2011-2022
Date: Wednesday 8 December
Time: 1830 hours
Location: Housmans Books, 5 Caledonian Road, N1 9DY
Are you a veteran of the armed forces?
Are you ready to serve the cause of world peace?
Then this meeting is for you.
Sequence
Set up chairs in a circle
Introductions
VFP Pledge
Personal updates
Recent VFP activity
Upcoming VFP activity
Any other business
Group decisions
Next meeting
Tidy away chairs
If it is your first meeting please bring along proof of military service.
Date: Thursday 16 December
Time: 1800 onwards
Location: The Old Kings Head, King’s Head Yard, London Bridge , SE1 1NA
Arrangement: Ben Griffin (admin@vfpuk.org)
In the run up to Christmas, VFP London is hosting this gathering in memory of Veteran For Peace Jim Radford who passed away in November 2020 during the second lockdown.
VFP London extend a warm welcome to all who would like to join with us on the evening of 16 December to celebrate Jim’s life.
Find us in the upstairs function room of The Old Kings Head which can be found within a short walk from London Bridge.
Bring your singing voices and stories.
The inscription on the Victory Medal, awarded to the armed servicemen of all the victor nations who were still alive at the end of the war reads simply “The Great War for Civilisation,” a claim which seems difficult to justify. And when I say were still alive, it is because the figures are staggering. They are also uncertain, because of the nature of the war, in which bodies were blown to pieces or buried by shell fire. For example, the 2014 Annual Report of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission states that there are 187,744 unidentified Commonwealth war burials from the First World War.[1] Yes, that’s right: nearly 188,000 bodies still unidentified a century after the outbreak of that war. And that’s only the ones from the British Empire. In Bertrand Tavernier’s wonderful film la vie et rien d’autre/Life and nothing but a general tells the officer in charge of trying to identify forty thousand anonymous corpses to select one to become the unknown soldier buried under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, but to be careful not to get a British, German, or American one by mistake.[2]
The first estimate of the casualties was made by the United States War Department in 1924. It calculated that the total number of armed forces, that is of all the combatant nations, was 65,038,810. That’s right, over 65 million armed personnel from Russia, the British Empire, France, Italy, the United States, Japan, Romania, Serbia, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Montenegro, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria were engaged in killing and maiming each other. Of those 65 million, 8 and a half million were killed, and 21 million were wounded, that’s a casualty rate of 46%. If you add the armed personnel taken prisoner or “missing” (i.e. probably dead) the casualty figures rise to 40 million, which is 57.5%. In other words nearly two thirds of all serving armed personnel were casualties. But 57.5% is the average figure, the French casualty rate was 73.3%, The Russian 76.3% and the Austro-Hungarian a staggering 90%. The heaviest loss of life in a single day was suffered by the British Army, which lost 57,470 men on 1 July 1916 at the Battle of the Somme. That’s the equivalent of the population of Aldershot or Tunbridge Wells today. A more recent estimate, published ten years ago by the Centre Robert Schuman, increased the number of military deaths to 9.7 million, and Wikipedia estimates them to somewhere between eight and a half to nearly eleven million. But that’s just the armed forces. For a truer picture you have to add approximately 10 million civilian deaths from war crimes, accidents, famine and disease, a figure that excludes those who died immediately afterwards as a result of the ‘flu pandemic, whose number the Welcome Foundation estimates at between 50 and 100 million. [3]
So the question remains, what could possibly justify that extraordinary amount of death, maiming and disease? How could this possibly be about civilisation? How can this be defined? And which side represented it? Was Germany, the country of Goethe, Bach and the philosopher Kant, not civilised? Austria, the country of Mozart, Haydn, Klimt, and Kokoschka not civilised? It beggars’ belief. The emphasis is sometimes subtly changed to a war for democracy. But that too is difficult. Germany was in some ways more democratic that Britain, in that all German men over 25 years of age were eligible to vote, and members of the Reichstag were elected by general, universal, and secret male suffrage, and Austria had universal male suffrage since 1896, whereas Britain did not have it until 1918. The only country in the British Empire to enjoy universal suffrage was New Zealand. German and Austrian women enjoyed universal suffrage from 1918, but British women did not have this until 1928 and French women only got the vote in 1946. Canada only achieved universal suffrage in 1960, Australia in 1967, and South Africa in 1994. Female suffrage did not become universal in the USA until 1965, when it became illegal for states to disenfranchise black women,[4] and as I write this the Texas legislature is passing laws restricting voting rights. In any case, how can a war be described as ‘for democracy’ when one of the belligerents was the Russian autocracy? So what other reason could there be to justify such large-scale butchery?
