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November 8, 2003

The Sunday nearest to the 11th day of the 11th month has, in the UK, acquired a national significance in the United Kingdom as a time when the country remembers its war dead. In 2003, the day came as a war was still being fought, provoking thoughts of


The ignomy of respect

REMEMBRANCE Sunday 2003 seems ignominious. Remembering those who have given their lives in war, especially wars to protect their nations, their friends, families and countryfolk, seems uncomfortable this year.

A war that was started six months ago, without sufficient backing of 'the people', has not finished. More deaths were reported in the Middle East as a ceremony of remembrance was taking place at London's Royal Albert Hall, watched over by The Queen.

At the same time as this was being broadcast to the UK on one BBC television channel, another was transmitting an interview with the former MP and highly-experienced war correspondent Martin Bell. He was saying that March 18, 2003, the day that UK Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that Britain would be going to war in Iraq was one of the bleakest of his life.

In the UK, the day has - for many years - raised other inconsistencies. The poppy, primarily red, has become the symbol of the day, but the emblems are sold to raise funds for the Royal British Legion, a non-profit organization providing care services for serving and discharged military personnel.

It has become almost obligatory for anyone appearing on television in the UK from the last week of October until the second week of November to wear such one. In 2003, for the first time in many years, some regional BBC executives allowed on-screen presenters and reporters to decide for themselves whether they would actually do so.

There is a social pressure to support the RBL and the day that is rarely challenged. When, during the 1980s and 1990s, some did try to overturn convention by wearing white poppies as a symbolic protest against what they perceived the glorification of war, the leader writers for some tabloid and middle-market newspapers were outraged.

Red poppies present two questions: whether someone wants to give to the Royal British Legion and whether the wearer would prefer to both recognize previous sacrifices at the same time as protesting against the general futility of war by choosing a white flower instead of the red, said to represent the red flowers that dominated the landscapes of northern France during the First World War and the blood that was shed.

War too has changed. In 1914 and 1939, the threat to the 'democracy' of the UK and other nations was immediate and real. In the first decade of the 21st century, 'war' has become an economic tool. For most of the dominant nations of the northern hemisphere, the military had - since the end of the Second World War - become a publicly-funded tool for the protection of narrow corporate interests.

Careers in the armed forces, in many European nations as well as the United States ad the United Kingdom, had for many young people the only route they could see as an escape from local social and economic deprivation.

Many recruiting sergeants often, it seems, have conveniently forgotten to remind their young charges that the first and most important aspect of any and every job description in the military is that the post-holder is likely to be killed.

Perceptions of this have been involving. Since Vietnam, the families of soldiers deployed actually to fight are more likely to appear on radio and television, weeping and wailing because their loved ones are being sent to do the jobs for which they volunteered.

There is no glory in young men or women laying down their lives for many of the 'causes' of the 21st century. Their sacrifices should lie hard at the feet of the politicians whose whims have sent them to their deaths.

Yet, perhaps to placate those selfsame politicians, we are called upon to glorify such casualties. A soldier may not be an 'innocent victim' of war; many, conflicts in Iraq in the 1990s and 2000s have shown, are however very naive, politically and economically.

The bodies of dead soldiers are taken home, their coffins draped in flags, carried by their colleagues, with all the pomp of military 'honours'. These ceremonies are broadcast on television. Their families meet presidents and prime ministers. Others fire gun 'salutes' at their funerals. They are then forgotten.

Despite the supposed 'recognition' of the Veterans' Administration, life after the military is frequently very difficult, especially for 'the ranks'. There are financial hardships, medical problems and the great social changes to survive. Yes, indeed, fr the very great majority of 'vets', there is no glory, only ignomy.