Another Elephant

In John Le Carré's novel 'Absolute Friends', there is a character who is the CIA liason or handler of the hero, Ted Mundy. One day he is gone from his office at British Intelligence, leaving nothing but 'a burning joss-stick in a milk bottle'. 

The question is asked 'Then why the joss ?' (P224). Why indeed? Could it be that there is an anti-Americanism so deep-seated it can only be expressed by the sense of smell? The elephant in the room, again.
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I don't need to highlight certain passages in Ian McEwan's 'Saturday': this has been done by Harry and  Norm. Nick Cohen in a New Statesman essay - 'We have a softened Thatcherism in public life... says 'McEwan is a rarity: a writer who knows what was done in Abu Ghraib before the Americans invaded' and quotes the passage:

Placards not yet on duty are held at a slope, at rakish angles over shoulders. "Not in My Name" goes past a dozen times. Its cloying self-regard suggests a bright new world of protest, with the fussy consumers of shampoos and soft drinks demanding to feel good, or nice. Henry prefers the languid "Down With this Sort of Thing". A placard of one of the organising groups goes by - the British Association of Muslims. Henry remembers that outfit well. It explained recently in its newspaper that apostasy from Islam was an offence punishable by death.

The BBC, in its radio serialisation a few months ago, didn't mention any of this. It does however find room for this:  'Whenever he talks to Jay, Henry finds himself tending towards the anti-war camp.' [Jay is Henry's American anaesthetist.]

questions answered

Ian Buruma answered questions online about the roots of Islamic extremism and the motivations of homegrown terrorists, Friday, July 22. The first sentence of my question (based on this post) did not make much sense, after they had mangled it. It originally read 'It's true that it is cowardly and wrong to say that we should not be in Iraq, because Britain would then be less of a terrorist target. It's also true that the demands of the jihadists are not negotiable. ...' Here is the reply:

Victories in the holy war are certainly an excellent way to gain more recruits and enhance the prestige of the jihadis. It is of course not only Islamists that underestimate the capacity of liberal democracies to fight back. Fascists, Nazis, and Communists also thought that democratic societies were too decadent and addicted to comfort to engage in wars. This attitude can encourage extremists to strike out in ultimately self-destructive ways.

However, the fact that a victory for the jihadis and ex-Baathists in Iraq would be a disaster, not only for the democratic world, but especially for most Iraqis and their neighbours, does not mean that the war was justified or wise in the first place. But having started this war, the United States should do everything in its power to help Iraqis cope with the consequences. Whether the US has the goodwill, the skills, the knowledge, or the power to do this, is of course another question.

More here from Martin Wolf and Roula Khalaf.

Aslan Maskhadov

On the killing of the former Chechen President in March, the Russians lured him with the promise of talks, according to C4's Dispatches programme on Monday night. Not surprisingly, this destroyed any belief the remaining leadership had in negotiations. The programme then showed Putin in conversation with his security chief, saying those who took part in the operation should receive medals.

Having translated the UAT statement, I have signed it, but with one reservation.

I don't know that Chechens have had the chance to reject 'attempts at peaceful and political solutions to problems' or that they have 'other, better, more effective, and more human ways of opposing injustice'. Nobody seriously doubts that 'disappearances' and extra-judicial killings take place in Chechnya and it might well be true that these exceed many times over what happened at Beslan and so on. Non-state actors do not have a monopoly on atrocities.

On the other hand, I recall somebody in The Guardian saying something like 'states like to have a monopoly on violence'. But of course the state should have a monopoly on violence. Nobody, least of all Guardian readers, would like to live in the alternative to that. That's a basic Hobbesian point. The state, having a monopoly on violence, should use it as little as possible.

Update (30 Jul): 'Russia says it is outraged by an interview with Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev broadcast on America's ABC television network. The Russian foreign ministry summoned a senior US diplomat in Moscow to express its "strong indignation" over the show.' BBC. ---I think it was  Doku Umarov that C4 spoke to (see).

Communautés unies contre la terreur

Les attentats terroristes contre les  Londoniens du 7 juillet ont tué au moins 54 personnes.  Les attaques-suicides qui ont frappe à  Netanya, Israël, le 12 juillet ont mis fin à cinq vies, y compris deux filles âgées de 16 ans. Et, le 12 juillet, en Iraq, des poseurs de bombes suicide ont massacré 24 enfants. Nous nous mettons en solidarité avec tous ces étrangers, main en main, de Londres à Netanya à Bagdad: communautés unies contre la  terreur.

