Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,397
#1
Article by Simon Jenkins. Food for thought?
A cascade of poppies falls from ‘weeping windows’ across Britain. A 50-metre drawing of Wilfred Owen appears in the sand, and is washed away by the sea in which he swam. A silhouetted soldier stands on the white cliffs of Dover. A thousand pumpkins ‘recall’ an antisubmarine airship. You can pretend you are in no-man’s-land in Dorset, or ‘clearing up the immense horrors of trench warfare’ in Dulwich.
We have Great War proms, Great War bake-ins, Great War fashion shows, even Great War Countryfile. Blackadder has been summoned back to the colours. The Royal Mail issues a ‘classic, prestige and presentation’ pack of stamps.
In 2012 David Cameron committed an enormous £50 million to commemorate the first world war, with millions more promised from the Lottery, all of which has been funnelled into the never-ending 14–18 NOW programme. The purpose, he said, was ‘to honour those who served, to remember those who died, and to ensure that the lessons learned live with us for ever’. A reported 150 artists, performers and film-makers rushed to the call of this latter-day Kitchener. Their country needed them. Cameron did not suggest which lessons we might learn. At the time he was struggling to go to war in Syria.
I remain puzzled at the state so extravagantly recalling an event long past. No Britons can recall the ‘11th hour of the 11th day’, and a dwindling number even recall the second world war, to which Remembrance Day tries half-heartedly to shift attention. Yet each year, village memorials see ever more exotic poppies, bugled ‘Last Posts’, minute silences and frozen Boy Scouts. It is an exercise in military nostalgia, a Christianised version of a Sealed Knot re-enactment.
Hence the repetition in sermons, speeches and editorials of George Santayana’s maxim that ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’. The fact is that we do not remember the past. We rely on historians to recall it. For the first world war, we gaze at the paintings of Christopher Nevinson, Wyndham Lewis and the Nash brothers, and recite the poetry of Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon. We ‘experience’ the trenches through Peter Jackson’s recolouring of archive footage in They Shall Not Grow Old. But to convert this into a nationalisation of personal grief can only drench history in emotion.
This kind of commemoration is bad for us, and bad for art. Nothing is more guaranteed to sink a commission than being burdened by the need to respond to war. A blank canvas is scary enough without the added demand to sum up the suffering of millions of people brutally murdered in a senseless conflict. Reaching for a grand sweeping gesture, something ‘profound’, is too tempting in this situation. Tempting but disqualifying. The search for wishy-washy universals soaks up all the energy and bromides usually result. Out the window goes the slow, steady, subtle accumulation of specifics that makes great art great. I am not sure what lessons are really learned from poppies gushing from towers up and down the land. And the point of Mark Wallinger’s contribution to the centenary, ‘One World’, a football made to look like the globe? ‘It’s time to stop fighting and start playing,’ explained Wallinger helpfully.
In this national group hug, honest criticism is impossible. We’re ‘embarrassed by the historical facts’, as Craig Raine once put it. We turn away from sober analysis and focus instead on the righteousness of the subject matter and message, letting our hearts do the talking rather than our ears or eyes or brains. Works about war are harder to criticise but much easier to sell, market, fund, get brownie points for. It’s virtue-signalling in sound, paint and performance.
It’s why when large sums of money are going begging, it is hard to know when the art stops and being taken for a ride begins. Art best captures inner emotions rather than collective ones. Most of the sponsored works are ‘performances’ and, if good, I am sure they can horrify. But merely capturing the horror of a distant event is banal. The frequent use of ‘raising awareness’ and ‘learning lessons’ suggests an empty apology for an absence of aesthetic quality. It is an invitation to bad art.
Much of this is aimed at children. We must explain to them, as they are commanded to role-play the trenches, why ‘our heroes did not die in vain’. But such acting requires a villain. The idea of just war requires an unjust enemy, to be reminded of his evil year after year ad infinitum. The official edict that we must not blame the Germans is pure pretence. As a recent letter to the Times put it, we need not celebrate beating the Germans, just celebrate beating ‘an aggressive, undemocratic, anti-Semitic warrior nation led by the dictatorial and unstable Kaiser Wilhelm II’. A German friend of mine pleads that his country surely learned that lesson in 1945 — and chiefly from the Russians and Americans. Why can Britain alone never get over it?
The idea of our needing to be reminded of either of the two German wars is ridiculous. British culture wallows in these wars. I am told that there are some 8,000 books available in English on the second world war. Of 800 books in print on Hitler, 80 per cent are by British writers, with dozens more appearing each year. No bestseller list is without at least one war book. Films and documentaries are never off the airwaves. The fixation with the Bosch, the Hun and the Nazi, from the games industry to the Sun newspaper, is pathological. Nor need we worry about children forgetting. The GCSE history website apparently gets three times more hits for Hitler than for the Tudors.
