Although I can empathise with Craig Murray's conclusion that the world will be a better place without Christopher Hitchens, it is difficult to share the sentiments fully. Indeed, while British journalism might be "full of people of the same generation who have lurched from the Trotskyist far left to a crazed neo-con agenda with no intervening period of sanity" , it has to be added that this too is hardly a phenomena that is unique to British journalism. Or what about Horst Mahler?:
"He once was an extreme-left militant, a founding member of the Red Army Faction. Subsequently he became a Maoist and later shifted to the extreme-right. He was for a time a member of the National Democratic Party of Germany. He has been repeatedly convicted of Volksverhetzung ("incitement of popular hatred") and Holocaust denial and is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence."
No Craig, Mr Hitchen's death at best reminds us of the"up popes another one" in answer to the rhetorical question of what happens when the pope dies? In the great scheme of things the "Christophers" and "Horsts" of this world do not matter one iota and it remains essential that we remain focused on the social forces that produce them. Time to demystify Mr Hitchens and move on and in moving on we will discover that it is indeed our being in society that determines our consciousnesses. There was nothing unique in Mr Hitchen's thought and there is certainly nothing unique in Mr Mahler's.
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