Ces attentats sont les atrocités les plus récentes commises par des groupes terroristes,  inspirés par une politique pernicieuse et déformée qui  se déguise en forme de la religion d’Islam. Le but des terroristes est une société fermée, de la peur et de la conformité. A eux s’opposent des musulmans du monde entier. Des leaders de communautés musulmanes ont condamné les attentats de Londres sans équivocation. Nous rejetons la prétention des  terroristes qu’ils représentent le vrai Islam. Ils ne le font pas.

Nous nous rappelons les attentats du 11 Septembre 2001 à New York et Washington et ceux du 11 mars 2004 à Madrid. Mais nous savons qu’Al-Qaida et des groupes qui sont inspirés par le Ben-Ladenisme ont effectué des atrocités en France, au Pakistan, en Israël, au Kenya, en Tanzanie, en Inde, en Iraq, au Maroc, au Yémen, en Tunisie, en Indonésie, en Egypte, en Arabie saoudite, en Turquie, en Ossétie du Nord et dans bien d’autres pays.

La très grande majorité des victimes de la violence d’Al-Qaida ont été des musulmans. Ceux qui ont souffert de la violence des mouvements fondamentalistes islamiques en Iran et en  Algérie sont également des musulmans moyens.

Cette violence terroriste n’est pas une réponse du part «des musulmans» aux injustices que l’Occident a perpétré contre eux. Les démocraties occidentales ont été responsables de quelques-uns des maux de ce monde, mais des meurtres terroristes de ces Ben-Ladenistes insensés ils ne le sont pas.

Ces attaques n’ont pas commencé en 2003. La première tentative de faire sauter le World Trade Center s’est produite dix ans auparavant, en 1993.

Ces terroristes ne haïssent pas ce qui est le pire dans les sociétés qu’ils attaquent, mais ce qui est le mieux. Ils méprisent la liberté individuelle, la pensée critique, l’égalité des sexes, la tolérance des religions, les droits des minorités et le pluralisme politique. Ils ne critiquent pas la démocratie parce que des fois elle faillit à ses principes; ils s’opposent à ces principes.

Dans les zones de conflit, les terroristes ont entravé les essais d’arriver à des solutions paisible et  politiques aux problèmes. Ils choisissent la tuerie et rejettent la reconnaissance mutuelle, la négociation, la compréhension et le compromis.

Face à un tel ennemi, nous le croyons essentiel que les forces politiques démocratiques de tous les pays s’unissent. Il nous faut un mouvement mondial de la solidarité, liant les communautés menacées par la terreur. Unis, nous résistons à la terreur.

Nous trouvons notre inspiration dans le comportement des gens moyens immédiatement après les atrocités terroristes. Toujours c’est la même histoire. La bonté des étrangers répare un monde brisé. Nous voyons, au milieu de la douleur et de l’angoisse, dans les [décombres] ruines des tours jumelles, dans les débris d’un autobus de Londres, dans le verre ensanglanté à travers une rue de Tel-Aviv et parmi les mères qui cherchent leurs enfants à Bagdad, qu’une humanité commune s’affirme. Les actes de courage et d’altruisme extraordinaires deviennent banals. L’impulsion de la solidarité surmonte la peur et l’aide vient des étrangers.

Avec chaque geste curative entre des étrangers, nous avons l’impression qu’on a allumé une chandelle d’espoir dans un monde sombre. Le 7/7, un employé du métro de Londres s’est précipité vers l’explosion, descendant un tunnel enfumé en courant, une  torche à la main, pour emmener les survivants.

Ces sauveteurs typiques mais héroïques nous apprennent l’éthique de la responsabilité. Il est temps d’affirmer notre humanité commune contre tous ceux qui cherchent à nous désunir. Il est temps de forger des communautés unies contre la  terreur, qui respectent la dignité de la différence et qui sont organisées pour étendre une solidarité active l’une l’autre partout dans le monde.

On nous exhorte fréquemment à comprendre les terroristes, mais trop de fois l’appel à comprendre est un code pour la justification et l’apologie. Il y a toujours d’autres moyens de s’opposer à l’injustice, des moyens meilleurs, plus efficaces et plus humains que le suicide et le meurtre, des actes symboliques de haine. Les musulmans qui ont poursuivi la politique moderne et démocratique ont été souvent les premiers dans la ligne de tir des terroristes. La route vers une solution juste pour Israël et la Palestine est signalisée par la «reconnaissance mutuelle» et la «dialogue politique»,  non pas par le cul-de-sac du terrorisme.

