The Passion of Christopher Hitchens

The Passion of Christopher Hitchens

By Hubert O’Hearn
December 16, 2011



There have been precious few regrets in my writing career. The fact that you choose to take the time it takes to  read this is indicative of that. There is no real point to writing without an audience - that would be you - and you are as rightfully discriminating as intelligent dogs. You know your taste in treats and if you don’t perceive value in what the hand offers you correctly turn your head and look elsewhere.

It was impossible to turn away from Christopher Hitchens, whose death announcement was made public by Vanity Fair late last night. I look back at that sentence and realize I have already been imprecise, which in turn means that I have already proven myself less of a writer than Hitchens. The use of the past tense is entirely incorrect. It is impossible to turn away from Hitchens and will be for, I suspect, a very long time.

I only just realized the meaning of the title of Hitchens’ memoir, Hitch-22. It was a nice play on words, a nudge to the intelligent who would recognize it as a nod to Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22, the story of the Air Force pilot Yossarian caught up in the madness of war. But I had missed the deeper level until now.

Catch-22 meant that as soon as a pilot reached what was the end of his number of bombing runs and so would be decommissioned, the number was raised by the Air Force. The term of enlistment would never end. The war would never end. There was no going back. It seems so obvious now. Hitchens might turn out a memoir; however his mission would never end.

Now the natural thing to say next is that his mission has now ended, rest in peace, do say hello to God for me. (We will, inevitably, get to God and Hitchens.) The sorrow I feel at his passing - and it is deep, wallowing, misery-spilling  sorrow - is that the mission does continue. It continues without his wisdom.

The first anecdote: The first time I remember seeing Hitchens was on CNN at the time of the first Gulf War, which was a War that Hitchens heartily opposed. He was on one half of a split-screen while on the other half was one of those American retired colonels or generals who are on a casting list to be trotted out whenever the guns are fired and bombs are dropped. Hitchens asked this general - let’s say it was a general - if he could name the various countries and emirates that bordered the Persian Gulf. Of course the general gaped and spluttered like a freshly-landed trout and was equally as eloquent as that. That was when I knew this Christopher Hitchens was a man to be followed.

Was I, am I, a follower of his? I’d like to think so. The answer to all the important aspects of his life and philosophy is a definite yes.

Regarding Hitchens as a journalist, I note that he is most frequently described as an essayist. That was precisely what made him such a great journalist. You must recall the elements of an acceptable essay as taught to you in school whether you succeeded in the craft or not. An essay is a statement of opinion about a given subject backed up by research and assessment of alternative views. I’m sure it’s all coming back to you and sorry if that is a bad memory. It is that first piece of definition - a statement of opinion - that separated him from the bland pack of journalists, writers and editors both,  whose mealy mediocrity has seen papers, magazines and on-line publications turn out the lights and lock the doors in ever-growing numbers.

Hitchens really didn’t care who he offended either in print or in person. His best friend of nearly forty years, the novelist Martin Amis, wrote recently in The Guardian about Hitchens attacking him from the podium over their differing opinions on the Iraq War. That incident, by the way, speaks well of both men: to be able to disagree viscerally and viciously, yet remain beloved friends afterwards.

The second anecdote: the Pulitzer-Prize winning former New York Times journalist Chris Hedges has written twice about this incident. They were on the same panel arguing about the Iraq War - Hedges opposed, Hitchens in favour. Hedges had called Hitchens a ‘wind-up puppet for the Bush Administration.’ Hitchens shouted that Hedges was, ‘an apologist for terrorists.’ That one actually made Hedges, by his own admission, re-assess not the finality of his opinions but their ramifications. Anyone who can make an equal think has done their job well.

Dear God (yes, we will get to the God question very soon), a lot of people hated Christopher Hitchens. The publisher of one of the publications I write for responded to my email when the news came that Hitchens had died. That publisher dryly noted, ‘Sure there are a lot of fundamentalists celebrating.’ Sad to say, but I’m sure he’s right. Certain people took delight in pointing out the unflattering portrait of Hitchens as ‘Peter Fallow’ in Tom Wolfe’s novel Bonfire of the Vanities. He also cameos in bare disguise in Martin Amis’ The Pregnant Widow. My response is that if you are a big enough character to figure in two of the better novels of the last thirty years, you must be living right.

The fundamentalists though would beg to differ and fundamentalists are not necessarily religious fundamentalists. They exist in politics and philosophy too. Hitchens lost a lot - and I do mean a lot - of, if not friends exactly, at least fond acquaintances and fellow travelers over his support of that Iraq War. It seemed so...inconsistent. It was betrayal!

It was nothing of the sort. On the basics of the war, Hitchens often said that a world without Saddam Hussein was better than a world with Saddam Hussein. And why was that? Because Hitchens had spent significant time amongst the Kurds, had talked, had listened, had observed the effects of the Baath Party atrocities including torture, poison gas and mass execution. George Bush may have gone to war for either oil or Oedipus; that is not why Christopher Hitchens supported him.

The third anecdote: Hitchens volunteered to be water-boarded, to experience torture himself. It was a horrific story to read in Vanity Fair. He did not condone torture. One wonders if Donald Rumsfeld would have been so gung-ho on the subject had he tasted, or been submerged in,  his own medicine.

Hitchens stood for freedom against all oppressors. Accused of being anti-Muslim, he would point to the Palestinian lapel pin he always wore at every event. Accused of war-mongering, I note on his behalf that there was no public figure he despised more than Henry Kissinger for his secret war in Cambodia that led to the atrocities of Pol Pot. Accused of being a sell-out to the American Republican Party I invite you to look up a clip on YouTube where Hitchens is asked at an election night party in his own home (he was in the fine glow of a man who understood and appreciated the qualities of single malt Scotch) if there was one incumbent Republican he wished had been defeated. His reply was the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry. Why? Perry had said that in America only Christians should serve in elected office.

Ah yes, the God question. Hitchens was an atheist and I suspect far too many obituaries and memorials are going to dwell on that. He felt that religion was a destructive force that with its reliance on myth and jingoistic superiority had caused far more harm than good over the course of human history. That was one of the points of his philosophy I used to think I was opposed to. And then, damn or thank him, he made me think. He made me think just as the author (and Israeli-Canadian) David Berlin made me think when we discussed Israel and Berlin shared his final opinion that the only way there could be peace in the Middle East would be by Israel renouncing its Jewish-ness and becoming secular.

You will be reading a lot of opinions about Hitchens - some joking, some serious, some sick - meeting God today. I believe he will, although not as a little be-winged angel meeting (in George Carlin’s memorable phrase) a nice old man who lives on a cloud. Much like Catch-22, nothing ever really ends in the universe. Nothing is ever truly destroyed. It just becomes something else. If consciousness exists as a thing, broadly stated, it continues to exist and melds into other consciousness. So Hitchens not just meets God; he becomes part of him. I think that is a delightful way of thinking about it, so I’m sticking to it.

I opened by saying I had few regrets as a writer. Here’s one of them. I was scheduled to meet Hitchens for an interview right after Hitch-22 was released. I was going to fly down to Toronto for it. I looked forward to an argument or two, just as an avid golfer would want to play a round with Jack Nicklaus or a poker player sit opposite Phil Ivey. Debater, golfer and poker player all would lose...but what an experience.

The interview never happened because Hitchens was diagnosed with espohegeal cancer and so much for the press tour. As I look back on it now, as I recall that voice and that brilliance of grammar that every time I write urges me to want to raise my game to his level, I sadly realize that I probably wouldn’t have said what I should have.  I will say it now, just for us. Christopher Hitchens, I love you.