So long, Christopher Hitchens. His name has always fascinated. "Carrier of Christ", patron saint of travellers everywhere. It's so ironic that one of the world's most outspoken atheists should have carried this so very Christ-ian name around the world for 62 years, through war zones and tyrannical regimes, through corridors of journalism and power, through debates with politicians and religious proselytizers, through pubs and pulpits and finally through a painfully slow demise. In an even more ironic and personal way he has made "Christ" more real for some of us. Thanks to Christopher Hitchens, instead of the image of the 'son of god' and founder of Christianity, the "Christ" that he "carried" around with him seems as close to an atheist as it was possible to get in the Middle East 2000 years ago, a sometimes reckless, radical thinker and courageous polemicist who took on both the "chosen people" Pharisee puppets and their Roman puppet masters to the point where they saw the grave danger he represented to their power structures which drew their legitimacy from irrational religious faith. They did him in of course but his core message, speaking truth to power, was so appealing and revolutionary that it had to be distorted, manipulated and cosmetically transformed to the point where it could still legitimize the power of fascists everywhere; the most cynical, successful makeover ever perpetrated on a truth-teller. In these days of financial meltdowns, religious fanaticism and climate change where the same business-as-usual power structures still invoke the old tried and true, god-inspired legitimacy, "the last refuge of scoundrels", Chistopher Hitchens was a voice of reason and it will be very difficult indeed to distort his message. He had his faults, not least his support for the war in Iraq, but he will be sorely missed. The first bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label I ever bought just a few weeks ago will be opened tonight in his honour.
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