Nous résistons aux racistes qui essaient d’exploiter les tensions actuelles dans leurs propres buts.

Nous résistons à ceux qui excusent les terroristes et à ceux qui représentent les atrocités terroristes comme «la résistance».

Nous offrons notre soutien et notre solidarité à tous ceux de la foi musulmane qui travaillent pour s’opposer aux terroristes et qui cherchent à gagner les jeunes tentés par l’extrémisme et par le nihilisme à l’engagement avec la politique démocratique.

Nous croyons que la démocratie et les droits de l’homme mérite d’être défendus de toute notre vigueur. Les valeurs humaines du respect, de la tolérance et de la dignité ne sont pas «occidentales», mais universelles.

Nous n’avons pas peur. Mais nous ne sommes pas vindicatifs. Nous croyons que la bonté des étrangers a illuminé le chemin et que cette lumière chassera l’obscurité. Nous voulons nous unir lumière à lumière pour montrer que le mal, l’injustice et l’oppression n’auront pas le dernier mot. Par le moyen de ces actes de solidarité humaine nous réparerons le monde que les terroristes ont brisé

Nous vous invitons à signer cette déclaration en tant que petite étape première pour bâtir un mouvement mondial de citoyens contre le terrorisme.

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Votre nom:    (votre pays et votre organisation en parenthèses si vous le souhaitez)
Votre Email:

Signer et s’abonner – vous recevrez une invitation à vous abonner à notre liste d’adresses hebdomadaire. La liste des signataires est arbitrée et il y aura un court délai avant que votre nom n’apparaisse. Consulter la liste complète des signataires ici.


This is a translation into French of the statement of 'Unite Against Terror'. The original in English can be found at:
http://www.unite-against-terror.com/. Updated 29 Jul 2005.

Falluja again

"They [Muslims] feel the blows on Falluja, even if you don't." (George Galloway on 'Any Questions', 15 July)

Iraqbodycount: 'A Dossier of Civilian Casualties in Iraq, 2003-2005' In big letters, 'Civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq'. This is to be read as 'Civilians reported killed by the US-led military intervention in Iraq' or even 'Civilians reported killed because of the US-led military intervention in Iraq'

The graphs on page 12 and  the table on page 13, similar to a graph published in The Mirror, Thursday, shows the deaths caused by US-led Forces rising sharply at the time of the attacks on Falluja, in April and November 2004. This rise takes it up to the number of deaths caused by 'others', which remains constantly high in the range 500 to 900.

'US-led Forces', of course, includes the Iraqi army and police. 'Others' are 'Anti-occupation forces', unknown agents and crime. Unfortunately, Iraqbodycount does not break down these 2 categories, but it does tell us that, of the total of 14,131 deaths, 8,894 were primarily crime-related murders.

 An extract from the table is shown below - US-led coalition and Iraqi government forces first, 'others' second.
   

Feb 04	13	534
Mar 04	30	880
Apr 04	632	503
May 04	74	614
...
Oct 04	97	695
Nov 04	775	691
Dec 04	15	824
Jan 05	25	848
Feb 05	11	981

So, we can see that the numbers killed by the US and Iraqi government forces in the 'Falluja peaks' equals probably less than the numbers killed by the 'insurgents' in an average 3 months.

Naturally, Iraqbodycount uses the figures to 'prove' that the attacks on Falluja only led to increased numbers being killed by the insurgents.

Those killed by criminals can also be blamed on the Americans, since 'before the war, there was a strong government, strong security.'

By the way, The Mirror describes the report as being from 'the independent Oxford Research group'. ORG describes itself as 'an independent non-governmental organisation [...] which seeks to develop effective methods whereby people can bring about positive change [...] by non-violent means.'

Update (23 Jul):

The most breathtaking statement was the one of al-Qaida claiming responsibility for the London bombings saying it was in return for the massacre in Iraq. But the massacres in Iraq now are being conducted by al-Qaida against Muslims.

Ian McEwan in Der Spiegel via Eric.

Moderates

C4 News last night: 6 times they said that Tony Blair had denied any link between the Iraq war and the London bombings (except he didn't, when you listened to the clip of him); Anarchy in Iraq, the usual stuff...

