?Saturdays? (on the photo link: http://afed.org.uk/res/resist156.pdf ) opened the Victory
Day 2010th look like they are happy and relieved! That's what my grandfather fought! ----
At school I was always belligerent child who constantly trumpeted about something (not
much has changed), and from year to year, I had the same thoughts about the Victory Day.
Yesterday I came across an excellent article in the ?Wales Online?, published in 2010,
before the Victory Day, in which ex-military special forces Ben Griffin excellent publicly
criticized the "Poppy Appeal" (an arbitrary transfer, more here: http:
//markgrigorian.livejournal.com/433442.html ) as a political tool. ---- Griffin was the
first soldier in the special forces, who refused to go into battle for political reasons
and left the army in 2005. He questioned the appropriateness of using the Royal British
Legion celebrities (like ?Saturdays? on the photo link), happily frolicking in
makoobraznom confetti, reminding us that war is something more: "The Royal British Legion
would declare that it is modernizing in order to to attract the younger generation. I do
not agree. I believe that their tricks simplify, normalize and disinfect the war. "
Griffin also points out that the language of the campaign, which calls us to remember our
"heroes" and "support our troops", is an attempt to depoliticize the hoax and not only the
"Victory Day", but, in fact, the war: "The use of the word" hero "glorify war and ignores
the ugly reality. War is not like an episode from the movie with John Wayne. There is
nothing comical that a man blew up a car, there is nothing heroic about shooting from
ambush and there is nothing heroic in the deaths of countless civilians. Calling our
soldiers civilians, we make an attempt to stifle criticism of the war in which we
participate. Which brings us to this very fine line of propaganda: You can not support the
war, but you have to support our heroes, which is tantamount to support for the war. "
"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed class believe that they will
benefit from this benefit," George Orwell.
Griffin, of course, is not alone in his criticism of the war from the perspective of a
veteran, and the famous quote Harry Patch was paid a lot of attention in the news feed in
the social networks of people with anti-war beliefs:
"War - it is organized murder, and nothing more." Harry Patch. The last of the surviving
soldiers of the First World War.
But what really struggled, "our heroes"? Noble cause of "freedom" - a slippery category in
which everyone can claim to be something different, as illustrated by the strange
cognitive dissonance that allows EDL (English Defence League) throw Ridge ... while they
at the same time on the Victory Day "give honor "fallen in combat during World War II. For
these and many other reasons, I share the concern about Griffin thin ideology implemented
pervasive poppy seeds (a symbol of remembrance, a day of victory ...), which from the
point of view of the Royal British League claims to "neutrality", but in reality is
anything but it does not . Fortunately, the use and abuse of such political ideals of
humanism, freedom, democracy and the emancipation of women in order to justify the
imperialist military interventions, wrote a selection of my favorite contemporary writers.
In his preface to the "violence" Slavoj Zizek criticizes sense of "humanitarian urgency,"
which is so often used as a showcase that would justify war. In the end, if we are
fighting a war for freedom of human rights, democracy and all those great things, how can
you be against the war? How can you be against democracy, against freedom? Even Bush and
Blair supported "democracy" in the end.
Nina Power in ?One-Dimensional Woman?, draws attention to the growing co-optation of
feminism in favor of military intervention, particularly in relation to the recent
conflicts in the Middle East. On the disgusting treatment of Taliban women was cited
numerous times as a good reason why we should go to war with Afghanistan, and have to go
NOW. How can you be against the war with Afghanistan, if the world is to support
Afghanistan's brutal regime, squirted acid in the face of potential schoolgirls? Power
rightly notes that the war has become an even greater obstacle to the existence of Afghan
feminists now labeled as agents of the occupants, not to mention the absurdity of the
right, suddenly clinging to the rights of women as for his battle cry and cause the
judges, at the same time occupying women at home by removing the necessary measures to
protect them from domestic violence, ensuring health and access to abortion.
There are many other convincing arguments against the Victory Day and what it represents -
a seemingly apolitical use of kitsch nationalism to weaken any critical reflection or
dissent; the absurdity of the "Memory of War" at the time, as we continue to numerous
military campaigns and take over the world; the hypocrisy of a government that can afford
to send troops to war, but leaves their social security when they return to the care of
the charity.
All things considered, I'm still not going to buy a poppy this year.
Original: http://afed.org.uk/res/resist156.pdf
Home »
» (en) Britain, Anarchist Federation - Resistance #156 - World War I special issue, 2014) - "All who died in the name of freedom, or human rights, or democracy, or feminism ..."