Christopher Hitchens: The Fifth Annual Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture

thank you ladies and gentlemen for coming and thank you to Penn for honoring me twice once by giving me the abraham lincoln podium which if anything would encourage one to abuse i can't think of a more solid temptation than that and the other is to be asked to speak in the name of of arthur miller and on the the tropes with which those of us in the writing business will always identify him I don't consider myself supremely qualified to talk and say not in his name but I can say that I knew him a little that my wife and I were married by the same rabbi the late Robert Goldberg who married Arthur Miller to Marilyn Monroe the same rabbi and fetch also was his character witness at the same time at the house on American Activities Committee because he wasn't enough that Arthur was trying to get married to the woman consider the most beautiful in the world he was at the time having to ask questions about whether or not he counted as an American at all and I I can't not tell you just a couple of things about him and and Marilyn I just can't so I will I can't not so I will when she was first introduced to the Miller family Robert Goldberg by the way to the end of his life resisted all efforts to buy from him her conversion certificate to Judaism the Soviet to which she was fairly new when she met the Miller family and mr. and mrs. Miller senior used to feed her thinking she needed a bit of you know fattening up and often would begin with matzo ball soup and fad would invariably begin that way and so evening when she asked if they ever ate any other part of the matzo a contrary to the slightly Hoyt initial reputation that Miss Monroe has had ever since it's clung to ever since she was actually rather demure and rather modest shy girl and the bathroom in the Miller house was a bit too near the living room so out of shyness I suppose you could say Pooja as the French would put it she used to him when she retired there turn on all the taps very loudly just out of discretion you know he wanted not depress the end of lost and after she'd gone and Martha turned to his mother and said well what did you think his mother's opinion was very important to him mrs. Miller senior said well she's a very nice girl but she sure pisses like a racehorse well okay I I had to do that but it's not strictly to the purpose somebody told me this evening that it was possible that attendance was down today's events because of her an attempted atrocity in Times Square last night and if that was true I would both be depressed and I would take it as an opportunity to underline what I wanted to talk about in the case of mr. Miller and in the topic I picked which was crucibles present and past which is to say the contagion of fear as the United States thawed out in the 1950s it's incredibly easy it's depressingly easy shall one say to get people who are the children of a revolution who were born into a country that is governed by a constitution with all of all the rights and privileges of a free society it's very very easy to get people to give that up or to devalue it or to panic and abandon the values of that Constitution in particular of its amendments it's wonderful amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights and the reason why Arthur Miller was so important to us and remains important I think to people who don't remember any of it is that he was one of the very few Americans who would say no I going to get along with this and we made out of it a famous play recalling an earlier time before the founding of the Republic before the proclamation and promulgation of the Constitution when there was an era of witch hunting which is another way of saying clerical or religious panic persecution journey and his Syria to see under what conditions we who look down on the poor old primitive uneducated settlers of the day colony on what conditions we entitled to do that what gives us the right to condescend to people if we aren't sure in our own minds that we would be able in the same conditions to resist I think it's a fair bet than anyone who takes the trouble to buy to get to a Penev and has played this game in their head at some point in their life how would i shape up what would I do when the neighbors were being shipped onto the trains or maybe when because that's so often comes when it's too late I think maybe I should have done something before they started putting them on the trains when should I have started would it have been with the censorship would it have been with the racism would have been with the off-the-record imprisonments and executions at what point I feel sure I would have taken a stand at some point I would have been brave we all we all have had to do this and we've all had to look at society's contemporary to ours and in the past and ours will okay I mean what when the Fugitive Slave Act is still on the books and has been extended to the states of the north as well what about it where the slave catchers cross over into Pennsylvania and come as far as New York and there's a bounty out and there's a lot of pressure to be a law of course I'm get a shelter this one should go in my house aren't I everyone thinks that they would never wouldn't has a it's a pleasurable imagination until you begin to doubt yourself until you begin to think I wonder if I would be that good there's a wonderful poem by Edna st. Vincent Millay it's called conscientious objector I can't quote it all but it begins has just come back to me but it begins some I shall die but that is all that I shall do for death I owe him nothing he's mounting up in the yard today his horse his hooves the clattering he has business in Cuba but I will not give him a leg up I will not tell him where the black boy lies in the swamp I shall die but that is all that I shall do for death this is a hard test of people to pass and by the time I'd got to know off the Miller he was of course quite old but he'd he'd continued to witness throughout his life in many decades I remembered when I was at the nation magazine publishing an extraordinary article helping to publish a very humorous account he gave of going to a dinner at the American Embassy in Turkey at the head of a Penn delegation which included himself and Harold Pinter and how Harold Pinter had given the American ambassador Turkey an absolutely ruinous time throughout the dinner all night because of turkeys treatment of the of its Kurdish minority and I have my differences with how Pinter and in Feder I had my differences with that same American ambassador and I could almost feel sorry for ambassador starts to pay and having to face Miller and Pinter for an evening knowing that American policy was complicit in a near genocide of policy in southeastern Anatolia and you know you could have let that go you could have said we're here on a delegation of writers it's nice to damn bastard hello dinner we can sit this one out no you can't no this is your chance you'll always be sorry later if you kept quiet there's never a good occasion for keeping your mouth shut so so far nothing but praise for Arthur from me but there came a time when a good friend of mine and a great friend of the cause of writing and a free expression and of writers and people who would even sacrifice the free expression Salman Rushdie was hit as your of all remember by the clerical dictator of the theocratic dictator a foreign state with a fatwa that's the way the word entered our language but condemned him Salman to birth a life sentence and a death sentence it condemned him to death and he enjoined all Muslims in the world to bring it about which meant that someone had to alter his social life and other arrangements quite radically for a bit and well I remember thinking on that day which was the 14th of February 1989 well for me for my lot for us this is the case this is the test we often wondered what would it be in our generation most free speech cases you'll find if you look into them from that from the trial of Socrates onwards have been to do with blasphemy Socrates Galileo Spinoza you can fill in blanks feel so almost always that someone is accused to have gone too far this time and to have outraged the sensibilities of the community as well as the laws and codes of the state in the city and profaned the gods which you really can't have because then where would we be how would we know how to behave if it wasn't for us so they're still dictatorship we wouldn't know right from wrong without that so it's a really subversive thing to be doing I thought well that's pretty easy but we should do better perhaps than just get the usual suspects to sign the usual free speech petition maybe we should all say since the fatwa applies explicitly applies to all there's responsible publication of the book but missing Curtis it's often not mentioned we should all sign a petition saying we consider ourselves co-responsible on the model of Spartacus or the Danish volunteers in the Nazi occupation who said if the Jews image wear yellow star will