Anjem Choudary of al-Muhajiroun asserts that Sheikh Osama Bin Laden 'had warned the British people'. He wouldn't answer the question as to whether 7/7 was justified. Even among the moderates that I have heard put forward (Choudary accused the one on the C4 piece of not being a 'real Muslim'), none will condemn suicide bombings against Israel. They all say British foreign policy needs to change (delightfully vague). The US/UK interventions since 2001 are condemned by all Muslims, apparently (except those in Iraq or Afghanistan, of course).

Perhaps the question that is not being asked, but needs to be, about suicide bombings is : do you condemn them in Iraq?

Ken Livingstone, also on the BBC this morning, veers from gross over-simplification to downright untruth. He talks about British and American policy in the ME for the last 80 years - 'interfering' etc (This seems to show he's still living in 1997). Osama Bin Laden was 'created by the Americans' during the war with the  Soviets in Afghanistan. Despite this, Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber is probably right when he says (in Battle lines) Livingstone has a 'political sureness of touch that eludes the bloggers [at Harry’s Place]' over the Sheikh al-Qaradawi affair.

Update (22 Jul): Prince Hassan of Jordan is not very keen on al-Qaradawi: at the very end of his interview on C4 News, Wednesday, he makes a telling point: al-Qaradawi refuses to talk to Jews.

On Tariq Ramadan, most of the allegations about him seem to be based on rumours on the Internet. A (female) journalist from The Guardian who rang up to ask The Sun what their sources were, was told to do a Google for him - 'Broadcasting House', Sunday (17 July).

...and Left

Letter to a friend (by Alan Johnson), on normblog - highly recommended. The conclusion:

Our job is to push on past a stalled modernity and a demented reaction. How? By consistently fighting for global democratization and global development: making tyranny history and making poverty history. That's how the decent left will come to know itself and challenge the pro-tyrant left.

Time to focus again on the objective of a world where all people have enough to eat, decent drinking water and so on, but also the rights of free expression and assembly. Time to get back to Norman Geras' theses of a minimum utopia...

This might not be any closer than it was almost a year ago, when I posted comments here,  but at least people are talking about it more - remember G8, Gleneagles and Live8 - or they were before 7 July drove everything from our heads. It even sounds more like Blairism than Marxism.

Update (19 Jul): further thoughts in comments at 'Touched by Bloodless Abstraction'.

Right...

I was going to have a bit of a break from blogging, but some things need to be said. Firstly, on the innumerable discussions that have been broadcast since 7 July.

On the Muslim side, many emphasize that terror is not an integal part of their faith. Suicide bombings, it is pointed out, are not unique to Islam. The female academic from York on The Moral Maze,  mentioned the Japanese kamikase in the Second World War. Brian Walden, too, has reminded us that revolutionaries of the late 19th century used suicide bombings, one of them killing the Russian Tsar. These are good points, but the fact remains that, in a Western context, this has not happened since 1914.

Muslims stress, rather, the injustice in the world that many in their community feel. They cite, above all, the war in (or on, or against) Iraq explain (not justify) why some (a tiny minority) take such extreme measures.

Many non-Muslims are hampered in their responses to this by the positions they have taken on the war: that it was immoral, illegal or based on lies.  I was struck by this when BBC radio had on their discussions recently two writers from the Daily Mail or Mail on Sunday: Melanie Phillips on The Moral Maze, Wednesday, and Stephen Glover on The Message, Friday.

Muslim spokesmen cite, aside from Falluja, which I have dealt with separately (see), Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. Aside from the obvious point that abuses at these places do provide Islamist extremists with a propaganda victory,  the counter-arguments are not put forward, as far as I have heard. Glover, as an opponent of the war, is not in a position to do so and Phillips, a proponent of it, chooses not to, preferring to focus on the uniqueness of the death cults coming out of Islam. The points to be made are again obvious: do you think a situation of justice obtained in Saddam's Iraq ? And do you not think that abuses, and far worse ones, were taking place at Abu Ghraib before March 2003?

Of course it's true that it is cowardly and wrong to say that we should not be in Iraq, because Britain would then be less of a terrorist target. It's also true that the demands of the jihadists are not negotiable (read Ian Buruma in the FT). A more fundamental point needs to be made, though. Victories, real or imagined, fuel their fanaticism. Fifteen years later, they still view the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan as their great victory. If the intervention in Iraq in 2003 had not taken place, it would have been seen, at the least, as a demonstration of weakness on the part of the West and they would probably have portrayed it as being due to the threat of terrorist attacks. Now, detaching Britain from the US-led alliance would be a big enough victory. Still bigger would be cede to the demands some are making for an immediate withdrawal, or even withdrawal on a fixed timetable, leaving the bombers free to destroy the democratically-elected government of Iraq. Analogies with 1930's appeasement, though often misused, could well be right here.

