War Isnt So Bad After All
Space- Trotskyist Pest | 17.07.2002 12:32
The Imperial War Museum North, part of the Labour Regeneration program in Salford (Manchester), with a high-profile award winning architect, proclaims WAR SHAPES LIVES.
"War Shapes Lives". Hows that for an "Orwellian" slogan ?
The museum, which is, according to a recent report in The Independent, linked to the National Curriculum, will presumably be peddling this euphemism to school children and students.
War shapes lives ? That depends on the kind of shape you want to see, I suppose: If you want a mangled, ruined, twisted shape, yes, i suppose you COULD say that, but the fact is, war ruins and destroys lives, not just the killed and the wounded, but often the survivors and even the victors. Nobody gets out unscathed.
Of course, the entire current political ethos encourages such sloganeering; since Blair took the lead of NATO in 1999, what Chomsky called "The New Military Humanism" has become official policy, and even the erstwhile centre-left magazine "New Statesman" can become a partner (subservient mouthpiece)for the military industry, recently publishing a manifesto for BAE Systems.
Under the Tories, militaristic adventures were always grudgingly tolerated , vaguely disapproved of by Labour; now the suggestion arises that such things are 'good' per se, and it wont be long before the words of the great war writers who exposed what Wilfred Owen termed "The truth untold" long ago are completely forgotten again.. As he put it: " You would not repeat with such zest, the old lie Dulce et Decorum est pro Patria More".
In fact were it not for Owen's work, we would not even have the until recently accepted image of war as a ghastly nightmare, rather than the hoax brave adventure suited for a young man of the empire to build his character. With the emregence of a new imperialism in the air, the former discredited image is being ressurected .
In fact, Owen went further than just pleading, and in one of his last works predicted a general decline, in what is perhaps his most enigmatic poem, "Strange Meeting":
"Now men will go content with what we spoiled,
"Or discontent, be bloody and be spilled.
"They will be swift, with swifness of the Tigress,
"None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress,
"The march of this retreating world "
Indeed, it was forseen even earlier: Writing what began as a Journal de Societe, Edmond de Goncourt, caught in the first modern war, the Siege and Commune of Paris 1870-71, glumly noted:
"War, with Starvation and Bombardment... is this what tomorrow holds for us ?"
The museum, which is, according to a recent report in The Independent, linked to the National Curriculum, will presumably be peddling this euphemism to school children and students.
War shapes lives ? That depends on the kind of shape you want to see, I suppose: If you want a mangled, ruined, twisted shape, yes, i suppose you COULD say that, but the fact is, war ruins and destroys lives, not just the killed and the wounded, but often the survivors and even the victors. Nobody gets out unscathed.
Of course, the entire current political ethos encourages such sloganeering; since Blair took the lead of NATO in 1999, what Chomsky called "The New Military Humanism" has become official policy, and even the erstwhile centre-left magazine "New Statesman" can become a partner (subservient mouthpiece)for the military industry, recently publishing a manifesto for BAE Systems.
Under the Tories, militaristic adventures were always grudgingly tolerated , vaguely disapproved of by Labour; now the suggestion arises that such things are 'good' per se, and it wont be long before the words of the great war writers who exposed what Wilfred Owen termed "The truth untold" long ago are completely forgotten again.. As he put it: " You would not repeat with such zest, the old lie Dulce et Decorum est pro Patria More".
In fact were it not for Owen's work, we would not even have the until recently accepted image of war as a ghastly nightmare, rather than the hoax brave adventure suited for a young man of the empire to build his character. With the emregence of a new imperialism in the air, the former discredited image is being ressurected .
In fact, Owen went further than just pleading, and in one of his last works predicted a general decline, in what is perhaps his most enigmatic poem, "Strange Meeting":
"Now men will go content with what we spoiled,
"Or discontent, be bloody and be spilled.
"They will be swift, with swifness of the Tigress,
"None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress,
"The march of this retreating world "
Indeed, it was forseen even earlier: Writing what began as a Journal de Societe, Edmond de Goncourt, caught in the first modern war, the Siege and Commune of Paris 1870-71, glumly noted:
"War, with Starvation and Bombardment... is this what tomorrow holds for us ?"
Space- Trotskyist Pest