As for learning lessons, how on earth can we tell that £50 million was well spent? The 2014 centenary of the war’s outbreak saw eloquent and disturbing books from Margaret MacMillan, Christopher Clark, Norman Stone, Max Hastings and many others. They were awash in lessons, alongside which Cameron’s subsidised art has been banal. Yet when the historian Niall Ferguson suggested the first world war was ‘the biggest error in history’, he was shouted down as unpatriotic. How dare a historian imply that ‘they died in vain’?
What I recall from those books is not what is remembered but how unbalanced the memory is. Its rituals blot out mistakes and consequences. One lesson of history, as Bismarck said, is that no one learns from history. H.G. Wells claimed that the first world war was so horrific it had to be ‘the war to end war’. This bred an assumption that its repetition was impossible. Which in turn fuelled France’s obsessive vengeance, and a handling of reparations that virtually ensured the rise of Hitler. The West learned nothing from this, witness the handling of Russia by Nato and the EU after 1989, ensuring the rise of a Putin. Remembering is not learning.
All history is selective and therefore vulnerable to bias, none more so than a nation’s recollection of war. When I ask schoolchildren who won the Hundred Years War with France, almost all of them say England. There is nothing uniquely Soviet about fake history. It is all around us. The more staged and synthetic the remembrance, the more it loses veracity and context.
The American ethicist David Rieff has rightly concluded that ‘public memory is never innocent’. Nationalised history serves a national interest. ‘The conceit of collective memory,’ says Rieff, ‘far from ensuring justice, is a formula for unending grievance and vendetta.’ As Nelson Mandela languished in prison, he understood this danger, and he later bravely struggled to avoid it, much to South Africa’s benefit. Few imitate him.
War histories are not exercises in exhumed memory. They are an immensely delicate task of selecting what should be remembered from what is best forgotten, of choosing between grievance and forgiveness, enmity and reconciliation. Most of Europe’s wars have resulted from too much memory, not too little. I shall certainly ponder the war, but with the help of historians, not Cameron’s £50 million bonanza. I will then try the impossible: to remember what to forget.
TheThinWhiteDuke, howard mcsweeney1 and Brian Dixon like this
"The world is still a weird place, despite my efforts to make clear and perfect sense of it".
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
#2
never , never ever to forget what those boys done for us.
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Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,931
#3
"The idea of our needing to be reminded of either of the two German wars is ridiculous. British culture wallows in these wars. I am told that there are some 8,000 books available in English on the second world war. Of 800 books in print on Hitler, 80 per cent are by British writers, with dozens more appearing each year. No bestseller list is without at least one war book. Films and documentaries are never off the airwaves. The fixation with the Bosch, the Hun and the Nazi, from the games industry to the Sun newspaper, is pathological. Nor need we worry about children forgetting. The GCSE history website apparently gets three times more hits for Hitler than for the Tudors."
It could also be argued that 7,200 books are not about Hitler and I would not expect many books about him to be written by those that have cause to remember he invaded their country or that he was head of their country.
As for the GCSE comment children are taught about WW2 in their history lessons unlike when I was at school where we learnt about the Tudors with no mention of WW2.
We should always remember those who have died or been injured while serving their country but without the emphasis on wars fought long ago.
Children need to be taught and reminded that politicians cause wars while it is the ordinary person who pay the price.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Sue Nicholas- Location: river
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 6,025
#4
Jan very true.We do well to remember and time to move on.Every day something deadful.
occurs.Its time politicians learnt.War. Is not to be glorifed.I have often told people during the Second World War we had an Italian POW live with us .He did not want to go to war no more than countless of British soldiers.I remember when he left us .He joined several other POWs who were going back home to be reunited with their families. I stood there a little girl of seven waving good bye .He was my friend .
soon after I was reunited with my Uncle who had been a POW.
These people who pose in front of war memorials make me feel sad.
Tomorrow I shall wear a poppy and probably sing Jerusalem.I will be at Dover College and reflect on my sadness of being widowed young.My values in life is to make this world a better place.
So many problems in this world .Wars still go on.We can’t even get Brexit right.We have homeless people and still the need for food banks .
Time to move on .
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#5
A big turn off for me is the bit at the Cenotaph where politicians who send people to war stand at the front without realising the irony, then we have people competing to come up with the best poppy display.
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Sue Nicholas- Location: river
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 6,025
#6
Quite right Howard.
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,397
#7
Meanwhile my youngest daughter tells me that she can't work in college today as they 'have police snipers on the roof'. ( The RCA overlooks the Royal Albert Hall where tonight's Festival of Remembrance comes from).
"The world is still a weird place, despite my efforts to make clear and perfect sense of it".
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Guest 2547- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
#8
Probably unknown to most of you but Reg Meuross is a brilliant singer/songwriter broadly in the folk tradition. Today brings to mind one of my favourite songs of his. So poignant and again looking at things from a different perspective. I'm sure Reg will forgive me for cutting and pasting from his own site. The song is well worth a listen musically in addition to the heart-rending lyrics.
