96. Complimenting Middle Easterners: "Liberal"

"Liberal" is still a compliment-word when a Westerner is talking to a Middle Easterner about changes in his country. It's sort of a handclasp: welcome to democracy, to tolerance, to progress, to freedom, to equality, to human rights, to the rule of law — welcome to the Enlightenment.

I'd like to use the word, if the occasion ever arose, but I have some problems with it. It's clear that I can't apply it to authoritarian Islamist regimes imposing Sharia on their people, or to secular despots putting the clamps on everybody, but beyond that it gets difficult, especially when regimes are changing.

Consider Egypt now, where thousands demonstrated yesterday against the despotic military council. The Times tells us that "most liberals stayed home" (11-19-11). Why? Because they "looked to the military council to act as a hedge against a religious takeover." They feared that liberal democracy would bring an illiberal party to power. So who am I to compliment for their liberalism, those who support the generals for wanting to keep the illiberals out, or the demonstrators for wanting the democracy that lets them in?

I think that instinct, or long school training, moves most of us Americans to declare for the demonstrators simply because their opposition is, like that of King George III, despotic. And reflection commonly justifies this in Enlightenment terms — the "liberal" cluster.

If we here deny those terms to the Egyptian military council, though, what are we going to do with them when we come to the many despots in Western countries that our history books have for years called "enlightened"? How about Catherine the Great, and Joseph II of Austria, and Frederick II of Prussia? Prussia, for heaven's sake. Yet in that country we see industry promoted, schools established, religious freedom protected, prejudice discouraged. And then there's Napoleon, forcing French enlightenment on the countries he conquered — feudalism ended, peasants freed, church courts abolished, Inquisition ended, the great Code established, legal equality of all individuals assured. Everything but representative government. Unless you're an impossible Anglophile, grant Napoleon a piece of the word "liberal."

I think I'm left without options for a sincere handclasp over the Tahrir Square demonstrations. To those who stay home I'm saying, "Thanks for your help in preventing a retreat (with Shariah) into darkness. Congratulations on your progress. Welcome to our tradition of enlightened despotism." I'm complimenting them for murdering democracy. To those who demonstrate I'm saying, "Thanks for your help in advancing your country into the democratic light. Congratulations on your faithfulness. Welcome to our tradition of representative government." I'm complimenting them for democratically risking loss of every feature of the Enlightenment, including democracy. Either way, there's no escape from irony.

And what is my Egyptian, hearing it, going to say? "This man (or maybe the entire West) is as confused about the Enlightenment as we are." Of course. The word I used, "liberal," is just one of those words that calls up a confusing cluster. That's what I'm stuck with.