Jimmy Burns's Blog, page 28

A Personal Tribute to Christopher Hitchens

The last time I spent any time with Christopher Hitchens was in the early summer of 2006. I was house-sitting in  Georgetown researching  a new book and he, with instinctive generosity towards a friend, insisted I'd come over to his apartment for supper 'a deux'.

I can't remember what we eat. But I do remember we drank not insubstantial  amounts of alcohol and consumed countless cigarettes as we talked into the early hours about God- he was writing his book against him at the time, and he wanted to know why I was still a Catholic. He found my tribal loyalties-English Catholic father , Spanish Catholic mother- along with my Jesuit education , too easy and predictable an explanation. Only sometime after midnight did I attempt some  theology around the mystery of transubstantiation and faith prevailing that God is in all things . But this was to be a night for revelations rather than conversions and we ended up agreeing to disagree.

I don't know if in his suffering and final release Hitch came round to God in the end. When my older brother Tom, who was a dear friend from Oxford days,  asked me this morning, I said I had my doubts although Tom seemed to doubt less. On reflection, the question should have been the other way round- did God come round to Hitch in the end? Well, there I believe he never left him.

Hitch not only had a God-given talent for writing and argument. He must rank , with Orwell, among the most illuminating  modern  essayists in the English language. He also had a profound sense of justice and humanity which only occasionally deserted him. I remember locking horns with him publicly during his demystification of Mother Teresa. I happened to be in India at the time visiting one of her hostels and found the reality of selfless care inspired by the woman so at odds with his caricature of her as an unprincipled fund-raiser that I wrote an angry anti-Hitchens opinion piece in the FT.

But absorbing the news of Hitch's recent death, it is  the words humour, courage, warmth, defiance, loyalty that I associate with him most. He was my'guru' when I was an undergraduate and he was an emerging voice on the New Statesman, writing provocatively against corrupt Latin American generals, and Spain's transition to democracy. Who else but Hitch would begin an article on the Spanish monarchy with a walk round the Goya gallery in The Prado  noting just how stupid the Bourbons looked!

He later came to see me in Lisbon where I had my first serious journalistic  job while  working as a correspondent for the FT and the Observer. He treated me and my young wife to a great meal in the old quarter during a political festival. At a time when I was feeling hugely insecure and out of my depth, he was hugely supportive, and encouraged me with his own enthusiasm for the Portuguese Revolution and its democratic legacy.

In later years we found common ground in our opinions on  Falklands War and  Al-Qaeda. We both agreed that it was the former that was probably the last conflict of modern times that had a  clear beginning, middle and an end. We supported the British military recovery of the islands not because we were Thatcherites but because we hated despots like Galtieri .

Our last dialogue was over an idea we cooked up in Washington.  Hitch offered to write a prologue to an updated edition of my book on the Falklands War. Sadly his illness took over. The last time I wrote to him was when he was interviewed after his diagnosis on Newsnight by Jeremy Paxman- an extraordinarily humbling occasion which  moved me to prayer.

A better Europe with Pep

I have a suggestion to make in the hope that we might just end up the year with some hope for the next one: let's appoint Pep Guardiola EU supremo for solidarity and the common good.

But first let me eat half my hat. In recent days I have been warning that Real Madrid was a much stronger team than last season's while suggesting that FC Barcelona, looking tired and demotivated, would find it hard to prevail at the first Classico of the season, at the Bernabeu.

Last night I was proved right about Real Madrid, but wrong about the outcome at the Bernabeu. To come back – as Barca did- after conceding the first goal within the opening seconds-was a strongly psychological and physical achievement by a team that is not just made up of extraordinary individual talent but which excels thanks to its collective dynamics and spirit.

Guardiola  took some risks with his team selection but he was proved right. Thus Alexis Sanchez proved a  much more threatening presence on the left wing than  Villa, forging a formidable attacking duo with Messi, and with Cesc and Alves in support, while Pujol  marshalled the defence.

With the exceptoion of Valdes's early blunder,this was a Barca clicking in all the right  places (not least Busquets, Xavi, and Iniesta) , and with the strength and belief not just to withstand Real Madrid's relentless pressing and speed on the break, but to gradually reach a perfect balance between creativity and aggression.

