LIB Review: The Lesser Evil

Read this book. In clear, engaging prose, Ignatieff has made an eloquent attempt at providing an analytical framework to evaluate the steps which a liberal democracy takes when confronted with terror. If that sounds too dry, it can easily be put into less prosaic terms: when, if ever, is it okay for a liberal democracy to torture (suspected) terrorists, engage in mass round-ups based on ethnicity, deny access to counsel and any of the myriad other steps taken by governments around the world in the wake of 9/11?

Ignatieff is honest enough to admit that the liberal democratic foundational commitment to individual human rights, which animates his entire argument, will at times constrain the activities of the state, sometimes to an extent which is either politically or strategically damaging (e.g., by refusing to engage in torture or mass detentions, it is possible that an actual terrorist will be left alone and will be able to pull off a terror attack). But the strength of his argument is that it takes a balanced approach, trying not only to evaluate the short-term efficacy of an action, but also its long-term effects. His proscriptions are deceptively simple: respect for human rights; as much transparency as possible; constant re-evaluation of tactics by means of adversarial justification in legislatures, courts and the press; and, ultimately, the wisdom to not give in to fear and to not fundamentally alter and hamstring institutions in the wake of terrorist atrocities. In Ignatieff’s view, it is the very willingness of a liberal democracy to fight “with one hand tied behind it’s back” which is its hallmark: we won’t descend to no-holds-barred war, and that restraint is the characteristic which we are trying to defend when we confront political terror.

It is an interesting dynamic which Ignatieff identifies: the dialectic which the terrorist seeks to spark is the spiralling descent into unconstrained violence; by “forcing” a liberal democracy to forego constraint, the terrorist is attempting to weaken the allegiance of the state’s citizens to the state, to force the state to “reveal” itself as every bit as bad as the terrorist has been claiming all along, and to thereby poison the mechanics of the state itself, so that it’s lifespan is shortened.

Article Author: Bob Tarantino

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