...And now, Lest we forget…
In 1939, I didn’t hear war coming. Now its thundering approach
can’t be ignored
‘As a teenager I would just laugh at newsreels of Hitler and other
fascists. I hope what happened next is not witnessed again by my
grandchildren’s generation.’-Harry
Leslie Smith, 94, second world war RAF veteran
A chill
of remembrance has come over me during this August month. It feels as if the
2017 summer breeze is being scattered by the winds of war blowing from across
our world towards Britain, just like they were in 1939.
In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia eviscerates Yemen with the same ferocity as Mussolini did to
Ethiopia when I was child in 1935. The hypocrisy of Britain’s government and
elite class ensures that innocent blood still flows in Syria, Iraq and
Afghanistan. Theresa May’s government insists that peace can only be achieved
through the proliferation of weapons of war in conflict zones. Venezuela teeters towards anarchy and foreign intervention while in the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte
– protected by his alliance with Britain and the US – murders the vulnerable for
the crime of trying to escape their poverty through drug addiction.
Because I am old, now 94, I
recognise these omens of doom. Chilling signs are everywhere, perhaps the
biggest being that the US allows itself to be led by Donald
Trump, a man deficient
in honour, wisdom and just simple human kindness. It is as foolish for
Americans to believe that their generals will save them from Trump as it was
for liberal Germans to believe the military would protect the nation from
Hitler’s excesses.
Britain also has nothing to be proud of. Since the Iraq war our
country has been on a downward decline, as successive governments have eroded
democracy, social justice and savaged the welfare state with austerity, leading
us into the cul de sac of Brexit. Like Trump, Brexit cannot be undone by
liberal sanctimony – it can only be altered if the neoliberal economic model is
smashed as if it were a statue of a dictator by a liberated people.
After years of Tory government, Britain is more equipped to change
the course of history for the good than we were under Neville Chamberlain, when
Nazism was appeased in the 1930s. In fact, no western nation in Europe or North
America has anything to crow about. Each is rife with inequality, massive
corporate tax avoidance – which is just legitimised corruption – and a
neoliberalism that has eroded societies.
Summer should be comforting but it isn’t this year. Looking at the
young today, when I watch them in their leisure; I catch a fearful resemblance
to the faces of the young from my generation in the summer of 1939. When I am
out in town, I listen to their laughter, I watch them enjoying a pint or wooing
one another, and I am afraid for them.
This August resembles too much that of 1939; the last summer of
peace until 1945. Then aged 16 and still wet behind the ears, I’d go to
pictures with my mates and we’d laugh at the newsreels of Hitler and other
fascist monsters that lived beyond what we thought was our reach. Little did we
know in that August 1939, life without peace, without carnage, without air
raids, without the blitz, could be measured in days. I did not hear the
thundering approach of war, but as an old man I hear it now for my
grandchildren’s generation. I hope I am wrong. But I am petrified for them.
- Harry
Leslie Smith’s latest book Don’t Let My Past Be Your Future is published
by Little, Brown on 14 September
§ Time Is Now, Again
Lest We Forget
This is why every generation
has to discover the spirit, wisdom and timeliness of the Coventry Story of Peace, Justice, Forgiveness and
Reconciliation
THIS letter is over a year old but still profound. I would not have read it had Steve Jay not made me aware of
14 November 1940: The Day Coventry Gave the World the Charter of Forgiveness and Reconciliation it ever Needs.
Also profoundly powerful ...
https://www.gcgi.info/blog/975-14-november-1940-the-day-coventry-gave-the-world-the-charter-of-forgiveness-and-reconciliation-it-ever-needs
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