Persian Letters: Montesquieu for the Modern Day?

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Persian Letters: Montesquieu for the Modern Day?

“We have a problem in this country; it’s called Muslims”, said one person to Donald Trump at a campaign rally in 2015: “When can we get rid of them?”

Such rhetoric has permeated into mainstream politics as far-right leaders rise from obscurity and their nationalist, anti-immigration politics find an increasingly receptive audience. Few believed, for example, that the Sweden Democrats party, until recently a pariah in Swedish politics, could rise to become the third biggest party in the political landscape of our Scandinavian neighbour.

The gradual mainstreaming of this thinking has given a platform to racially-charged and xenophobic discourse, thinly veiled as free speech.

It was in the context of such uncertain times, as the world order falls into turmoil and the merits of democracy are called into question, that I discovered Montesquieu.

He was a philosopher during the Enlightenment, a movement increasingly reviled in this global revolt against cosmopolitan ideals of individualism and free markets. He developed the doctrine of the separation of power. In his best-known work, The Spirit of Laws, he advocated the systematic classification of government into judicial, executive and legislative branches, arguing that government falls to corruption when it attempts to act as sovereign for all three: “power shall stop power”. He developed the idea of checks and balances to power, a key tenet of the U.S. constitution, and the model on which many republican states are built.

Montesquieu’s failure to criticise the incumbent feudal structure in France from which he benefited led many to accuse him of being an 'apostle of privilege and the defender of abuses'. His contribution to political thought was therefore overshadowed by the more radical philosophising of Rousseau, Voltaire and the absorbing interest of the French Revolution during the eighteenth century. Montesquieu’s principal contribution to modern western values is therefore solely premised on the separation of powers.

On reading Persian Letters, his 1721 novel that was eventually obscured by The Spirit of Laws, I discovered a startlingly topical critique on diversity, inclusion and tolerance, written at a time when Western ideology was becoming increasingly viewed as infallible.

Persian Letters recounts, through written correspondence, the experiences of two Persians on a visit to Europe. Rica is a young, good humoured and lively intellect, likely a reflection of Montesquieu’s more playful and satirical side. Usbek, the second of the two Persians, is older, graver and, troubled by what he sees on his travels, given to deep reflection and philosophising. It is through these two men that Montesquieu advocates a view of religion that remains startlingly relevant today as we battle against the tide of Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and broader intolerance that lends itself to divisions, hate and conflict.

In Persian Letters, Montesquieu subtly combines affable, sarcastic humour with sombre reflection as we explore Parisian culture through the Persian protagonists. Its charm lies in the continuous contrast between the state of things in Paris and the manner in which they are regarded by the Persians. Rica describes with incredulity various professions such as one woman’s ability to renew her virginity every day and another who can restore her face from “advanced old age” to “the most tender youth”. He expresses disbelief at the widely varying modes of travel in the French capital: “The measured step of our camels would put Parisians into a state of coma”. He warns against spending too much time near shops, saying that they are “hung with invisible nets in which all shoppers are caught”. Such metaphors subtly ingest Montesquieu’s criticisms of the aggressively industrialising and commercial West through the façade of a light-hearted protagonist.

Rica’s comic telling of cultural differences serves to disrupt the more serious commentary of Usbek, who describes the difficulty he has in adapting to Parisian life. He complains of the excessive drinking and baulks at the prolific gambling culture. He criticises unimaginative politicians who he accuses of being guided by “little other than their own prejudices and whims”. However, the number of letters he writes contemplating the state of things in France demonstrates an eagerness to understand a people and a culture so distant from his own.

Midway through the book, Usbek reveals the conclusions he has drawn from the religious plurality found in the society he initially abhors: “I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced wars; it is the intolerant spirit animating that religion which believed itself in the ascendant”. The substance of this notion seems more relevant today than ever before. Montesquieu questioned the dominance of one religion over another and argued that allowing these religions to flourish in harmony could only benefit the nation. On reading this, I both marvelled at the progressiveness of such sentiment, and despaired that, 300 years later, it remains so pertinent. He contended that, by embedding religious plurality into the fabric of society, religious bodies could be held to the highest moral standards.

This ideal has never been realised. Then, as now, different religions do not seek to learn from others, but rather to compare to each other as a means of proving their own moral superiority. Such competition has fuelled the sectarian divides that haunt society and curb social progress. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Muslim community living in New York made efforts to build a mosque not far from ground zero. While many praised the initiative, there were violent protests co-organised by conservative blogger Pamela Geller, who said that it would be “more appropriate maybe to build a centre dedicated to expunging the Quranic texts of the violent ideology that inspired jihad, or perhaps a centre to the victims of hundreds of millions of years of jihadi wars, land enslavements, cultural annihilations and mass slaughter”. Such reactionary rhetoric is increasingly symbolic of the zeitgeist.

We are at a crucial juncture: ideas that, until recently, were considered a relic of the past are at the fore of mainstream politics. Basic human decency is being supplanted and in its place, the need for “security” is enabling hate speech and that which accompanies it. In Persian Letters, Montesquieu has given us a way to tackle such divides, one that requires self-examination, impartiality and respect for conscience. He makes us question ideals that place western ideology as the guarantor of equality and liberty and to search for ways that will bring harmony to the world. As Usbek said, “To contribute to the happiness of an entire society is to become akin to the gods”.

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