Well, of course we have been systematically lied to by governments about the reasons for the first world war. If it wasn’t about civilisation or democracy, what was it about? What did those 21 million service men and women, and all those civilians, die for? This is not the place to analyse the various reasons the different belligerents sent their armies out to kill and to die. I shall simply talk about Britain, as this is what we British ex-service people have to think about on Remembrance day.
Since the eighteenth century India was the source of the British elite’s wealth and power. The amount of wealth was unbelievable, as was how it was obtained. It is not by chance that one of the first Hindustani words to enter the English language was loot, the Hindustani for plunder. The crown benefitted as the revenue from India transformed Britain from a minor European power that had been defeated by Holland in the Seventeenth century, into a powerful country that could take on and ultimately defeat Napoleon’s France and be recognised throughout the 19th century as one of the European “Great Power”.[5] Everybody involved with India became fabulously wealthy returning to buy themselves large estates and seats in Parliament. What these people feared most was that this wealth would be taken away from them. We know now that the British retained a grip on India until 1947, but this was not a given, as throughout the period before that date the British hold on India was precarious. British troops in India had to fight wars against the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French as well as against hostile Indian rulers and warlike frontier tribes and the Afghans. The Indian army was prone to mutiny, the uprising known by the British the Indian mutiny of 1857-58, and by the Indians as the First War of Independence, was only the greatest of these.[6]
But the great threat in the century before the First World War was Russia. Throughout the 19th century Russia waged a covert war against Britain, the so-called “Great Game,” threatening, but never quite doing, an invasion of India. By 1885, the Russian conquests in Central Asia had given them borders with China, Afghanistan, and in Persia, divided into two spheres of interest, the British and Russians could look at each other over the dividing line. By the end of the century the British elite realised that the cost of maintaining an army in India big enough to counter the Russian threat, would turn the very agreeable income from that source into a deficit. So they decided that the best option was to befriend Russia, to try to keep her on board. In 1907, they signed the Anglo-Russian convention, hoping that they would be able to keep Russia on side. Yet, the British elite were still worried. Anxious questions about Russia were being in asked Parliament right up to August 1914, and civil servants sent worried memos to and fro between government departments and the government of India.
On two occasions on 10 March 1913[7] and 24 March 1913,[8] the Prime Minister, denied in Parliament that Britain had any obligations compelling her to enter a European war. This denial was repeated by Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary on 28 April1914,[9] and again on 11 June 1914,[10] that is a little over a month before Britain entered the war. The Foreign Secretary assured the House of Commons that : if a war arose between European Powers there were no unpublished agreements which would hamper or restrict the freedom of the Government or of Parliament to decide whether or not Great Britain should participate in a war. No agreement, therefore, to defend Belgium, no agreement to defend France and no agreement to support Russia.
Yet, when he addressed Parliament on 3 August, the day before Britain declared war, the Foreign Secretary suddenly found, to his fellow MPs astonishment, that Britain did have these obligations.[11] In the debate that followed his statement, only two speakers supported going to war. Even the cabinet was divided, with a number of ministers threatening to resign, and some actually doing so.[12] So there was no vote in the Cabinet for war, and no vote in Parliament. War was declared at 11 p.m. on 4 August by order of Council, that is by the King and three members of the House of Lords.[13]
So, what led to this change of mind, and the decision to override the Cabinet and Parliament? Why had Belgium suddenly become so important? Why was the German offer to Belgium to march through without fighting or threatening Belgian independence so unacceptable to Britain? After all, as one MP said, Belgium might be better off allowing the Germans to pass through peacefully rather become the battleground of Europe. And why was the Foreign Secretary unwilling to continue negotiating with Germany, as so many MPs urged him to do during the debate? What was so urgent?
On 2 August, Grey received a cable from our ambassador in St. Petersburg, containing the words:
I would venture to submit with all respect that if we do not respond to the [Tsar’s][14] appeal for our support, we shall at the end of the war, whatever be its issue, find ourselves without a friend in Europe while our Indian Empire will no longer be secure from attack by Russia. . .[15]
So that’s what all those 57,470 British soldiers died for at the Somme: to keep the loot coming in. Belgium was the acceptable story, put about with much use of the word “honour”, to cover up the real motive.[16] Belgian claims were even ignored at the Peace Conference after the war.
Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die? It’s about time we did do some reasoning why. In my opinion that is what Veterans For Peace is all about. I hope you agree.
