ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST

Do not mourn the end of the west (Mark Mazower, May 27 2003, Financial Times)

What has happened to the idea of the west? The transatlantic community, whose rise and eventual triumph was charted by postwar historians and routinely evoked by cold war politicians, has emerged in tatters from the crisis provoked by the war on Iraq. The rift between Washington and Donald Rumsfeld's "old Europe" has not yet been bridged. But does this mean the west is dead and, if so, does it really matter?

In truth there was always something a little self-righteous about the concept. In the second half of the 20th century it evoked a community of values, a shared inheritance of Judaeo-Christian and Roman traditions that had, supposedly, bred in the peoples of the Atlantic seaboard a special attachment to liberty, democracy and parliamentary institutions. Never mind that this made for some bad history: the ideology provided a justification for American commitment to European affairs and defined the common cause against the threat of Soviet communism. And there were convergent political and strategic interests, as Nato partners concurred in seeing Europe as the chief battleground of the cold war.

But, as the near-paralysis of Nato itself indicates, the geopolitical interests of America and Europe are no longer defined in such similar ways. [...]

If the west turns out to have been an idea that shielded Europeans from the consciousness of their own decline, the disappearance of the west may not be a bad thing.

Peter (in Canada) mentioned recently his grim amusement when he visits our site to see what nation we've consigned to the ash heap of history that day. But we do so not out of any sense of triumphalism, but one of deep regret. The West was worthwile and remains worth saving. How can we not mourn the death of the "special attachment to liberty, democracy and parliamentary institutions" in countries that used to share that attachment with us? Is there not at least a chance that if the non-American West reckons with its decline it may seek to reverse it? Posted by Orrin Judd at May 28, 2003 12:04 PM