Liberalism is more than freedom of speech.
I see Marshall Wittman, that self-proclaimed beacon of liberalism, has histronically joined William Kristol's latest call for the West to rise up and "fight" against Muslim extremism -- as exemplified by Hamas, Iran and the Muslim protests against the Danish cartoons:
The Moose suggests that the conservative Weekly Standard is defending liberalism.
...Radical Islam has been accorded a special status. The rioting Islamo-fascists have won a victory by intimidating the West. Surely, no one should ever go out of their way to offend. But, freedom of expression a central component of Western liberty and liberalism, and it is under attack by an extremist mob. We are all Danish.
This is such utter bullshit. Kristol and The Weekly Standard are doing what they always do, what their predecessor publications have been doing since the McCarthy era: ginning up the popular emotion designed to lead us toward some sort of end-of-history showdown between the West and whatever totalitarian force stands against us, threatens us, offends us. It's not even clear from Kristol's op-ed what we're supposed to go to war with. Islamic funadamentalism? The various undemocratic majority-Muslim governments who have condoned or helped gin up populist anger over the cartoons vary in their degree of state-sanctioned piety and their brand of Islam. The extremely fundamentalist Ayatollah Sistani, for instance, has been one of the relative good guys in the controversy. The crowds may be fervent, and freightening in their irrationality, but they're armed with little other than repulsive slogans and molotov cocktails, and have so far hurt only themselves. Tyranny? Hamas and Ahmadinejad were both democratically elected, and in Palestine at least, the conditions under which Hamas came to power were actually pretty "liberal" by global standards. Today's riots in Pakistan are being reported partly as an intended blow against the Musharraf dictatorship.
At least two actual liberal Western politicians have spoken to the subject recently. Gerhardt Schroeder at this weekend's Jeddah conference in Saudi Arabia:
In an address at the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia, Schroeder called the publication "a major mistake", saying "we should return now to a reasonable and acceptable way to respect sanctities and beliefs".
And Marshall Wittman's hero Bill Clinton, two weeks ago:
None of us are totally free of stereotypes about people of different races, different ethnic groups, and different religions ... there was this appalling example in northern Europe, in Denmark ... these totally outrageous cartoons against Islam.
I don't agree that the original cartoons were "totally outrageous", nor do I (or anyone else I've read) disagree with the Danish government's position that, regardless of its official opinion of the cartoons, it can't apologize on behalf of a private publication. But Schroeder and Clinton are basically right. They're right because they're speaking to a liberalism robust enough not to be threatened by mobs of powerless and angry Muslim rioters and their pandering imams and governments, and sophistocated enough to know that the illiberal, irrational, deeply impotent anger on display hardly here needs to be met with the firebreathing "solidarity" of a culture fundamentally under attack. Free speech is not in any danger in Europe or North America, and there's no need to indulge those who think we ought to gin up more conflict just to prove it. Afterall, by nature of its reach, its absoluteness, free speech must necessarily contain our multitudes: all our discretion, all our decency, all our balancing of the responsibility to consider the effects of our actions with our right to challenge what's acceptable. As Western liberals, that's what Clinton and Schroeder are speaking to. To label them "cowards" (along with those publications that don't see fit to reprint the cartoons) as so many on the right are doing, is illiberal.
People like Wittman try to define "liberalism" as pandering to the insecurities and conflict-mongering of western conservatives and/or Islamic fundamentalists, both of whom crave the sort of epic cultural showdown that most of us hope to avoid. That's exactly what liberalism needs to stand against, or rise above as the case may be.
The Moose suggests that the conservative Weekly Standard is defending liberalism.
...Radical Islam has been accorded a special status. The rioting Islamo-fascists have won a victory by intimidating the West. Surely, no one should ever go out of their way to offend. But, freedom of expression a central component of Western liberty and liberalism, and it is under attack by an extremist mob. We are all Danish.
This is such utter bullshit. Kristol and The Weekly Standard are doing what they always do, what their predecessor publications have been doing since the McCarthy era: ginning up the popular emotion designed to lead us toward some sort of end-of-history showdown between the West and whatever totalitarian force stands against us, threatens us, offends us. It's not even clear from Kristol's op-ed what we're supposed to go to war with. Islamic funadamentalism? The various undemocratic majority-Muslim governments who have condoned or helped gin up populist anger over the cartoons vary in their degree of state-sanctioned piety and their brand of Islam. The extremely fundamentalist Ayatollah Sistani, for instance, has been one of the relative good guys in the controversy. The crowds may be fervent, and freightening in their irrationality, but they're armed with little other than repulsive slogans and molotov cocktails, and have so far hurt only themselves. Tyranny? Hamas and Ahmadinejad were both democratically elected, and in Palestine at least, the conditions under which Hamas came to power were actually pretty "liberal" by global standards. Today's riots in Pakistan are being reported partly as an intended blow against the Musharraf dictatorship.
At least two actual liberal Western politicians have spoken to the subject recently. Gerhardt Schroeder at this weekend's Jeddah conference in Saudi Arabia:
In an address at the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia, Schroeder called the publication "a major mistake", saying "we should return now to a reasonable and acceptable way to respect sanctities and beliefs".
And Marshall Wittman's hero Bill Clinton, two weeks ago:
None of us are totally free of stereotypes about people of different races, different ethnic groups, and different religions ... there was this appalling example in northern Europe, in Denmark ... these totally outrageous cartoons against Islam.
I don't agree that the original cartoons were "totally outrageous", nor do I (or anyone else I've read) disagree with the Danish government's position that, regardless of its official opinion of the cartoons, it can't apologize on behalf of a private publication. But Schroeder and Clinton are basically right. They're right because they're speaking to a liberalism robust enough not to be threatened by mobs of powerless and angry Muslim rioters and their pandering imams and governments, and sophistocated enough to know that the illiberal, irrational, deeply impotent anger on display hardly here needs to be met with the firebreathing "solidarity" of a culture fundamentally under attack. Free speech is not in any danger in Europe or North America, and there's no need to indulge those who think we ought to gin up more conflict just to prove it. Afterall, by nature of its reach, its absoluteness, free speech must necessarily contain our multitudes: all our discretion, all our decency, all our balancing of the responsibility to consider the effects of our actions with our right to challenge what's acceptable. As Western liberals, that's what Clinton and Schroeder are speaking to. To label them "cowards" (along with those publications that don't see fit to reprint the cartoons) as so many on the right are doing, is illiberal.
People like Wittman try to define "liberalism" as pandering to the insecurities and conflict-mongering of western conservatives and/or Islamic fundamentalists, both of whom crave the sort of epic cultural showdown that most of us hope to avoid. That's exactly what liberalism needs to stand against, or rise above as the case may be.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home