Since I'm on a media bashing roll...Tom Paine posts an excellent example of the media's elist attitude at Silent Running.
"These days, it's the Right that's full of enthusiasts for exporting freedom and democracy, while the Left scoffs at the idea, insisting that people with brown skin are simply too inferior to understand sophisticated modern political and cultural concepts.
Case in point - Louis de Bernières, writing in (where else?) the Grauniad.Arabs have no natural tradition of democracy, and their religion gives them an ultra-conservative, patriarchal, authoritarian and absolutist cast of mind. I fear that in Iraq they will simply vote to abolish democracy and create an Islamic state, in which case deposing Saddam Hussein would have been fairly pointless.
Put those words in the mouth of some dessicated Tory grandee serving in a minor capacity in the Arab Department of the Foreign Office circa 1935, and it'd be a perfect match. You can almost hear the bored, languid drawl, and see the sneer, can't you? "
Sad, isn't it?
Posted by feste at February 15, 2004 12:01 PM | TrackBack