Relativism (Part 4)

I have been slightly distracted by doing the previous post and by replying to SIAW here. So, to conclude this series (previous here).

Beneath the opposition to 'relativism' is a distrust of democracy and freedom of thought and a belief that absolute truth or absolute good can be discerned, or divined, by wise men or priests or a party elite, who are therefore best-fitted to rule. In this, Leo Strauss follows in an tradition. I don't know if it's right to implicate the whole of Greek philosophy, but certainly Plato is well-known as a model for totalitarianism. The irony is that Strauss invokes all this to defend against another totalitarianism, Soviet Communism.

To conclude from this, however, that because Paul Wolfowitz was taught by someone who was taught by  Strauss, this proves that all the neo-conservatives think the same as him and their profession of belief in democracy is hypocritical, is the kind of stretched logic we saw in the 'Power of Nightmares' (a sentiment already expressed here - see comments).

Niger

BBC WS radio had a report last night about Niger. Cattle were dying in great numbers and, where that happens, people usually follow. This is happening while the rest of the world is mostly indifferent. One comment was that it was not dramatic enough - just another African food crisis, no conflict involved, the government is democratic. Strange then that when I looked on the BBC's website, there seems to be a lot of criticism of the government. They reported on 3 June:

a government spokesman Mohamed Ben Omar said that its food stocks could not be handed out for free. The UN says it has not had a single pledge for money for its Niger appeal. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has called for $16.2m to buy food for those suffering from recurring drought and a locust infestation. "What civil society is asking is poorly conceived and irrational. The state of Niger cannot engage in such a foolish adventure," Mr Omar told the AFP news agency. He said Niger's emergency food stocks had been built up carefully and would need to be replaced if they were given out.

Then, on 7 July

Niger's government cannot afford to distribute free food to those hit by a food crisis, officials say, as hundreds of people flee to Nigeria. Food crisis committee manager Seydou Bakary warned of a "nationwide catastrophe" if this year's harvests are even slightly deficient. [...] Donors have largely ignored a UN appeal to help the 3.5m people going hungry.

Idy Barou, from Tahoua on 13 July

"The situation is terrible," said Abdoulye Adamou, who has come to the city of Tahoua. "We have no food and our cattle are dying in front of our eyes because of a shortage of water and food." He said that the government food supplied at reduced cost was not only insufficient, but too expensive for a poor farmer living on less than $1 per day. Poor rains and locust invasions last year devastated the farms leaving behind only desolate, charcoal grey hot sand.

On Medecins Sans Frontieres' site,  what they had in English did not make a lot of sense, so I looked at what they had in French: URGENCE NIGER - Les sacrifiés du développement - Mis en ligne le 28 juin 2005

Presque sans caricaturer, on répond à une situation d'urgence en construisant des digues pour développer l'agriculture irriguée ! [...] l'assistance d'urgence, c'est-à-dire les distributions gratuites, sont considérées comme une solution d'ultime recours que l'on répugne à utiliser.
[...]
faisant fi de la situation d'urgence alimentaire, le sort des populations en danger était tranquillement subordonné à des impératifs de respect du jeu économique. Comble de l'ironie, ce marché est déjà complètement déstabilisé par les grands spéculateurs dont beaucoup sont étroitement liés au pouvoir en place. Pour résumer, la sécurité alimentaire, telle qu'elle est appliquée au Niger, privilégie le long terme sur le court terme, le développement sur l'assistance, le marché sur le service public.

Finally, the UN's World Food Programme: 12 July 2005 -  WFP PLANS TO ALMOST TRIPLE THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE ASSISTED IN NIGER AS FOOD CRISIS DEEPENS

Following widespread coverage of Niger in the international media, the bulk of WFP’s US$4.2 million appeal (US$ 3.9 million) for 465,000 people was received in the last six weeks. However, WFP now requires an additional US$12 million to cover the rapidly rising costs of the operation which now aims to feed nearly 1.2 million people.

...

Front page

Front page Tariq Ramadan on the front page of The Sun. Channel 4 News had an interview with him tonight. For background, see here.

