Anti-Climacus

QUOTE: froma fine essay in the Financial Times by Ian Buruma:

"Again, there appears to have been a reversal of roles between left and right. The conservative right (I'm not talking of fascists), traditionally, was not internationalist and certainly not revolutionary. Business, stability, national interests, and political realism ("our bastards", and so on), were the order of the day. Democracy, to conservative realists, was fine for us but not for strange people with exotic names. It was the left that wanted to change the world, no matter where. Left-wing internationalism did not wish to recognise cultural or national barriers. To them, liberation was a universal project. Yet now that the "Bush-Cheney junta" talks about a democratic revolution, regardless of culture, colour or creed, Gore Vidal claims it is not our business, and others cry "racism"

There is, of course, a strong rhetorical element in all this. The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, could well be a genuine believer in democratic revolutions, but his more conservative colleagues in the Bush administration may not have their hearts set on such radical goals. It is nonetheless interesting to see whom the neoconservatives in Washington managed to convert to their cause, at least as far as the war on Saddam Hussein was concerned. One of the noisiest journalistic cheerleaders for Bush's war was Christopher Hitchens. Since he has a Trotskyist past in common with some of the older American neoconservatives, there is a certain consistency in his promotion of revolutionary projects. Then, again, sending in the US army is a strange way to promote democratic revolutions.

More significant, by far, is the backing for Bush received from Vaclav Havel, Adam Michnik, and especially Jose Ramos-Horta, the Nobel Peace Prize-winner from East Timor. These are men, who, unlike most commentators in London or New York, know what it is like to live under the cosh. They paid the dues of voicing dissent when it was a matter of life and death. Havel and Michnik were subjects of Soviet imperialism. But the case of Ramos-Horta is more interesting, since he opposed a US-backed government, General Suharto's Indonesian regime. East Timor was a cherished cause for Chomsky and others on the left.

In an article published just before the Iraq war started, Ramos-Horta recalled the suffering of his people. He wrote: "There is hardly a family in my country that has not lost a loved one. Many families were wiped out during the decades of occupation by Indonesia and the war of resistance against it. Western nations contributed to this tragedy. Some bear a direct responsibility because they helped Indonesia by providing military aid." Thus far, none of our left-wing critics would disagree. The split comes in the conclusion. Ramos-Horta remembers how the western powers "redeemed themselves" by freeing East Timor from its oppressors with armed force. Why, then, should the Iraqis not be liberated too?"