‘The Blair Up There’: A Report on the Blair-Hitchens debate – Nick Dion

Last Friday, I had the privilege of attending a sold out debate between former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and renowned New Atheist Christopher Hitchens at Toronto’s Roy Thompson Hall. One of several such debates organised across North America in the last few weeks by Blair’s Faith Foundation – his post-retirement project – the evening promised to be a rollicking good time and a chance to observe how we can think about religion outside the university. So after fighting my way through a few dozen protesters with their chants of ‘Tony Blair, war criminal’ and passing the metal detection test – security was steeper than I had expected! – I settled in to my seat.

The motion for the debate read as follows: “Religion is a force for good in the world.” Each presenter was given time for opening statements, which were followed by two rounds of rebuttals and finally questions from the audience of about 2700. I had missed this on my way in, but participants had a chance to vote on the motion before the debate, so that the organisers could track how the arguments changed audience opinion. While I was expecting to be in a largely Blair-sympathetic audience, I was quickly proven wrong. Initial numbers showed that 22% of people agreed that religion was a force for good in the world, 57% disagreed, and 21% were undecided. 75% of those polled also suggested that their opinions could be influenced by the debate.

Arguments on both sides were fairly predictable, as Hitchens kept hammering at examples of religious groups doing wrong – terrorist attacks, evangelical intolerance, genocide, and so on – while Blair presented opposing cases of religious groups doing good. The two categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ were used uncritically, as was the label of religion. In a way, both participants agreed on much – that neither one of their positions was absolute, for example. Even they had to recognise, albeit implicitly, that the proposal up for debate was deeply flawed; the obvious answer was “sometimes religion works for good, and sometimes it’s a source for terrible evil.” Both presenters agreed on this, I think. So while Hitchens pointed to the immorality of religious beliefs, which discriminate and ‘other’ along imaginary lines, which denigrate women and homosexuals, he did not want to suggest that religion would die out; he knew that it wouldn’t, arguing instead that ‘more secularism would simply be a good thing’ and that religions need to give up their claims to supernatural authority and enter debate with alternative positions on proper terms. The obvious reply from Blair: ‘If we can agree that religion isn’t going to die out, why not work on reforming it, by encouraging the good in religion?’ How one would do so, however, is unclear.

Blair came closest to thinking critically about the category of religion when he pointed out that none of the things that Hitchens criticised about religion were unique to it. Don’t some political beliefs make ‘good people do bad things’ just like religious beliefs do? But instead of following this road, Blair fell back on an essentialisation of religion, suggesting that ‘real religion’ is a force for good in a person’s life, thereby implying that those religious actions that Hitchens named were some kind of ‘false’ religion, making a messy picture all too clean. Blair did thank Hitchens for his positions, and described the value that challenges to one’s faith can have. Faith should always be reflexive faith, then.

What can I say in terms of my general impressions? I’ve already mentioned that the motion itself was deeply flawed. I was deeply impressed with Hitchens, who quickly won the audience’s affection. If a debate is won by the charisma and humour of a given presenter moreso than by his arguments – and I have no doubt that it is – Hitchens was the clear winner. I had heard terrible things about Hitchens ‘the man’ going into the debate: that he was an ogre, every bit as closed minded and belligerent as the worst of religious fundamentalists. I was thus pleasantly surprised; he was funny, entertaining and respectful, all the while defending his positions, as the debate would have him do. He garnered audience applause on several occasions. Those of us who follow politics knew what to expect of Blair, and he was every bit the diplomat in his statements.

One closing remark: in a city as multicultural as Toronto, it was all the more surprising to see an overwhelmingly Caucasian audience. I have a number of hunches about this, but none that I’d venture yet as explanations. Interpret it as you will.

The final result? Hitchens 68%, Blair 32%, with no undecided option provided. The two, then, essentially split the undecided voters from the opening vote. For those interested, I voted for Hitchens, simply because he put on the better show, though my own opinions lie closer to his than Blair’s regardless. Rest assured though – my vote was quickly counterbalanced by my colleague, also in attendance, who couldn’t believe that I would encourage Hitchens in any way.