Mourinho suggests that luck had something to do with the outcome. Ok, Ronaldo squandered two perfect opportunities and Messi was lucky to get away with just one yellow card. But it was Guardiola who turned this Classico into one cules and objective football fans will savour for many years. He raised FC Barcelona to another level of sporting excellence.

When solidarity matters

The story of the International Brigades, the foreign volunteers who fought against the forces of fascism in the Spanish Civil War , is one of the  more noble, if tragic chapters of that terrible conflict.

The majority of these volunteers , from a variety of national backgrounds including the UK,were motivated by a simple spirit of solidarity, and the belief that Franco's military uprising against the democratically-elected Spanish Popular Front government, backed as it was by Mussolini and Hitler, represented a defining ideological battleground that would define the future of Europe.

While David Cameron set out to drive a coach and horses through any basic concept of the common good  by predicating national sovereignty on the basis of  the deregulation of the City, I  took some friends to see Goodbye Barcelona, a musical based around the character of Sam young Jewish kid from east London who joins the International Brigades after fighting against Mosley's black shirts in Cable Street. And what a moving and worthwhile evening it proved.

The small studio of the  Arcola Theatre in north-east London, which allows you to drink your wine as you watch,  provides a perfect intimate setting for engagement with  a story-line that takes our imagination  across some of the great landmarks of the Spanish Civil War- Orwell's Barcelona, Brunete, Jarama, the Ebro and then finally Franco's victory-in the steps of Sam and his comrades in arms. Along the way,  Sam falls in love with a young Spaniard called Pilar, while his beloved young widowed mother (the best sung and acted  role by Lucy Bradshaw), follows her own romantic and ideological  journey in the company of a fugitive anarchist after volunteering as a nurse.

The two love affairs are genuinely touching. And there are some stirring collective moments as when the cast sing lines from the The Internationale , and the Basque communist firebrand La Pasionaria delivers a stage version of her famous 'No pasaran' speech – Evita-style. , I thought. Thankfully neither the songs nor the linking script descend into Lloyd-Webber pastiche nor agitprop. This intelligent musical (music and lyrics by KS Lewkowicz, book by  Judith Johnson ) does pay more than lip service to the ideological complexities and military deficiencies that turned the experience many volunteers like Sam had of Spain into a tragedy. Only on two key point does book-writer Johnson fail us.  Untouched  are  the the question of whether International Brigades presence prolonged a Civil War without in the end contributing to saving the Republic, and whether La Pasionaria –played sympathetically here- was really a bloody fanatic responsible for the deaths in  vain of thousands of Spaniards and foreigners.

Nevertheless Sam's political gullibility is constantly teased by a fellow-soldier- a veteran of the First World war- who has seen enough of the brutality of human conflict  already to idealise it. One of several excellent songs skilfully mocks the various divisions of the left that Orwell so brilliantly depicts in his Homage to Catalonia, while several other scenes underline how poorly equipped, and underfed were those who took up arms against Franco.

The title song , sung towards the end , is one of the best and most moving sang as it by the full cast as they bid farewell to the revolution that failed-almost as good as the Internationale, still in my view, together with Jerusalem, one of the most inspiring  human hymns ever scripted.

"Arise ye workers from your slumbers, arise you prisoners of want…."- and go to the Arcola and get inspired. It's on until December 23rd so give a friend or a loved one a Christmas treat. It's great fringe. With some development finance , Goodbye  Barcelona  deserves to tour, and even return to some more permanent base in London .

The beauty of youth

I think it was Oscar Wilde who wrote something once about how the best relationships were those that drew together the energy of youth and the wisdom of experience.

I guess not many of you bothered to watch Tuesday night's FC Barcelona game at the Camp Nou against a hardly glamorous champion from Belarussia.  After all , Barca have already qualified for the next round of the Champions League at the head of their group, and you are saving your voice, and your liver for this coming weekend's Classico. You are not alone. Only 35,000 turned up at the stadium and I suspect TV ratings were proportionately rather down.

