Martin Bell: from national service to Malawi

Through Gates of Fire: A Journey into World Disorder. Martin Bell. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]16.99. 360 pages. ISBN 0-297-84748-1.

Reading this third instalment in a trilogy of memoir and comment, I experienced the unpleasant sensation of seeing a hero stumble. Although there are intermittently effective bursts of fire, Mr Bell's ammunition is all too often spent on random targets. Subtitled 'A Journey into World Disorder', this often feels more like a journey into narrative disorder, more painful for the affecting, involving, important things the author has to tell us.

The book revisits a dazzling string of episodes from over three decades, including National Service, through some of the best war journalism ever, his stint as Tatton M.P., and more recently his roving role as UNICEF Special Representative for Humanitarian Emergencies. In amongst the memories, Mr Bell offers his thoughts on the 'dumbing down' of the media, the creeping blight of 'spin', and the gradual hollowing of souls of many soldiers. On the other hand, he holds out a hope for the triumph of decency against moral mediocrity, for instance Dr. Richard Taylor, another Independent M.P. pushing for an effective N.H.S.

Martin Bell has long since distinguished himself as an enemy of cant and cruelty. That moral honesty and precision can be found here; his rage at an Allied officer during the Yugoslav War claiming a city is not besieged by Serb forces, but 'tactically encircled'; his railing against Bush's 'Chicken Hawks' evading Vietnam service, gladly sending troops to their deaths during the Second Gulf War. His language is unjaded. He talks of Croats and Muslims working side by side to rebuild their shattered country: 'Their image of war is a house on fire, and their image of peace is a house with flowers outside it'. Else-where post-war moral confusion and graft are indicated perfectly: 'Corruption stalks after war like a bright shadow'.

What perhaps lets this book down is a melee within Bell's psyche, between the watchful, clubbable establishment man (National Service in Intelligence, Cambridge First, glittering BBC career) and the sharp newshound giving us raw truth. This sometimes leads to two things: a prolix explanation of actions which may now seem odd (for instance his early positive reports on Vietnam) that sounds like special pleading. One instance of this is a passage in which he reminisces about his National Service with the 'steady Suffolks'; whilst aware that war brutalizes all it embraces, Martin Bell retains a deep respect for soldiers at their most noble. The paradox is that his guilty liking allows an insight that anti-militarists can only dream of. But the inherent haziness that goes with it, when unchecked, can be unbalancing.

The writing on the author's UNICEF role is a case in point of this schizoid mixture of the posturing and the pure. He talks of a sense of guilt on comprehending the scale of the Malawi famine: 'quite common I believe among professional aid workers (which I was not)'. Mr Bell seems to be stuck on the horns of wanting to be modest, but also wanting to be seen to do his bit. The effect is irritating. Yet a few pages later we hear the unvarnished truth; the rhetorical question of there being any hope for the famine-struck people: '... if the world had the will to save them. I was no longer sure that it had'. This sends you away to look into your heart.

At the beginning of In Harm's Way Martin Bell wrote, 'This is my first and probably my only book'. We now have his rather confused third. One hopes that Mr Bell will write another, drawing more heavily on the pared down, pitiless journalistic abilities for which he is rightly admired.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Contemporary Review Company Ltd.
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