wear one too and they can't get us all so I thought it's a good idea just to up the ante a bit and then Susan Sontag who too much also would like to dedicate any value to you that these remarks may present and to her memory who was that as president of Penn fortunately it came the horrible news that a lot of people were strangely reluctant to sign that the fear factor the feeling that the ayatollah khomeini's arm could reach that far that Jeff squads were on the prowl that anyone who got too closely identified with this might themselves become the object of a was actually keeping away some people from the meeting we plan to have to read from someone's butt and keeping their names off the list they said no I didn't want to sign and I told this story in my upcoming memoir I don't I didn't want to say anything I dolls want to mine the memory of Arthur but there was a crisis with him and he said you know what you probably don't need me after all I'm Jewish it would only attract attention it would change the subject it's amazing how persuasive fear can be and was think of a good reason I'll behave better next time maybe this isn't such a crux after all and I remember thinking this really is for me a moral and intellectual and personal a crisis because if the author of The Crucible has decided that he this is an appointment he's reluctant to keep then we're all in very grave trouble but of course the soy has a happy ending and Arthur came through very well as did a number of other people who've hesitated with it I'll never forget that week and how and what I learned about how fragile how tenuous the commitment of the society to its basic values often is and how easy it is to panic people into betraying them and I'll stay with this trope if you don't mind because I think it's back and I think the rot is spreading and I think it began this present phrase about exactly five years ago when a small newspaper in the Jutland area of Denmark would ye lands poster published some you'll know about this some cartoons better to say caricatures actually of the figure of the Prophet Mohammed who it's Roman II thought cannot ever be represented in art though several Islamic representations of him particularly in Persian culture oddly enough it's not it's not a prohibition there was of any great value or of any great force those it's believed to be by people who like to find cultural reasons as they often do for political cowardice and moral cowardice at any rate you know the sequel there was an organized attempt to destroy the Danish economy by boycott coordinated by some very extreme rulers in Denmark with some partners of theirs in other countries there was an open season on Danish people many of whom were attacked in other countries by the end of it we think at least 300 people were killed and not all of them Danish in different companies the riots between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria in countries which when demonstrations are never normally allowed at all and where the police control everything such as Syria large crowds were allowed to burn down the Danish Embassy without any apparent police intervention if the thing has the every appearance of it a horrible orchestration I felt well here again what could be a clearer case here is a small Scandinavian democracy which had a fairly heroic record of resistance to Nazism its citizens are peaceful its government is not allowed by law at a sense of the press the demand was that the government closed that paper and and apologized for its publication for Danish prime minister said I can't do that I have no right in law to affect the publication of cartoons or articles in Denmark but at least the Friends of Denmark will show their faces now and we'll have a proper discussion about this full-frontal challenge to the values of the First Amendment can't wait to see for example what the State Department will say the Bush State Department here's a chance for it really let's check out his chest under testify for real values well the Bush State Department made a statement saying we're very sorry about any offence caused by the Danish cartoons now we don't keep her State Department going to comment on the internal affairs of Danish journalism State Department could reasonably have said that wasn't its job its job is to say we stand by our Democratic allies and we particularly feel called as a violation of its diplomatic immunity and the sovereign protection of its government couldn't even go that far the first thing was to apologize well that's bad but I'm not a diplomat I live in Washington but I'm not a politician I'm a journalist that the world my profession my great profession will stick up on this point we'll have a proper discussion and the first thing is to show the cartoons because people must see what the fuss is about I mean if we don't live now in the age of the image where do we live everything is image driven newspapers magazines and of course the television everything is to do with the the pictures themselves live sasame not one outlet in the United States will publish or show those cartoons not one network not one national newspaper not one news magazine I couldn't even get the monster in my column in Slate which is online though you could in the end go by link to find them but the magazine itself wouldn't take responsibility to do it a small magazine I work for skeptical it's called The Skeptical Inquirer secular magazine the changes actually it's not called seperti which we've called free inquiry pardon me the road to free and pub did publish them I don't know of circulation that's even in five figures but the bookstore chains immediately pulled all copies of our magazine from the shelves and this was in response to no threat it was in response to no pressure it was in response to no danger at all as when I was a kid we would say was crying before you were hurt but I thought then and I think now it was a terrible capitulation there wasn't anyone in the United States who would say look first order of business let's see what the fuss is about what do these pictures really looked like no one would take that responsibility and nobody said it was for any other reason than fear I know these people I know these editors I work for some of them why didn't you do it what we afraid of we were afraid of reprisal well of what value is your First Amendment what value is the enormous money that you make out of free expression the the giant revenues that have to be made in the country that enjoys the right of free publication if it won't be defended at the very first challenge you think you can't get worse yes it can Yale University Press which is run by someone who used to be publisher of mine but won't ever be again called John Donna Church decides to commission a book by Danish scholar on the Danish cartoons have learned in subject sorry I learned in treatment of the subject including the vexed question of is there permissible representation of the Prophet Muhammad in Islamic art nicely produced book comes out Yale University Press the University of Nathan Hale the man who said give me liberty or give me jack and then at the last minute they decide to cut out all the illustrations in the book all of them not just the cartoons no illustration of any kind Yale University Press without a shot being fired it says no we're not going to do it we don't have her guts for it they even issued a statement saying that they felt if they did do so they would be instigating violence now another thing that depressed me on that point separate separate question because it's a pity that the University Press the great University the proof readers don't know the meaning of the word instigate to instigate something is to try and make it happen is to make its it's equivalent to saying incitement it's saying you are you're trying to stir something up it is your aim that the be violence if you instigated in in the passive use of the word they made themselves responsible for any action taken of a criminal nature criminally violent nature by the publication of the book which was which has two bad effects one it runs away and it deprives the readers as well as the author of the book of the right to discuss the matter freely and second in advance it excuses the criminal activity because after all it can't be their fault it's ours for showing the pictures it's ours for printing the book it's ours for having Salman as an author in our midst it's our fault and so there's an indemnity given in advance to the man of violence that's there for a double insult if you like to the principles of civilization and it goes on you'll probably remember on New Year's Eve we were preoccupied at that point by the so-called Christmas bomber who nearly brought down a full civilian aircraft from Amsterdam over the city of Detroit but a few nights later on New Year's Eve one of the authors of one of those cartoons a man called Kirk whisk 79 year old man who is having a sleepover with his granddaughter in Copenhagen the quietest calmest sweetest challenge you can ever hope to see has his door