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Last Man
Yorkshire Post - August
2006
When the Berlin Wall came crashing down in 1989 a relatively unknown Japanese-American professor born in Chicago set out to paint the big, global picture. Francis Fukuyama’s book The End of History and the Last Man became a totemic work. If the American neo-cons could be said to have a New Testament Fukuyama’s book was that text. His thesis, quite simply, was that the central ideological battle of history was over and that the West had won. Liberal, democratic values had triumphed decisively over authoritarian models.
In the wake of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, the London tube bombings, the growing reach of terrorists inspired by a fundamentalist view of Islam and the real dangers of the Middle East being engulfed in war between radical states or groups representing the traditionally disadvantaged and dispossessed Shia form of Islam and the more traditional, conservative and moderate Sunni-dominated states this triumphalist vision seems naïve and even dangerously romantic. Perhaps we ought to refer back to that other great American text which inspired generations of post-war university students in the US and Europe: Karl Popper’s The Open Society and its Enemies.
Certainly, the London tube bombings by British citizens and the arrest of British citizens suspected of plotting to destroy aircraft in mid Atlantic makes it clear that liberal societies face a new threat. And although large-scale terrorist attacks are the most spectacular manifestation of that, we should also bracket with them the more, literally, domestic episodes of assault on liberal values like the murder of Asian girls by their relatives for refusing to accept traditional practises on sexual relations and marriage.
These outrages raise the huge question of how a liberal society copes with the presence within itself of people and groups who, at worst, quite simply do not acknowledge the values upon which it rests and, at best, live in isolated cultural enclaves where many do not even speak the national language.
And this is a question Fukuyama, who has recanted his earlier neo-con views, has identified as the next “big issue.” The conflict between states might be part of history, he argues, but the challenge of achieving common identity and coherence within society is pressing itself upon us. Globalisation, notably the communications and information revolutions, has brought into the market place millions of people in places like China and India. Critically it has empowered women. The more the economy rests on know-how rather than muscle the more it creates a new role for women- and this presents a huge challenge to traditional societies who preserve their cultural identities by controlling the sexual choices of their daughters.
The challenge for politicians in liberal societies is to accept the need to assimilate cultural minorities to protect the liberal nature of those societies rather than create structures which promote such confessional differences. If mainstream politicians did not grasp this issue it will be hi-jacked by parties of the far right. The state should recognise only the individual not the cultural group. France took this line – witness the relative ease with which the determinedly secular French state banned religious clothing in schools and imagine the song and dance in the UK if the same rule had been attempted here. The US espouses this approach – the original “melting pot”- though since its immigration is predominantly Hispanic and Catholic rather than Asian, North African and Muslim the task is different to those facing European countries.
What is the key message? I suspect it is that multiculturalism will only work if the cultures in question are based on common roots. If people seek to construct private or group or community theocracies – where the law of God takes precedence over the law of Parliament- then they are at odds with the very notion of liberal society. And if that liberal society believes that it can only be true to its own values by tolerating such attitudes then it will be embarking on a process of self-destruction. Perhaps we need to discover a liberal intolerance!
I share the view that American policy towards the Middle East has been deluded and wilfully blind to the central issue of Palestine. I dislike Blair’s co-habitation with Bush. I recognise that there is a new equation in the region with the rise of a confident, assertive Shia-sponsoring Iran and believe that the US has no choice ultimately but to try to engage with that regime.
But this is not a justification of terrorism and the threat of terrorism cannot be a legitimate instrument of political change. The US, the UK, Israel- they all provide democratic mechanisms to change governments. If people wish to live in a theocratic state which confines its laws to its own territory that is their choice. It may be that societies which are intensely organised around family, clan and hierarchy and where this is preserved through marriage lend themselves less easily to the individualism upon which democracy necessarily is based.
The very notion of the secular state may be offensive to people who believe that religion provides a literal framework for their lives. I happen to take the opposite view – that confession should be utterly removed from politics in the interests of creating a tolerant and non-sectarian society. I want to describe people as British – and I don’t want to care a damn if they are Muslim, Christian, Sikh or Jewish. I want the identity to be the individual not the culture or the confession.
We have not reached the end of history. Liberal societies demonstrated that they could see off the enemies beyond their boundaries: the challenge now is to address the enemies within.
© Yorkshire Post
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