Today’s NY Times has a review of The Flight of the Intellectuals,
Paul Berman’s latest Islamophobic tirade:
Paul Berman’s new book, “The Flight of the Intellectuals,”
plural, might as easily have been titled “The Flight of the
Intellectual,” singular. It is essentially a booklong polemic
against one magazine article: a profile of the Islamic philosopher
Tariq Ramadan, written by Ian Buruma, the Dutch academic and
journalist, and published in The New York Times Magazine in 2007.
While I doubt any of my readers would waste $26 dollars on Paul
Berman’s trash, you can read the short version of the book, an
article titled Who’s Afraid of Tariq Ramadan? that appeared in the
June 4, 2007 The New Republic (TNR). For those who are unfamiliar
with the TNR, this is a magazine whose editor Martin Peretz
defended the war in Iraq this way recently:
There were moments–long moments–during the Iraq war when I had my
doubts. Even deep doubts. Frankly, I couldn’t quite imagine any
venture like this in the Arab world turning out especially well.
This is, you will say, my prejudice. But some prejudices are built
on real facts, and history generally proves me right. Go ahead,
prove me wrong.
The review of Berman’s book was quite sympathetic and likened it
to the kind of debates that used to take place on the Old Left:
Mr. Berman’s book has already made some noise. Writing in Slate,
Ron Rosenbaum compared its stinging ambience, nostalgic to some,
to one of “those old Partisan Review smackdowns,” in which Dwight
Macdonald or Mary McCarthy cracked some unsuspecting frenemy over
the head with a bookcase and a tinkling highball glass. And for
sure, everything about “The Flight of the Intellectuals” feels old
school, from Mr. Berman’s tone (controlled, almost tantric, high
dudgeon) to the spectacle of one respected man of the left
pummeling another while the blood flows freely, and no one calls
the police.
Of course, the idea that Berman or Buruma have anything to do with
“the left” is nonsense. As should be obvious, Berman is a
neoconservative like Christopher Hitchens who invokes “liberalism”
in his Islamophobic rants. Their main goal—obvious to anybody
operating outside of the rather narrow political framework of the
NYT—is to attack the left.
But what about Buruma? From the violence of Berman’s attack, you’d
think that he was another George Galloway and a prime candidate
for MRZine. But nothing can be further from the truth. Ian Buruma,
a Bard College professor, only appears soft on political Islam
from the perspective of a full-bore racist like Berman.
full:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/the-paul-berman-ian-buruma-feud/
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