Recently in Texas we had some elections, and I was very interested in
the smears politicians hurled at each other. The worst thing a
politician can be called here is a “Washington Insider” as the Federal
Government obviously represents nothing but waste, incompetence,
cronyism and assaults on freedom. Some of this contempt is undoubtedly
deserved, but it’s not as if the Feds are entirely awful. For instance,
Washington runs the military, which most Texans support very strongly.
Another common insult - “moderate”- is more intriguing. It’s best
uttered with a knowing sneer, as if the accused is concealing a foul
perversion. Now you might think that moderation is a good thing - not
too radical or partisan, willing to change positions when presented with
evidence. But in Texas, to be a moderate is BAD.
So is the opposite - “extremist”- good? Nope. In Texas, the opposite
of “moderate” is “conservative”; a moderate is therefore a phony
conservative; a donkey in elephant’s clothing; a fifth columnist waiting
to sell out to the Feds!
But it’s not only in Texas that “moderate” is acquiring confusing new
meanings. Politicians and media types abuse the word all the time,
particularly when talking about the Middle East.
Trust me, he's just like Gandhi.
I first noticed this when Recep Tayyip Erdogan was elected prime
minister of Turkey. Suddenly journalists were tossing around the new
collocation “moderate Islamist.” Optimistic analysts declared that
Turkey would demonstrate how to reconcile faith and tradition with
Western-style democracy. Indeed, in 2009 President Obama held Turkey up
as an exemplar of awesomeness, declaring that under Erdogan the country
had become:
“…a modern nation state that respects democracy, respects the rule of law and is striving toward a modern economy."
All well and good, but I remembered reading that Mr. Erdogan had once
compared democracy to a streetcar - "You ride it until you arrive at
your destination, then you step off." For a long period in his career he
also refused to shake women by the hand, which is not liberal, or
moderate, or even groovy. But Turkey is a complex country so I suspended
judgment, even as lots of military men were subjected to what sure do
look like show trials to me!
Then last week I read that the Turkish pianist Fazil Say had been
charged with “publicly insulting religious values” after making some
mildly irreverent gags about the Islamic Paradise and the call to prayer
on Twitter. The penalty? Eighteen months in jail. That’s not moderate
at all, unless your frame of reference is Saudi Arabia, Iran or
Afghanistan.
The media and politicians have also assured us that the Islamist
Ennahda party which leads Tunisia’s government is moderate. And indeed,
Ennahda declined to enshrine Sharia law in the country’s new
constitution, which is a genuinely moderate thing to do. On the other
hand, this January a Tunis TV station broadcast the French cartoon
Persepolis, which briefly depicts Allah as an old chap with a beard, and
the local Salafists went wild, smashing things and issuing threats.
Shortly thereafter, a newspaper editor published a picture of a
German-Tunisian soccer player with his hands over his girlfriend’s
boobies. Once again, the Salafists erupted in fury - and not because
they couldn’t see her nipples.
The TV boss and newspaper editor were then put on trial and fined. A
system that sides with angry fanatics who hate cartoons and boobies you
can’t even see properly is not moderate - unless your frame of reference
is Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan.
Which brings us to Egypt and its infinitely depressing revolution,
which was supposedly going to result in a liberal democracy run by
“Facebook kids” until the patently radical Muslim Brotherhood asserted
itself. But not to worry, for Mr. Obama’s own intelligence chief James
Clapper declared that the “moderate” MB was also “largely secular”- a
statement of cosmic ignorance that shall surely resonate through the
ages. The story is still unfolding of course, but over 30 percent of
Egyptian voters abandoned the religious parties between the
parliamentary and presidential elections, suggesting that they’re not
that convinced by all this “moderate” malarkey either.
None of this is new. Members of the Carter administration variously
described the Ayatollah Khomeini as “a saint,” “Gandhi-like” and a man
of “impeccable integrity and honesty.” We all saw how that worked out;
so why the obfuscation and gibberish today? Partly it’s diplomacy -
governments have to do business with regimes they don’t like all the
time. But I also think it’s a projection of desire - it’s what
politicians and journalists would like to be true, combined with a
natural human reluctance to face the ugly, difficult choices that lie in
store for us.