Here is a middle-aged man lying in bed in his black and green striped pyjamas. The bed is a single bed and he is reading a book. On the bedside cupboard is a 1970s Grundig Elite Boy portable radio tuned to The World Tonight. Next to that is a photograph of his 17-year-old son in a cheap frame. His son is looking annoyed with the person holding the camera. Slippers, much stained, rest east–west in parallel alignment beside the bed. On the wall above the man’s head is a framed colonial map of the Nyasaland Protectorate. On the floor, but within easy reach, a pile of books nearly two-feet high. As he reads, he is absentmindedly fingering a place on his chest, high up near the collarbone, where lately a gristly little spot has appeared.
Let us look more closely at the detail, shall we? What is that paperback he is reading? What a lurid cover! Imitation bullet holes and a bloodstained sepia photograph of a man with a perm and a moustache! The title of the book, let us see now, is Escobar: The Inside Story of Pablo Escobar, the World’s Most Powerful Criminal, as told by his brother, Roberto. Under that, in heavy, blood-red type, are the words Drugs. Guns. Money. Power. Oh, dear. Why would anyone want to read about that dreadful man? He was a Robin Hood figure, did I hear someone say? Adored by the poor of Medellin? He gave truckloads of Christmas presents to their children and built homes for their parents? And you think that exculpates him, do you, for all the misery of cocaine addiction he was responsible for in the United States and in Europe? I think you need to give your moral compass a sharp tap, comrade, if you think that.
Let us now go on to examine some of the other titles in the pile of books beside him. What’s that thick black one? Can anybody see? Another Hitler biography? Our records show he’s read all of them. Which one is it? The Fest? Hmm. That’s bad. Fest not only denies as ridiculous the interpretation that Hitler was merely the personification of evil, but he also allows him some positive human qualities.
What else has he got down there? Bull Fever by Ken Tynan? A book celebrating a lifetime spent enjoying public spectacles of ritualised cruelty to animals, written by a sadistic pervert and a smoker. I see. I think a pattern is beginning to emerge here; a pattern which ought to concern us. What else is there? What’s that Acts of Worship? Don’t tell me he’s gone religious again. A book of short stories? Translated from the Japanese. By Yukio Mishima. Yukio Mishima, ladies and gentlemen — a subtle and sophisticated political writer and one of Japan’s most notorious fascists.
What’s he doing now? Oh, he’s turning up the volume on the radio to enjoy ‘Sailing By’, Radio 4’s closing signature tune. Look at the expression of rapture on his silly face as he whistles along. Presumably, the sentimental tune is transporting the reactionary swine back to the dark age of the 1950s.
Well, I think we’ve all seen enough. After all we’ve done for this individual since the revolution in the way of protecting him, educating him and feeding him with virtually free food. After all our laws passed specifically designed to make him a morally better person! After all that state-sponsored propaganda fostering and encouraging ideas of equality, tolerance, multiculturalism, non-violence, community, secularism and anti-nationalism! After all our efforts to enlighten him — even to buy him off — here he is, sitting up in bed in black and green pyjamas reading filth.
If he were white working class, we could of course simply forget about him. They are of no account. We expect this from them. There is even a school of revolutionary thought that would encourage them to indulge in pornography of every kind so that they become passive, enervated and malleable. But, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Clarke — Clarke with an ‘e’, please note — is classic lower middle class, the very section of society our planners, thinkers and propagandists have been most concerned to bring on board. This is very disheartening, I must say.
The only positive thought one can take from this dismal scene is that his generation, the last one raised in the dark age, is starting already to die off. Let’s hope he hasn’t passed any of his regressive Neanderthal attitudes on to that son of his. Perhaps someone could take a note to have this followed up. I see from the notes that in a few days’ time he is going to see a specialist about that gristly spot he keeps touching. Let’s hope it’s nothing benign, eh, shall we, ladies and gentlemen?
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