A pity because in many ways this was one of the most fascinating games played by a Barca team so far this season and I am glad I ended  up watching them cruise to a 4-0 win over Bate Borisov rather than suffering Valencia's under performance against the overrated Chelsea in my London neighbourhood.

Thanks to Pep Guardiola's wisdom, Barca fielded a team that included squad players Pinto, Maxwell , and Pedro but was made up largely of  team B young bloods, among them teenagers who have not had a chance to even sit on the bench this season with the first team. Pep's decisioun to bring them on provided those who bothered to watch the match with a unique glimpse into the future

It was good to see a returning-to-form Pedro both creating and scoring goals alongside his main competitor for a first-team place, the increasingly impressive Isaac Cuenca. But among the other Barca players,  there was enough talent, skill, and motivation on a level that would leave many Premier Division clubs trailing, not least in the  clever foot play  and combined assaults  involving Montoya ,Sergi Roberto, and the two bothers Thiago Alcantara and Rafinha  To see these kids play was to have one's  faith in the evolution of mankind restored. Days ahead of FC Barcelona going  to the Bernabeu for a match I fear they will lose against Mourinho's Real Madrid, this was a necessary up-lift tonic. I am getting old after all.

I am an indignado

I have been felled with my first flu of the year and I have no doubt about its cause.I've spent recent days standing by one of the entrances to Battersea Park , still dressed for the summer, as the days have grown more wintry, trying to get local residents to sign a petition.

So there you have it Mad dogs and Englishmen.The park is not short of canines or eccentrics so I have been in good company, and generally treated with respect by people delighted to do their bit to try and save our beloved community based  parks police from being axed by the bean counters at Wandsworth Council.

Tomorrow night a majority of Conservative Councillors plan to ignore hundreds of signatures I and other volunteers have collected. They will line up and vote in favour of the disbandment of the 23 Parks Police, and their replacement by sixteen Metropolitan police officers and a team of five 'events' staff .

This is local authority consultation in action. Ask local people what they think about something, then when they have given  you an answer that doesn't fit in with your plans, you promptly  ignore it, however misguided the plans.

And there is no doubt in my mind that Wandsworth Council  is about to make a huge mistake which will come back to haunt it politically when in three years time their agreement with the Met comes up for renewal and there won't be enough officers to police London's streets safely, let alone open spaces.

The beginning of the end of the coalition

I feel that in future years yesterday's nationwide public sector strike in the UK will be looked back on as one of those political defining points when the clock starts clicking towards the end of a government.

Damp squid it was certainly not. The phrase used by Cameron was not only  inaccurate , it was also insulting, as Ed Milliband rightly said, to demonise the dinner lady, cleaner or nurse who earn in a year what the chancellor George Osborne pays for his annual skiing trip. Not only was this the biggest national strike in thirty years, it was also one that resonated rather differently to the Winter of Discontent, as Britain'smiddle  class finds itself increasingly squeezed, and the coalition begins to creek with the sound of Liberal Democrats showing increasing unease with an economic  programme that is making more and more people poorer, and leaving  a minority of very  rich people, among them bankers,  still very rich.

Much as the government tried to denigrate  them, the public sector workers who protested yesterday showed extraordinary  restraint- not an incident of violence reported as far as I know-while expressing their grievances with a genuine understanding of the  issues involved. Much as ministers would have had us look at them as militant refuse nicks, this was not the image that came across on our TV screens.

By contrast there was little nobility in Gabby Bertin, the prime-minister's well paid and job secure press secretary working for the day as a border guard- a cheap  publicity stunt staged against the background of  rabid cries from the Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg –not exactly the personification of downtrodden man- that all striking border guards should be sacked en masse.

Mourinho has the edge this season

One year is a long time in football  and I can safely predict that we shall not see a repeat of last year when Barca next meet Real Madrid at the Bernabeu.

There have been some exemplary matches (  the last one against Milan was one of them) but this season's FC  Barcelona has matured but seemed to have got tired and somewhat demotivated in the process. By contrast Real Madrid is looking sharp and dangerous, not least in front of goal and all this with a club that appears to be pursuing a different narrative.

