Blaming Ourselves

Ed by Gregory Melleuish and Imre Salusinszky

ISBN 1 876631 37 6

$22.00

Published May 2002

In the weeks following the 11 September attacks on America, Australian newspapers carried many letters, and some articles by leading commentators, suggesting that the deaths of thousands of civilians were, if not deserved, then certainly directly caused by the values and policies of the United States, in particular, and of the West in general. In other words, the Left broke its habit of a lifetime, and blamed the victim. This response, which shared many of the assumptions of the anti-globalisation movement, revealed a deep antipathy to the liberal values that underpin both America and Australia.

Blaming Ourselves argues against this response. Its contributors directly answer the anti-Americanism of the critics, and restate - and applaud - the liberal principles of moral, social, economic and cultural freedom on which most that is best about Western civilisation is based. Usually we take these principles for granted, but there are times - and this is one of them - when we need to remind ourselves of their uniqueness and importance.

The contributors come from three generations of Australian liberals and include Owen Harries, Peter Coleman, Chandran Kukathas, Miranda Devine and Leanne Piggott. The volume also includes an original essay by M. A. Muqtedar Khan, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Adrian College, Michigan, who has been one of the most prominent liberal Muslim voices in the United States since September 11.