Update (13 Jul): The Sun said he had been banned from France, banned from the US and allowed into Britain. Tariq Ramadan pointed out that he had not been banned from France and banned from the US under the Patriot Act without any reason being given.

This is an example of the right-wing reaction to the terrorist bombings. Another was Melanie Phillips' blaming it on the government 'losing control of asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants. This was written of course before it was known that the bombers were British-born.

Relativism (Part 3)

Frachon and Vernet are right to say that the neo-conservatives must not be confused with the Christian  fundamentalists (epitomised in the Bush administration by John Ashcroft): They are two opposite planets. The philosophical roots of this are made more clear by Grant Havers in 'Between Athens and Jerusalem'. Some extracts:

I shall also show that their critique of Jerusalem seriously compromises their commitment to democracy itself. [...] According to Strauss, the West has drifted so far from its original foundation that it is in decay. The West is so enmeshed in nihilistic doubt (due  to the triumph of historicism and relativism) that it no longer can rationally justify its proper superiority over other civilizations, let alone validate its own politics.  [...] the necessary foundation to which Strauss seeks a return is the classical political science of Plato and Aristotle, [...] which he calls “Athens”. [...] The great rival to Athens is the Bible, or what Strauss calls “Jerusalem.”

Athens and Jerusalem are in “perfect agreement” in their opposition to the modern movements—historicism and relativism—that contribute to nihilism by denying absolute truth. [...]  the “reason” that Athens embodies can be understood only by the few, while the “faith” which Jerusalem incarnates is for the many. This elitism, which runs through all of Strauss’s work, presupposes that only the philosophically enlightened few can be truly rational and indeed can rule a state justly. Because the many can only understand religion, or the irrational, they are not fit to govern. Religion is the noble fiction that instructs the masses in morality. [...] the apparent apolitical nature of the Bible, according to Strauss, is charged with a highly subversive politics, for the Bible undermines the hierarchy between rulers and ruled that is central to Strauss’s elitist conception of natural right. Thus not even the God of Jerusalem, who, Strauss acknowledges, is just as absolutist and universalistic in morality as Athens, offers a suitable, political basis for democracy, since he encourages subversive doubts about authority. [...] Strauss applauds the Greeks for teaching an attitude of resignation to the existence of evil. This resignation is useful to a political regime, for it instructs the masses to have few if any expectations (or hopes) that their rank (as defined by natural right) can be altered. Yet Jerusalem once again contrasts sharply with Athens on the problem of evil, for the Bible teaches an historic end to evil and advances the messianic promise of peace. The fatalistic resignation of the Greeks to suffering and war has no counterpart in the Bible.

[Strauss insists] that philosophers must enjoy “absolute rule” and, second, that they “ought not to be responsible to their unwise subjects.” Yet Strauss fails to show how a regime based on natural right elitism can be democratic while curbing the threat of nihilism. [...] the god of Aristotle [...]  is as indifferent to the masses as are the members of the philosophical elite who emulate this divinity. Above all, Strauss fails to explain why it is rational to give these elites absolute power or how they can be held accountable. For liberal democrats, in contrast, only the God of the Bible can be democratic, since he alone cares for his creation and offers liberation from tyranny.

The essay also discusses Hannah Arendt, another concerned about the fragility of democracy (like Strauss, she witnessed its collapse in Germany in the 1930's) and tempted by authoritarian or elitist solutions.

She is not convinced of the efficacy of double-truth, as Plato and his heirs (including Strauss) articulate it (one truth for the elite, another truth for the masses). She rightly observes that lying erodes and delegitimizes authority (although this does not stop her from supporting the doctrine of hell for political purposes, as we saw!). Yet she is silent on the fact that it is the Bible, not Greek philosophy, that endorses  truth-telling and condemns lying as sinful.

...

Relativism (continued)

John Lloyd ( "Fundamentalist Differences", FT Magazine, 30 Apr) notes that 'the independent news media [...] cannot live in other than a relativist world. If they give up relativism - the clash of opinions, the sway to and fro of democratic sentiment, the right to tear down authority - they give up their independence and their freedom.'   Commenting on the fact that there were no questions at the end of a meeting the new pope had with journalists, he says, 'After all, what questions could there be, when all is known?' 

