Thursday, December 04, 2003

"Right wing"

At the end of Marian Finucane's interview with Gerry Adams today, she referred to Saddam Hussein as "right wing". Why is Saddam "right wing"? I often hear people refer to Hitler as "right wing". What makes Hitler "right wing"?

Right wing is conservative or even reactionary. Left wing is liberal or even radical.

I'm not sure Saddam and Hitler were either right or left wing. You could call them both fascists (believers in a system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism), but definitely not right wing. If anything, their attempts at reengineering society were "left wing".