In praise of the liberal elite facing down populism

In some parts of the Arab world, the word “secular” is a personal slur often used to discredit a person’s political positions and loyalties. The implication is that those who are secular in outlook are atheist, communist anti-religionists whose agenda is to undermine Islam and transform their countries into brothels of western debauchery. Growing up, I didn’t even know that it had a non-derogatory meaning relating to the separation of church or mosque from the state.

“Secular” is often interchangeable in such contexts with the word “liberal”: a generally louche, wealthy, unrooted member of a dissolute elite, who plots against tradition, religion and the wholesome wishes of the salt-of-the-earth “ordinary people”. The majority of those doing the name-calling, mostly members of an obsequious media or ambitious political class, tend to be rather liberal and secular themselves, at least in lifestyle, but understand that, to undermine opponents and ingratiate themselves both with the public and authority, the “people” have to be invoked as a mass of grounded virtue, at odds with a distant privileged class.

It all sounds chillingly familiar, doesn’t it? Brexit has given us a similar lexicon of popular discourse that would not be out of place in an Arab dictatorship: “saboteurs”, “traitors”, “the will of the people”. But the most terrifying is the recent contamination of the word “elite” and its deployment to shut down criticism of the government or the Brexit process.

Source: theguardian