In Defense of Douglas Murray

Douglas Kear Murray is a man who has fallen out of time. In a time that demands of males a constant air of self-depreciation – in dressing sense, speech, manner - the 44-year-old blue-eyed and auburn-haired British journalist with the signature rolled-up sleeves appears almost too sophisticated, too confident, and classy to be “made for these times”, as Brian Wilson sung. But also what he says and – pace his slight speech impediment – how he says it takes me back into how people were before the internet, or at least how I remember them.

I remember a time when people said things they genuinely meant. This was especially true of the last generation of politicians, i.e. the profession that demanded political solutions to political problems, unlike today, where politician impersonators handle political problems technologically. Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Jacques Chirac, and even the recently deceased Jacques Delors were awful politicians, but at least they were politicians. Unlike the current political class, who needs to watch a popular docudrama on ITV to know which opinion to follow, they stood up to their beliefs, even if only their ilk profited from them. Which seems largely self-understood to me.

The fact that Social Media has wreaked havoc on the modern social fabric to turn it into the hell of post-modern narcissist self-mirroring has been acknowledged widely and become the topic of many Humanities Masters theses. What is less acknowledged is that, counterfactually, Twitter’s grand gesture of “personal expression” and the “marketplace of ideas” precisely allows the individual to fade into the background. This also concerns their sexuality. Men are becoming increasingly emasculated, no matter how many Raw Egg Nationalists think of themselves as particularly masculine. No man secure of his masculinity feels the need to tan his testicles and talk about it on Twitter. The effect of Twitter is that no one, after a certain number of “followers”, says what he or she thinks. People say what has been pre-chewed and pre-digested by other people they regard as “allies” in whatever cause they promote, from vegan diets for pets, to a “ceasefire” in the current war between Israel and Hamas.

That Douglas Murray who is not even a Jew genuinely cares so little about what other people think of him makes him unique in a landscape of opinion soldiers for the cause. But his most fascinating trait is his cool and debonair fearlessness and his sense of self-respect – which often comes across as arrogant (he is Douglas Murray, after all). Put any German political commentator on TV together with some Islamist thought leader, and the German will tuck his tail between his legs. He will melt away in anticipation for the Islamist to pat him on the back or be nice to him, even if they have been pitched as opponents. Not so Douglas Murray. Murray is a pro in public debates with Islamist thought leaders, whether on Piers Morgan’s Uncensored show (the format of which would be unthinkable in German-speaking Europe), or on open panels. Or not quite. In 2009, a public debate in London’s Conway Hall between Murray and Islamist Anjem Choudary, leader of the banned militant group Al-Muhajiroun, on the subject of Sharia law and British law, had to be cancelled because members of Al-Muhajiron acting as security guards tried to segregate men and women at the entrance to the event hall. I’m not much of a reader of Asterix, but I can picture the scene only as a comic strip – black clad bearded guys standing at the entrance to Conway Hall, murmuring “women right, men left” at the inflow of attendees, while they shove people gently into line. And vividly at that.

Or take Murray’s remarkably calm and unshaken reaction to the confrontation with Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Canadian-Palestinian physician, and Abdullah Al Andalusi, the co-founder of the Muslim Debate Initiative at Piers Morgan’s show a while ago. Piers first interviewed his studio guests about NHS doctor Wahid Asif Shaida, also known as Abdul Wahid, apparently a member of the very recently banned Hizb Ut-Tahrir terror militia, who on Morgan’s show denied the 10/7 atrocities (I wonder what Piers expected. Empathy?) Both the Muslim Debater and the “Canadian-Palestinian” doctor were fired up in defending the NHS employee – the first in a British, the second in a broken English accent – and casually sprinkled their comments with illustrative propaganda – e.g., saying that the devastation of Gaza was greater than that of Germany in the Second World War. Murray who was later connected from outside the studio (for security concerns?) would have none of it. Neither would the friends of the Caliphate who kept interrupting Murray. “I’m not going to keep being talked over by these Islamist blowhards”, said Murray, stared hard into the camera, and continued to fire back some truth bullets at the two Jihad promoters who increasingly resembled a pair of excited, and headless, chickens (again for some reason, Asterix comes to mind).

I would give a lot for someone like Douglas Murray in the German political landscape. But we’ve only got Eckhard von Hirschhausen, a German physician, comedian (or so he says), and political commentator with the charm of a podiatrist. Interestingly, some German journalist friends have only discovered Douglas Murray recently, writing homages to his stance in the war on Israel. But what they do not quite get is that in order to be as fearless, unimpressed and smug like Douglas Murray, you have to be British. And gay. Preferably both. In many ways, Murray is the Morrissey of political commentary, if probably the better writer of prose. I’m saying this without ever intending to read any of Douglas Murray’s books, which I know will only disappoint me.

With Morrissey, though, Murray not only shares his political views, but also the love for poetry. But Philip Larkin, not Keats and Yeats are on Douglas’s side, while Wilde is on Stephen's. This shows just how much a man of the past Murray is. Hearing him read out the poem took me back to my teen dream years, in which every line of every poem I’ve read or song I’ve heard related to something, making my life more meaningful. Admirers of poetry share this thing. We also share a love of particular music, colours, fabrics, movies, and scents. And we are special about them.

And here is where the story ends. This essay is titled “In defense of Douglas Murray” because even people I personally admire hate Douglas Murray in varying degrees. You probably all have your reasons. But anyone who knows even only a little bit about psychology should know that this only warms me more to the object of my admiration. And anyone who knows me knows that I don’t care.

Cover photo: Saint Etienne -  Nothing Can Stop Us video still (1991)