Day of organized state hypocrisy and propaganda
By Michael Faulkner – November 22, 2009
On Sunday November 8th the annual ceremony at the
cenotaph in Whitehall to commemorate the fallen of 1914-18, 1939-45 and all the
subsequent wars in which millions have died,
proceeded this year with even more unctuous hypocrisy than usual from the media
commentators covering the event. With the now obligatory poppies conspicuously
displayed, the great and the good solemnly presented themselves. The prime minister,
past prime ministers, opposition leaders, queen and consort all played their
allotted parts as thousands of decorated veterans of wars, distant and current,
marched past to remind the nation of the sacrifices so many have made for their
country over the past ninety-one years. In the past it was always said that
they “gave their lives for King and Country”, or “Queen and Country” as the
case may have been. The BBC’s David Dimbleby, in tones eerily reminiscent of
his sycophantically monarchist father who covered such events more than fifty
years ago, reminded viewers who didn’t need reminding, that sacrifices are
still being made. Two hundred and thirty British soldiers have now been killed
in Afghanistan, we were told. No mention of course of the uncounted thousands
of Afghans who have also been killed, most of them civilians - or of more than
one million Iraqis. We were also reminded that this year, for the first time, no
veterans of the First World War took part in the ceremony. The last three
survivors of that bloodletting died earlier this year. The oldest of these,
Harry Patch, who lived to be 108, remarked after last year’s ceremony that the
event had become “just show-business” and that “war is organized murder and
nothing else.” His words were not
repeated during the official proceedings this year.
On November 11th the great and the good gathered
again for another commemoration in Westminster Abbey at which the Queen laid a
wreath of poppies on the tomb of the unknown warrior. This was Remembrance Day,
when, at the eleventh hour a two minutes’ silence is supposed to be observed
throughout the land. For those who voluntarily observe this ritual, what,
exactly is being remembered?
This year the event has been promoted more assiduously than
ever. A few years ago a TV newscaster was severely criticized for appearing on
the screen without a poppy in his lapel. This year the poppy appears to be de
rigueur. The implication is that refusal to wear it or to observe the two
minutes’ silence is disrespectful to those who died “for their country”, or
“for us”, and denotes either ignorance or lack of patriotism. Actually the
ritualized ceremonies serve primarily to perpetuate a semi-mystical respect for
the military and militarism and, far from educating new generations to resist
war and warmongering, actually romanticize and promote war as a noble and
necessary sacrifice. Of course, everyone knows that the First World War was
supposed to have been a war to end wars. That is something to be remembered.
But, the fact that remembering the war and the lesson it was supposed to have
taught, did not prevent further wars, is seldom seriously considered by the
guardians of the ceremonial ritual. Amongst the solemn faces present at the
Cenotaph appeared that of Tony Blair. Nearly seven years ago he dismissed as
irrelevant the two million people who marched through London to protest against
the illegal war he was about to unleash on Iraq. His successor insists that the
immoral and un-winnable war in Afghanistan must continue to be fought and that
therefore increasing numbers of British soldiers will unfortunately have to
die. The anti-war movement in Britain is made up of people who have not been
taken in by the lies and propaganda concocted to justify the invasions of Iraq
and Afghanistan. A large majority of the people of this country now opposes
both those wars. Support for the Afghan war is declining by the week. The
flag-waving jingoism and sentimental references to “our lads”, promoted by the
war-mongering Murdoch press has not been able to check the decline.
Those in government and the media who promote “Remembrance
Day” while prosecuting and defending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have a
vested interest in erasing historical memory and understanding. The realities of Britain’s imperial
wars in Afghanistan during the nineteenth century are not mentioned. Likewise the
fate suffered by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1970s after an eight
year war against the Western-backed mujahideen. So, if remembering those who
died in the First World War is to have any meaning beyond feelings of sadness at their deaths and
horror at the manner in which they died, we need to ask the question “remembering
for what purpose?” Very few people are alive today who remember that war.
Unfortunately the teaching of history in this country leaves a great deal to be
desired. An event of world-shattering importance, the consequences of which
resonated throughout the last century, means little or nothing to most younger
people. Astonishingly, factual errors about the war can still find their way
into serious television programs. The supposedly well-informed writer-presenter
of a series on modern Britain - (Andrew Marr’s The Making of Modern Britain.
BBC2) - concluded the episode on the First World War, broadcast on November 11th,
with the claim that on November 11th 1918 “Germany formally
surrendered.” This is more than a trivial error. Germany did not surrender but
pressed for an armistice which came into effect on November 11th.
The army was certainly facing inevitable defeat and the generals knew it. The
fact that they had not formally surrendered but pressed the government to seek
an armistice, enabled Hindenburg, Ludendorff and the nationalists to claim
later that the social-democratic politicians who had assumed power after the
Kaiser’s abdication and been forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles, had “stabbed the German army in the
back.” The myth that the army could have carried on fighting and won the war
was the springboard that eventually enabled Hitler to come to power.
Of course, all this was a long time ago. But historical
truth must be defended against all attempts to obliterate it and history must
be defended against the heritage industry’s attempts to promote romantic myths
in its place. There will always be serious debate about the causes, course and
consequences of the First World War. The horrors of industrialized slaughter in
the trenches of the Western Front cannot be denied, even though attempts are
still made to exonerate those who sent men over the top to their deaths in
their hundreds of thousands. In remembering we must also question. The facts
must be interpreted. At the time,
the ruling classes in all the combatant nations fell back on convenient myths
and crude propaganda. Each side claimed to be fighting a gallant defensive war
against fiendish aggressors. In Germany, even the Social Democrats called on
the workers to defend the fatherland against the reactionary Tsarist autocracy.
British workers were mobilized against the predatory “Hun”. The Russian workers and peasants were
called to the defense of Mother Russia. Everywhere most people were temporarily
swept along on a tide of xenophobic nationalism. They were called upon to fight
and die for their countries.
As was argued in an earlier Letter from the UK, the most
powerful antidote to the “defense of democracy” arguments in support of the
First World War is to be found in the theory of the imperialist war. The ruling
classes of the European “Great Powers” had from the late nineteenth century
divided the world between them. The arms race that had intensified from the
1890s was preparing them for an armed conflict to re-divide the world. Europe
had become a powder-keg which only required the fuse to be lit. The most
consistent opponents of the impending imperialist war were the socialists, who,
in their pre-war congresses called upon the workers to refuse to allow
themselves to become cannon-fodder. Their voices were drowned out by the
nationalist hysteria of August 1918.
When recalling this, no memory evokes their passionate
hostility to the war more powerfully than the eloquent words of the
Polish-Jewish leader of the German working class movement, Rosa Luxemburg. This
is what she said:
“Imperialist bestiality has been let loose to devastate the
fields of Europe, and there is one incidental accompaniment for which the
‘cultured world’ has neither heart nor conscience – the mass slaughter of
the European proletariat….It is our hope, our flesh and blood, which is falling
in swathes like corn under the sickle. The finest, the most intelligent, the
best trained forces of international socialism, the bearers of the heroic
traditions of the modern working class movement, the advanced guard of the
world proletariat, the workers of Great Britain, France, Germany and Russia are
being slaughtered in masses….That is a greater crime by far than the brutish
sack of Louvain or the destruction of Rheims Cathedral. It is a deadly blow
against the power which holds the whole future of humanity, the only power
which can save the values of the past and carry them on into a newer and better
human society. Capitalism has betrayed its true features; it betrays to the
world that it has lost its historical justicication, that its continued
existence can no longer be reconciled with the progress of mankind.” 