I wrote this song 'And Jesus Wept' about Harry Farr - a WW1 Soldier who was shot for 'desertion' and finally received a pardon 90 years after his death. His trial had lasted 20 minutes. His family had always argued that Harry was suffering from shell shock and should have been hospitalised or sent home but instead was executed for cowardice.
the moon is slowly sinking the final moon i’ll see
my head is tired of thinking there’s just the rosary
an empty place at table and my mother’s eyes are wet
the hand of god came down last night
and jesus wept
if i’d been a captain they would have sent me home
but i am just a private condemned to die alone
the firing squad’s been drinking it’s a dawn they won’t forget
the hand of god came down last night
and jesus wept
sound the drum for their young precious years
but no glory will shine on my poor mother’s tears
a soldier’s good for fighting that’s what my father said
and if the man’s not fighting he might as well be dead
shame has drawn the curtains and the neighbours won’t forget
the hand of god came down last night
and jesus wept
i got the shakes on tuesday i cannot go i said
they sent me down on wednesday by thursday i was dead
i fought for king and country 2 years without regret
the hand of god came down last night
and jesus wept
we all fall in the cause of the free
when the sun sets on england will you think of me?
in unmarked graves in flanders lie 300 boys and men
killed un-loved and frightened by those they thought were friends
a nation’s guilty secret is this generation’s debt
the hand of god came down last night
and jesus wept
regmeuross.com[/I]
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Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,931
#9
I think Ray's post rather puts the problem that the Captain's daughter had into one of little consequence.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,397
#10
Jan, my daughter had no 'problem' (she [U]is[/U] in college today and has just pinged me a WhatsApp from there!)
I was flagging up the problem in my country.
How long have acts of remembrance had to be covered by armed troops?
How long have serving members of our armed forces been advised not to wear their uniform outside barracks?
How long have we been unwilling as a country to offer asylum to a persecuted Christian because of 'concerns of unrest and attacks'?
A strange state of 'peace' as we await the latest outrage on our streets ..........................
'War' is not always fought between uniformed armies and nation states.
John Buckley likes this
"The world is still a weird place, despite my efforts to make clear and perfect sense of it".
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,948
#11
I see where this debate comes from
But there is a real danger that it could be forgotten
if we took this away
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Bob Whysman
- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 1,948
#12
Armed personnel have been deployed for many years captain in these circumstances, but without the advertising that some see fit to provide.
Back in the 50’s military personnel flying home in civilian aircraft over neutral countries, Switzerland in my experience, had to wear civilian clothes too.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2329682/Ban-soldiers-wearing-uniforms-public-lifted-concern-sent-message-terrorists-winning.htmlDo nothing and nothing happens.
Guest 2547- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
#13
There were no armed troops covering Dover's acts of remembrance today as far as I could see.
However, conservative estimates are that there are 13,000 former members of our armed forces suffering from PTSD and receiving little or no professional help. Many of them are homeless. Over 100 years ago we treated victims of PTSD as cowards and were happy to murder our own people under such circumstances, as so poignantly described in Reg's wonderful song. Jan has made a good point. It's all a question of priorities and attitude.
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Guest 2547- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
#14
For the sake of completeness on this day, I've attached below a live version of Reg playing "And Jesus Wept". I hope a few of you will take the trouble to give it a listen. Even after all the times I've listened to it, it still has the power to reduce me almost to tears. I hope you all have an edifying Armistice Day.
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Paul Watkins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 9 Nov 2011
- Posts: 2,226
#15
Sad no real coverage of of yesterday’s Remembrance service ‘s.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,931
#16
Paul Watkins wrote:Sad no real coverage of of yesterday’s Remembrance service ‘s.
Maybe like myself they have seen comments and pictures elsewhere. I watched so much excellent coverage on TV from all over the country, while Dover did virtually nothing except for the castle which looked stunning.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
#17
its a shame that there was no tv coverage of dover, how thoughtless, unlike where I was yesterday you couldent help tripping over tv cameras. but mind you there was a crowd of over 30000 plus there yesterday. where you ask, ypres of course.
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Paul Watkins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 9 Nov 2011
- Posts: 2,226
#18
Exceptional Brian. You have my respect.
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Guest 1792- Registered: 2 Jul 2016
- Posts: 111
#19
Unfortunately I wasn’t there I haven’t been able to attend this past couple of yrs ,Simply because DTC do not make any provisions for invisible disabilities,I sat on a bench couple of yrs bk & was told to move by Burton & Brivio when I explained they said tough. If u can’t stand then don’t come considering my husband is a veteran & I was a Soldiers wife for 18 yrs I found it insulting,Now I watch it Royal Cenotaph Least they get the timings right
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#20
I was wondering who would be the first to use Rememberance Sunday as an excuse to take a cheap shot at the town council. How can provision be made for a hidden disability?