Oh, just a few final words about civilisation. Edward Grey, clearly troubled by the horrors of the war he had unleashed, has a telling passage in his autobiography about a Japanese response to Japan’s new popularity with Europeans after its victory against Russia in 1905:
“After the war Japan was extremely popular. The smaller nation had beaten the giant; British sporting instincts were gratified; we admired the efficiency to which the Japanese had attained and the rapidity with which they had learnt what we had to teach of naval construction and equipment, and the handling of things so complicated as modern ships of war. This feeling seemed to us natural, reasonable, and right. Not long afterwards I was told a story that put it in another light. The story ran that a Japanese in England, finding himself and his nation to be objects of admiration, reflected thus upon the course of events: “Yes,” he said, “we used to be a nation of artists; our art was really very good; you called us barbarians then. Now our art is not so good as it was, but we have learned how to kill, and you say we are civilised.”
The story was familiar to me long before the Great War; whether it is a true story I never knew, but there was a truth in it that gave a feeling of discomfort, of question. What was the answer to such an observation? Was there something very wrong about our civilisation and the virtues of which we felt so secure? The Great War has given a terrible answer.”[17]
This is a question and answer we should be thinking about at every Remembrance ceremony, and, indeed, in between.
[1] http://archive.cwgc.org/GetMultimedia.ashx?db=Catalog&type=default&fname=CWGC_2_1_ADD+6_2_96.pdf, retrieved 27 August 2021.
[2] A DVD of this film, with English subtitles is readily available.
[3] https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-I/Killed-wounded-and-missing, ; http://www.centre-robert-schuman.org/userfiles/files/REPERES%20–%20module%2 ; https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/W7TfGRAAAP5F0eKS? retrieved 26 August 2021.
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_suffrage;
[5] The anonymous booklet, The Present State of the British Interest in India, London1773, pp. 5-6: “No nation nor state ever acquired an accession or dominion so truly valuable and beneficial, as are the acquisitions lately made by Britain in India. . . . Oppressed by a grievous debt, . . .her commerce . . . daily falling into decay . . . an she was every year approaching towards a state of national poverty and bankruptcy. In such circumstances did Britain acquire the sovereign dominion of Bengal, and other rich manufacturing and trading countries in India; which, at the time they fell to her, were capable of not only defraying every charge of their own government and defence, but over and above that, of yielding annually to the sovereign a sum equal to £1,300,000 sterling. . .
[6] There were mutinies in 1683, 1751, 1766, 1806, 1809, 1824, 1849, 1857-58, 1859-61, 1915, 1919, 1946,
[7] Hansard, HC Deb 10 March 1913 vol 50 cc42-43.
[8] Hansard, HC Deb 24 March 1913 vol 50 cc1316-7.
[9] Hansard, HC Deb 28 April 1914 vol 61 c1499.
[10] Hansard, HC Deb 03 August 1914 vol 65 c. 1850.
[11] Hansard, HC Deb 03 August 1914 vol 65 c. 1825.
[12] Keith Wilson, ‘Britain’, in Decisions for War, 1914, edited by Keith Wilson, London 1995, pp. 179-181, 201-202. Margot Asquith’s Great War Diary, 1914-1916, Oxford 2014, p. 12: “I asked H. at night if he had had a bad day. He said ‘Six of my men have resigned: John Morley, Burns, Simon, Beauchamp and Trevelyan.’
[13] A. J. P. Taylor, English History 1914-1945, Oxford 1975, pp. 3-4. They were George V, Earl Granard, Earl Beauchamp, Viscount Allendale.
[14] Emperor in the original. I changed this to Tsar so that the audience have no doubt which emperor.
[15] British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914, edited by G. P. Gooch and Harold Temperley, vol. 11, London 1926, Document No. 490, p. 277.
[16] Ramsay MacDonald recorded that “ . . . Grey’s Foreign policy responsible for war. Belgium did not determine Grey’s attitude.” An undated note passed during a Cabinet meeting from Harcourt to LLoyd George: “. . . . Grey wishes to go to War without any violation of Belgium.” Keith Wilson, ‘Britain,’ in Keith Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War 1914, p. 177 Keith Wilson, ‘Britain,’ in Keith Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War 1914, pp. 177-178.
[17] Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Twenty-Five Years 1892-1916, volume 1, New York 1925, p. 55.