broken in with an axe by a wanted Somali gangster who's come to kill him in his granddaughter with an axe on New Year's Eve and if he hadn't managed to lock himself in the bathroom and press a panic button they'd both be dead and mr. Westergard you'll be interested to hear has since been let go by his magazine as someone who it's too much trouble to keep on the staff it's it's just it's just happened a couple of weeks ago he's it's some it's all very well to stick up for free speech but you know there are limits and you can't have someone embarrassing you by having his granddaughter and himself attacked on New Year's Eve you know it gets around and you look bad you think you couldn't happen here well I've already told you it could and has with the cartoon case and then every word have escaped your attention that last week the the channel on American television that above all prides itself on saying that the answer to the question is nothing sacred is always know where there's no there is no cow that cannot be smacked around and abused the Comedy Central decided that discretion was by far the better part of value of the father and of all things to get to cave in on and of all the examples we could set to the smart and wised up American youth who like to watch it South Park is told you can't make a teddy bear joke involving the Prophet and honey and a zoo irreverence central no-holds-barred central gives in without a fight or let's say not without a fight let's give them some credit there is one nutcase who has one web site in New York who posted a picture on his web site of what happened to Theo van Gogh the Dutch filmmaker who made a film about the oppression of the Muslim women in the city of Amsterdam and who was ritually murdered in the street having his shot off his bicycle he was gutted like a sheep in the roadway and knife plunged into his heart which held attached to it a letter an open letter to another good friend of mine miss ayaan Hirsi Ali who's wonderful nubuck Nomad is about to be published telling her as an elected member of the Dutch parliament and a refugee from Somalia and from gentle mutilation and from forced marriage and from sectarian warfare and religious theocratic oppression that she was next and she now lives in this country and I can't even tell you where anymore because she - like so many of my friends now in Europe and United States has to go around with a permanent bodyguard whereas the people who put Theo van Gogh's picture on their website and say to the makers of Comedy Central this is going to happen to you sign revolution Muslim calm don't appear to feel any kind of fear at all they seem to feel as perhaps they are that the First Amendment protects them - what if it does and if this great architecture of free speech if this this constitutional roof under which we've all been thriving so proudly for so long is to mean anything then we're going to have to say revolution calm cannot close down an American cable channel at whim by making a little bit of a threat so the question comes right back to where I suppose I initiated it which is it's no longer a hypothetical one you're not being asked what would you do when the climate of fear began to spread and when even people you thought to be reliable and brave will remember urgent appointments elsewhere and say well perhaps this particular meeting I could skip or maybe that petition isn't so vitally important after all I've signed so many petitions in my time I can miss one and anyway captain Alfred Dreyfus always looked a bit of a seedy character to me rather suspicious-looking type maybe we should pick our fights with more care you can feel the air the atmosphere thickening with excuses and with euphemisms no question is what are you going to do about this what are you going to do about now if if what I was just told us to the ranks of this very Hall this evening were thinned not by the prospect of having myself instead of Sherman Alexie forbidding enough as it is but by a fizzle by a fizzled nothing of a bomb in in Times Square look look you are the children of a revolution the United States did have to go through a great deal to erect this architecture of Constitution freedom and protection people in living memory died to register to vote to be able to hold a public meeting to be able to assert their most basic and elementary rights and we celebrate them every year we all wish we could have been there and we weren't but we can be because there'll always be a time rendezvous with this question and everyone's going to measure themselves as Arthur Miller did by how they shape up to it so I can now if I haven't made my point by now I'm not going to have made it am I and I think I've probably about trespassed on the point where Simon and I were going to talk and then it will you can be our prisoners for a little longer and then we'll be your hostage and so this would be the moment perhaps to invite back on the stage someone who has witnessed for this I've talked a lot about it but someone's done a lot of it to give you a old horse yeah they're with you all right well away with a thanks Christopher that I wanted to just I'm just going to one of in some random way respond to a few of the things you said we could let's talk about the cartoons a bit more because it seems to me that there's two separate issues about things like the Danish countries which get completed one is the question about should the cartoons have been published in the first place now it seems to be any newspaper editor anybody on a picture desk of a newspaper or magazine every day is presented with material where they have to make the decision is this worth putting in the magazine or not and I think we can also agree that maybe no two picture editors would make the same decisions some of them would print all those things only one or two some of them fit nightly so on the one hand you've got the argument about quality and so what should the things be in the paper yeah myself I mean myself I think that most of them were rather tedious and the ones that weren't were actually the most offensive ones I mean the best cartoon was the one which shows suicide bombers arriving at the pearly gates yes to be greeted by the Prophet Mohammed saying would you please stop doing it because we're running out of virgins that has that has the great merit of being fun that has yet has a bit of bite to it yeah and actually the one with the turban the bomb in determined was similarly you know perfectly legitimate strong satirical point and well drawn that's those two the ones that people got most exercised about would actually be the ones that I would if I were the picture editor that I would have published and many of the others were just beyond bland so that's one issue would you do it would you not do it but it seems to me that there's that the second issue is what which is what you were talking about I think is what happens when the subject of violence horizons and at that point it seems to be the subject changes the subject is no longer about whether you should publish or not publish these things but about how do you respond to violence yes you respond to it with cowardice or courage there at that point it seems to me that every newspaper of the world should publish today which returns not because they like them and not actually because they particularly want to insult Islam but just to make the point that you don't give in to threats yes and so I think sometimes you know when people start talking about the continents as objects you know were they good or bad with a offensive offensive it's that's one half of the point but the second half of the point is the question of the responsibilities I think that's one of the things that has not very blurred work should I saw that coming well first you know what happens to Mohammed Atta when he burns himself up and arrives at the pearly gates you don't know who's told ok welcome let's see who don't you know is mr. Thomas Jefferson here's mr. James Madison next time if you remember Sir George Mason mr. Patrick Henry okay Patrick what is this he says what he did ask 472 Virginians there's actually there's even a better thing I was afraid this might happen this is I'm not kidding serious Islamic scholarship has recently suggested that the 72 virgins was a mistranslation of the original and then what was actually supposed to greet people on their arrival as martyrs was 72 raisins raisins or white grapes you know there's a very good there's a serial Aramaic mistranslation of the Koran that if you've done a lot of damage I think good reasons for believing in the afterlife yes is wanting to see the faces of a good heaven to be had in a bowl of raisins he also adds to the strong case for saying that holy books in fact man-made and not dictated by God which is I think the part of this discussion look remember the origin of the Danish question was this he was proposed in general which was doing at his level best as many societies have to make Muslims feel welcome in Danish society it was thought the world school children should learn