Terence Blacker: The new British way of mourning
An alarming whiff of mass sentimentality adorned some of the scenes this week
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Independent Minds
If only modern Britain were more like Wootton Bassett. That thought must have passed through many minds since the first press and TV accounts reported, a matter of weeks ago, how a small Wiltshire town has taken upon itself the sad task of honouring those killed in action when their bodies arrive home.
Every time a soldier's coffin has returned to nearby RAF Lyneham, the townspeople have turned out on the high street to pay their respects.
It was too good a story not to grow and now the simple decency of Wootton Bassett has found its way into the international press. It has come to symbolise the fact that the ordinary citizens of a British town have recognised even in 2009 that much of what is taken for granted in our everyday lives has been earned by the blood of brave young men. To quote a line much used during the last world war: "For our tomorrow, they gave their today."
Yet this is not quite the old-fashioned story that it may seem. The events of this week surrounding the "repatriation" of eight soldiers killed in Afghanistan suggest that what started as a small and simple tribute is becoming a more modern event in which mass emotion and the media feed off each other.
Thousands lined the streets of the town on Wednesday. Cars were parked along the roads which the procession would take. Families had taken up their positions hours in advance. There were picnics, union jacks. The press played its part too, interviewing those who had turned out for the occasion. In some weird way, the emphasis had shifted from the soldiers who had died to those who attended their homecoming. The caring British public turned out to be heroes, too.
It is as if, quite suddenly, the armed forces have come to represent the best of us as surely as other institutions – political, financial, law-enforcing, journalistic – reveal the worst. Serving officers and men, fighting and dying for a cause few understand, remind us of the way we used to be, before public servants were revealed to be as slippery and self-serving as the rest of us.
There is a desperate hunger for old-fashioned heroes – soldiers fit the bill perfectly. Not only are they tough and courageous, but they stand outside the celebrity circus, above the sordid business of politics and money-making. Compared to the dangerous, selfless work they do, the nation's daily preoccupations – a dead pop star, a reality show scandal, expenses claims involving moats and plugs – seem tawdry and trivial.
It is quite recent, this renewed respect for the armed forces. Anniversaries marking the key events of the two world wars – Remembrance Sunday, Dunkirk, the D-Day landings – are marked with far greater solemnity and feeling than was the case a decade ago. The words and thoughts of ageing veterans have become best-selling volumes.
Even five years ago, the country's treatment of the Ghurkas would never have become a seismic political event, let alone one which sweeps aside the normal British guardedness when it comes to matters of immigration.
The fact that none of this impinges too much on the armed forces themselves adds to the respect accorded to them. The army's great strength is that it is tough and self-contained. It refuses to deal in the common currencies of populism and fame. Important as it is for serving soldiers to believe that the nation back home supports them, I suspect that many serving officers and men will have had ambivalent feelings about the recent outpourings of public feeling around the coffins of the fallen.
They may be right to be wary. There is an alarming whiff of mass sentimentality in some of the scenes we have seen this week. Soldiers have been dying in Iraq and Afghanistan for several years but until recently, these tragedies would be covered in brief, routine news items. During the session in the House of Commons when MPs gathered to express their sympathy to David Cameron after his son had died, the death of two soldiers was announced almost as an afterthought to the main story. Now, suddenly, there is a feeding frenzy.
At a time when every other public institution is distrusted, it is perhaps not entirely healthy, this new and intensely emotional attitude towards the armed forces. For a start, it can skew the way the news is presented. In the current atmosphere, it is unthinkable, should an incident of military misbehaviour be uncovered, that it would be subjected to the kind of forensic press interest that, for example, has marked coverage of police activity. The public, which drives the media on these occasions, would not want to know.
What is odd is that, behind the emotion of the moment, there is still remarkably little understanding of, and not much curiosity about, the cause for which these men have sacrificed their lives. If those applauding the coffins of dead soldiers were asked whether they really thought the soldiers had given their today for our tomorrow, few would answer with an unequivocal "yes". The reason these men died has become less important than the fact of their death.
What matters now is how we feel, not what we think. In many ways, the wars being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq pose moral questions every bit as urgent as those which marked the Vietnam war 40 years ago. In retrospect, public attitudes to those fighting in Asia at that time were rather shameful. "Be the first family in your block to have your boy come home in box" was the cheerily satirical message of one of the most famous anti-war songs of the time. Famously, when veterans returned home, they were often treated as if the war was of their personal doing.
The response today could not be more different. Politics is for politicians. What matters above all is not to consider the war and its reasons but to mark individual grief and loss, and to share in it. "We need to let them know their sacrifice means something to people, that they're not out there for nothing," the Mayor of Wootton Bassett has said.
