'Anti-Americanism is a form of fascism'

14 October 2006

Narrow nationalism, hatred of Jews, and chauvinism find their meeting place in anti-Americanism, the acclaimed French thinker Bernard-Henri Lévy tells Allister Heath

It is here that BHL’s pro-Americanism relates to his support for free speech, individual rights and democracy. Like many other French thinkers over the past 200 years, he sees a strong similarity between the French and US human rights and social contract traditions. All of this helps to explain why, even though he is a harsh critic of the US neoconservatives and rejects their religious values, he is willing at least to praise their support for an ethical foreign policy and the removal of dictatorships. ‘I disagree with them on the war in Iraq. It was a huge mistake because it’s not enough when you’re in charge to have good principles. You need also to have a good policy.’

So, if military intervention in Iraq has failed, how do you undermine the rise of the extremists? His answer is to support the majority of Muslims in the Middle East who do not want to live in stifling, totalitarian societies. ‘We should help the moderates. They are the biggest victims, they are on the front line, they are fighting with naked hands, they are the targets, much more than non-Muslims. If Salman Rushdie was so threatened, it was because he was considered an apostate. The way to fight Islamism is to help Islam, to play moderate Islam against fundamentalist Islam. This is the duty of our generation.’

There are historical parallels with previous struggles, he says, when Western democracies should have been better at welcoming opponents of the tyrannical Soviet and Nazi regimes. ‘Some refugees from Germany came to France; we were not always able to welcome them, to open arms and doors to them. This was a huge mistake. The same is true for the dissidents from the Soviet Union. In the 1970s we closed our doors so often. I remember my president at that time, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, closing the doors of the Elysée so as not to receive Leonid Plyushch or Vladimir Bukovsky, who is now in London. Let us hope we don’t repeat the same mistake. Our duty is to help the moderate Muslims.’