about Islam we can have a book for kids cartoon book you know all you need to know Islam for beginners kind of thing but they couldn't get any cartoonists children's cartoonists to do it was they were afraid of making a mistake yes we're upsetting someone so it was to satirize this reticence in this fear that Flemming Rose my friend the editor of Iran's person said all right let's have a cartoonist competition and we'll see if we can represent the Prophet so it begins with this resonance the second thing is you're right of course that people should do it out of solidarity and you'll write of course that it's a judgment call in point of taste in the first instance but once it's become a matter of violence and traversée than the second stage you have to report it yes you know I wish everybody did on the front page and said their reports do without the content yeah let's do it without the picture I can't really think of a parallel of what I mean they would say well Picasso has gone too far with Garnica you know he's taken a obviously propagandistic the attitude towards the Spanish Civil War there's a huge robot this painting you'd be very interested to know more about it but I fortune we can't show you what it looks like because that would be inviting reprisal from Franco or something I can't think of a collie Evert but even worse now was everything his image everything is imminent one of the most I think mealy-mouthed pieces of language that has developed to justify this kind of behavior is a kind of reinvention of the meaning of the word respect it it seemed to me when I was growing up that respect meant that you took people seriously it didn't mean that you never disagreed with them to respect someone is to say okay we'll take on what you have to say and if I don't agree with it I will offer the counter-argument the idea that it would be disrespectful to someone to in any way disagree from their system of belief is a view I agree as a new meaning of the term respect and it seems to me to have nothing to do with respect and what it actually means is I'm too afraid to do it so what you have is cowardice masquerading as disrespect and that's become more and more and more calm very clear the case of the of the of the cartoons because I think the point you made which needs to be said a great deal is that is that blasphemy the the refusal to accept the church as the limiting point and thought is something which throughout human history has been the thing that has moved the human race forward when you mentioned Galileo and Socrates and one should also remind people that the trial of Jesus Christ was the glass will be dry sure was so and and from those three you could say you have you know Western religious belief Western scientific understanding and Western philosophy they all image from blasphemy cases yeah he was asking to trouble by saying who's the son of God yes yes he knew what he was doing as they say meaningfully about you I remember I was abused when people said that about me that I knew what I was doing it would be really strange I thought to spend five years writing a novel and not know what you were doing what would that be but then another thought there which I mentioned true derly er you were raised Muslim well you can be accused of apostasy I know except my parents were about as Muslim as a two-door fingernail I've always thought that the great gift my parents gave me was to not be religious it's an excuse to be village no I that's true but in the eyes of the head oh yes Omar you belong like just as that's what is a lapsed Catholic you can't leave the church unless us communicate you know no if I'd been called you you probably Weinstein well they wouldn't have been maybe there should have been yes that she doesn't very temperature nevermind that's not good but with with you with you and ayaan Hirsi Ali and which has even a serene and many others there's the question of apostasy which was if they like claimed as their internal affair what's interesting now with Denmark is a new light and Comedy Central and a couple of other events in London is that lines been crossed now you don't have to be a Muslim to be brought within the range of reprisal I remember quite soon after the t-shirt which was the legend so man rather wounding Li said of my title that it was knowingly one word too long just circumcised one word and you've got the truth I want to ask you a couple of things not I mean I think yes this is we should come back to this bit but it seems to me one of the things that people of our generation it's very strange thing is that recrudescence of religion as a political force because when we were kids in the 60s there were many things that were up there that we needed to fight against I don't think it ever occurred to us that the power of religion whatever religion would once again be the thing we had we actually thought that that battle was won and it turns out that we were wrong I wanted to ask you why you think that is what is it you know one of the things that Andre Malraux supposed to said now apparently did not say is that the 21st century will be the century of religion apparently he didn't say that but it seems so far on the basis of 10 years to be the case and I wonder why you think it is that this battle that we all thought was over has returned to become the central battle of all time well Lenin apparently did say he thought the last battle would be between communism and Islam partly because Islam was a competitor in the third world against imperialism which in some ways it can restore represent itself as being so I think that a proximate cause not an exact one that the proximate cause would be the contributing force probably is the collapse of communism not least in the Soviet Union itself or rather in former Soviet territory it's of work now for example the russian orthodox church the old patron of serfdom and Zara's and anti-semitism is now fully back in a very dangerous nationalist form it's the clerical bodyguard to Putin's regime it has special privileges within the state the army and elsewhere and over all other faiths in Russia that's a vote by the way I think it'll be a very dangerous thing as Russian chauvinism and Ramona's and gets well increased we have a tremendous revival of the forces of reaction in the Roman Catholic Church exemplified by this very squalid bavarian bureaucrat who's the current pope whose whose first act as pope was to readmit to the church those who've been excommunicated for denying the holocaust - to rebuild the conveyor with a hard right wing element of catholicism that basically thought vatican ii was a mistake so refund mentalizing what they still think of was the one true church then you have the crazy settlers in in occupied territories in Palestine you think that they can bring on the Messiah by stealing land and then you have the Christians who say wouldn't that be a great idea we support the Jews as the Rope supports the hanging man they bring on the apocalypse we get Jesus back have lot a lot of river in this country and trying still to maintain that this goes on to I wouldn't have believed it that American children should be taught garbage with equal time no now girls and boys after the chemistry practice will have alchemy break it's enough to make a cat laugh isn't it but they never stop him in Texas and also big book school book producing areas that is nonsense is it is unstoppable I remember at the time that the state of Kansas decided that intelligent design had to be taught at the same level straight vaguely unproved theory actually I wrote a piece of widgets it tries to have suggested that this decision by the state of Kansas showed that Darwin was wrong because it showed that natural selection did not always choose logistics to survive survived and it was actually possible for the human race to regress as well as progress so there was a wonderful in Alabama I remember there was a public servant who said that we couldn't be sure about the truth of the theory about the Big Bang because nobody was there at the time yes yes but the equal time demand I think is a an excellent one because there are now a very large number of churches who check this view who are in support sorry in receipt of grants from the so-called faith-based initiative I'm sorry to say President Obama hasn't cancer or otherwise in receipt of a tax break and said it seems to me very clear we should take them up on equal times they will teach your stuff in the schools at least once a week and that not in the science class but in the social Saudis bit and you have to sell and teach Darwin material fifty percent of the time in your church well you know just depressed and that'll be the law and see how they like a little of that seems to be even if you just look at United States if you look at the politics of the post-war period if you look at the the Eisenhower election even even the kennedy election that it wasn't so necessary for religion to be a subject in the election nowadays it seems to me you can't the elected dog catcher in America unless you talk about