Date: Sunday 28 November
Time: 1200 (midday)
Location: Zoom (click here for link)
AGENDA
| Time | Item | Arrangement |
| 1200-1205 | Statement of Purpose | Ben Griffin |
| 1205-1215 | Welcome Address | Phillip Clarke |
| 1215-1230 | Financial Report | Alan Chick |
| 1230-1250 | Membership Report | Neil Harvey |
| 1250-1330 | Handbook Changes | Ben Griffin |
| 1340-1355 | Election Addresses | David Collins |
| 1355-1400 | Election | David Collins |
| 1400-1440 | VFP UK in 2022 | Phillip Clarke |
| 1440-1500 | Any Other Business | Phillip Clarke |
| 1500-1600 | Online Social | All |
CANDIDATES STANDING FOR ELECTION TO THE ADMIN GROUP
| Role | Veteran For Peace |
| Chair | Phillip Clarke |
| Administrator | Ben Griffin |
| Treasurer | Alan Chick |
| Membership Secretary | Neil Harvey |
| Sweeper | Brad Oliver |
APPOINTMENT OF NEW TRUSTEE
| Name | Date of Approval |
| John Bourton | Approved at 2018 AGM |
| Kathryn Piquette | Approved at 2018 AGM |
| Michael Elstub | Requires approval at the AGM |
HANDBOOK AMMENDMENTS
Date: Thursday 16 December
Time: 1800 onwards
Location: The Old Kings Head, King’s Head Yard, London Bridge , SE1 1NA
Arrangement: Ben Griffin (admin@vfpuk.org)
In the run up to Christmas, VFP London is hosting this gathering in memory of Veteran For Peace Jim Radford who passed away in November 2020 during the second lockdown.
VFP London extend a warm welcome to all who would like to join with us on the evening of 16 December to celebrate Jim’s life.
Find us in the upstairs function room of The Old Kings Head which is a short walk from London Bridge.
Bring your singing voices and stories.
Last weekend Veterans For Peace organised and attended Remembrance events around the country…
HEXHAM
Just a brief report on VfP involvement in the Remembrance Day event at Hexham, Northumberland.
In May, a more sympathetic town council was elected. The council – rather than the RBL – has responsibility for organising the remembrance Day event, which this year was planned and carried out with much less military character.
Wreath-layers were of more varied persuasions than previously, among them myself. I was listed on the programme as acting on behalf of VfP. Preliminary speeches (eg that of the Mayor) included mentions of peaceful aspirations in the future, of national policy as well as for subsequent memorial events.
Conversations within and after the event were encouragingly sympathetic.
David Westgate.
EDINBURGH
We met with Edinburgh Peace and Justice group at the site of the proposed peace tree (as yet not built) at just before 1100.
At 1100 as the cannon fired we observed a minute’s silence.
After the minutes silence there was a couple of anti-war poems read and a period of reflection.
When everyone was ready we walked in procession to the Garden of Remembrance in the East
Princes Street Gardens at the Scott monument .
When we arrived at the garden of remembrance, we were met with the RBL who were very nice to
us and showed us to the garden and the site of the wreaths.
I laid the wreath and paused for a few minutes then said a few words of remembrance.
We then retired to the pathway for debrief, the supporters were very keen to organise an event next
year to coincide with the main event, but I stated that I and VFP in Scotland would be uneasy to be in
a military setting along with the main event.
We then departed as friends to meet again.
Brad Oliver VFP in Scotland
LONDON
Before the weekend members of VFP London had already decided to prioritise attendance at Margate on Saturday. So on Sunday 14th of November I went to Whitehall Place without expectation. It was a pleasant surprise to be joined by a group of four supporters; Paul Steel, Helen, Paul’s son Lawrence and David Vincent.
At 1430hrs we walked down Whitehall to lay the VFP Wreath at the Cenotaph. It was surrounded by barriers, with many people looking at the wreaths that had been laid earlier. We asked a group of police if we could lay our wreath, as we normally do on Remembrance Sunday. One of the police, a lady, was very helpful and went to ask her superior. Eventually she told us that one of us could go through the barrier and lay the wreath. She moved a barrier to one side and I went through and laid the wreath at the end of a row of red poppy wreaths, beneath the wreaths laid by the Royal Family.
To keep up to date with VFP London activity please subscribe to our mini website veteransforpeace.london
Alan Chick
MARGATE
Veterans For Peace London headed to Margate to hold a Remembrance Ceremony at the statue April is the Cruellest Month. Speeches were made by the sculptor Michael Rakowitz, Dan Taylor and David Longley.
Dan Taylor who is the subject of the sculpture laid a wreath at the statue, the last post was played and the silence was observed.
We were delighted to be joined by Jo Radcliff, daughter of Veteran For Peace Jim Radford.
Please keep an eye on our mini website for details of our next meeting and our Christmas Party.
IRELAND
On Remembrance Sunday fellow Veterans For Peace in Ireland attended Shannon airport in an ongoing protest at it’s use by the US Military in breach of Irish Neutrality.
