Christmas 1914. On the Western front, British and German soldiers face each other off across the barbed wire and the frozen, blood-caked mud and stiff, decomposing bodies of dead comrades. This was warfare as Europe had not witnessed it before: grim, static, total, hellish.
For reasons nobody has ever adequately explained, on this Christmas Day, 1914, a truce was felt necessary and soldiers from each side rose from their positions and enemy met enemy between the trenches in No-Man’s Land and played a game of football.
For a few euphoric hours, soldiers became laughing, playing, carousing men and war was forgotten. But peace had not broken out and fences had not been mended. The game over, the officers led their troops back to their respective lines and the carnage went on and on and on.
There was a faint echo of this legend last night at the ‘Big Brother Awards’ hosted by Privacy International and to which I had been invited by fellow blogger Tom Burroughes. I did not know quite what to expect, but I am customarily on hand to lend such support as I can muster in the battle against Big Brother.
However, as I entered the debating chamber in the London School of Economics, my internal geiger-counter screamed off the scale. It was being bombarded with reds. My hackles never let me down and, boy, were they up. The place was wall-to-wall dreadlocks, canvas knapsacks and sandals complimented by a troop of students in ‘Boycott Esso Oil’ T-shirts and George Bush rubber face-masks.
I was being choked by Chomsky, I could feel the Fisk and smell the Sontag. If I stayed one minute longer I would be pickled in Pilger. I broke out in a feverish sweat and panic set in but, before I could leave a Tom-and-Jerry style hole in the LSE wall, I spotted Tom and, then, to my further bug-eyed surprise, fellow arch-capitalist Tim Evans. And not only was he attending but he was actually reading the nominations!! Just what on earth was going on here?
Further staggering revelations followed when I found out that yet another Libertarian, Malcolm Hutty was there and, in fact, it was his company, Internet Vision, which was co-sponsoring the event together with, wait for it, GreenNet.org!! This was Matter vs. Anti-Matter. Why hadn’t the Universe evaporated in a great, cosmic bang?
Before I could splutter further, the ceremony began and we all settled, a little uneasily, into our seats. We could sense their force and they could sense ours. Somehow, though, the Universe remained stable and the evening was conducted amidst an atmosphere that was appreciative and cordial though far from joyous.
My worst fears were allayed when it became clear that the agenda was being steadfastly adhered to. Privacy was the issue and the sole issue and just about every ‘golden boot’ for its grievous infringement went to HM Government and its agencies. Even I could not suppress a loud whoop when a special ‘boot’ went to the Department of Education and Skills for its ghoulish plans to draw up a clandestine national database for every schoolchild in the country.
Undoubtedly the strangest moment in the evening came when the committee announced that it had been unanimous in wishing to bestow its ‘Freedom Fighter’ award on The Daily Telegraph for its ‘Free Country’ campaign. It was like watching Mullah Omar step up to accept a gong from the B’nai Brith. A crackle of electricity went round the room but, despite some isolated heckles, the recipients were warmly applauded.
When the ceremony was over they all drifted away a little dazed and light-headed. They felt like an audience who had just seen a dazzling magic show and they know that the magic isn’t real but just how did he make that tiger disappear? The Bush-baiters, now unmasked, trooped out again a little sheepishly. It was not the anti-globo ruckus that they (or I) had been expecting.
You know for sure you are living in interesting times when the kind of people whose most prized possession is a bust of Lenin gather together with the followers of Adam Smith and all agree that privacy is important and the state is the biggest threat to it. Interesting and also significant because if my otherwise trenchant ideological foes think that privacy is important then it is to be hoped that they have asked themselves why privacy is important. And if they have, could they possibly come to any conclusion other than the ownership of self and the sovereignty of the individual? It takes questions like that to configure the circuit-boards of the mind into just the right order necessary to illuminate a line of flashing bulbs that light the way to freedom.
If that happens than last night’s ceremony was a mini-milestone in the evolution of political ideas.
On the other hand, it may just have been a Christmas truce between the trenches in No-Man’s Land.
