The Old Lie

[poliphilo]

The Queen turns up

And all the pajandrums of church and state in their silly get-ups.

And of course the military all chingling with medals.

And the word glorious gets used a lot. As in "our glorious dead".

That's what upsets me.

We are still telling ourselves that death in war is glorious.

Here are the images from Falluja. And death in war is glorious.

And images of the coffins of Black Watch soldiers coming home, having been killed by suicide bombers. And death in war is glorious.

Wilfred Owen tried to spike our guns. It's one of the most famous poems in the language. It even gets taught in schools.

"The old Lie, dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori."

(Note that Lie has a capital "L")

But it doesn't get read at the Cenotaph. Not in this august company.

The Queen is wearing a black hat. Tony Blair is wearing a black coat. The military band plays Elgar. And death in war is glorious.

Comments

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

If in some distant dream you too could pace...

Indeed, I agree with you that Owen knew what he was on about. And yet the Cenotaph ceremony seems to kling to Brooke's sickly-sweet romance.

If I should die, think only this of me
That there's some corner in a foreign field
That is forever England...

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Death isn't glorious--it's just death, and adding a fancy adjective to it is like whitewashing a sepulchre.

-- I heard yesterday that the Evangelical Christians are now gleefully expecting and even demanding to cash in their chips, now that their (and their God's) President has been elected. They want their "home and family" values stamped on this administration through its appointed officials (the Mexican for Attorney General? Too liberal for them) and its new laws.

And this morning there were pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger smiling at the people--he's really being talked up as a possible presidential candidate for 2008.

We have entered a dark time of repressive government, reactionary legislation, grim conservatism and fear of change, and lives and money poured into a senseless and cruel war that goes nowhere, and may go nowhere for years.

We were so close to moving beyond this shrunken up way of living. Where are all those Aquarians with their sparkly auras? They need to hurry up. We're heading back into the iron age.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The Centotaph ceremony is as much about reinforcing the authority of the British establishment as about mourning the war dead. It is fairly undisguisedly a celebration of military values.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And Bush is a member of the Aquarian generation- a little younger than you and me.

I had great hopes of the Millennium. Unrealistic as it turns out. But I cling to the belief that what we're seeing now is just the last flailings of a dying beast.

Schwarzenegger disgusts me, but I believe he is more of a liberal than most of Team Bush.

[morrison-maiden.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. I know this sounds kind of dumb, but Garbo had a great line in Queen Christina that sort of goes into it.

"Spoils! Glory! What is behind all this? Death and destruction. Triumphance of crippled men."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well said, Garbo!

But we never learn. Each generation makes the same mistakes.

[morrison-maiden.livejournal.com]

Lol.

Yes, it's too true...

[silent-mouse.livejournal.com]

This hits close to home, more than you would imagine. I happen to live in that small country in the Middle East that is constantly at war, no matter what time it is. And lately it seems more and more like a war of choice, at least many parts of it.
And we were taught at school that "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori". But somehow it didn't make sense to me then, and it doesn't make sense to me now. I'd rather simply live for my country, but that's not very glorious, it seems.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Politicians find war very helpful to their prospects. Scare the electorate, identify yourself with the cause of national safety and honour and they'll vote for you because it would be unpatriotic to do otherwise.

It seems to work for your leaders and it has certainly worked for Bush (who would have been a gonner by now if 9/11 hadn't given his presidency a focus.)

[silent-mouse.livejournal.com]

Indeed, this works like a charm for our "leaders" - but what makes me wonder is the fact that here we are not talking about soldiers that volunteered to serve and are very far away, it's the electorate itself that gets to die a glorious death. And still people vote for those leaders. And still they feel that death in any war is glorious, even after they lose children and friends.