From 9/11 to the Arab spring

September 10, 2011

By Christopher Hitchens

Three men: Mohamed Bouazizi, Abu-Abdel Monaam Hamedeh, and Ali Mehdi Zeu – a Tunisian street vendor, an Egyptian restaurateur and a Libyan husband and father. In the spring of 2011, the first of them set himself alight in the town of Sidi Bouzid, in protest at just one too many humiliations at the hands of petty officialdom. The second also took his own life as Egyptians began to rebel en masse at the stagnation and meaninglessness of Mubarak's Egypt.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/09/christopher-hitchens-911-arab-spring

Posted by Tom at 08:11

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7 comments:

mammal said...
September 11, 2011 at 3:30 PM  

i saw an interview once with Christopher Hitchens and his closest friend, Martin Amis, what was obvious was that they have a mutual admiration and affection which ordinarily would be touching, were it not reinforced so deeply, by a common hatred. This is something, unfortunately, that has intensified rather than mellowed with `maturity'. This is something toward which they have devoted a life time career on the left carefully articulating. And it is written all over their respective physiognomy…need one mention the other, hitherto, unmentioned musketeer - Salman Rushdie, at this stage, merely to emphasise the point?

…not only, do they undoubtedly gratify each other with abysmal humour of the darkest taint, they have accomplished a lifestyle, sumptuous beyond the standards one would normally expect of a bohemian. The content of their hatred and it's target may have shifted over the time axis, but the enmity remains more or less consistent, punctuated with cruelty and occasionally leavened with a ghastly joke for the benefit of the fellow ghoulish (see Afghanistan, bombing and the stone age gag.)

Hitchens, who is clearly less squeamish than Amis toward the application of overwhelming violence, loves nothing better than reassuring us (and probably himself) of his hawkish aversion to pacifism…with this regard he has found his true vocation as the Jean-Paul Marat of his era. Vive l'enlightenment!

 
Unknown said...
September 11, 2011 at 6:49 PM  

This is the introduction to his new book.

 
The Athen's Herald said...
September 11, 2011 at 8:41 PM  

A tribute to the wary Hitchen’s life thus far; April 13, 1949 – Sept 11, 2011
Though it is just dawn in the history of Homo sapiens, as this three-year old laptop computer reminds me, the half-baked Owl of Athena that was Christopher has taken flight and thrown itself with full Orientalist vigor (note Japanese translation Kamikaze - “God wind”) into what he had deemed with certitude to be an enemy nuclear facility, a seemingly archaic and perilous one which having emerged exhaustedly on the marine horizon was unapologetically inviting confrontation. By the time its auburn-rimmed black orbs were close enough to register the identity of the occupant of what turned out to be a lighthouse, it was too late, though judging from the severe vertebral damage of Athene’s little feathered dino as well as the trajectory of the unborn egg shrapnel that stained in jasmine blood the Western skyline, the prowling Owl of great intelligence may have changed its mind, though in vain, in tilting away from the lighthouse at the last second.

 
Yorkshire oversimplifications said...
September 12, 2011 at 5:07 AM  

Isn’t it odd how so often lady friends try to elicit a response by kindling a man’s anger.
The sawflies pick and pick, incessantly picking impatiently at the branches until flowers appear, which all the while offer a fist of stripes, somewhere in between, to be clenched firmly with, and ultraviolet options, until the wasp whizzes past the church spires, culling its kind, deploying itself as ants, turning from on high to parasitism.
Its all personal, and as the pall bearers don their gloves, vanilla is silently placed on the cancer’s clock optimistically.

 
civil libertarian said...
September 12, 2011 at 8:36 PM  

I do feel that Islam is a wicked religion which has no place in society I would agree with mammal in the sense that I believe the wars have been failures but in my mind more failures of execution as opposed to failures of principle.

Nonetheless, there certainly could've been another way to alleviate the threat. Its certainly true that Chris Hedges is way too much of a Muslim apologist, (he no doubt overstated the point when comparing neo-con atheists to the Norway shooter) he was still no less than right when astutely observing the uncompromising and quite frankly unrealistic proclamations of certain atheists (Harris, Hitchens, Ali, some of the more right leaning Henry Jackson/social cohesion crowd).

 
Anonymous said...
September 20, 2011 at 10:24 AM  

none of you can write well. please just stop trying.

 
civil libertarian said...
September 21, 2011 at 12:49 AM  

@anonymous:

good advice. I mean clearly you've stopped trying so why don't we all just follow your example. Do us all a favor and take a cyanide capsule.

 

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