In Poland, supposedly a Catholic country, there is a radio program and daily newspaper owned by Radio Maria , both public voices of a charismatic, xenophobic, and fundamentalist priest who loathes our liberal society. His values, ideas, purposes — everything he espouses — constitute an assault on all that liberalism stands for. He would destroy our democracy without hesitation.
What should we Poles do about this enemy within? What, indeed, can liberals everywhere do to confront their enemies, internal and external?
Liberals, being people of goodwill, find it hard to conceive of implacable enemies. Tolerant, liberals assume that tolerance exists in others. But Osama bin Laden’s deeds remind us that some enemies cannot be appeased. So how are we to distinguish implacable enemies from run-of-the-mill adversaries, and how are we do deal with them?
Philosophers of a liberal bent are of only limited use here. Michael Walzer, for example, speaks about what he calls ‘thin and thick’ loyalty. Liberals find it relatively easy to agree on the level of ‘thin’ solidarity. For example, we understand people who are fighting for their freedom, and can agree with what they mean by freedom. What is harder to find, suggests Walzer, is solidarity on the ‘thick’ level, those times when we must take into account conflicting values. Better, says Walzer, to expect only the thin sort of loyalty and solidarity. Richard Bellamy proposes that this be done through institutional compromises that are lasting. These, he says, can even be achieved in fields where pluralism reigns, such as multicultural education. Then Bellamy stretches liberalism too far, saying that a similar “peace” can be achieved in debates over even bitterly divisive subjects like abortion. Impossible. Here, those who disagree stand opposed across a chasm of values. A modus vivendi is all that can realistically be achieved, suggests John Gray in his the Two Faces of Liberalism.
These three writers implicitly recognize that liberalism’s weakness is revealed at those moments when even ‘thin’ loyalty is impossible, when there is no chance for institutional compromise, and when a modus vivendi cannot be sustained. But what, then, do we do when we confront enemies so implacable that they stop at nothing to impose their values? If liberal philosophers are of limited help in guiding us in dealing with our enemies, perhaps one of the 20th century’s most illiberal thinkers can help. Carl Schmitt believed that knowing one’s enemy was the essential ingredient of politics. Indeed, Schmitt believed that a world without enemies would be a world without politics.
In his famous book, The Concept of the Political, Schmitt argued that Germany’s Weimar Republic rotted away because its leaders refused to confront their self-declared enemies. By failing to defend the constitution against internal enemies, Weimar’s liberals showed that they feared taking a decision more than they feared taking on their enemies. But sovereign decisions — life and death decisions for a society — are unavoidable even in societies founded on liberal principles. You confront and defeat your enemies, or you die. Liberalism, of course, has faced enemies before — Schmitt among them, for, as Hitler’s “Crown Jurist,” he was among those who posed as irreconcilable foes of Weimar liberalism. To be sure, minor enemies should not be inflated into deadly ones. Liberalism’s enemies are real enough. No need to imagine them.
So how do we identify our enemies? The means is straightforward: we should take their word for it. Listen to who is declaring that we are his enemies. Which group, which society, nation, or religion speaks about us openly as their enemy. Those that do are our enemies. Once identified, we must not treat self-declared enemies like children and try to explain to them that they do not really mean what they say, or that we love them and that they should not use such nasty words. If people say that they are our enemies, we should treat them accordingly. Of course, it is noble to hesitate before declaring someone an enemy, but when someone talks and acts like an enemy, doubts must disappear. It is time to mobilize. Liberal democracy is, after all, well-prepared to fight against its internal enemies through the rule of law. Laws against incitement to violence must be enforced, conspiracies prosecuted, traitors exposed. Indeed, as 20th century experience demonstrates, in the face of true enemies liberal societies must apply the rule of law even if the consequences appear harsh and ‘illiberal.’
What is true for internal enemies must be true for external ones as well. Liberal states should not proselyte their own way of life around the world and respect ( or at least tolerate ( the fact that other peoples live according to norms with which we disagree. But liberal states should not hesitate to use international law to deal with (rogue( states and those who threaten a global order based on mutual tolerance. If we believe in liberal values, we must be prepared to defend them — in the words of Malcolm X “by any means necessary.” The chosen tools may sometimes strain our liberal temperament. So be it. Liberalism at war? That may be the only option, if liberalism itself is to survive. By Marcin KRYL , dean of history at Warsaw University, holder of its Erasmus chair, and publisher of Res Public a Poland’s leading intellectual journal
©)xp : Project Syndicate, January 2003