What of Leo Strauss, reputed father of the neo-conservatives, and his critique of  'relativism'? Daniel Tanguay gives some details of his relations with Zionism (in French, extracts here. This was also reviewed by the NYRB - subscription only, I have not read this.) Paul Wolfowitz (and Richard Perle and William Kristol) was taught in the 1960's by Allan Bloom, a disciple of  Strauss, according to one French account. There they would have learnt that the Enlightenment (les Lumières)

ont produit de manière quasi nécessaire l'historicisme et le relativisme, c'est-à-dire le refus d'admettre l'existence d'un Bien supérieur... le relativisme a eu pour conséquence extrême la théorie de la convergence entre les Etats-Unis et l'Union soviétique, très en vogue dans les années 1960-1970. Elle aboutissait à reconnaître à la limite une équivalence morale entre la démocratie américaine et le communisme soviétique. Or, pour Leo Strauss, il existe des bons et des mauvais régimes;
(Alain Frachon et Daniel Vernet 'Le stratège et le philosophe', Le Monde, 15.04.03)

As noted previously, 'moral equivalence' is in itself a form of absolutism: from the pacifist doctrine of Alex Comfort that Orwell was combatting in the essay cited - that violence is absolutely wrong always - through to its cynical perversion by the likes of Galloway.

'Relativism' is a term used more to confuse than clarify - for the Church to make a veiled attack on the values of the Enlightenment (religious toleration and so on) and the freedom of expression and democracy that it eventually accepted in the 20th century.

Why I am a relativist

Smartarse title, an echo of Melanie Phillips' 'Why I am a progressive' (really). I could call myself an Orwellian, but like Kafkaesque, that word has come to refer to the horrible things he exposed. So, 'relativist' it is.

The common expression in French, il faut relativiser, means more or less 'you have to look at things in perspective'. Sometimes,  as here, it could be translated as 'minimise'. Some examples from Le Monde's forum:

Cela dit, il faut remettre en perspective la période que nous venons de traverser et parfois relativiser des propos exagérés. [pas disponible]

[Relativiser Saddam, robert, 03/10/2003 18:30] Bien sûr qu'on peut relativiser, c'est ce qu'ont fait les dirigeants occidentaux pendant des années en soutenant Saddam contre l'Iran. Vous dites Saddam c'est l'abominable choléra mais les occidentaux l'ont préféré à la 'peste islamiste' pendant des années.

[Letel, 03/10/2003 22:35] Bien sûr que les puissances occidentales ont "relativisé" Saddam par rapport aux mollahs iraniens, en fonction de la politique internationale.

Here, "relativisé" takes on a sense of 'choose the lesser evil'.

'Relativism' is a favoured term of abuse of both the late Pope and the current one. The former in 'Memory and Identity' wrote that after the [what he describes as 'so-called'] European Enlightenment 'Man remained alone: alone as creator of his own history and his own civilisation; alone as one who decides what is good and what is bad [ ...]'.

Curiously, the attitude of some on the secular Left - the Chomskys, Galloways and so on - also seems to me to be a sort of absolutism. You can talk about women and children being killed when the Americans bombed Falluja (to deny a safe haven to terrorists targeting Iraqi police and civilians in Baghdad and elsewhere), but that is not the same thing as attacks whose sole aim is to kill innocent people. I argued on a forum last year: 'Many on the "anti-war" side seem to demand perfection'. I went on to quote from a passage of Orwell: 'the choice before human beings is not, as a rule, between good and evil but between two evils. You can let the Nazis rule the world; that is evil; or you can overthrow them by war, which is also evil'. Thus, it was necessary to be on the same side as Stalin (and the British Empire) in order to defeat Hitler. After that, preferring George W. Bush to Saddam Hussein (or Osama Bin Laden) does not seem too difficult. ( One result thrown up by a Google search leads back to the word  'perspective'.)

Of course, deciding what is (relatively) good and bad is not easy ....The examples from Le Monde's forum concerned the argument about whether, bad as Saddam was, the 'mullahs of Iran' were even worse. I have always thought that, even in its darkest days, Iran was not as bad as Saddam's Iraq and moreover Iraq under the rule of its Shi'a majority would not be as bad as Iran. However, that involves a judgment, even a leap of faith, no less than believing in heaven and hell.

To be continued.

A parable

Apart from excellent coverage of the London bombs, Norm had Nick Cohen on Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman a couple of days ago.

I can remember very few times when I've admitted being in the wrong. Not wrong in detail, but wrong in principle. [...]

