The enemies of liberal society

Terror and Liberalism. Paul Berman. W. W. Norton. [pounds sterling]14.95. 214 pages. ISBN 0-393-05775-5. The Future of Freedom. Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad. Fareed Zakaria. W. W. Norton. [pounds sterling]18.90. 287 pages. ISBN 0-393-04764-4.

In this reviewer's discussion of John Gray's book, Al Qaeda and What It Means to be Modern, (December issue) he thought that that British author had tended to beg the question regarding the 'European forerunners' (rather than Islamic roots) of Al Qaeda. This is hardly a temptation to which the brilliant American conservative intellectual, Paul Berman, succumbs, for he has done his homework (supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship), particularly on the subject of the greatest Islamist philosopher, Sayyid Qutb (born 1906; hanged by the Nasserite Egyptian state, 1966). But while no questions are begged about the debts of Baathi fascism and Islamism to European totalitarianism as such, Mr Berman has basically not plumbed earlier Muslim epochs apart from citing the Quran, as cited by Qutb, on the loathsome Jews. Thus one senses a paucity of insight on the ancient stock of Islamic scripture, literature and legend onto which (by Paul Berman's own tentative acknowledgement) pathological Western ideas have certainly been grafted. A passing quotation from Malise Ruthven referring to the appeals of Nazism for the Muslim Brotherhood overlooks his basic perception that the essential roots of Islamism are Islamic.

The book is written as a plea mainly to the American nation, more broadly to Europe if not to human society as a whole, to identify the enemies of the liberal ideal and match their nihilistic resolution with similar resolve. In short, this is a veritable philosophical beacon for our time. Strikingly, Mr Berman identifies among liberalism's de facto enemies the latest generation of Western liberals to go in search of rational-cum-reasonable explanations (and thus justification) for apocalyptic mass movements. The book is worth buying for its excoriation of Noam Chomsky alone! However, Mr Berman is scarcely more forgiving of the inarticulate and ideologically hidebound President Bush for his failure to espouse an explicitly liberal war aim in Iraq (pari passu Mr Blair), or even to give proper prominence to the feminist goal adopted for Afghanistan.

In fact, the basic thesis draws on the diagnosis of Albert Camus in L'Homme Revolte--the rebellious urge in modern man--and applies it to the Islamists' schizophrenic hatred of liberalism. Against this scenario, one may well conclude that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are mere tactical skirmishes. Even the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis features as something of a sideshow, albeit having philosophical significance as the test-bed for the theory of random slaughter by a 'vanguard' of suicide bombers. The impact of the work is enhanced by its unvarying cogency spiced with wit. May it be widely read.

One aspect which registers rather in the light of another philosophical essay--that by the editor of Newsweek International--is that the meaning of 'liberal' is taken as self-evident, thus equating it essentially with 'democracy' and 'humanitarianism'. For Fareed Zakaria, an American of Bombay origin, such loose thinking often condemns the 'export of democracy' to failure, as religious and ethnic extremism, or dictatorship, prove the sole beneficiaries.

Obviously, failure will particularly haunt the United States in the key theatres of the Muslim world. Now the author admits, in his chapter 'The Islamic Exception', that there are some 'local difficulties' which make the Muslim world particularly intractable. To our surprise, the 'exception' does not comprise Islamic religion itself--even when hijacked by radicals--nor yet 'Arab culture', but a coincidental agglomeration of political failures by Middle Eastern elites, starting with Nasser and mainly followed by dictatorship, which played into the hands of Islamists. The implantation of democracy universally will depend on establishing strong, competent government alongside stable institutions to protect individual rights (the true 'liberalism'), before democratic power is handed to the masses. In the Muslim world, monarchies seem well adapted to this end, but oil wealth forestalls development of a middle class. All Arab leaders (and Washington) must take a chance that a cautious relaxation of authoritarianism will breed moderation among Islamist oppositions.

Fareed Zakaria's theory is firmly rooted in Madison, not to mention Montesquieu on the social structure and Constitution of England post-1688 but pre-1834. As the English background interests him a lot, British readers may raise an eyebrow in finding no invocation of John Locke, yet one of Rousseau--whom Isaiah Berlin placed in the camp of the 'positive libertarians', not the 'negative liberty' tendency represented by J. S. Mill. Yet surely Rousseau was a prophet of precisely the mass democracy which Fareed Zakaria deplores.

The work is nothing if not ambitious (cf Chapter 1, 'A Brief History of Human Liberty') but correspondingly stimulating of acclaim as much as occasional scepticism. Although one would doubt whether Islam can ever emulate the separation of 'church and state' which reputedly launched Christendom on the path to liberty, Fareed Zakaria himself argues there can be no Protestant-style popular liberation from the clergy, the Caliphs being still supreme; his diagnosis of the creeping malaise of American democracy, as the old elite and their public service ethic succumb to democratising pressures, is penetrating--even deeply disturbing where we learn that the new culture dictated the portrayal of the First Class passengers in the film Titanic as purely self-interested. The danger of frustrated voters turning towards authoritarianism is a dimension that makes this highly readable study complementary to Paul Berman's.

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