The god that failed
Last month's midterm elections in the US saw a surge in support for the Republicans, fuelled by the growth of the right wing Tea Party movement. Gary Younge examines the US after two years of unfulfilled expectations.
Photo: Fibonacci Blue
After rereading The God That Failed, a book in which six prominent ex-Marxists expressed their disappointment in communism, the late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said voiced his annoyance at what seemed like a show trial for a straw man. "Why as an intellectual did you believe in a god anyway?" he wrote. "And besides, who gave you the right to imagine that your early disbelief and later disenchantment were so important?"