your deep belief in such-and-such Church why do you think it is that there's so much greater in this country I actually think that that's only true if you and everyone else keeps saying said hmm I mean the the number of people who sue checked none of the above for religion in the country has doubled in the last year or so in the last year the last five years to something like 16 17 percent I think it's probably higher the number of people who check the box to say I am about historama Catholic I know because I go into Bayesian their church is full of crisis and uncertainty maybe doesn't reflect the monolithic we just see at all Barack Obama got elected while having to discern the only church he'd ever been near he'd taken so little care to pick one that it nearly got him unelected the church he went to since hasn't been to a church at all and ended his inauguration speech which I attended with a very good quotation from Thomas Paine so I'm not sure at all I think of a person of reasonable integrity and honesty and present ability let's say was able to face the election and say I personally don't attend a church and don't have because every reason to think they could win right in this country clearly thinks yes but the Christian right have had a very thin time lately and the Catholic right as well I mean who who really now thinks that the Catholic Church has any moral right to tell a politician that they'll be denied the sacraments if they don't conform I mean I'd like to see them try it again I really do would like to see well that would wants to be in a very dreadful threat given the thesis all these ideas like Clash of Civilizations what do you think do you think these are wars in religion they as many wars of religion have done wars would you use religion as a clover for other discontents well I'm sure it's both there's a lot of the latter I mean remember that the Crusades which the Muslim world goes on about a lot and quite understandably began with a huge program against European Jewry then would they move in --is-- that nearly finished it they moved across the Bosphorus or not across but to the Bosphorus and destroyed Byzantine wolf-dogs Eastern Orthodox Christian Jew which they thought of as a as a heresy and an anathema so before I even got to Jerusalem and started butchering the Muslims dead they settled accounts with the Jews and with the only other paper city or any other Christian rival excuse me in the picture - I think so Steven Runciman is probably quite right to say that that at that point the Crusades were the most retarding experience of human civilization had ever undergone and we're still we're still suffering from the consequences it was an intra Christian war that led to the Crusades likewise as you can see in Iraq and elsewhere visit there's at least one civil war within Islam between the Sunni and the Shia against Armada Muslims for example are considered heretical especially in Pakistan against the Sufism it's becoming a warlord religion or nurses because they're a Dueling fad was issued by separate authorities unluckily for them in some ways and for us they don't have a pope who can put a unified line everyone has to follow the various centers of power and often they want to settle these disputes on non-muslim soil I mean I've taught no Sunni government ever supported the fatwa against you I think that's true in history well I mean it was no government at all actually other than and that was partly for political reasons because actually when the protests against the Satanic Verses began they were largely financed by Saudi Arabia and the Iranians you hijacked yes Saudi and it's one of the reasons no one outbids the Ayatollah yeah no well I mean I just would like to point out in regard to me and the literal literal scripture man as the written word will remain and it's true that if you look at the the Muslim world the political apart from the Sunni Shia split the political dissensions are so profound that it's very difficult to speak with your heart so on so that it's it's clearly not unified but on the other hand there clearly has grown up something which is of appeal to it may be a small group but as but a dangerous group where the idea of the the pan the global become very attracted and what do you think that's I mean it's very noticeable for example of the I shouldn't prejudge their case but I I don't like the look of it the four Pakistani boys who left a suburb of my hometown the other day and turned up in the wrong camp in Pakistan only the latest in a large number of young men from England from France elsewhere who volunteered to go die in remote parts the Muslim world now it's interesting isn't it it always has to be they want to go work with al-qaeda or the Taliban why wouldn't a young Muslim in in London the four 2001 of want you to go and fight with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan which as a as Muslim and organisation as could be to fought against the Soviet Union was opposed to the Taliban have probably had more support than it did no one dares to volunteer for that no one went to volunteer for the Kurdish people who were fighting against Saddam Hussein just as Muslim all the all the Muslim activists took the side of Saddam Hussein when it came to the crunch in the war who was who himself enjoyed the support of al-qaeda if not in a military operational sense he had the sympathy of their proclamations in some horrible way it's thought that you're an Uncle Tom if you're any other kind of Muslim yeah they're the authentic stuff everything has to be the most horrible the most extreme and the most completely consecrated to violence that that consecration being sealed by self-destruction suicide so that it really is a battle to what you could call the soul I sometimes think I wonder what do you think about this that in the way that Soviet Communism soviet-style communism kind of burned through a large part of the world that then burned out there's an argument which says that in those countries where radical Islam has become most powerful it is also most disliked that's to say you know the the people of Afghanistan a very large majority of them do not like the time very large majority of the population of Iran does not like the rule of the items the people of Algeria who flirted with the feasts of the GI a very rapidly moved away from them so it's Iraq Iraq was totally isolated the al-qaeda so so here's an argument which is that here is a years and rhetoric which appears to be very attractive sexy glamorous particularly to young men particularly young men without much hope of the future and it can burn into a society with great speed but then very rapidly people come to decide to discover that they hate it yes so what do you think of that idea that this may be a short-lived for them by the way I think you're obviously right immunity there's every sign of it of a turn of that kind among the people of Somalia now as well against the so-called Shabaab many of whom are foreign volunteers quite a lot of them Americans and yes no one who's ever tried it once wants to try it again that's absolutely true but it's a lot to go through and it couldn't very mean this Afghanistan will take a long long time to recover yeah just for a very brief period of Taliban rule it's not that difficult to diagnose are they awful if you forbid yourself their talents of fifty percent of the population to start with but if we do anything else then you ban music then you ban all books that arm the Koran the floor is going to keep on dropping it takes a long time to bring it back up to where it was if you mean might we've just let them burn themselves out and wrote that you were saying yes no I must calluses that but not if you think we'll could we sit it out and so I mean I sometimes think perhaps not because the damage done is so great and the problem with it as with all theocracies is it doesn't have a self critical capacity if they look around if they notice okay all the children's teeth are falling out nothing works here except the secret police in the fields nothing really grows except footprints what have we been doing wrong what they'll say is we have me doing anything wrong we just maybe haven't been praying mine enough and in the meantime the Crusaders i honest conspiracy has been at work to subvert our country so of the huge number of failed and unemployed and unemployable young men they've got they try to export them they've explored the violence back to the worst so that we have every interest in not to stopping the jihadist element but is stopping the terrible under development that Islamism brings I mean just to save this way very often you read people quite smart people saying well these people are the products of poverty and unemployment so you heard it really not they're the cause of poverty and unemployment no Society they've ever had any control over has not been immediately more poor and would much less employment the national income of Indonesia was reduced by a whole point by the attacks of al-qaeda on barley foods they drove many people into poverty