(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Once upon a time; about 1815, after the Napoleonic wars and until 1914, the world was in decline. There were thoughts of progress and well-being for all. It was rationality, education and technology. The idea that had conquered at least parts of the world was that life should not be governed by a single, omniscient and omnipotent authority. All the activities of society should be organized individually, and not gathered under a divine and governing hand.
In short, it was liberalism, writes the American author Paul Berman in the book "Terror and Liberalism." And it had come to stay. Thought one. But beneath the surface swarmed a life-denying beast, fed by everything from literary nihilists to social-revolutionary terrorists in the tsarist Russia of the day. It was a cult of the cult of death that would pierce the varnish of civilization so emphatically that one would never return to the starting point: a society built on the freedom of thought and action, but where freedom was not absolute but relative – the strongest all freedoms.
Absolute freedom set up the thesis that all that was forbidden was law, which ultimately led to total annihilation. In the words of Frenchman Charles Baudelaire: "The true saint is the one who whips and kills people for the good of mankind." It was murder and suicide, first as an honorable and responsible rebellion against oppressive structures; later as a goal in itself. It was nihilism, defined as rebellion against all moral values.
The romantic swarming of this cult of death, but also the disappointment of liberalism as a deceitful alternative, was to form the basis of the totalitarian systems from 1917 onwards. And it never ended. Precisely this "it never ended" is the starting point for Berman. For he has written a book on Islamism, which is nothing but a continuation of Europe's most destructive totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century…
Nothing short of a century
Those who define the 1900th century as "the short century" are unforgivably Eurocentric, Berman writes. For it was not the case that totalitarian ideas broke down in 1989. On the Muslim side, Baath socialism and Islamic radicalism were growing rapidly. These were ideologies that had clear similarities with both fascism and communism. And they were equal because they were all based on the religious primordial myth; or the millennium myth – the one that André Glucksmann has referred to as "the eleventh commandment."
This ancient myth can be found in Revelation. It goes as follows: there is a people of God. These people are under attack. The attack comes from within. It is a destructive attack carried out by the rich city dwellers of Babylon, who have access to such things as gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, linen, silk, ivory, precious wood, brass, iron, marble, fragrances, ointments, incense, wine, oil, flour, wheat, animals, sheep, horses, sleighs – not to mention slaves and human souls.
In other words, the citizens have fallen into the total abomination. They have been infected by the "whore of Babylon." The infection has spread to God's people. This is the attack from within. But it is also an attack from outside – led by forces worshiping Satan in his synagogue. These attacks; from within and without, will be beaten back violently. Judgment Day war, Armageddon, will take place. The subversive and unclean cities of Babylon will be destroyed, along with all their abominations. The satanic forces from the mysterious outside world will be stopped. The devastation will be terrible. But there is nothing to be afraid of: it will all be over in an hour. Afterwards, when the destruction is complete, the kingdom of Christ will be established and last for a thousand years. And God's people will live in purity and submission to God.
Such was the ancient myth, and Albert Camus has shown how the idea of the myth in its modern version started as a literary exercise among poets. The theme is present in Rimbaud, and in Ruben Dario – Latin America's greatest poet. In the years before the First World War, the myth became political theory. The great theorists of the twentieth century reshaped the myth and created ideologies that were almost identical:
There was always a people of God whose pure and immaculate life had been undermined. Within communism, these people were the proletariat. Within fascism: the children of the Romanesque wolf. For Franco's phalangists: the Catholics and Christ's warriors. For the Nazis: the Aryan race.
On the other hand, there were always the undermining forces; the equivalent of the Babylonians. For the Communists it was the bourgeoisie and the kulaks. For the fascists and the phalangists: the cosmopolitan. And then there was always the Jews, for both Nazism, fascism and ultimately Stalin.
And as the last wall of the triangle: the townspeople were always helped by satanic forces that pushed God's people from all sides. It was capitalism, or the Jewish conspiracy, or Soviet and American technology – in Heidegger's interpretation. It was these forces that had to be destroyed. At the end of the day, after Armageddon, the millennial kingdom would emerge: the dictatorship of the proletariat. The resurrected Roman Empire. Kingdom of Christ. The Third Reich. Kingdom of Muhammad…
Exports from Europe
For Berman, right-wing extremist and left-wing extremist ideologies and systems have more in common than features. They belong to the "new movements," which are pathological mass movements in which the death cult is a central element; movements devoid of reason and rationality, and thus inexplicable according to logical lines of thought. What makes such movements tick is irrationality and an all-encompassing hatred of one central idea: liberalism.
Arab Baath socialism, and not specifically Arab Islamism, belong among these ideologies. It is – paradoxically, seen in the light of hatred of the West – the result of exports from Europe; of this continent's most destructive forces. These ideologies are therefore neither new nor original. It's the same old clock myth:
There is a people of God who happens to be Muslims. They are under attack from Crusaders and Jews. Inside comes the attack from people who call themselves Muslims, but who are not. They are, on the other hand, part of the barbaric Jahili – the pagan ignorance of the time before Muhammad – and must be eradicated.
Exterminated! That was the most important message of the Egyptian thinker Sayyid Qutb. He saw an Islam that was being cleansed away from the face of the earth. And he responded to the threat by creating a new millennial kingdom between the covers, a physical size and not just a religious revival. A pure and undefiled Islamic state where God and Shariah are to rule the lives; a perfect society – cleansed of infection – that will last for a thousand years.
For Berman, Islamism is thus a new variant of totalitarianism. And as always before, in our rationality, we are not able to recognize the danger when pathological mass movements go berserk in a swarm of death cult. The rational imperative makes us inclined to think like Noam Chomsky: that it is all a struggle between corporate greed (American) on the one hand, and longing for freedom (third world) on the other. But this cannot be explained, Berman believes, because this analysis presupposes a rationality and a logic that these "new movements" lack.
Rather than (explain) these pathological mass movements, they must be countered. The liberal defenses must be rigged, and ultimately war must be fought. A war in defense of liberal civilization; That's what is happening in Iraq now, the author believes. And unlike wars where oil and economic profits are the motives, Berman believes the liberal war is both necessary and legitimate.