1. Policy Group
In September 2021 the Policy Group requested support from the Trustees following the departure of the Chair, Michael Elstub and National Coordinator, Julio Torres. Both had changes in their personal circumstances which made service on the Policy Group untenable.
The Trustees decided that Phillip Clarke and I (Ben Griffin) would assist the Policy Group through to the end of 2021.
After the first meeting it was clear that organising an Annual Gathering this year was beyond our capacity and that it was too late in the year to begin liaising with the police to ensure a ceremony at The Cenotaph.
We have focussed on righting the ship ready for a fresh start in 2022.
Work has been carried out behind the scenes, speaking with members, clarifying expectations, rebuilding relationships and trust.
Candidates have been sought to fill the vacancies on the Policy Group and stand for election at the AGM.
Handbook changes have been formulated and submitted that will re-focus the responsibilities, obligations and workload of the Policy Group, which will be renamed the Admin Group.
A significant addition has also been proposed to the Statement of Conduct:
1. We will be peaceful in our words, methods and actions.
If passed, this sentence will provide clarity for all members as to what is expected of a Veteran For Peace and guide everything that we do.
We will discuss and vote on these Handbook changes at our AGM.
Our present Policy Group is as follows:
|
PRESENT VFP UK POLICY GROUP 2021 |
|
| Chair | Phillip Clarke (co-opted from 22 Nov) |
| National Coordinator | Ben Griffin (co-opted) |
| Treasurer | Alan Chick |
| Membership Secretary | Neil Harvey |
| Projects | David Collins |
| Prospective member | Brad Oliver (co-opted) |
Only one candidate per position has volunteered to stand for election to the Admin Group at the AGM this year:
|
ELECTION CANDIDATES FOR VFP UK ADMIN GROUP 2022 |
|
| Chair | Phillip Clarke |
| Administrator | Ben Griffin |
| Treasurer | Alan Chick |
| Membership Secretary | Neil Harvey |
| Sweeper | Brad Oliver |
It is proposed that Michael Elstub is appointed to The Trustees:
|
TRUSTEES |
|
| At Present | After AGM |
| Ben Griffin | John Bourton |
| John Bourton | Kathryn Piquette |
| Kathryn Piquette | Michael Elstub |
2. VFP UK Annual General Meeting 2021
Date: Sunday 28 November 2021
Time: Midday
Location: Zoom
You can access the meeting via the following link.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89080600260?pwd=QTBYWnl4MFNMSzMyWXFmaklaamFrUT09
At present the agenda is as follows but is subject to change.
|
VFPUK AGM AGENDA |
||
| Time | Item | Name |
| 1200-1205 | Statement of Purpose | Ben Griffin |
| 1205-1215 | Welcome Address & houskeeping | Phillip Clarke |
| 1215-1230 | Financial Report | Alan Chick |
| 1230-1250 | Membership Report | Neil Harvey |
| 1250-1330 | Handbook Changes | Ben Griffin |
| 1340-1355 | Election Addresses | All Candidates |
| 1355-1400 | Election | Chaired by David Collins |
| 1400-1440 | VFP UK in 2022 | Chaired by Phillip Clarke |
| 1440-1500 | Any Other Business | Chaired by Phillip Clarke |
| 1500-1600 |
Online Social |
|
3. Margate Expenses
The Turner Gallery in Margate has agreed to cover the travelling expenses of any Veteran For Peace who travelled to Margate for our Remembrance Ceremony on Saturday 13 November.
Please email Alan Chick accounts@vfpuk.org including your name and any tickets or receipts you have.
4. Submit Remembrance Reports
There was Remembrance activity carried out by Veterans For Peace all over the country last weekend. Please email any reports or photos to Ben Griffin admin@vfpuk.org for publication on our website.
5. VFP London December Meeting
Date: Wednesday 08 December
Time: 1830 hours
Location: Housmans Books, 5 Caledonian Road, N1 9DY
6. National Coordinator
After consulting with my family, Trustees and members of the Policy Group, I have volunteered to fill the vacant National Coordinator role until the AGM and then stand for election.
I am available to assist members of VFP UK and answer any queries via the email address admin@vfpuk.org (I am not on any social media or messenger services).
All the very best, Ben Griffin
Date: Sunday 14 November
Time: 1400
Location: Whitehall Place
Arrangement: Alan Chick
A few of us will be going to The Cenotaph this Sunday to lay a wreath of white poppies.
This will be low key and without ceremony.
Please feel free to meet us at Whitehall Place.
From there we will walk to The Cenotaph and at an appropriate time lay the wreath.