The response of the people of his town has been generous and open-hearted, but the death of brave soldiers is too important to become an excuse for another media-orchestrated festival of great British caring.
terblacker@aol.com
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Comments
Even if it is a bit OTT at times even simple minded patriotism is preferable to fawning on the fifth columnists in our midst.
I know how this is done
Terence Blacker: The new British way of mourning
The British are very stiff collared and they want to stay that way. When the tears come out one will nudge the other and tell him, ?The neighbor is dead. Let us go pass our condolences to the family. They grieve so keep your cell phone on no vibrate and timed silent.
So they take the small tube of the artificial tears and some pink small cotton used by the ladies for the make up, spread this on face , walk without the shoes to the neighbors house cursing. As soon as they are inside they cry loudly and the face is full of the tears. They say, ?I saw him yesterday here only, near the carrot tree waiting for you. He loved you so much. I just believe that he is no more with us. The poor dog also is sad sitting outside. May be, Liza, Allah, God, wants him at this age. He was a good soldier in Iraq. I know this. He sent me (Lie) a photograph of the family and told me to look after them. I have just brought some food for you, Even the baker is sad. Here, eat these fish and chips. You must eat even if he is gone. How we miss him. Please take this ice cone. It is melting, as my fridge is not working. I wanted to bring this toy your house yesterday but how do we know he is gone today.
Please let me know if I can be of any help. My brother is a very good lawyer. I am off today and will pass by next weak. ?
He tells his friend, you are taking my dog to the vet today please. He has not eaten toady his park chops.
Then they are out and laugh.
They know no mourning. To them it is morning.
There was a man who daily bought a kilo of grapes. He would, in front of the vendor, take half kilo and put in one ear and then the second half-kilo in the other ear.
This went on for many days. One day the man asked for the same. The vendor said, ?Sorry today I have no grapes but I have plums? The man, ?okay, yes the usual?
He put half a kilo in one ear then the half-kilo in the other. Paid for this.
The vendor asked very softly and politely, ?It is none of my business but please tell why you put the plums in the ears??
The man said, ?because you do not have grapes:
Whistling he went.
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
However, it is not necessary for the media to make such a circus of the events in Wooton Basset and it would be good if they were asked to stay away.
Respect the soldiers because they sign up to protect the UK.
But these illegal invasions are putting the lives of our soldiers at risk for the ambition and objectives for other countries (USA). The soldiers didnt sign up to become mercenaries for other nations - they are being reduced to contract killers. The terrorist killings in London were initiated by our participation in the USA's ambition to conquer Iraq for oil and middle east control on behalf of Israel. Bush and Blair have disappeared, leaving our soldiers to die on thier behalf.
Afghanistan wasnt illegal? Because Karzai invited them or because USA has majority say in Nato?
Afghanistan didnt start a war with the USA or UK. The intiation of war with Afghanistan was illegal in the eyes of the world. It was just that USA managed to twist enough arms at the UN to turn a blind eye.
I believe what will decide Brown's fate is the economy first, perceptions spending on key services like health second and finally what narrative Cameron spins and whether people believe it and whether they believe it reflects Tory thinking.
Its the latter points that are not currently working and why labour is not being annihilated in the polls by the Tories.
At a time when the public feel disassociated from the political establishment thanks to the expenses scandal, distrustful still of government thanks to the Iraq war and feeling battered by powers beyond our control causing the financial crisis is it any wonder that the public seek honour elsewhere? The soldiers who die in Afghanistan are the physical embodiment of the sense that the average person in the street has been sacrificed at the expense of our leaders who don't seem to represent us any more. When a soldier gives up a life for a cause that most don't understand due to the fact that our government fails to provide them with adequate equipment then they symbolise the frustration of many in society with an establishment that very few retain faith in. The sentimnetality is due to the fact that many suffer from government inadequacy everyday but the soldiers who die represent this in a way that is more resonant that a thousand smaller papercuts. They are sacrificed for the folly of politicians and many people find that tragic.
I agree, the reasons for the invasion have become lost in time. The majority just accept the official line because humans, for the lost part, are like sheep. Thats how Hitler was able to get a whole nation to toe his line of thinking.
The current line seems to be to stop terrorist camps from growing in Afghanistan. Obviously we all to well that terrorists dont need a camp or a country - it's just that virtually all the 1.3 billion Muslims know its wrong to commit suicide killing of civilians - obviously, with such a large figure, you will get a small number of nutcases who are easily led astray.