Newsletter #13: TNT, Uyghurs, a Mélange of a Review, Dinners and Parties, Islamism Strikes Again, Burgis on Hitchens, Cooking Pots vs. Floods, and More
First of all, apologies for missing last week. It’s been a hell of a busy time in many ways. But now, I’m sure you’re delighted to realise, the bitch is back.
Battle of Ideas. One of the reasons for my busyness was attending the Battle of Ideas Festival in London a couple of weeks ago. It was a fun and stimulating (and very, very, VERY boozy) long weekend. I shan’t bore you with tales, except one. Alex Salmond spoke at one of the events and afterwards, I got to chat with him a little. He’s a brilliant rhetorician and a compelling figure, but there’s no other word for him than “slippery”. Anyway, I’m becoming quite fond of London and almost as familiar as a native with the Tube. This is odd, given that I know Londoners in Scotland who hate the city. (My friend Jamie points out that my sample selection is biased. There go my chances of a Nobel!)
The New Taboo. The main reason I was at the Battle of Ideas was to speak on a panel launching the new Free Speech Champions zine (pictures below), which I’ve discussed and plugged in previous newsletters. Well, it’s now out. Physical copies are available but you can view the launch issue at the flipbook viewer here. It includes my piece (page 7), ‘Free speech for all: lessons from Hong Kong’. Thanks again to Rob Lownie for his tireless editorial efforts in creating the zine. His shoes are mighty big but I’ll try to fill them.
More plugs. I have two other new articles out now, both in Areo Magazine. The first is a review of Grayson Slover’s book on his travels in Xinjiang and the Uyghur genocide. The second is a multi-pronged review of a mélange of books by Jonathan Rauch, A.C. Grayling, Erik Hoel, and Salman Rushdie. See here and here.
In other news. I’ve also been busy with reunions, dinners, parties, and movies. I saw the new Bond film with some friends (it was very good), went to dinner at the lovely Dishoom restaurant in Edinburgh with the even lovelier Iona Italia, and went to dinner at Dishoom again with another friend before we got legless and stayed up to an unholy hour visiting several unholy places. With Jamie, when I saw a concert with him a few weeks ago, and again with the latter friend, I paid a visit to the Johnnie Walker Experience on Princes Street in Edinburgh, which stands where the old House of Fraser department store used to be. Sad as it was to see an old landmark disappear, the JWE is a fitting replacement, a swanky (if pricey) rooftop bar (and whisky store) which I highly recommend.
The world at large. There is so much news and noise in the world, so forgive me if I select only a few little things to talk about this week.
Islamism strikes again. In Norway, a convert to Islam went on a killing spree and in England, Sir David Amess MP was murdered by a Muslim fanatic. That, at least, is how it seems from what we know. Astonishingly, very little has been said about the likely root cause of these murders—Islamism—by politicians and the mainstream media, particularly in the Amess case. Instead, again more with the Amess case, politicians and pundits are bitching about hate-filled Twitter trolls. What world are these people living in? Would the censorious Online Safety Bill have saved David Amess’ life? Would it have put a stop to the odious ideology of Islamism? Of course not.
On this subject, I can offer only my renewed exasperation at the continuing idiocy of many of our leaders and much of our commentariat and a recommendation of two articles that get to the real issue and say something worthwhile: pieces in The Critic and UnHerd by Ben Sixsmith and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, respectively.
Assisted dying. As the Assisted Dying Bill wends its way through our legislature, I wish it well. To those who say the passage of such a bill would be a further ceding of power to bureaucracy and the state or that it is inhuman, I reply that the ability to die as we wish is a fundamental human freedom, without which autonomy means nothing, and by putting it into law we are in fact staking a claim to an inalienable freedom and affirming human dignity, not its opposite.
Vive la République! Barbados is set to inaugurate its first president next month, having chosen to fully cast off the old colonial master and make its own way, with its own democratically chosen head of state. If only the old colonial master had the maturity to do the same…
Baldwinian ironies. As you’ll no doubt have heard, the actor Alec Baldwin has killed at least one person on the set of his new film (accidentally, it should be said). It’s a horrific story and my heart goes out to Halyna Hutchins’ family and friends. It looks like Baldwin and the assistant director who gave him it were unaware that the prop gun contained live rounds. Too little is known to make any definitive judgements, but I would say that, however much others may be at fault, Baldwin is also responsible, and he shouldn’t get off lightly just for being rich and famous. It seems unlikely anyone would have died if he had handled the gun properly. (Well, there I go, making definitive judgements despite my best intentions. In defence, let me say that I might be totally wrong and am willing to admit it if necessary.)
