I
woke up this morning, and saw yet more coverage of long ago wars. A
whole day of TV dedicated to the D-Day landings of 70 years ago.
Union Jacks all over my social media feeds, and newspaper front
pages. A wholesale massacre of roughly 12000 people, though the
counts vary depending on the source you use. Like a lot of people
(not all, but a lot) I was mildly upset by the continuing
glorification of war, and given that this is all just before the
proper kick off of the first world war centenary remembrances, I
thought 'this is going to be a very long four years'. I said
something along the lines of “you didn't get stuff like this about
the charge of the light brigade fifty odd years ago” to my wife,
and then wondered how long the Germans were going to have to keep
apologising, and feeling vague guilt over the whole thing, as, if I
were a German over here at the moment, watching all the tributes to
the allied dead (and a lot of the facebook statuses I saw this
morning were explicit that they were only remembering the allied
dead) I would be feeling pretty shitty, despite it being 2
generations ago, and not my fault at all. I posted a facebook status
to that effect, and that was where the trouble started.
Not
as much trouble as I have been running into by other political
posting recently, because every rebuttal I got, I countered with the
terribly diplomatic reply that I was not getting into it, as it is a
very emotive subject, I know people who were directly involved, and
people indirectly involved, and these are people I love and respect,
and do not want to upset. Particularly my friends in the military,
who, while not involved in D-Day itself, are understandably very much
on the “we will remember them no matter what, don't you bring your
pacifist lefty shit into it today please Dave you hippy twat!” side
of things. And I love them for that, and decided to keep quiet. But
then I saw a promotion for a D-Day celebration, and I figured a
celebration of a massacre is really going a bit far and I thought I'd
write a blog on it, and set out my hippy, pacifist, lefty agenda, and
did a load of research. I was not prepared for what I found out, and
I am less angry on others behalf than I started out.
Let
me say at this point that I am not patriotic in anyway, I think
national borders are arbitrary lines drawn on a map, and people are
the same wherever they are, and utterly different despite being from
the same place, all at the same time. Thus the many wars for
territory fought over the last few millennia seem like childish
playground squabbles that the bigger boys have managed to get their
smaller friends to take all the hits for. Yet for some reason, people
persist in this idea of a fixed national identity, no such thing I'm
afraid, we are all individual and very different. This is a good
thing.
I
began thinking from the perspective of the ordinary German citizen
today, including their veterans, and decided that they were no more
guilty of any crimes than the British soldiers. All of them were told
that what they were doing was for King and country (or fuhrer and
country if you like) and nobody needs it thrown in their faces that
they were very much being fed lies and propaganda. Though had they
been on the winning side, would it have been different? Given that it
has since come to light that in 1944 a large faction of the Nazi
party were planning to overthrow Hitler, would the Reich have gone as
far as set out in Mein Kampf? Would they have stopped the systematic
slaughter of Jews, Gypsies, and political dissidents? Or would they
have operated in the same way as the Soviet Union did, and Red China
still does. We will never know. As to whether there was another way
to finish the war other than D-Day, history again suggests not.
Though as mentioned, the Reich may have torn itself apart, but allied
forces had no way of knowing that.
This
however, was not intended to be a what if? History lesson, although
it is a bit. I then decided to have a go with the double standard
argument, since Hitler's dream of a thousand year Reich, and
lebensraum for the German people was possibly based on various
Empires. Particularly the British Empire, on which the Sun never sets
(sorry, it's a commonwealth now, is that a better thing?) The war
that put the coffin nails in the great empires, world war one, had
left Germany with nothing but huge reparations to pay, and their
lands split up amongst the other empires. The German people were not
likely to take it for long, had it not been Hitler, some other leader
would have done something, the second world war was inevitable from
the shambles that was the treaty of Versailles. Which is a shame, as
had things been dealt with better in 1918, the world would be a
better place today, and we wouldn't have had to have the replay. I
would like to think that the end of the second world war marks the
end of aggressive imperialism in the world, but it's too early to say
yet.
and
here
That's
how wrong I was, you can remember massacres with dignity.