Dress
VFP Blue sweater, shirt, tie, dark trousers, dark shoes.
Date: Wednesday 10 November
Time: 1830 hours
Location: Housmans Books, 5 Caledonian Road, N1 9DY
Are you a veteran of the armed forces?
Are you ready to serve the cause of world peace?
Then this meeting is for you.
Sequence
Set up chairs in a circle
Introductions
VFP Pledge
Personal updates
Recent VFP activity
Upcoming VFP activity
Any other business
Group decisions
Next meeting
Tidy away chairs
If it is your first meeting please bring along proof of military service.
Date: Saturday 13 November
Time: 1400-1700
Location: Margate
Arrangement: David Collins
Veterans For Peace will be heading to Margate to participate in a closing ceremony of the statue April is the Cruellest Month.
This event is our main contribution to Remembrance this year. A good turnout will be impressive and moving.
14:00 —14:30 Closing Ceremony
Brief Introduction by David Collins.
Speech by Michael Rakowitz
Speech by Dan Taylor
Poem/Speech by David Longley
Verses 1 and 7 of “The Iraqi Nights” by Dunya Mikhail
Poem by Alan Chick
Last Post – Laura Garwin
Laying of the wreath by Dan Taylor
Reveille
15.00 – 17.00 Reception
Held at the Turner Contemporary Margate Gallery
17.00 Gallery closes
Dress
VFP Blue sweater, shirt, tie, dark trousers, dark shoes.
Transport
If you are travelling from London, please feel free to join us on the following trains.
Outward: Depart St Pancras 11.12 Arrive Margate 12.38
Return: Depart Margate 17.55 Arrive St Pancras 19.21
Train travel will be refunded for VFP members and there is no charge for the reception.
Arrangement
Please confirm your attendance as soon as possible to projects@vfpuk.org
Hi
I am Brad Oliver Scottish organiser for VFP UK.
I served in the UK army for 5 years in the 1970s
There’s nothing wrong in remembrance, in fact it’s to be encouraged!
It’s the way that remembrance is commemorated that needs to be discussed and explored.
There is no need to decorate a Jet fighter with an image of a poppy
Lets bomb while we remember !
Also, there is no need to drop poppies from a WW2 bomber
To me this is blood of the 20 million + who died in WW2.
Or to bedeck the Tower of London with poppies.
Or a gunshot wound in the shape of a Poppy! my personal least favourite.
Then we have the so called “celebrity’s” trying to outdo each other as to who can wear their poppy first and who has the most garish Ott poppy on their lapel, whose manufacture gives only 10% to RBL. Charity.
When I visited Palestine/Israel I walked along some of the Apartheid wall and met a guy who spoke English, I chatted to him about things and the wall I said it was nice that people had painted nice images on the wall. He rebuked me strongly, stating that we don’t want the wall to look nice as it is an ugly wall and an ugly idea to isolate people from each other.
This is now my view of the modern-day poppy it has been “white washed” to look beautiful with art installations and events to “celebrate”. There is nothing to celebrate in war only its ending!
The original poppy was a symbol from WW1 where nothing grew except the poppy in the Dante’s hell that was Flanders/Somme etc.
Over the years it has become a fund-raising emblem for ex services charity, there should be NO ex-services charities. The government put those service people in harm’s way so the government should pay for their care and rehabilitation.
When I watched the remembrance parades in the early 60s as child it was mostly what I would call citizens army e.g., the majority of WW2 guys were conscripts either willing or otherwise.
These guys [mostly guys} didn’t think they were heroes they were just fighting fascism in Europe. A fight that may be rerun in years to come?
When I was growing up, WW2 was basically all around, my grandad on my mother’s side had died in WW2, my grandad on my father’s side was a sub mariner {not a job I would like to do}
In my innocent 5-year-old brain I thought that eventually there would not be any veterans marching past the Cenotaph, little did I realise that there were already thousands of veterans from Korea and Britain’s colonial exit strategy wars in, Palestine, Malaya, Aden and Suez to name but a few.
In recent years the numbers at the cenotaph have swollen on Remembrance Day with the veterans from N. Ireland the 30 years [police action} in the “Troubles”. The Malvinas/Falklands, Bosnia, and Gulf war 1 and 2 and good old Afghanistan a country fought over by imperialist powers for 200 years.
In the last 25 to 30 years the poppy has become more and more politicised mainly by the right and the far right.
With footballers and newsreaders etc having death threats given against them for not wearing the poppy.
