CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS 13th APRIL 1949 – 15th DECEMBER 2011
The death of any public figure impacts on the lives of millions of individuals, particularly a public intellectual of the stature of Christopher Hitchens, so I do not think it too presumptuous or overly solipsistic for me to reflect on the impact that he had on my own life. Though long expected, his death came as a sudden unpleasant reality; he is gone, though his presence remains like the ghostly rustling of the wind in the trees.
I grew up in the shadow of giants, working class heroes like Jack Jones and Jimmy Reid, intellectuals like Michael Foot and Alan Taylor, with George Orwell always a constant presence in the background. I worried how my own generation would match up; well Christopher certainly stepped up to the mark.
My own political journey over the last fifteen years or so has been sometimes little more than an ongoing engagement with The Hitch. Sometimes I disagreed, or winced at his tone, whilst he often made me feel uncomfortable as he excoriated the feebleness of my own position. However as the years progressed it was the likes of Christopher, Nick Cohen and sundry other independent voices who most closely represented my own position.
I did not know at the time that Christopher had supported the Falklands war,* as indeed did I and for the same reasons, though I did not shout about it; Christopher opposed the first gulf war which I supported, though through cowardice kept quite about this too, it was not a popular position. Kuwait hardly a beacon of democracy was though a shining jewel of the enlightenment compared to Saddam’s Iraq, ** it seemed criminal to allow Saddam’s aggression to stand. As the 90’s progressed I felt my self more and more ill at ease with my erstwhile comrades. All of this I have spoken of before, not least in 'Middle Class White Male' ***and increasingly found my voice again, in no small measure to the Hitch.
My reaction to 9/11 was more slow burn than Christopher’s though I quickly became disgusted at the response of ‘the comrades.’ I opposed the war against Saddam for reasons of which I am now a little ashamed, however I wanted the best possible outcome for the Iraqi people and therefore wanted the period following the liberation to be a success, which for the Kurds it was. Here is not the place to discuss the criminal and malign negligence of Cheney, Rumsfield, Brenner et al. Nothing though could justify outpourings of the likes of George Galloway and Tariq Ali, who compared the acts of Bathaaist fanatics and fundamentalist zealots, busy blowing up Shia mosques, or murdering Christians, -with the French resistance! And it was invariably Christopher who was taking these people on.
Christopher’s almost exclusive focus on foreign affairs often made him blind to domestic issues both here, which is understandable given his domicile in Washington DC, and in the US. I still find his support for Bush in 2004 difficult to digest and I don’t believe he ever understood the true malignancy that lay at Thatcherism’s core. Still, as he said of Orwell, he got all the big issues right# from his opposition to the war in Vietnam and excoriation of Henry Kissinger to his opposition to Totalitarianism, both in its communist and Islamic theocratic guises.
Now is voice has fallen silent, we will hear him no more and we are all poorer for the absence of those emphatic moral cords. So I will finish with the somewhat inadequate tribute I posted on my Facebook page. With deep apologies to W H Auden, undoubtedly the poet the Hitch most admired, I salute comrade Hitchens.
Earth receive its honoured guest,
Christopher Hitchens is laid to rest,
Let the English vessel lie
Emptied of its fire and ire.
*At the time I was not reading either his books or articles. It is interesting that like Orwell I cannot remember when I first started reading him, also like Orwell it seems that I have always read and engaged with The Hitch.
**Those who speak about Saddam’s Iraq as just another tin pot dictatorship have no idea what they are talking about. On the radio the other morning I heard a young man compare Saddam Hussein to the King of Bahrain! Well holding no brief for the King of Bahrain to compare him to the psychopathic Iraqi betrays levels of ignorance and stupidity that take years to cultivate. I recommend Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, Updated Edition Kanan Makiya.
*** http://alextalbot.blogspot.com/2008/12/middle-class-white-male.html,
# And some of the smaller things like Mother Theresa and Pope Benedict.
I grew up in the shadow of giants, working class heroes like Jack Jones and Jimmy Reid, intellectuals like Michael Foot and Alan Taylor, with George Orwell always a constant presence in the background. I worried how my own generation would match up; well Christopher certainly stepped up to the mark.
My own political journey over the last fifteen years or so has been sometimes little more than an ongoing engagement with The Hitch. Sometimes I disagreed, or winced at his tone, whilst he often made me feel uncomfortable as he excoriated the feebleness of my own position. However as the years progressed it was the likes of Christopher, Nick Cohen and sundry other independent voices who most closely represented my own position.
I did not know at the time that Christopher had supported the Falklands war,* as indeed did I and for the same reasons, though I did not shout about it; Christopher opposed the first gulf war which I supported, though through cowardice kept quite about this too, it was not a popular position. Kuwait hardly a beacon of democracy was though a shining jewel of the enlightenment compared to Saddam’s Iraq, ** it seemed criminal to allow Saddam’s aggression to stand. As the 90’s progressed I felt my self more and more ill at ease with my erstwhile comrades. All of this I have spoken of before, not least in 'Middle Class White Male' ***and increasingly found my voice again, in no small measure to the Hitch.
My reaction to 9/11 was more slow burn than Christopher’s though I quickly became disgusted at the response of ‘the comrades.’ I opposed the war against Saddam for reasons of which I am now a little ashamed, however I wanted the best possible outcome for the Iraqi people and therefore wanted the period following the liberation to be a success, which for the Kurds it was. Here is not the place to discuss the criminal and malign negligence of Cheney, Rumsfield, Brenner et al. Nothing though could justify outpourings of the likes of George Galloway and Tariq Ali, who compared the acts of Bathaaist fanatics and fundamentalist zealots, busy blowing up Shia mosques, or murdering Christians, -with the French resistance! And it was invariably Christopher who was taking these people on.
Christopher’s almost exclusive focus on foreign affairs often made him blind to domestic issues both here, which is understandable given his domicile in Washington DC, and in the US. I still find his support for Bush in 2004 difficult to digest and I don’t believe he ever understood the true malignancy that lay at Thatcherism’s core. Still, as he said of Orwell, he got all the big issues right# from his opposition to the war in Vietnam and excoriation of Henry Kissinger to his opposition to Totalitarianism, both in its communist and Islamic theocratic guises.
Now is voice has fallen silent, we will hear him no more and we are all poorer for the absence of those emphatic moral cords. So I will finish with the somewhat inadequate tribute I posted on my Facebook page. With deep apologies to W H Auden, undoubtedly the poet the Hitch most admired, I salute comrade Hitchens.
Earth receive its honoured guest,
Christopher Hitchens is laid to rest,
Let the English vessel lie
Emptied of its fire and ire.
*At the time I was not reading either his books or articles. It is interesting that like Orwell I cannot remember when I first started reading him, also like Orwell it seems that I have always read and engaged with The Hitch.
**Those who speak about Saddam’s Iraq as just another tin pot dictatorship have no idea what they are talking about. On the radio the other morning I heard a young man compare Saddam Hussein to the King of Bahrain! Well holding no brief for the King of Bahrain to compare him to the psychopathic Iraqi betrays levels of ignorance and stupidity that take years to cultivate. I recommend Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, Updated Edition Kanan Makiya.
*** http://alextalbot.blogspot.com/2008/12/middle-class-white-male.html,
# And some of the smaller things like Mother Theresa and Pope Benedict.