At
which point I started to think that these anniversary remembrances
are not so crass after all. I looked at the numbers, and there were
at least 9000 (up to 11000) killed from the “winning” side,
against, between 500 and 3000 (depending on your source) on the
losing side. Apparently it is a question of percentages when you're
playing the game of war, check Rourke's Drift for another force that
were hopelessly outnumbered, but pulled through (although they had a
significant advantage). And then at lunchtime, I put the TV on, and
saw some of the guys who were there telling their stories. And there
are none so humble as these chaps, they have tears in their eyes
still as they tell of the hell they had to live through, mostly with
a few gags thrown in, and a couple of chuckles. I have nothing but
respect for those who were sent off to die as cannon fodder in the
political machinations of their leaders. It would be nice to think
this wouldn't happen any more, but sadly we still convince our young
men that they are fighting for the good of all, when they are mostly
fighting for corporate interests. And we send them off to die in
foreign lands, while ironically, increasing the chances of domestic
terrorism with the same decision.
I
suspect it is the twenty four hour news culture that makes it all
that little bit grating for me. Were it a tasteful service on the
beaches for the veterans and their families from all sides, and then
everyone shakes hands, tells a few stories and has a nice day out I
would doubtless have had no problems at all. But a whole day of BBC1
given over to a huge world-wide media circus, with world leaders and
their wives in nice dresses making moving speeches seems horrendously
over blown. Grief porn if you like. Hours and hours of moving
montages with rousing music, and Huw Edwards smiling benignly through
the whole thing, if you want to bury bad news, do it today please.
Constantly being told we must be grateful for the world we live in
because so many died for it is slightly patronising, particularly
coming from the ruling classes who are systematically trying to
dismantle everything that generation achieved for us. By all means
have small tasteful remembrance services, but these TV spectaculars
are tasteless, crass and frankly insulting to the dead, who were more
likely fighting in the hopes that they wouldn't get killed rather
than for any future generations.
This
TV coverage showed wide-eyed children being shown the landing
beaches, and eager to learn about the great sacrifices made that day
to keep us all free. I sincerely hope that this is true, and kids
today have learned from the past. I remember myself and my brother on
beaches in France with war time fortifications on them, and rather
than being eager to learn of great sacrifices, we made machine gun
noises at each other and shouted “Die you Nazi bastard!” while
playing our merry war games. But it was the 80s, and we had been
raised on a steady diet of Victor, Eagle, and Commando comics, with a
sprinkling of war movies like a Bridge too Far, the Longest Day, the
Great Escape, the Dam-busters, and Bridge over the River Kwai. All
fine pieces of art, but not unpartisan, and faintly jingoistic. I
hope that the current generation of kids are brought up in a more
tolerant way, but I suspect they play at terrorists and still pretend
to die while one of them shouts “ack-ack-ack-ack-ack” and “Die
you Muslim bastard” at them. And with the world cup fast
approaching, I would like the playground to be devoid of the chant
“Two world wars and one world cup, doo da, doo da” but I will
probably be disappointed. After all, the England supporters band
still play the theme from the Great Escape at matches, I'd like to
think it's because it's a jolly rousing tune, but I suspect I am
wrong there as well.
A
chap posted this on a Billy Bragg thread earlier, which kind of sums
up how many of us feel when we see the many and various union jack
and poppy tinged posts about the massacres on social media,
particularly when linked to odious groups like Britain First, and I
repeat it here for you, as it helped me to get through it all,
“While
we commemorate the brave soldiers from all the allied countries,
including the commonwealth, who fought on D-Day, let’s also take a
moment to remember what they were fighting for. It was not for
‘patriotism’, Britain or anti-Europeanism. It was a fight against
Fascism and all it entails.
When ‘Britain First’, the EDL, the
BNP, UKIP or any of the racist and bigoted factions try and hijack
that fight for their own political agenda it makes me sick. The
sacrifice that those courageous men made was in response to an evil
man who exploited antipathy towards Jews, Gypsies, Ethnic minorities,
Gays, Unions and the Unemployed to control the population and who
offered hatred as a solution to his country’s problems. These
groups wish to peddle the same ultra-right ideology and the fact that
they choose to do so by exploiting the very men who fought against
such prejudice and intolerance is shameful. WW2 was described as the
war to end all wars. Sadly humans still continue to destroy each
other in armed conflicts the world over but Europe, at least, has
lived without war since. If we return to days of obsessive and
subjective patriotism, hatred of other races and colours, intolerance
of religious or sexual persuasion and the demonization of the
unemployed, the poor and the needy then we truly do dishonour every
man that lost his life on those beaches on that day 70 years ago. Say
NO to Fascism – that’s how I will commemorate them.”