Actually, 'very few' is a self-serving exaggeration. The only time I realised I was charging up a blind alley was when I read Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism. [...] He convinced me I'd wasted a great deal of time looking through the wrong end of the telescope. I was going to have to turn it round and see the world afresh. The labour would involve reconsidering everything I'd written since 11 September, arguing with people I took to be friends and finding myself on the same side as people I took to be enemies. All because of Berman.

The bastard.

It goes on to talk about 'the history of the French Socialist Party in the 1930s as a parable for our time'. One to read.

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I don't think Norm had this obituary from The Times, Wednesday (6 Jul), though: E Solkar, Indian cricketer of the 1970's, best known for his fielding at short leg, died about 10 days before at the age of 57 of diabetes.

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SIAW are/is now blogging at drinksoaked trots for war. Eric the U is active again. Again, must update the blogroll (sidebar).

Denial

Finally finished watching Laurence Rees' series, Auschwitz:.... Two things stuck in my mind particularly. First, one of the guards there, who they showed at various points, came over as pretty obnoxious. But then they said he had decided to come forward to tell the truth and give the lie to the holocaust-deniers.

Second, a Jewish man returning to his fomer home in Poland: the man living there now was convinced he had come back to look for his hidden 'hoard'. When he went back again the next year, the house was uninhabitable. The current owner had torn it apart looking for the imagined treasure.

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Emmanuelle Béart, Ambassadrice de l'UNICEF (Photo: France Inter), interview on Question Directe, 5 Jul .

She played Gilberte in the film 'Time Regained', shown recently on BBC4. I bought a digital box just to see that. (Update (22 Jul): the FT's preview described John Malkovich as 'almost the ideal Charlus'. To my mind, he's too thin. I distinctly remember Proust describing him as having a paunch (embonpoint).  )

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I have commented on Food wars and Fighting back.
Bombs in London: overheard in the pub mention of 'the 100,000 the Americans killed in Iraq'.

A worse evil?

Both the BBC and France Inter reporting (30 Jun): some of the former US hostages claim to recognize the new President-elect of Iran as one of the group holding them back in 1979. It is strange that the BBC haven't linked this with the memories of their own world affairs editor:

I realised where I must have seen him: in the former American embassy in Tehran. Ahmadinejad was a founder of the group of young activists who swarmed over the embassy wall and held the diplomats and embassy workers hostage for 444 days.

The BBC WS had an interview with an American hawk, commenting on the result of the election:  right at the end he said something about us needing to support the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MKO). General background on this is given here in The Guardian. Michael Axworthy, former head of the Iran section in the British Foreign Office wrote in March's Prospect ('Iranian rebels' - subscription only): 

The MKO, which also describes itself as the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI) [..] is one of the more egregious terrorist organisations in existence. From time to time it scores a new propaganda success by taking in people with little knowledge of Iranian politics. The Telegraph leader asserted that Britain had in the past treated the MKO as a terrorist organisation in order to appease the current hardline leadership of Iran. In fact, Britain, the EU and the US have condemned them as terrorists, because... they are terrorists.

Debate in France

Long pieces on the aftermath of the referendums: from Prospect,  Europe without illusions and  France profonde  ; from the NYRB What's Left of the Union. From this last:

In France one can observe a very sophisticated level of political debate and passion but it does not always provide a model of political lucidity. The public demands reforms, and when it gets them often goes into the streets to block their application, as in a recent case of educational reforms.

On the central question of the problems of the European economy (see The wreckage - Part 1), the NYRB essay continues, quoting Nicolas Baverez, from Le Monde on June 4:

Baverez also speaks of the problem of Europe's "organized deflation, which has transformed 'euroland' into a desert of unemployment and innovation," the result of Germany's original insistence that the European Central Bank be given as its sole task the prevention of inflation. This automatically canceled the possibility of Keynesian policies (even the perverted Keynesianism of Bush administration deficit finance, which gives George Bush's and Alan Greenspan's America its much-envied growth and high employment). As Robert A. Levine, former deputy director of the Congressional Budget Office, wrote recently, "The rigid monetary and fiscal constraints imposed by Maastricht are at least as responsible for economic malaise as structural sclerosis is."[5] French voters remember that France's postwar growth, from the early 1950s to the oil shocks of the early 1970s, took place under a dirigist government's successful industrial policy, by which the government both supported and protected industries that showed a strong capacity for growth. At that time monetarism was but a cloud on the policy horizon, not the fading orthodoxy it is now.

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More on J-P Sartre, background on the BBC Radio 3 programme, I mentioned.