Laurie Penny,
on what for her constitutes "form" and for most other people hysterical, nonsensical hyperbole:
'Sacrifice' is the word continually used to associate this cynical and relentless carnage with public nostalgia for the glory of past victories. There are, however, two meanings to the word 'sacrifice.' One can sacrifice, in the sense of willingly giving one's for a cause, or one can be a sacrifice, offered up for slaughter by one's betters in the name of god, or greed, or homeland.
And this is news precisely how? Undoubtedly, some people in almost every war there has ever been have been sacrificed for whatever cause was being fought for. That is the nature of war - it is unfair, and it is unpleasant. But then again, it is war - what the hell were you expecting? A walk in the park?
And there are other reasons why people fight and are forced to fight - not just greed, good or homeland. World War Two would be the classic example here - sometimes, people fight for survival. That has nothing to do with being "offered up for slaughter by one's betters" - instead, it has everything to do with not being dominated by a totalitarian nightmare. I'm opposed to war - to some extent I am instinctively a pacifist. But at some point you have to fight, or risk being dominated by those you might abhor.
It is this second understanding of sacrifice that we should bear in mind this Poppy day. Even in the Great War, not all of the men and boys shot by their own side for cowardice or driven out 'like cattle', in Wilfred Owen's words, in front of the German machine guns, died with future generations in mind. Not all of them bled willingly, for king and country; some of them simply bled because they had been seriously injured, because their leaders deemed it appropriate for them to die in pain and terror. A million cardboard flowers, rooted in the dark earth of this country's frantic military self- fashioning, will never be enough to mop up the carnage.
And in this paragraph we see that Laurie has completely missed the point of Remembrance Sunday (not "Poppy day" - let's call it by a more proper name, shall we?) It isn't about political point scoring, it isn't about class strife. It is about remembering all those who died -whether they did so willingly, or under duress in a state of terrified anxiety.
And the Poppy is not meant to to mop up the carnage - it is a symbol, to remind us of that carnage and those who died. And it should also remind us to reflect on why those wars happened, and what we can do right now to prevent future devastating conflicts.
But thus far in her article, Penny has been restrained. She's flirted with the idea of class conflict and its impact on the choice of those who were sent to fight in the First World War. As always, she saves the best - and most offensive - to last:
As we celebrate another memorial Sunday, we should remember that the politicians wearing red flowers in Whitehall have cheerfully authorised the decimation of jobs, welfare and public education in order to defend Britain's military spending and nuclear arsenal and offer tax breaks for business. They have sacrificed the life chances of a generation of young and working-class people whilst making rhetorical sops towards "the national interest", and that is not remembrance, nor is it any way to honour the memory of the Great Generation. That, in fact, is "just show business".
Yes, what we should do is remember, on Remembrance Sunday, not those who died in war but rather the actions of politicians with whom Penny does not agree. Yes, that's the fucking point of Remembrance Sunday, isn't it? To agree with Penny's crass political point scoring. Don't think about the war dead, for God's sake. Think about the fact that a feckless and hopelessly naive young journalist writing for The New Statesman doesn't like spending cuts.
And how offensive is it to compare a generation who may have some of their number adversely affected by the spending cuts with the generation sent to die on the battlefields of the First World War? How crass can one person be? That is no way to honour the memory of those who died. In fact, it too is "just show business" - it is taking an event, and twisting its meaning to back up whatever toss Laurie Penny happens to be thinking at any given time. It takes Remembrance Sunday, and debases it. It turns it into the sort of cheap political point scoring that shows what an ignorant idiot that writer actually is.
Labels: Idiots, Penny Red, Remembering, War
