Feature
Stings like a slug
by Matt Nippert
Christopher Hitchens meets his match.
In the red corner: Christopher “The Hitch” Hitchens, former editor of left-wing magazine the Nation, but now a gung-ho ally of the neocons on Iraq. And in the blue corner: “Gorgeous” George Galloway, the Scottish brawler who, in May, singlehandedly dispatched an entire committee of Republican senators who had accused him of taking bribes from Saddam Hussein.
The thousand spectators who gathered at the arena in New York last week came expecting no quarter. No belt was at stake in this debate over Iraq, but there were still readership spoils to be won, with Mr Galloway Goes to Washington up against Blood, Class and Empire.
Pre-bout talk in the foyer had Hitchens by a knockout, but only if he stayed sober. When he turned up with bloodshot eyes and a grey, sweat-streaked face, the hot money must have moved the way of Galloway, who earlier this year called Hitchens a “drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay”. The Vanity Fair columnist retorted that the British MP was a “real thug”.
Not since George Foreman and Muhammad Ali clashed in Zaire has a match-up of two heavyweights been so eagerly awaited. It was the flamethrower versus the icepick: a Parliament-trained Galloway delivering rhetorical haymakers and Hitchens the writer preferring dry, precise, cerebral jabs.
Seats at Baruch College’s Mason Hall had sold out quickly, but progress into the auditorium was torturously slow. Metal detectors at the ready, the New York Police Department slowed access by insisting on bag searches and pat-downs. Passions were high; both speakers had been the subject of death threats.
Beginning cleanly, Hitchens calmly laid out the rationale for the war. Saddam Hussein was gone, soon to be judged in court for his crimes. “I know there are some people that don’t take delight in this,” said Hitchens, “but I do.”
It didn’t take long, however, for low blows to be thrown. Barely 20 minutes in, Hitchens lashed Galloway over his Senate appearance: “To insult all those who tried to ask him questions with the most violent, cheap, guttersnipe abuse, I find disgraceful!” Galloway, looking dapper in a grey suit, cracked his knuckles suggestively.
As befits a major heavyweight bout, celebrities had the prize ringside seats. Looking forward to the verbal fisticuffs, Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen said he was “especially interested to see Hitchens defend his about-face”. He wasn’t disappointed: Galloway struck with a vicious left hook by bringing up Hitchens’s opposition to the 1991 Gulf war and saying, “What you have witnessed since then is something unique in natural history: the first-ever metamorphosis from a butterfly back into a slug.”
The crowd were in the mood for blood, and blood they got. “You once wrote like an angel,” spat Galloway at his opponent, “but you’re now working for the devil, and for this I damn you!”
To which Hitchens countered: “I didn’t think this debate was about who could be the rudest, but I’m happy to concede to you on that.”
Although clearly the favourite of New York’s anti-war crowd, Galloway inexplicably threw away his home advantage late in the bout.
“You may believe those planes on September 11 came out of a clear blue sky,” he said. “I believe they came out of a swamp of hatred created by us.” Loud booing and shouts of “You disgust me!” drowned out his attempts to continue.
Hitchens, waiting cannily for the baying to subside, quipped to great applause: “Mr Galloway, you picked the wrong city to say that in, and arguably the wrong month as well.”
For a serious “debate” very little of substance was discussed, each pugilist preferring to hammer the other’s credibility. But cogent exchange wasn’t really the point of the performance. Post-bout, speaking on Britain’s Radio 4, Hitchens said of Galloway: “When I turned my head – which I tried not to do – it was like looking straight into the piggy eyes of fascism.”
Galloway, meanwhile, was eyeing another purse. “I think it’s amazing that so many people came and so many people were turned away, so much interest in two British guys debating Iraq in New York … maybe we’ll have to take this show to the West Coast.”
