RUTHFULLY YOURS

Although genuine feminists have made strides for women’s rights in Western countries, they have helped set back the rights of young Muslim women to break free from the oppressive codes of an Islam defined and controlled by Muslim men.

It is one of the ironies of modern politics that the same word can be susceptible to more than one meaning, creating confusion for everyone.

One of the reasons for the confusion is that liberal values are generally shared by moderates on both the left and right of politics. Not by the far left — Marxists, Leninists, Trotskyites, and Stalinists or Britain’s Labour Party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn – or by the far right – Germany’s Alternativ für Deutschland, Hungary’s Jobbik, Austria’s Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, or Greece’s Golden Dawn.

Leftist values underpinned both the American and French revolutions, helping to create the liberal democracies that remain our chief defence against Communism at one end of the political spectrum and Fascism on the other. Most of those values are taken for granted by mainstream populations in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and much of Europe. Writing in American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, Ralph Raico describes classical liberalism as

“the term used to designate the ideology advocating private property, an unhampered market economy, the rule of law, constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and of the press, and international peace based on free trade. Up until around 1900, this ideology was generally known simply as liberalism.”

One might also include civil rights; democratic institutions; equal justice under the law; separation of religion, state, judiciary and education, and international co-operation. Although there is, of course, more to liberal values than these, they are all enshrined in articles of the US Constitution and implied or stated in the constitutions and laws of other democracies.

The role of liberalism in the reformation of Europe following World War II is made clear by Oxford historian Professor Martin Conway:

Liberalism, liberal values and liberal institutions formed an integral part of that process of European consolidation. Fifteen years after the end of the Second World War, the liberal and democratic identity of Western Europe had been reinforced on almost all sides by the definition of the West as a place of freedom. Set against the oppression in the Communist East, by the slow development of a greater understanding of the moral horror of Nazism, and by the engagement of intellectuals and others with the new states (and social and political systems) emerging in the non-European world to the south.

Conservatives have enemies to their right.

‘Democracy is in crisis,” begins the 2018 annual report from Freedom House. “For the 12th consecutive year, . . . countries that suffered democratic setbacks outnumbered those that registered gains.” Indeed, the downward trend may be accelerating. This year for the first time, the number of countries registering losses of freedom — a whopping 71 in all — is more than double the number in which freedom grew.

Alarm at this trajectory, together with some other global events and trends, inspired the issuance of the Prague Appeal for Democratic Renewal, officially launched at the October 2017 conference, in Prague, of the Forum 2000 Foundation, an organization founded by former Czech president Václav Havel and maintained by members of his family and close political associates. The Prague Appeal is intended as a “moral and intellectual catalyst for the revitalization of the democratic idea” and as the charter for the Coalition for Democratic Renewal, consisting of intellectuals and activists, from scores of countries, who aim to “go on the offensive against the authoritarian opponents of democracy.”

That such an initiative might draw return fire from its targets is to be expected. More surprising, however, was the broadside against it in these pages by National Review editor-at-large John O’Sullivan, speaking mostly through the voice of Ryszard Legutko. O’Sullivan merely glossed a polemic that Legutko had contributed to the Australian magazine Quadrant. Lengthy quotes from it made up most of O’Sullivan’s piece.

O’Sullivan introduces Legutko as a “distinguished Polish philosopher,” but one could not tell from the method of his diatribe. In the compass of a thousand words, Legutko accuses the Prague Appeal of being “bizarre,” “outrageous,” “intellectual[ly] dishonest,” “an insult to decency,” “vile,” “shameful,” and “a lie.” He attributes to the signers, many of whom have published a great deal, views in manifest contradiction to what they have written. Oddly, he elsewhere recently put his name to an appeal for “linguistic decency,” noting that “language is a delicate instrument, . . . debased when used as a bludgeon,” and that “recourse to denunciation is a sign of . . . decadence.”

What is going on here? The fuse igniting Legutko’s (and, by proxy, O’Sullivan’s) explosion is the inclusion, in the Prague Appeal, of a reference to Hungary alongside references to Venezuela, Turkey, and the Philippines. All are cited as examples of “backsliding democracies” where “illiberalism is on the rise.” Legutko, who angrily decried this as “attributing guilt by scurrilous association,” and O’Sullivan, who directs a think tank in Budapest, are evidently partial to Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. More broadly, they appear to sympathize with “populist” movements that have arisen recently in Europe and the U.S.

Tuesday, February 20. It’s our first time in Prague, and – except for a couple of visits to Berlin – K.’s first time on territory that was once part of the Warsaw Pact. Today, as we’re wont to do on arrival in a new city, we passed on museums and other cultural attractions, preferring instead to walk and walk and walk – to get a sense of the place and the people and start finding our way around.

After several hours of wandering along the winding streets and across cobbled squares dominated by churches, we came back to our hotel and had a drink at the bar. After two gin and tonics, I saw that K. had tears in his eyes. I looked at him quizzically. He could hardly get the words out.

“I’m so angry at my country’s government!” he finally exploded.

The country in question being Norway.

K. explained. We had just seen a good deal of Prague, and had passed heaven knows how many thousands of people. Not once had we seen a hijab. Let alone a niqab or burka.

“In this whole big city, not one!” he cried. “And yet in that little town where we live – in the middle of nowhere! – you can’t look out of the window for a minute without seeing one.”

For us, the Islamization of Western Europe had been a constant topic of conversation for almost twenty years. We’d voiced anger, frustration, despondency, cynicism. But I’d never seen him get teary-eyed about it.