"When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say:
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today."
The Kohima Poem
Traditionally, on Remembrance Sunday, the Leaders of the main political parties lay wreaths at the Cenotaph to honour those who laid down their lives that others might remain free.Were the voices of those men and women, to whom homage is paid on this day, able to be heard, what would they say? Would they be proud of what they survey, or would they feel that their ultimate sacrifice had been in vain? Were they to attach blame, as they surely would, at whom would that blame be levied? The politicians of the last few decades or the people who, through seeming indifference, allowed the politicians to bring what was a great country to its knees both financially, morally and spiritually?
As we mourn our dead it is perhaps pertinent to repeat the words I posted on Remembrance Day; namely that perhaps what should be mourned by the people is their disregard of the beliefs for which those they remember fought: this nation's independence and freedom. Perhaps what should be mourned by the people is that they have, by their disregard of those beliefs, allowed politicians to undermine everything for which their forefathers fought. Perhaps what should be mourned by the people is their lack of awareness that all of which was so abhorrent to our forefathers is being imposed on them today.
Those taking part in the Remembrance Day ceremony, those who attend in person, those watching on television, who hear the solemn words of service spoken and who spare a few moments to remember the fallen, who applaud the dwindling number of veterans who march past - they would do well to recall the words of Winston Churchill (1933) that I posted last year:
"The worst difficulties from which we suffer do not come from without, they come from within. They come from a peculiar type in our country who if they add something to its culture, take much from its strength. Our difficulties come from the mood of unwarrantable self-abasement into which we have been cast by a powerful section of our own intellectuals. They come from the acceptance of defeatist doctrines by a large proportion of our politicians. But what have they to offer but a vague internationalism, a squalid materialism and the promise of impossible Utopias."There may be some readers who do not like the fact that I have politicised a solemn occasion and thus hold this post in bad taste; unfortunately it has to be acknowledged that within our nation is a growing cancer, a growth that needs immediate removal.
6 comments:
An apt and excellent post for this day, WoW.
wfw. A very fitting comment for today and thanks.
In your quotation of Churchill. That too is also very fitting and highly relevant. He spoke as one of our greatest representatives and leading statesman ever.
How true his words ring - more than ever for today.
No, I don't feel you politicised the occasion - there is a world of difference between a purely political observation, and party political wrangling of which we are all heartily sick.
It may sound trite and a cliche, but we would not be engaging in ANY expression of a free people were it not for their ultimate sacrifices.
Days such as today show how shallow and self-interested our leaders are WfW.
'They' would really like us all to forget simply because 'they' were preceded by much more worthy individuals who set a better example.
A fitting post reflecting most of our thoughts I suspect WfW.
Politicising an event that is overtly political is hardly a crime. The Cenotaph was built in 1920 when the political class having won the 1918 Khaki Election failed to deliver on promises.
Do you recall how poppies used to bear the words on the black centre "Haig Fund" because Haig had lobbied for veterans to receive proper attention and care rather than Poor Law and Charity.
The whole act of betrayal began in 1919 and was continued in 1939 when they moved it to Sunday to keep production running, as if an extended tea break for 2 minutes brought factories to a halt !
On a related matter, I think of the 250,000 men of the German 6th Army abandoned at Stalingrad with just 5000 survivors returning home 10 years later......and they thought they were keeping "Bolshevik hordes" out of Germany, and would hardly believe Berlin as a Turkish city.
It is not just in Britain that Politics has betrayed the foot-soldiers of the nation. It is as if these countries were conquered internally by groups antithetical towards everything the populace believed in.
One group of charlatans was replaced by another, with the train being driven in another directions, but the voters still being passengers to unknown destinations
The simple fact is that the USSR and Marxism won the Second War and spawned inside the US and UK and the entire Anglosphere in a long march of decay and corrosion. Hitler failed to destroy Bolshevism and let it enter Germany; and it subverted the so-called victorious allies
I agree with TT, Remembrance Day has an inherently political aspect. Not particularly a party political thing, but definitely something with political implications.
How can it not be political when the likes of Heath are acknowledged to have been in favour of the EU because of their experiences in WWII and the EU is vaunted as an attempt to stop such problems in the future? The EU has prevented war in Europe since WWII and all the rest.
Or: Thank you, most kind
gw: Ditto.
BJ: Ditto.
TT & c: Agreed.
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