The Peace of the Dead

The Peace of the Dead - Ian Buruma in the Financial Times, on why the best recruiting tool for modern conservatism may be - modern liberals.

A cash drawer full of money quotes in this rather long piece - but here's the best one; after noting of western critics of the liberation of Iraq...:

What is astonishing here is not the naivety, but the off-handed way well-heeled commentators in London, California, or New Delhi, talk about the suffering of the very people they pretend to stand up for. Vidal dismisses it as "not my problem". Tariq Ali calls for more violence. And Arundathi Roy prattles about civil society.

...he adds:

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?

Ramos-Horta respects the motives of people who demonstrated against the war, although he wonders why, in all these demonstrations, he never saw "one single banner or hear one speech calling for the end of human rights abuses in Iraq, the removal of the dictator and freedom for the Iraqis and the Kurdish people". He knows that "differences of opinion and public debate over issues like war and peace are vital. We enjoy the right to demonstrate and express opinions today - something we didn't have during a 25-year reign of terror - because East Timor is now an independent democracy. Fortunately for all of us, the age of globalisation has meant that citizens have a greater say in almost every major issue. But if the anti-war movement dissuades the US and its allies from going to war with Iraq, it will have contributed to the peace of the dead".

This from the leader of a nation that has suffered, proportionately, as much from genocide as any nation on earth.

Read the whole thing - it's long, but excellent.

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

Posted by Mitch at September 15, 2003 07:09 AM