"Poets Exploding Like Bombs"

[poliphilo]

Young men love to fight. They particularly love to fight in a good cause. In the 1930s lthousands  of young British men- not street thugs, but scholars, poets, trades unionists, students-  went off to fight in the Spanish Civil War, in a cause that only tangentially touched them-  "for Communism and for liberty".  They included George Orwell, the poet Laurie Lee and -fleetingly- W.H. Auden. 

So what's so surprising about young British Muslims going off to seek martyrdom in Iraq?

Auden, who became tiresomely conservative in middle age, later disowned his poem "Spain". It's one long adrenaline rush. Strip out the specific cultural references and the overwhelming intelligence, and isn't this what jihadis feel?

Comments

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

You're a thoughtful individual, and spot on to be careful in otherizing these people. I can only agree with you there.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

When friends and neighbours of British jihadis talk about them it's usually with bewilderment.

"He was so religious..."

"He loved playing cricket..."

"He was always so quiet..."

[methodius.livejournal.com]

When friends and neighbours of British jihadis talk about them it's usually with bewilderment.

"He was so religious..."


I think there are some comparisons that work, and some that don't.

The young British men who fought in the Spanish civil war may indeed be compared with young British men who, burning with the sense of injustice at their own country's treatment of people in Iraq and elsewhere decide to join the jihan. And the same may be said of young Jewish men who have, at various times, gone to be soldiers in Israel.

And yes, I can empathise with them and know how they feel, and think that had I not been long ago convinced that as a Christian I was also called to be a pacifist, I might have been tempted on some occasions to do something similar.

But I believe it is a temptation to be resisted.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've never been entirely sure whether I'm a pacifist or not.

I've never been put to the test.