. But Berman clearly shows that a close examination of the complex development of Islamist thought proves Bush’s words to be correct, or at least more correct than his critics.
Berman might add that it’s not just “us” that Islamism violently detests, a category which seems to mean America and the West. The majority of their slaughter has been directed toward those “impure” elements in their own society, the Muslims who see much to like in liberal ideas. Such people are actually the greatest enemy of Islamists, considering Qutb's tale of what happened to Christianity. Like all totalitarian movements, Islamism is constantly fighting a two-front war—the enemy outside, and the enemy within.
To read Terror and Liberalism now helps one understand again why a political settlement with the intransigent leaders of the Taliban is impossible. Democracy is intrinsically opposed to the very core of their ideology. To treat them as rational actors who we can cut deals with is as foolish as it is deadly.
We listen to the leaders of other countries announce withdrawal dates from the UN-mandated international military intervention in Afghanistan, We observe the never-ending calls, not least from the Afghan President, for a power-sharing deal with the Taliban. The message of Terror and Liberalism remains deeply relevant.
Brian Platt is a Contributing Writer for The Propagandist.