Now
I heartily endorse this (although I think he means western Europe,
the eastern half has not been so lucky) but with all the propaganda
being thrown around by both sides back in the war, I don't think any
of us can truly second guess the motives behind each and every
soldier fighting. Every man there fought for his own personal
reasons, most were probably just trying to make sure their homes and
families were safe. Some of them may have just been doing it because
that was what they felt they should do, after all, they weren't
cowards. A lot of them may have had no idea why they were there, and
suddenly found themselves in a world of bullets, shells, blood and
death with no idea how to cope with it, and were fighting just to
stay alive. Had I been alive then, I would almost certainly have been
a conscientious objector, and ostracised for my dangerous strain of
pacifism. I worry today that those right wing groups who are just
“saying what we're all thinking” are employing the very same hate
tactics that the National Socialist Party of Germany did 80 years
ago. After all, I doubt all their supporters thought they were
racists either, but those Jews eh? Can't trust them, you know what
they're like. Trying to infiltrate our schools with their Sharia
laws....
Anyhow,
I wanted to remember the people involved in the D-Day landings, who
shouldn't have had to be there in the first place. Moved around like
puppets by a ruling class (on both sides) desperately clinging to
empires that no longer existed. If only Hitler had written back to
Gandhi.
I
leave you with a story from my friend Devlin Butler about his father
who was on the beaches of Normandy 70 years ago, it brought a tear to
my eye.
On
this day in history;
The
Normandy beach invasion began and a certain SGT Arthur William Butler
(My Dad) and his friends and squad members took to the beach in the
first wave of the Normandy invasion. My dad never really spoke about
the war or that day much the only thing he really said was "it
was hell".
We
all know roughly what happened we know of the heavy machine gun fire
the countless losses etc. but on this day while most focus on the
loss and devastation, I can not help but smile as I remember one of
the only things my father ever told me about that day, it is not the
graphic detail or the sheer horror knowing about four thousand allied
troops died this day that makes me smile, only a completely deranged
head case would find that even remotely amusing, but I will explain
what does.
So,
picture the scene, before even getting to the beach under heavy
mortar fire, then hitting the beach still under mortar fire but now
within range of the heavy machine guns, friends, comrades gunned down
or blown to bits right next to you, everyone trying to get through
the water which is now pretty much nothing but blood and bodies to
find a defensible spot to take cover behind and get their bearings,
somehow my father managed to do that.
So
there he is pinned down behind a rock by machine gun fire in his
words "The army makes a man of you and puts things into
perspective, I thought this was the day I was going to die". So
with this in mind, my father who was always very down to earth a
complete realist decided in his wisdom that if this was the day he
was going to die he was not going to die hungry, and in his webbing
he had secured two (I forget if they were pork or lamb off hand)
chops and a hard boiled egg, when he told me this I said "but
dad? isn't webbing for ammunition etc.?" he said "yes, but
there is always room for food" (my dad liked his food lol) and
so he proceeded to eat them right there behind that rock being shot
at by the German army.
And
so, he finished his little picnic (as I call it) and continued to
fight on, he survived that day and counted himself fortunate for the
rest of his life, he died a few years ago of a brain tumour, pretty
much the last thing my mom, myself or anyone who knew him even
considered would be the end of him, his final words to me were "Do
not cry, I have no regrets"
When
people think about war (those who have never experienced it and
hopefully never will) the first thoughts are usually the loss of
lives, the bravery and heroism etc., and while these are things that
are worth thinking about, also remember, all those who fought died
were normal people the same as you or I. If you were in that
situation, thinking this was your last day on earth surviving all
that had come before and knowing you had to charge into the mouth of
hell would you have had enough foresight to have packed something to
eat? again in my fathers words "To die is one thing, to die in
the service of your country is expected, but to die hungry is
something else completely".
R.I.P.
All of those who gave their lives that day and throughout the whole
of WW2
R.I.P. SGT Arthur William Butler (my hero in so many ways,
my father)
