Talking to author David Cronin about “Balfour’s Shadow” – Middle East

I would argue that examining the Middle East from my adopted home of Brussels is more logical than it may seem at first. The two books I have written about Palestine are really about Europe’s responsibility for the situation. I have spent years reporting on the European Union and became a little burnt out from doing so. But I still follow EU politics closely, particularly the development of EU foreign policy.

TF: I believe you hail from Ireland, David? Can you please tell us which Irish writers and books you enjoyed reading while in your formative years? And which other authors might have helped to instill in you the strong sense of activism which drives you today?

DC: To be honest, I only really started reading political books in my twenties and thirties. I am 46 now. During my adolescence – if that’s what you mean by formative years – I was more interested in music than literature. Some of the Irish singers that influenced me were very political and I guess you could argue that they were poets in some respects. People like the folk singer Christy Moore. My favourite singer is Shane MacGowan of The Pogues. I remember reading a book of his lyrics in my teens and was blown away by them. MacGowan really captured the experiences of the Irish community in London. There is a great energy and a dark humour to his work.

The best political writers I have read are Naomi Klein, Ilan Pappe, Arundhati Roy, John Pilger and Edward Said.

TF: Can you please share with us which other long-form projects you’re working on at the moment, the theme of your next book and in which ‘theatre of action’ it might be based in?

DC: I have not started working on my next book yet. I promised my family that I would not rush into another major project once ‘Balfour’s Shadow’ was completed.

TF: Tony Blair was a Middle East peace envoy from 2007 to 2015. How do you think history will judge his time in that role, and do you think it would be an interesting book to write?

DC: It is obscene, to put it quite politely, that a man who destroyed Iraq along with his pal George Bush could be described as a ‘peace envoy’. We should bear in mind, too, that Blair was appointed a ‘peace envoy’ on the same day that he stepped down as Prime Minister in 2007. 

David Cronin

The truth is that historians tend to be quite conservative and pro-establishment – with some exceptions, of course. Though history ought to judge Blair very harshly, it would not surprise me if historians try to sanitise his record. That is what tends to happen. I have recently read a number of books about Arthur Balfour. Some of them present Balfour as a great intellectual and statesman. His role in dispossessing the Palestinians has been downplayed or, in some cases, treated as a mere footnote.

TF: Thank you so much, David, for taking the time to talk with TripFiction about this important new book, and about your writing life, in such an interesting and honest way. Good luck with your next project….whenever it might be, and wherever it might take you and the reader.