The very war fought for freedom dictates that wearing of a poppy is your freedom of choice and not a dictate from a totalitarian state. So, the guys who died for freedom are being dishonoured by the poppy fascists who demand people wear a poppy to show “respect”
The far right and the main stream media has jumped on the band wagon sending out false news re Muslim areas banning the poppy etc whilst the far right give the Hitler salute whilst wearing a poppy.
Fascists wearing a poppy! Would that be called an oxymoron or just a moron?
The truth is that as its significance fades Remembrance Sunday has become less an anthem for doomed youth and ever more a celebration of a wider, mostly male, seemingly infinite obsession with the two wars. The second conflict may have ended over 70 years ago but you wouldn’t know it. WWII is everywhere: it’s on the telly, it’s in our cinemas, it’s on our minds and on our lips more than might be healthy.
When terrorist incidents happen, or the bus is delayed, we talk about “The Blitz Spirit” or “The Dunkirk Spirit”. [I bet in Germany or Hiroshima they don’t say the bombing spirit?] No matter that none of the people invoking it were even there. No matter that equating a late bus to the carpet bombing of a city is just plain dumb.
The poppy has gone from a small act of remembrance to a virtual whip that is deployed to beat non-conformists into line.
The vocabulary used by politicians and news pundits does not lend its self to the promotion of peace.
Things like surrender monkey French, traitors, the enemy etc etc.
I will always remember the Thatcher “government” saying that the striking miners who were only trying to save their job as “the enemy within “
Let is now look at the power behind the throne so to speak!
The Royal British Legion, on paper an organisation supposedly dedicated to veterans’ charity?
The shift in both the presentation and significance of the ‘poppy’, and its increasing use by the Legion not “just” to remember past wars but to be actively co-opted in order to advocate support for current and future wars – “support for our troops”, “proper respect for the Armed Forces” – is part of a much wider shift towards militarism in this country, as many commentators and organisations have noticed. Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW), in their remarkable document ‘The New Tide of Militarism’, have documented this new presentation of militarism, and how it is being developed: “there is a new and different tide of militarisation that has developed over the last five years. The general public do not seem to be aware of it, and it is not being discussed or scrutinised.”
As they suggest, our general lack of awareness of this “new and different tide of militarism” is due to the subtlety and care with which it is being introduced, and the unexpected forms it takes. As QPSW note, “The involvement of the military in the Royal British Legion’s campaign has also increased. Whereas in the past the role was mainly to participate in the ceremonies around Remembrance Day, now troops and cadets sell poppies”, often with the cry of “Support our troops!”.
The 2008 Government report ‘National Recognition of our Armed Forces’ aimed to eliminate the “separation of the Armed Forces from civilian life”, which it seeks to do through such means as: encouraging “a greater relationship between the military and the media”; fostering “greater engagement between Parliament and the military”; increasing the presence of the military in schools through expansion of the Combined Cadet Forces (CCF); “to do everything possible to encourage more comprehensive Schools and City .
This is the worrying thing getting “troops” into schools something that happened in 1930s Germany.
Today, poppies are sold on railway stations by current forces personnel calling, ‘Support the troops?’ Surely the poppy cannot carry both meanings without contradiction” These contradictions only deepen when you start to investigate the extensive links between the British Legion and contemporary arms companies.
Many of these policies are enabled by the weaponry that BAE Systems, the platinum sponsor of the British Legion Poppy Appeal, supplies. As CAAT research shows, “Saudi Arabia is the largest buyer of UK weapons in the world.” It adds, “It is also one of the worst human rights abusers.” BAE Systems armoured vehicles were used by Saudi troops to suppress pro-democracy protests in Bahrain in 2011.
Indeed, BAE has had an extensive history of sales involvement with the Saudi dictatorships and was at the centre of one of the biggest arms trade scandals ever: the notorious £43billion ‘Al-Yamamah’ (the word means ‘dove’ – arms traders, it seems, are not without a sense of irony) deal with Saudi Arabia in the 1980s. In the words of the Financial Times, this arms deal was “the biggest [UK] sale ever of anything to anyone.”, It included not only sales of extensive weaponry but also training and advice for the Saudi military.
The deal eventually led to BAE Systems being sentenced to pay a $400 million criminal fine, one of the largest criminal fines in the history of the international arms trade. As the Guardian noted, “BAE admitted to false accounting and making misleading statements. The company ran a global money laundering system: a network of secret cash payments amounting to billions of pounds that went on for years with the connivance of the British government.
In 2003, the Royal British Legion chose this company to be their major financial sponsor for their Festival of Remembrance.
An annual military uniform fetish ball!
