There are some people who can catch your attention with their vast knowledge and sharp wit, but only a few can use words to vividly depict the tales, characters, thoughts, and scenes of the lives of the greatest and worst of men. These are the people who can challenge religious, social and political beliefs.

With the death of the controversial writer Christopher Hitchens, the American and European cultural scenes have lost one of their most revered characters. The pages of Western magazines such as “Vanity Fair”, “The Nation”, “The Atlantic”, and “The New Statesman” – the latter where Hitchens began his journalism career in 1973, and where his final article also appeared – have all lost a peerless writer.

At this time, Cairo’s squares are full of confrontations between youths and the military establishment, in an absurd series of events. Yet, the death of Hitchens, who lived two-thirds of his life as a “revolutionary”, before later inclining towards the political right-wing whilst still opposing religious and conservative moralities, may be of great significance to the present-day angry generation in the Arab streets. This generation is now taking its anger out on ordinary soldiers, whose only duty is to obey orders to maintain the state’s infrastructure, institutions and stability. It is necessary to talk about Hitchens here, for the European and Arab left-wing cannot ignore the death of a character who, until the end of the 1990s, remained a left-wing icon. He was a model of support for revolutions and oppressed nations from Kurdistan to Burma, Chile and even the Palestinian Cause, a subject which saw Hitchens, together with Edward Said, co-edit the collection of essays “Blaming the Victims” in 2011.

Shortly before his death, Hitchens wrote an article entitled “What I Don’t See at the Revolution”, in which he argued that the Western world’s celebration of the popular uprisings across the Arab world, and the comparisons to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and “Third Wave Democracy” across Eastern Europe, were exaggerated. Hitchens said: “Mubarak asked to be thought of as a ‘father,’ and found that ‘his’ people wanted to be orphans. This really is a new language: the language of civil society, in which the Arab world is almost completely unlettered and unversed. Moreover, while the old body may be racked with pangs, and even attended by quite a few would-be midwives, it’s very difficult to find the pulse of the embryo.” (Vanity Fair, April 2011).

Such a sceptical stance towards the results of the “Arab Spring” is very significant; particularly as it was adopted by a cultural character who for over three decades was a prominent left-wing and revolutionary icon, and whose opinions and arguments have been widely quoted in the Arab world. Yet now it seems that left-wing liberal intellectuals no longer believe in Hitchens’ arguments, particularly after he was divorced from the “left-wing” scene in the US, after advocating the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Over the past three decades, challenging ideas and individuals that were prominent in public life, Hitchens wrote about Henry Kissinger, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, George Orwell and President Bill Clinton, even Mother Theresa was not safe from his criticism. However, what makes Hitchens an important figure in the present decade is his effort to disprove certain left-wing arguments that prevailed throughout the media discourse in several European and Arab capital cities. In his writings, Hitchens exposed contradictory stances and the selective use of morality by intellectuals who were among his colleagues, and who were at the forefront of the political scene. Such intellectuals had long attacked “dictatorial regimes”, and always sided with opposition powers and revolutionaries, but at the same time, they remained silent about the opposition’s mistakes, or their intellectual and behavioural violations, under the pretext that highlighting these would only serve the interests of the tyrants. Those intellectuals often rejected any talk about the selfish nature of such ideological opposition parties and groups, whether communists, socialists, Baathists or Islamists, claiming that what was important was to stand up to the “power” represented by the ruling regimes, whether in the West or the East.

You may agree or disagree with Hitchens, but you cannot ignore the proficiency and eloquence of his writing, or his personal friendships with figures such as Martin Amis, Richard Dawkins, Salman Rushdi, Kanan Makiya, and even the actor Sean Bean. Hitchens was a revolutionary British journalist who could not bear to see the Conservatives, led by Margaret Thatcher, come to power, and so he opted to move to America. It was not long before he became a prominent voice for the “cultural left-wing” there, alongside Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal and others.

However, perhaps the most significant friendship in Hitchens’ history was his acquaintance with the American critic of Palestinian decent Edward Said, whom he met during a conference in Cyprus in 1976. This relationship influenced Hitchens’ interests to the extent that he became deeply attached to the Palestinian cause, and became close to many of the region’s nationalist and left-wing intellectuals, who in the 1970s transformed either into Islamists or liberals, but were always inclined to the left of the political establishment. The relationship yielded numerous books and articles, but when Hitchens decided to side with the American majority following the 11 September attacks, an estrangement occurred. Since then, Hitchens has supported the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, in line with his stance opposing military dictatorships and advocating the liberation of the people. Yet, his choices ultimately led to his expulsion from the left-wing movement, and his articles in “The Nation” magazine were stopped.

Nevertheless, Hitchens continued to celebrate Edward Said’s writings, and his memoir “Hitch 22” (2010) included a chapter entitled “Edward Said in Light and Shade (and Saul) “, in which he highlighted his impressions of Said’s cultural and intellectual impact upon him. He wrote about Said’s encyclopaedic knowledge of English literature, and his esteemed taste in classical music, which he could play proficiently on the piano. Hitchens went on to say that Said would have been excelled in literature or music, had he not been involved in the Palestinian cause, which according to Hitchens, caused Said to become immersed in the muddy game of politics, an art which he was not fluent in. He saw the world only “through the Palestinian cause”, says Hitchens.

In his memoir, Hitchens writes: “I remember Edward once surprising me by saying, and apropos of nothing: ‘Do you know something I have never done in my political career? I have never publicly criticized the Soviet Union. It’s not that I terribly sympathize with them or anything—it’s just that the Soviets have never done anything to harm me, or us.’” On another occasion, Hitchens said that Said was angry when Kanan Makiya wrote an article in “The Nation” magazine about Saddam Hussein’s “dictatorial” regime in Iraq, because he [Said] disagreed with the Iraqi opposition. Hitchens said “he [Said] almost overdid the ambassadorial aspect if you ask me, being always just too faultlessly dressed and spiffily turned out.” However, Edward Said’s attempts to become an international symbol for the Palestinian cause were hampered first and foremost by the Camp David Accords. Although he was a member of the Palestinian Constituent Assembly, and a close associate of Arafat, for whom he wrote a glowing profile in “Interview” magazine in the 1980s, Said eventually became separated from the peace process following the Oslo Agreement in 1993.

The importance of the Hitchens example is that it can help us understand the Arab liberal or left-wing’s way of thinking and acting. This left-wing is engaging in exaggerated clashes with regimes, and is always creating climates and pretexts for civil strife, as was the case this year with the Arab Spring events. However, the left-wing is also ideological, and does not have a practical project for the political transition, because it is fundamentally against institutions, as they represent power. The left-wing is not compatible with realistic economic conditions, as it objects to free trade and the growth of the private sector. Most importantly, some of its key figures are in fact preoccupied with their own personal agendas, as well as the struggle between aspirations and the social reality.

Edward Said struggled against Arafat’s Oslo Accords, but in the end the Palestinian elections were won by the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot Hamas. Similarly, Kanan extensively criticised the Baathist party in Iraq, but the regime has since been inherited by the Dawa Party and the Sadrists. Now, all our public squares are filled with the advocates of the Arab Spring, and nevertheless the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists have been victorious in the elections in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen.

Those who advocated “Arab Spring” – some of whom have retreated today – were courageous and enthusiastic in claiming to have played a key role in overthrowing the regimes, and yet they were defeated by their first real test, the elections. This is because they do not actually represent the concerns or demands of the people who they have revolted and rebelled on behalf of!