I may be simplifying this, and I confess I'm not an expert on world politics.
But it seems to me that Tony Blair has a basic idea that, if there is a fundamentalist or totalitarian viewpoint out there, the only thing reasonable, liberal, democratic people can do is find the people that hold that view, and bomb them into oblivion. For peace. In a democratic, free-speech, rights-respecting kind of way.
As I say, i may be misrepresenting his view.
But, then, Iraq happened, didn't it?
Once upon a time, I might have called myself a fundamentalist, until it became a noise word, used by people who had run out of argument and wanted to start calling you names instead. And then people started using bombs and guns, often in spectacular ways, and described themselves as fundamentalists. So the word started to lose its attraction.
ReplyDeleteBut if it means 'believing a few basic truths', I'll hold up my hand and call myself one. And so should Tony Blair. Or perhaps he doesn't believe any basic truth any more - too many weasel words have warped his notions of truth.