Today's Indy features a rather unsatisfactory hatchet-job by Johann Hari (a promising young man promoted a bit too quickly, IMHO) on Robert Kilroy-Silk and his new party, Veritas. Not that I particularly care to defend the unctuous K-S, but the writing is lazy throughout - and one particular cliche gets my goat enough to provoke a posting. Hari asks Veritas' leader a comparative question about Enoch Powell:
"He spits, "Enoch Powell? What are you going to ask me about next, Genghis Khan?" No, I'm asking about a very similar politician who espoused the same agenda - and appealed to the same people - just a few decades ago. Although now I think of it, it is clear Genghis Khan would have been an avid Veritas supporter."
Now, somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan is so dead a phrase that I'm surprised the Indy's subs let Hari make a spin on it; but more importantly, it's also a flat-wrong dead phrase. Why single out Genghis Khan as the ur-conservative? Quite apart from the fact that he's unlikely to have harbored much of an opinion one way or another about, say, the privatization of social security accounts, the suggestion here - that the Mongols had unreconstructed views about race relations - is a monstrous libel. In fact, the Mongol Empire was a model of ethnic and religious tolerance by medieval standards. The Khans specifically eschewed an ideological line on the issue: As David Morgan says, "The Mongols were undoubtedly pragmatists. They were not too proud to learn from other peoples ... they would adopt any institution and employ any potential servant that seemed likely to facilitate effective government" [Third Way, anyone?]. Genghis' grandson Khubilai presided over a multicultural kaleidoscope in which Middle Eastern, Central Asian and European bureaucrats held high office, and Buddhist, Taoist, Islamic and Christian authorities were free to dispute theological arguments unimpeded by Big Government interference. Edward Gibbon may have been pushing it a bit when he declared that "a singular conformity may be found between the religious laws of Zingis Khan and of Mr. Locke", but let's give due credit to world conquerors where it's deserved. I don't think our Genghis would have given a single Mongolian yurt for Robert Kilroy-Silk and his dreary hangers-on.
Posted by Alan Allport at February 3, 2005 11:25 AMFunny, I've always heard "to the right of Attila the Hun." So who's farther right, Genghis or Attila?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at February 3, 2005 01:35 PMWith Attila they were probably referring to an elephant, so...
Posted by: Bobby Farouk at February 3, 2005 01:50 PMWhy an elephant?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at February 3, 2005 02:00 PMMaybe you're thinking of Hannibal or Tamburlane, Bob?
I don't know whereabouts Attila would figure on the conservative scale, compassionate or otherwise. Maybe Alan H can fill us in.
Posted by: Alan Allport at February 3, 2005 02:04 PMMaybe you're thinking of Hannibal or Tamburlane, Bob?
So I'm driving home tonight and about ten minutes from the house I think to myself, Attila didn't have any elephants.
But I can recover from this goof if I can somehow prove Hannibal was all about Social Security reform.
Posted by: Bobby Farouk at February 3, 2005 03:15 PM
Well, Hannibal was kind of about providence if he was the one who made his soldiers carry firewood on the march over the mountains. I think that makes him not interested in undoing the New Deal.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at February 3, 2005 04:10 PMI don't know too much about Attila. I think Hunnish society was relatively inclusive for the time, which seems to be a general trait of nomadic confederacies. According to Josep Fontana, Attila's army consisted of a minority of Huns along with quite a few other tribes. After Attila's death the Huns were absorbed into various Germanic and Slavic peoples. Doesn't sound very nationalist to me.
As for religious tolerance, not sure about this (I can't find a citation), but I seem to recall that Attila was considered to have a purely personal relationship to God. He would pray to the sun before a battle, but there was no priest class and basically the general population had nothing to do with it. On one hand leaders keeping their religion to themselves sounds good, but on the other a leader that believes that God is only interested in hearing from him personally doesn't sound particularly appetizing.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at February 3, 2005 04:42 PMHari bothers me, and is one reason I have yet to switch over entirely to the Independent from the Guardian (the others include: reneging on their founding promise not to blather on about the royals; appearing to have a definite Brownite slant; having a really crap weekly TV guide).
He was recently on the Today programme in a debate about the Tory immigration policy with, of all people, Norman Tebbit (a man who reminds me of Powell). See the 0855 segment of here. Hari fell into fundemental emotive traps which Tebbit naturally latched onto and thus avoided all sorts of other questions. His op-ed stuff in the Indie seems to come with this same confrontational, emotive stance - although it could just be the bad photo makes me read it that way.
Posted by: Mags at February 5, 2005 06:03 PMApologies - wrong link. This is the right one:
Today programme
Although it is still the 0855 slot.
Posted by: Mags at February 5, 2005 06:12 PMMags, it may just be a combination of ageing and nostalgia, but ever time I come back to the UK and read a broadsheet (1) paper I come away thinking it dumber than it was the previous time. Do you think there is a discernible slide going on in the quality of the qualities?
(1) Not that they are broadsheet any more.
Posted by: Alan Allport at February 6, 2005 04:41 AM