Ironically, the character Baldwin was playing was a man whose grandson has been convicted of accidentally killing someone, and in 2017 Baldwin tweeted “I wonder how it must feel to wrongfully kill someone…”. Really, life imitates art and irony abounds, and people moan about ‘unrealistic’ literature and art? The world is as strange as fiction.
Burgis on Hitchens. The socialist writer Ben Burgis is publishing a book about Christopher Hitchens in just a few short months. Though Burgis is highly critical of Hitchens’ turn after 9/11, he also seems to be a great admirer of the man, fully aware that the turn wasn’t a total repudiation of leftism or radicalism (however catastrophically wrongheaded it was, in Burgis’ view) and that Hitchens stood by many of his old radical principles and opinions to the end, unlike most leftist ‘apostates’. Recently, I spoke privately with Burgis about the book, interested in his take, and I’m looking forward to reading it, even if I suspect I’ll have some strong disagreements with it. You can pre-order Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters here or here.
In Current Affairs, Nathan Robinson interviews Burgis on Hitchens, which gives a flavour of what the book will be like. I disagree with quite a lot of what they say in here, but let me just pick out one moment to raise an eyebrow at. Robinson, discussing many leftists’ continuing, guilty admiration for Hitchens, says:
We’re all quiet about it but it’s because Hitchens became kind of embarrassing.
This is interesting because it speaks to a certain herdish mentality on the left: “Hitchens is embarrassing because he left us”, essentially. “How dare he leave us?” “How dare he betray us?” “He owed us pride in him.” “Hitchens must be judged by how well he holds up to us, forget anything about independent thought.” It also suggests insecurity: “My opinion isn’t enough for me, it must be approved by my ideology and peers. And I can’t admit to a sneaking admiration for a certain deceased writer without the approval of same.” Why be embarrassed? If you like the guy, fine, just say you think he’s horrifically wrong on many things but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to admire about him. Why the agonising and toe-curling? (I speak, by the way, as someone who quite likes Nathan Robinson and as a quasi/semi/off-brand socialist. A socialisht?)1
Anyway, get the book. Ben is a great guy, and it’ll be an interesting, if slightly infuriating, read, just like that interview. It certainly won’t be a failure on the scale of Richard Seymour’s rather petulant and weak 2012 takedown, Unhitched: The Trial of Christopher Hitchens.
Secrets of the Booker. There’s a good piece in The Guardian about the Booker Prize. I recommend a read. A taster:
Until [Booker director Gaby] Wood put a stop to it, the advisory committee lunched in the ultra-traditional, male-only members club the Garrick. “When I got the job,” she told me, “a couple of them said: ‘Oh, don’t worry, Gaby, we can book the table for you.’ And I said: ‘That’s not the point.’”
And finally, more insanity in reality (this time of a delightful sort). In Kerala, India, a couple due to be wed refused to let a little massive, fatal flooding (and landslides) get in the way of their nuptials. Unable to drive to the wedding, they ingeniously chose to float down to the temple in a massive cooking pot.
This is something straight out of a Salman Rushdie novel. Again: why do we so often pretend that the world isn’t weird and fearsome and wonderful? Why do we pretend like the everyday is the real?
And that’s all folks! Have a lovely week,
DJS
Some pictures from The New Taboo launch event at the Battle of Ideas Festival in London on October 10 2021.
And another thing: Robinson says they removed the description of Current Affairs as being the sort of magazine Hitchens and Willy Wonka might have created. He doesn’t say why they removed it but does mention they received some angry letters calling Hitchens a “warmonger”. Was it removed for this reason? The same problem arises: why, when, as is made clear in this interview, Current Affairs is a descendant of the socialist-Hitchensian polemicist style, be so defensive? That style was as valid a part of his career as his later turn and was something he stood by even then (and arguably continued to participate in to an extent). But this is almost making, partially at least, what I take Burgis’ argument to be, so my advice to Nathan Robinson, should it be sought, is: restore that description! And listen to Burgis!