We are forgetting one of the major drivers of the First World War, and indeed of all wars: the arms market. “The British arms company Vickers-Armstrong, later to become BAE, sold arms to the Ottoman Empire that were used later against British troops, this points us again to the curious process through which poppies are worn to commemorate soldiers killed by weapons made by arms companies which sponsor the manufacture of poppies which are worn to commemorate!!!!
The words we use to describe warfare and killing profoundly shape how we think about them. This is why governments, arms companies, and the media have become skilled in how they speak about war. As Orwell noted, we must be wary of their lexicons of doublethink: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
We are all familiar with this duplicitous language of making murder respectable: “collateral damage” (the slaughter of innocents), “friendly fire” (having a fellow-soldier accidentally blow your face off), “extraordinary rendition” (illegal torture), “dynamic room entries” (blowing up your front door in the middle of the night). But equally insidious and sanitising are the words routinely marched out on Armistice Day to cover the shocking and often unnecessary slaughter of men and women in the armed forces today: “sacrifice”, “heroes”, “the fallen”. As one veteran noted, “Why do we call them “the fallen”? It’s not as if they just fell over.
The re taking of remembrance.
In recent years there has been a light at the end of the tunnel namely Veterans for Peace UK.
Who have organised alternative events to remember the slaughter of all wars and all casualty’s whether military or civilian?
We, veterans of the armed forces, having dutifully served our nation, do hereby affirm our greater responsibility to serve the cause of world peace. To this end:
To achieve these goals, members of Veterans for Peace pledge to use non-violent means and to maintain an organisation that is both democratic and open with the understanding that all members are trusted to act in the best interests of the group for the larger purpose of world peace.
We urge all veterans who share this vision to join us.
From Pretoria to Belfast: The Same Old Story
The film ‘Breaker Morant’ will be shown next Friday (5th Nov. 2021) on the ‘Great! Movies Action’ TV channel at 9.55am. ‘Breaker Morant’ features events during the Boer War, when Australian mounted troops were ordered ‘to take no prisoners’ by the British high command. But, subsequently, to facilitate peace talks starting, some were charged with ‘war crimes’ and two were shot by a military firing-squad – the trailer can be viewed here:
A Wikipedia article about the film can be seen at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaker_Morant_(film)
In our own time ‘Private Eye’ have just published the following article about another soldier, Colin Wallace, who served in a ‘psychological operations’ unit in Northern Ireland:
A Wikipedia article about Colin Wallace can be seen at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Wallace
‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ is a documentary film by Michael Oswald about Colin Wallace, a former Senior Information Officer at the Ministry of Defence, UK. As part of his work Colin Wallace spread fake news, created a witchcraft scare, smeared politicians and attempted to divide and create conflict amongst communities, organisations and individuals. The film shows what happened when Colin Wallace objected to some of his tasks and he had a falling-out with sections of the British intelligence community. See the trailer:
Most people will know about some of the killings carried out by British Troops throughout their history, like the massacres at Amritsar in India 1919, Batang Kali in Malaya 1948 and Bloody Sunday in Derry 1972. There were various other allegations of killing, abuse, cruelty and torture towards native peoples and detainees, many were raised post WW2 in Malaya, Kenya, Aden and Cyprus – later, they surfaced again in Northern Ireland, Iraq and then Afghanistan. While there were differences in the locations and circumstances, the details of the allegations of brutality and torture were remarkably similar.
It is clear there is a chasm between the ‘official version’ of what happens in these kind of conflicts and what actually occurs. All this points to the fact that this type of oppression is systematic and is covertly instigated and sanctioned by those in authority – Westminster Governments, the MoD and the top-brass. Extreme violence is used to get the desired results, with a blind eye being turned towards it by the higher-ups – with denials issued and cover-ups attempted, if any wrong-doing, or ill-treatment, threatens to be exposed.
If the exposures of killings and brutal treatment becomes difficult to refute, however, it is apparent that those at the top do not really care if a few lower-rank soldiers end up in the dock for ‘getting carried away’ and using ‘excessive force’. All steps will be taken, though, to ensure that the role of the politicians and the top-brass in the process stays hidden. And while their role remains obscured, you can be sure that these events will continue to happen again and again.
Therefore, if we want to stop such killings, brutality and torture happening, the most important link to expose is how the orders and sanctions come down the chain-of-command. And serving members of the Armed Forces, along with veterans, can play a unique and principal role in doing this. Which could help to prevent such tragedies happening again – to both civilians and troops.
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Information compiled and written by VFP member, Aly Renwick, who joined-up aged 16 and served for 8 years in the British Army from 1960-68.
Veterans For Peace UK 