Fascism: A Warning

by Madeleine K. Albright

Most of us have thought of the technological revolution primarily as a means for people from different walks of life to connect with one another, trade ideas, and develop a keener understanding of why men and women act as they do—in other words, to sharpen our perceptions of truth. That’s still the case, but now we are not so sure.

the United States and Western Europe began making respect for human rights a condition of foreign military assistance. During the Bosnian conflict, an international tribunal was established to prosecute the perpetrators of crimes against humanity. I was a firm advocate of the tribunal because only through a judicial process is it possible to establish individual culpability for crimes that might otherwise be attributed to an entire group—and nothing does more to trigger additional cycles of violence than perceptions of collective guilt.

To live in this process is absolutely not to be

able to notice it—please try to believe me. . . . Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, “regretted,” that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what . . . all these “little measures” that no “patriotic German” could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. . . . And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying “Jew swine,” collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose.

What the country needs is a plainspoken commitment by responsible leaders from both parties to address national needs together, accompanied by a general plan of action for doing so. Instead, Republicans are guarding their right flank and Democrats their left, leaving a gaping hole in the only place in the ideological spectrum where lasting agreements on behalf of the common good can be forged.

Bush cautioned Americans not to blame Islam or its practitioners for

the actions of a small group of terrorists. On this principle, he was consistent and courageous throughout his presidency. Not once did he seek to win cheap applause at the expense of American Muslims, nor did he spread lies about them, nor fail to speak out when some were targeted by hate crimes. The example he set in the face of the most serious attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor is worth remembering.

I fear that we are becoming disconnected from the ideals that have long inspired and united us.

We don’t just disagree; we are astonished at the views that others hold to be self-evident. We seem to be living in the same country but different galaxies—and most of us lack the patience to explore the space between. This weakens us and does, indeed, make us susceptible.

Maybe we have grown so accustomed to receiving immediate satisfaction from our devices that we have lost patience with democracy’s sluggish pace.

Perhaps we have been letting appearances—the illusion of decisiveness, the breathless reporting of trivia, the faux drama of reality TV—deceive and confuse us to the point that we can’t recognize what is true, and instead believe with certainty what is not.

He told a nation burdened by sorrow to consider the possibility that it had—by tolerating slavery for so long—invited its own Armageddon. He urged those with a thirst for vengeance to concentrate instead on binding up the nation’s wounds and caring “for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan.”