Mary Howell, from St David in Seion Catholic church in Harlech, reflects on the strength of the anti-war movement in the 1960s and its apparent weakness today.
Anti-Vietnam War protestors in Washington, D.C., November 27, 1965
In the 1960s when I was a teenager protest songs were common. Nuclear disarmament and anti-war sentiment gained momentum to guard against bile from dictators and their followers’ mouths. World War 2, the Holocaust and the awfulness of the testimonies were a living memory.Perhaps it was just in our home that Blowin' in the Wind, Where Have All The Flowers Gone and Donovan's 1965 version of Universal Soldier (see below) rang out on a Saturday while we did our chores. Sentiments both old and new.
The renewed anti-war protest came from the USA because thousands of young Americans were losing or ruining their lives in Vietnam. To say nothing of the Vietnamese. Now it seems we have proxies to die for us. Is it easier to sell arms across the world and especially to Israel. Conflicted, I see justification in arming Ukraine. Theirs is a fight for survival, against their oppressor. A just war?
But what of Sudan, Syria and impunity to kill and destroy at will?
The acceptance that it is right and just to fight and die for your country must pale to insignificance when bombs, drones, bullets rain down.
Recruitment for the forces happens in schools and on the high street, where advice, a welcome and an offer of brotherhood is prioritised and many pitfalls are barely acknowledged.
The British Legion attests to this by its very existence. A charity akin to food banks is left to cater for the basic needs that should be met by government or the institutions themselves with a duty of care.
The Army, Navy and Airforce are noble professions. The mindset behind the lyrics of Universal Soldier challenge. The training to kill and training for a trade elements of the armed forces seem deliberately blurred. Apprenticeship for a trade could and should be met elsewhere. The demand to fight, die, keep the peace by force is nearly always idealised. Post trauma and mental stress are barely mentioned or allowed for.
The Peace Pledge Union recognises all who suffer in war, including civilians and not just those who fought and died or returned damaged.
Sadly that term and the legal process of holding despots to account and making the aggressor pay reparations isn’t on everyone’s minds.
Peace and justice seems further away than ever.
~~~
Click on the record cover to listen to Donovan's Universal Soldier - lyrics below
1.
He's five foot-two, and he's six feet-fourHe fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of thirty-one
And he's only seventeen
He's been a soldier for a thousand years
2.
He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
And he knows he shouldn't kill
And he knows he always will
Kill you for me, my friend, and me for you
3.
And he's fighting for Canada, he's fighting for France
He's fighting for the USA
And he's fighting for the Russians
And he's fighting for Japan
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way
4.
And he's fighting for democracy, he's fighting for the
reds
He says it's for the peace of us all
He's the one who must decide
Who's to live and who's to die
And he never sees the writing on the wall
5.
But without him how would Hitler have condemned him at Libau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war
And without him all this killin' can't go on
6.
He's the universal soldier, and he really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from here and there and you and me
And brothers can't you see
This is not the way we put the end to war?
8 comments:
Religious differences and conflicts have also been a significant source of war. The Crusades, the Thirty Years' War, and the religious wars in France are examples of conflicts rooted in religious beliefs.
This article has literally struck a chord with me. One of my neighbours here in our Shropshire village is a keen folk musician and he managed to cajole a sizeable number of residents to play and sing a set of songs for the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations. The Queen had recently named The White Cliffs of Dover as her favourite song containing the lines ‘there’ll be joy and laughter and peace ever after - tomorrow when the world is free’.
On account of the fact that war had just broken out in the Ukraine it was suggested we merge two other songs with it to form a ‘Peace Medley’. The other two songs were Blowing in the Wind and Where have all the flowers gone.
For May 8th there are VE Day Celebrations being organised in the village and though I am not lacking in gratitude to my grandparents generation and all they endured I can’t help feeling ambivalent towards the forthcoming event. This is of course because death, destruction and disunity are rampant once more in Europe and sadly our ploughshares seem on the verge of turning to swords once more.
To quote another Donovan song ‘down through all eternity - the crying of humanity’.
Sorry - a bit morbid that! The sun is shining here and the birds are singing. In a week or so the May blossom will be filling the hedgerows and the bluebells will be abounding in the woods. We have a lot to be thankful for on this island of ours. I’ve yet to see a bluebird mind you.
The Crusades were not about wicked Christians stealing Muslim land! The land was Christian, the Muslims invaded, so The Crusades were actually about Christians trying to return to their homeland
The point was that the Crusades resulted from religion and religious differences. The land was not Christian - the land was Jewish. The land was the homeland of the Jews which included Jesus as a Jew.
You cannot say war resulted from religious differences and then say the land was Jewish. Either religion is the cause or not. Unless you are saying all religions except Judaism are the cause!
Religious wars? Sounds as though we are back to the same old problem of people mistakenly believing that they are the only ones who have got it right! ( Or just people misusing religion to further their own ends , of course,).
All most of us can do is to try to live more peaceably - in thought and feeling as much as in physical violence. If I can't do that, how can I expect an evolved warrior class to lay aside their weapons ?
Wars may well be often rooted in religious differences but the real roots are deeper. If Dawkins could wave his atheistic magic wand and abolish all religions is there anyone stupid enough to believe that there would be no more war or conflict between human beings?
Mary's comments in her original article, lamenting the lack of mass sentiment opposed to war today is much more to the point than making adolescent smart-alec comments about conflicts several centuries ago, in circumstances long-gone and over issues that are now totally irrelevant to current predatory economic goals pursued by violence and killing.
Against which, as she argued, there was much more effective mass protest in the '60s.
Thank you Richard Lionheart for responding to what you refer to as my "adolescent smart-alec comments". I think that says a lot. I surrender and withdraw from this thread.
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