and I look that's their plan but don't fool yourself that is a protest against bad conditions it's a wish for them at the height of the Soviet Union a lot of non soviet socialist voices in europe and america around the world made a distinction between what they saw as the distortions of the soviet system and what they called actually existing what they call actually existing communism which was clearly cruel and despotic and you know so on and so on and if you like true socialism yes with the true church of karl marx which was virtuous its seen it seems to me now that there's often a similar argument being made people who wish to distinct distinguish themselves from you know actually existing Islam which is cruel and despotic in many of its national manifestations and the separate idea of the true faith which is you know religion of peace of love and and I wondered what do you thought about that well I was one of those on the Left who spent a lot of time with with the Left Opposition in Eastern Europe people who did take a swarm of that matiee would who were not in favor of nature or capitalist and people like I suppose in Poland Adam Michnik would have been one not Harville but some of the chair composition would approach socialists of one kind or another yeah and in Yugoslavia - and in Bosnia particularly so and I still have some sympathy for that their critique the thing about that is it's a bit more testable objectively I mean if you come to the conclusion actually there is something wrong with the pricing policy of a socialist economy it has of all things real difficulty working out what the value of things ought to be and this probably isn't a result of it being hijacked it may be a false happiness here there's you don't think you're going to go to hell for saying that say you don't bring upon yourself quite the same condemnation the thing about the theocracy is that it tends to say that if anything goes wrong if the system breaks down it is only because we haven't tried it hard enough yeah that's for example I I go on about this all the time we should be thinking about our Iranian brothers and sisters every day not just the struggle they're having to bring about a democracy and the fact that the Revolutionary Guards who've taken over their country are also the people who control the nuclear weapons but that on top of that Iran is booked to have a terrible seismic catastrophe it's coming like a heart attack to Tehran and nope no one's doing anything - earthquake earthquake proof the country at all nothing nothing like what the Chileans have done it's more like 80 and at Friday prayers I knew this would happen Friday prayers in writing about it for weeks but Friday prayers that week before last the guy did discuss the earthquake being quite bad news which by the way it will be if there are underground nuclear facilities that no one knows about and he said well of course there'll be an earthquake because women insist on uncovering their faces yes the promiscuity of this was the official sermon of Friday the sexuality of women cause of the earth years now both of us both of us have suffered from the silent both of us have suffered from the seismic effects of the female sex speak for yourself and we know it can't be we know it can't be underestimated it's a it can move mountains all right this is ridiculous but they know they have to have an exhibition and well I don't think even Stalin oyd Marxism ever quite no no crap if I what I open it up to the audience but just before we do I want to ask you one question on a different subject which is something like the subject that the Sherman Alexie might have been addressing it just to do with the future of journalism in this in the New Age we find ourselves he clearly you've said most of your life as a working journalist and we live in a moment when the environment is being transformed yes I had dinner about a year ago in Washington seated next to the publisher The Washington Post Katharine Weymouth and I asked her because there were many stories about the Washington Post begin in difficulties now the worry of course to many of us is that the internet has not yet shown itself to be capable of supporting the news gathering investigative project of the kind that great newspapers have supported yes so if the print media darling and the internet fails immediately to replace them what are the prospects if you like yes for one reason why I nearly couldn't make your kind invitation this evening was with last night we had to give party at the white house correspondents during the annual thing press forms too much on the president and the president forms slightly too much on the press and there we all were in that Washington Hilton ballroom and I thought you know it looks thinner every year somehow and I could add to what and Katherine was there she came to thinking the Washington Times which is the only rival to abortion in Washington and which is a paper and by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon of the unification Church at that he's very nearly dead and will be a one newspaper town priestly I think the last year Seattle became a one newspaper town I was astounded by that we have to say said Lewis I think three or four Los Angeles has been one for a bit and the LA Times has gone down faster and further than anyone would have believed where everyone knows a bit of this story I suppose but it's the speed of it which impresses me and that's at the production end if you like that the demand and I teach writing and I've sung as chief journalism and of my students I would say that none now regularly take a newspaper and that's that's more or less it the demographic as we say that's that's a death sentence if it's the habit of picking up a paper and carrying it around with you or take me to the house in the morning he's gone among the young then you've more or less set the clock well there so I used to think what the positive thing is that now if I have a bright young student who's where his promising I don't I can't just limit myself to saying to them look I could probably introduce you to someone in the newsroom in cargo or New York might be I probably get your your clips read you might be able to bypass having to join the newspaper guild or a union or anything like this that you might get a break I consider them look you could you could put up your own site you could publish if you doomed to write your doom to write and you could say okay okay up I'll put it up there and see if it wants to come expose yourself directly and that's been quite encouraging I know some people who've done rather well out of it but here's what I think is the danger it's partly the one you identify DEET opens us to an era of so terrible relativism where everyone's opinion is as good as anyone elses you don't have to earn earn any credibility in a way and pretty soon you'd have noticed your own opinions but your own choice of facts and there wouldn't be a common stock of reference which is by the way had also problem in teaching literature these days very difficult to find a book that everyone has read what do you think do you think that the things like iPad on the Kindle are ways for newspapers to survive yes I mean I think that the only way they can but it won't postpone the web purse burn I don't think people weren't buying the New York Times weren't buying it because they couldn't get it on Kindle will now read it cuz they can get it that way and there's actually an easy proof of that I think I was in them I hate taxi TV don't you yes but one particularly abject thing that happened to me the other day in New York was it was the New York Times ad clearly pitch to the youth market in that fawning way that older marketers talk to young people or their people they imagined to be young and say just get the weekend edition you don't have to sweat through all the news and use it as just it's all about sports and games and music and theater that movies you love it and the Washington Times Washington in Washington Katherine's advertising in on the radio in Washington is exactly the same just take it for a couple of days a week and read the fun stuff yeah think of us as a fuddy-duddy news gathering we're not gonna bore you with lots of stories about Afghanistan or that like that Downers so the defeat has already been experienced if you like it's a shame I was telling someone before but has anyone seen the paper with Michael Keaton great and some reason some a great a great movie I think about the day in the life of the hacked tabloid journalists in New York he's obviously working for the post the three papers are on his table in the morning and his paper headline says your headless body in topless bar and the Daily News says something like you know afford to New York drop dead and the New York Times says signs of swings and moderation in Nepalese elections and he throws the paper to the floor says these pastors would do anything to sell newspapers that's over believe me well on that point Mets we have about fifteen minutes or so so if people have questions they'd