Part of my note to a much admired friend, David Arronovitch, who writes well and thoughtfully (even though we disagree deeply about the war in Iraq) for The Times in London.
... By the way, I was a little surprised to read, in your second Indian article, puzzlement at the varying weight of responses you anticipate on the different topics of Kashmir, on the one hand, and the Middle East on the other. Perhaps one needs to be raised in a Christian family, as I was, to be not surprised in any way, as you seemed to be, by the conclusion that Christ has something to do with it all. Well, of course, he has. It's such an important component it's almost taken for granted, like the sun rising, by people born into the fold.
One does not need to believe (as I do not) to grow up with the sense that the Holy Land is at the centre of the known universe. I imbibed with my mother's milk (almost literally) the fundamental pillar of Christian wisdom that the greatest event since Creation itself, bar none, took place near a hill outside of Jerusalem when a tomb was discovered to be empty and a man was proclaimed the Son of God, not just a prophet or a charismatic leader or an iconoclastic heretic, but actually the Lord made flesh; a truth we learned everywhere and at all times in the Presbyterian Scotland I grew up in: There, by the Sea of Galilee, walked one dimension of the Holy Trinity. The fact that I am not persuaded that Jesus of Nazareth was anything but a man makes no difference to the ease with which one can identify with, relate to or be engaged / repelled by trouble on or near the soil that is for us, metaphorically speaking of course, as well trodden as the streets of Glasgow's south and east where I was born and raised. Rightly or wrongly (probably the latter) anywhere else, Kashmir in the case you cite, struggles to be anything other than not-in-Kansas-Toto to the likes of me raised in a completely ordinary setting under Christian hegemony. And that's before one pauses to reflect on the truly bizarre and scary people who seek to hasten the rapture by fulfilling what they see as the prophecies of the Book of Revelation, wherein, of course, one finds a pointer to a place called Armageddon. What chance in conventional or received wisdom does poor old Kashmir have, or East Timor, against a place long ago foretold as the location of the last battle between God and Satan?
None of which was part of my intention to articulate when I hit the 'new message' button. I had just finished reading your latest piece in The Times. Your points are well made. Professor Tulloch sounds too simplistic, perhaps even too close to events, to offer insightful thought. And your observation about the distinction between the watery rock and the hard place of dear old Odysseus is valid. However (there had to be a however, didn't there?) ...
The President of Iran is a man I like to believe I would oppose and the regime he heads-up is not one I would endorse in any way, for reasons you cite. He's neither the Hitler of David Hare's powerful imagination, however, nor a true successor to the historical Fuhrer. I fear that if our leaders were to plan based on that miscalculation (and praise the Lord for Jack Straw and Condoleezza Rice that they have not... one pauses to weigh that arresting thought before moving on) those pursuing routes to Armageddon as both the literal and metaphoric place of reckoning would be closer to achieving their mad, mad goals. I concede, of course, that it's easier for me to believe the above than, let's say, a Jewish mother of three living in Israel. The man's a zealot, yes, and dangerous but he's not about to invade a neighbour as the first stage of a plan to establish a new world order. Make that mistake and we're doomed.
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