Johann Hari

I was having a conversation with a very interesting and intelligent friend earlier. In reference to my recent interview with the Hitch, he said, “I’m not sure what you wanted from him. You say you wish he was still on the left - but what exactly is it you wanted him to sign up to in order to still belong to that tribe? Other than endorsing Kerry over Bush, what is he supposed to say?”

It made me think a little about my own political beliefs. Like Hitch, I believe that Islamic fundamentalism is a depraved threat to human rights, on a par both morally and intellectually with fascism.

I differ with Hitch on two points. Firstly, I do not believe that the Bush method is sufficient for – or very effective at – battling Islamic fundamentalism. There are many occasions when Islamic fundamentalists can only be defeated by force – in Afghanistan, for example – and we need to support those fights when the Bush administration enters into them. But force alone is not sufficient; there needs to be a Marshall Plan for the Arab world (precisely the opposite of the economic misery spread at the moment by the USA’s proxies, the IMF and World Bank) and a determined effort to tackle legitimate Muslim grievances. So far the force has been forthcoming – but nothing else. If you want a real fight against Islamofascism, you have to want much better than Bush.

My second disagreement is that I am not “a single issue voter”, as Hitch describes himself. The fight against Islamofascism is massive and extremely important; and so are many other fghts. I would put each of these (many of which Hitch once backed but now neglects) on a moral par with the battle agsint jihadism:

- The fight against climate change
- The fight against the continuing existence and potential use of nuclear weapons

(I put these two first because unless they are dealt with, there might not be any human beings left to deal with all the other issues; the following fights are in no particular order)

- The fight to extend democracy to peoples remaining under tyranny or in anarchic failed states
- The fight to ensure that democracy is meaningful, and not hollowed out by corporations, the rich, religious groups or other vested interests
- The fight for equality for gay people
- The fight for equality for women
- The fight to end the disastrous ‘War on Drugs’
- The fight to end the spiritual tyranny of ‘religion’, better labeled organized superstition, and to ensure its replacement with Enlightenment values
- The fight against poverty, which breaks down into a fight:
(a) against the extreme and undemocratic neo-liberalism imposed on much of the world’s poor by the IMF and World Bank; there is no freedom in a sweat-shop
(b) against the remaining scraps of Stalinism that repress all markets, as in North Korea
(c) The fight for social democracy – which means markets tempered by extensive corporate regulation, a welfare state, redistributive taxation, and social investment in education and public health

On every single one of these issues – with the (very partial) exception of ending tyranny – the current US administration is on the wrong side. For most of his career, the Hitch would have acknowledged that – and I guess I wanted to hear him acknowledge it still.

It's because Hitch is so great that I wish he was still engaged with these fights.