like to ask Christopher there's two microphones there and there if you could all use it and well all be really here if you could you go to the microphones and take it adjourn yeah I love free speech but I'm worried about FoxNews their influence they have so many viewers and they lie so much is Jon Stewart enough you know and Colbert how do we deal with them it's it's they just make all the noise in the world yeah I sometimes feel that I'm not as judgmental Evert Fox as I might be because cuz I was brought up in large part of the early part of my life in in London where there's no pretense of objectivity in journalism where you know what you know what you're getting you you look at the newsstands and they're ablaze with different papers that a party oriented that are run by the in the interests of certain proprietors not least among them Keith Rupert Murdoch do I last saw three o'clock this morning by the French Embassy swimming pool the wife is a looking by the way looking by the way says we've got a lot of good years left in it so I don't get shot so easily what what I don't like is is a is a paper or now that that pretends to be objective it is not I think that's much more of a danger I'd like to ask both of you what you think about there's a there's been a relatively recent court case about the Pledge of Allegiance in which the plaintiff was was arguing that it's a semi prayer you know especially the part where it says that under God and trying to discourage and trying to make it you know illegal to to force kids or encourage kids to just say that during school I wondered what you thought about that well I know that I know the case very well and I think mr. noodle who brought it he's at a slight pain in the ass because instead of saying what he should have said which is that the Pledge of Allegiance was written and promulgated and became popular and well-loved word across America in the 1880s written by a socialist who was trying to bring America Society back together after the Civil War I was trying to think of a pledge that anyone in the country could recite whatever their background he went on like that my pledge allegiance to the flag United States of America to the Republic which it stands one nation indivisible justice liberty and justice for always beautiful in the McCarthy years the time of the toad as familiar then the alluded helmet news supported he was objected by some big mouth at a flag Day ceremony at Bacharach well if we're Eisenhower was president and was also present said this pledge could be recited by a child in Moscow word for word so how could you make it so it couldn't be new problem how could we have a pledget couldn't be research must shove in two words where they don't belong destroy the rhythm of the thing and and make it religious put it unto God so what you want to say is no I'm for original intent I'm a strict constructionist I want the pledge back the way it was most be rode with impression that it always had those words in and the atheists are coming to take it out this is stupid but of course it's flat-out unconstitutional to ask a child sailor you may not do that First Amendment is beautifully written if there's no wiggle room in it Congress may make no law respecting an establishment Great Britain is having an election this week and one of the candidates who seems to be doing very well in the Clegg of the Liberal Democrats is a professed atheist if he does very well in that election does that mean something changing in Britain something new that we don't have in this country no England is very different to the United States in this regard when Tony Blair who was who is deeply religious was running for office he his his main kind of flat catcher Alison Noble said openly afterwards that they deliberately played down his religious beliefs because it would lose them votes now anyone to be religious is to be a flake and who would vote for you if that's what you remember when George W Bush was asked early in his presidency if he ever consulted his father now that he was president and he said pointing upwards no because he had another father to whom he would refer now if you were to say that in a British general election he would be run out of town on a rail yes I've always thought that actually what George Julie was saying is I'd rather told you any farther than that but mr. mr. young Mr Clegg as I think of him we assume I intern at the nation magazine and of course I would have hired him if he was a Muslim but I'm glad to know that he still isn't so believer in any thirty book and what someone says is true in fact I could have answered the last gentleman's question by saying this maybe we should just force all Americans to have prayer in the schools because I don't know a quicker way of bringing about the mass production of atheism the young the method certainly the reason for the secularization of British society is the religion is compulsory in English Scottish and Welsh schools it has to be a certain Christian person kind and the Queen is the head of the church as well as the state and the Armed Forces which means in the moment her heart ceases to beat it should never happen but the moment that does happen Prince Charles becomes the head of the Church of England battier Muslim fancier with no taste in women and that's what you get for founding a church on the family values of Henry VIII age but I think it's just not an issue that admittedly is not religious would know wouldn't dream of bringing it up against it no they would rebound on them if they do in the end people will swing back towards the traditional to parties or that the the anti-labour sort of landslide is now gone so far that they're actually going to even worse than the opinion poll suggested but actually we will have a two-party state but Labour Party will be the third party I think it's a three party Society in case uncomfortably within a two-party duopoly and every now and then it it comes out again and it did with Jeremy thought with you remember one point in the 70s and I think a large part of the vote for mr. clay is a course of proportional representation which now has to be discussed seriously Thursday yes yes um I was really sad to hear you say that when the Danes were trying to get a Muslim book for children they didn't go to Muslims and ask how do we do it and that may have prevented the cartoons from happening the cartoon contest and the other thing is all the talk about religion it's really the the extremists the fanatics it's not the mainstream anyone I believe that's causing any difficulties anywhere and I'd like your opinion well the question I mean you what you say sounds dissuasive and I don't know by the way that they didn't go to consult but they must they would have done was animal authorities but the question would be well which ones would those be because they're question number imams in Denmark with the ones who started there about the cartoons are very extreme and they're welcome to use of that word in a second and weren't graduate think allow any discussion of the subject that they did not themselves control so if you went to one Muslim authority of being all you be doing was inviting yourself into a schismatic Rao with progenitor factions of Muslims which would be in a very depressing way to introduce change to school children to the subject that's the first thing the secondly is the word fundamentalist or extreme has the following difficulty for me either mmm there is a word of God or there is not in my opinion there is not but if someone says knew you didn't even know what I think God did speak at Sinai or did speak at the baptism of the Jordan or did intervene to dictate to Czechs the Prophet Muhammad why does that make you fundamentalist and I think it's an extraordinary thing to believe but if you say no I don't really believe that what you are is not not a fundamentalist you're not religious fundamentalism says there is God's word there is revelation there has been revelation atheism is to say there hasn't belief is what that difference it can't be split yeah I think we might even be able to discover a slight difference to Christopher in media here's bring it on here's a I mean maybe it's more parent than real but I think my view is that if people are religious and gain from it satisfaction nourishment solace whatever it is my view is that's none of my business when that comes into the public arena and they and people of religious belief try and force the values of that belief on to me or to the society in which I live then it's my business and I have very strong views about whether religion should be allowed into that arena but in the privacy of one's own home or one's own mind if one gains comfort from a certain set of ideas however cockeyed they might be that I might view is it's not your business or life I couldn't agree more but it's it's not in the nature especially monotheism to let that happen because they they're looking at you going to hell they could they're not allowed to do that they this that can they're suppose to a Demian they're supposed to