Registered: Oct 2001
Location:
Posts: 18147

Bush is an idiot, but he was right about Saddam
Paul Berman, one of the most provocative thinkers on the left, has a message for the antiwar movement: Stop marching and start fighting to spread liberal values in the Middle East.

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By Suzy Hansen



March 22, 2003 | On Sept. 11, Paul Berman, political and cultural critic and author of "A Tale of Two Utopias: The Political Journey of the Generation of 1968" watched from his roof as the World Trade Center towers collapsed. That day, Berman says, he "woke up" to the threat of what he calls Islamic totalitarianism. Berman lives in Brooklyn, just around the corner from the Al Farooq mosque on Atlantic Avenue where a Yemeni cleric was recently convicted of funneling $20 million to Osama bin Laden.

During the last year and a half he has picked his way through the Islamic bookstores in his neighborhood, hunting down volumes by Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian intellectual whose "In the Shade of the Qur'an" is the groundwork for Islamic fundamentalism. Berman finds Qutb's analysis of the "hideous schizophrenia" of modern society "rich, nuanced, deep, soulful, and heartfelt." Qutb's work also convinced Berman that in Islamism we face a threat not unlike such 20th century totalitarian movements as fascism and communism. Berman feels similarly about Baathism, the nationalist ideology of Iraq's ruling party.

In fact, Berman believes that Islamism and Baathism emerged from the same great rift in liberal society, the First World War. "Terror and Liberalism," Berman's bracing new book, suggests that just as liberal-minded Europeans and Americans doubted the threats of Hitler and Stalin, enlightened Westerners today are in danger of missing the urgency of the violent ideologies coming out of the Muslim world.

The argument put forward by Berman, who is one of the most elegant and provocative thinkers to emerge from America's New Left, will both infuriate and engage those on all sides of the political spectrum. In a recent interview with Salon, Berman insisted that while he does not support the Bush administration -- actually, he detests how President Bush has handled the case for war and warns "we will pay for it" -- he thinks it was also dangerous for the antiwar movement to ignore the threat that was posed by a ruthless Iraqi regime that killed a million people and threatened the stability of the world.
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Salon book review

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Registered: Sep 2001
Location: ........
Posts: 15003

Isn't there a seperate forum for book reviews?

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: China
Posts: 11795

1. Useless association of Iraq with 9/11. Nothing is said linking them, but they are mentioned close together, so there must be a connection, right?
2. Useless association of Ba'athism with Islamism. They both emerged from WWI. So what?

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Registered: Jun 2002
Location: Just to the right of the moon
Posts: 3141

I don't see why people assume that liberalism will flourish in the Middle East and Gulf states. I can't think of one liberal democratic country in that entire region.

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Registered: Jun 2002
Location: All over the place
Posts: 2803

Saudi Arabia is exceptionally liberal with public executions. Does that count?

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Registered: Mar 2003
Location: Adonis Towers
Posts: 105

i'm coming for you, big boy.

Make sure you sleep on your back tonight, lover

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

quote:

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Originally posted by funkyrooster
I don't see why people assume that liberalism will flourish in the Middle East and Gulf states. I can't think of one liberal democratic country in that entire region.

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Registered: Mar 2003
Location: Adonis Towers
Posts: 105

quote:

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Originally posted by CHiPsJr
Israel.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: is futile
Posts: 5027

I agree. How can we talk of democracy if not all people get to vote.

I do not consider the west democracies either until women and all minorities were allowed to vote.

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

quote:

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Originally posted by funkyrooster
I don't see why people assume that liberalism will flourish in the Middle East and Gulf states. I can't think of one liberal democratic country in that entire region.

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Registered: Oct 2001
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Posts: 18147

Now, now. The 17th century was a great time.

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: China
Posts: 11795

Hey, Blacks and Coloureds got to vote in South Africa. It was just to "special parliaments."

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Registered: Dec 2002
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Posts: 3063

hrmn, if the rest of the west lived with the same threats as Israel, things may be a bit different for us as well. Take away the constant threat of being pushed into the sea, and maybe things could change. Israeli's are walking aroudn with gas masks right now.

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