Mourinho has gone relatively quiet all of a sudden, and adopted an air of civility that was lacking last season, but which made him such an easy target for his detractors.His relaxed mode reflects confidence in his young players and their ability to play good football without resorting to thuggery. The chorusing of Mourinho's name by Real Madrid fans is unprecedented. No manager/coach in the colub's history has secured such popularity.

It may seem extraordinary by contrast at Pep Guardiola ,only days away from this season's first  Classico, is already admitting in public that FC Barcelona may have already lost the League. But it a  wise tactic to deliver what you have promised rather than to promise what you can't deliver. I suspect that Pep  knows  that Barca will not only lose at the Bernabeu in a few days time, but could well end this season without a trophy. If I'm proved wrong ,  Pep will earn the title 'the special one'- no contest.

Let's not forget Messi is human

There was collective intake of breath last night when Messi, seemingly fouled by a Zaragoza defender, clutched his achiles tendon and then started hitting the ground to deal  with what seemed excruciating pain. For a brief moment there was a deya vue – memories flooded back of September 2010 when Messi  badly injured was subsequently carried off on a stretcher. Messi continued playing last night and once again his presence proved decisive in motivating a convincing Barca victory. It would seem that the main reason Messi plays more matches than any other of his team mates (with the exception of Valdes) is that he wants to. Guardiola has brought Messi this far by indulging him. Messi is the kind of player that gets moody when he doesn't play, and that's bad for him, and bad for the club.

The strategy of keeping Messi in the team has its logic.  He is the best player Barca have got, and the team feeds of him as he feeds off the team. But Guardiola is risking a lot by relying so much on Messi at this stage on the season. Messi is human after all, and at this pace it will be a miracle if he doesn't get seriously injured just as both La Liga and the Champions League enters the more critical later stages.

Messi's untouchability contasts with the rotation of the rest of squad, bolder than anything pursued by Guardiola since he became manager. In part it is a rotation that has been forced on him through  injuries. But also because Barca is facing much tougher competition than it did last season, not least from Real Madrid. Mourinho's boys  are looking very formidable indeed.

The dog's dinner at St Paul's

What a dog's dinner the clerics of St Paul's have made of it.

The way they have been going about things shows at best naivety, at worst self-indulgence on an issue they could not have handled more pathetically.

First  let's be clear:  the British coalition  government might be pretty awful in many respects but it is not some South American military junta nor some Middle Eastern dictator, nor is the Met police some repressive, torturing out-of-control secret security force, and nor for that matter are the guys camping outside St Paul's subversive in any shape or form.

And yet to look at how Graeme Knowles and Giles Fraser have acted over this whole affair would suggest they think this presents the Church with the biggest crisis of conscience since Thomas More took on King Henry V111 (sorry wrong Church?) and they are about to be hung drawn and quartered.

Let's get things in proportion. There have been clerics like Archbishop Romero in El Salvador who faced real situations where conscience required taking a  stand against an oppressive state, and died as a result.

I doubt very much that the situation in St Paul's will involve martyrdom . What it does require is the Church taking a clear stand on the right to peaceful protest and the evils of capitalism, and on both issues both the dean  and canon chancellor have been somewhat ambiguous. The one coherent stand they could have taken but didn't was offer the protestors sanctuary. Call this true witness? I don't.

Gaddafi's Irish connection

BBC NEWS 's usually impeccable Nick Robinson last night produced a Cameron-puff report on Gaddafi's end which might have been scripted by the Ministry  of Information, or should I say Ministry of Truth.

The focus was on Cameron as hero of his first ever war as prime-minister in contrast to Tony Blair, as arch villain- usual footage of Tony  all smiles with Gaddafi in the days when he was 'on side.'

Robinson did have the courtesy to mention that Blair's negotiations led to the dismantling of Libya's nuclear and chemical weaponry (imagine where we would be now if he hadn't) but omitted to tell us of the pay back on Northern Ireland: much of Libya's weapons sold to the IRA remained unused by the time the organisation's decommissioning got under way, which meant that the peacemakers could check   the arms  handed over  against a list provided by Gaddafi.

As for Gaddafi's end, I found it profoundly unsettling- mob justice, with the allies letting them get on with it, no doubt to keep some other skeletons, firmly  in the cupboard.