save you they can't believe you that language might keep saying to them if I thought there was a personal God who took all the trouble to care about me and supervise my movements and and have a tender attitude towards me in general and even promised me that I would not croak I guess I have no idea what it would be like to feel anything so fatuous but I would suppose it would make anyone it would make me happy why doesn't emit it doesn't mean him happy at all the people who say they believe this they can't be happy - I believe it - and that's the cause of the constant cultural metal so no I don't want it why do I even know what they believe so a church which was not militant you think he's not being not really and it wouldn't be it wouldn't be the church Judaism doesn't proselytize except among Jews much anymore yeah well it also also it doesn't say the Messiah has already come it says it has its advantages they're too high yeah my question is about engagement and maybe the role for engagement there's been a lot of discussion about from speech and advocating it and standing up for it but um I live in Woking China and often when artists or musicians writers abroad protest China it does make it harder for people working in the system so I just want to see your thoughts on the balance between engagement and protest I guess what do you keep hearing it must sometimes be true but if everyone kept quiet by a certain country or a certain state and didn't get give its government the impression that foreigners were intervening and so on that then it might make life easier for the local the tamer sort of dissident you know what one is often told that we're always told for example that Iranians gen welcomed support for their efforts from outsiders because they they can then be identified or even criminalized well that's so right again as long as the regime itself stays out of my life but the Iranians won't do that they won't let me think I will I don't care what happens in Iran on the contrary they say they want to export people to kill Salman people to overthrow the democracy of Lebanon people to blow up the Jewish Community Center away no so as we know the names of the people who've been doing this in Tehran and to have an off-the-record nuclear program well I'm sorry and this is not their internal affair and I don't have a single human rights question since you mentioned your domicile on the Zimbabwe with just those three for now you try and get anything done about those a port at North Korea these are pulling really appalling regimes and you find that they're protected by a Chinese guarantee at the United Nations in Sudan one child wants to buy all their oil it's gonna it meantime gives them all their all their weapons you cannot address major human rights drama in the world now without coming against coming up against Chinese power on the air on the wrong side I'm sorry this is not their internal affair that you look at the experience of pen pen American Center I'd say two things every time at Panda has supported a writer in difficulties or arrested whatever in whatever country we have heard back from those writers that it was enormous ly valuable to them to know that their case was being seen by the rest of the world and that they gained great strength and nourishment from the fact that their case was being highlighted sooner certainly in the cases of those writers who have been on the front line to them it has mattered a great deal that their case was was was given prominence no but there's another thing which is if you look at the these so-called awards that paedon gives every year to writers which actually obviously those are writers of jail so the award is a way of highlighting their plight there is an enormously high percentage which i think is somewhere under 90% of those writers being released from jail within a six-month period and it's been encouraging tyranny does not like publicity it is one of the curious weaknesses of tyrants that they want to be liked and if you could show them that they are not like to actually that the world thinks they're because what what they're doing to that writer or those writers it's sometimes easier for them to release those writers and stop getting that kind of bad publicity this is via are experiencing country after country for many many years ago so so I would say about the publicity that on the one hand it gives strength to the good guys and on the other hand it very often discomforts the bad guys so much that they actually change their game yes I was wondering if you could give specific examples of great literary novels that are now being censored Muslim societies and very sympathetic about Satanic Verses children after balawi God dies by the Nile and so forth but is there anything right now and if so would it be as hard that's doing it is it Saudi Arabia is it Iran and could you give the name of the book in the author well the most famous book that is bowdlerized in every single Muslim country is not published unexpurgated in a single Muslim country at this point is the 1001 nights the Arabian life in the Arabian Nights the most famous book in the history of our of literature cannot be published uncensored in any arab country why because it's full of not events there's a lot of sex in the Arabian Nights and oddly there's very little religion you know God doesn't make many of Arabian Nights but men and women having a great deal of sex they a lot of appearances and so there it is only the most famous work in the history of the literature is the one being censored Iran has to authorize the publication of novels by board of censors every year there have been years I don't know if this is one of them but there have been years recently where not a single novel has been approved for publication no novels have been published that low novels were deemed worthy of publication so the censorship is a very extremely it's also remarkably an aspect of under development bits you should look up the arm development report which was produced under the auspices of my friend Clovis Maqsood who used to be the head of the Arab League and a panel of other regional intellectuals and writers on the sheer dearth of literary material known as it was a merely of censorship of the failure to publish or translate Greece translates more books into out of other languages into Greek every year then the whole Arab world does in its entire language so it's just it's matter the unavailability of things that it's cultural starvation rather than singling out of a book for censorship the only book I know about the come straight to my mind because I've just written the introduction to its anniversary edition is Animal Farm of his band in all Muslim countries not just because of the pig so after all if you remember don't come that well out of the book because certainly certainly in Iran where I've been involved in an attempt to get it to get a pirate edition going but possibly smuggle back into Persia it's because it's about a revolution betray so it's much more political okay we're out of time so if you could please ask a quick question if we get really quick answers I'm sorry okay you mentioned vaclav havel earlier who as you know was a playwright before he became the president and I've often wondered what a government composed of writers would look like and if art and politics necessarily has to be independent in a free society so I was just wondering if you think that would necessarily be detrimental and what that would look like mr. mr. president I can just I have called him that when he was president then Plato thought it would be the worst possibility in the Republic he says that would that really would be terrible that'd be the worst kind of tyranny you could picture thoroughly should probably be bad when what examples do we have that could be in the least good encouraging some countries have done very well by making their writers into ambassadors yeah George said Ferris was a brilliant time faster Carlos Fuentes cars Fuentes okay Edwards was great diplomat we had a near miss with Mario Vargas oh yes I had bats LaFave oh I'm not applied to the job and Georgie Conrad was offered the presidency of Hungary after the collapse of communism but but the author of anti-politics the rest are the wonderful books but he said no I think he's product as he thought the first dependent president of Hungary I mean president of independent hungry should not be a Jew rather rather arcane a reservation perhaps of a good one in the set of senses okay well I think I think what these people should be elected I think should really I think on behalf of Penn we have to offer a big vote of thanks to Christopher Hitchens so eloquently stepping into the breach and I think it now falls to me to declare this festival closed

Channel: PEN America

Views: 301,030

Rating: 4.8346772 out of 5

Keywords: PEN, Christopher Hitchens, analysis, discussion, commentary, religion, educational

Id: HBwDmepta7g

Length: 82min 15sec (4935 seconds)

Published: Thu May 06 2010

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