Nov 112023
 

I don’t usually wear one of those red poppies – not out of a lack of respect for the war dead or veterans of wars, but because of “poppy fascism“. It’s all very well choosing to wear the red poppy, but it should also be fine to choose not to wear the red poppy – even the Royal British Legion supports those who don’t choose to wear it: “If the poppy became compulsory it would lose its meaning and significance.”

Just look at the abuse those in the public eye who choose not to wear it receive.

And some of the reasons for not wearing it are perfectly reasonable – some politicians do use it as a means of promoting war and nationalism. Distasteful in the extreme. And very much associated with the far-right – the very kind of people many of the war dead were fighting against.

On the other hand, some of the reasons for not wearing it can sometimes seem inappropriate. It’s all very well being against some of Britain’s wars and even against some of the actions of British soldiers (such as Bloody Sunday), but the poppy is about remembering the war dead and veterans. A group who very rarely had any choice about where they were sent.

Aug 182023
 

A fair few videos are popping up at the moment responding to a description of the Bamber Bridge incident. This post is mostly adding a few points from the British perspective.

US military authorities insisted that local British authorities impose a colour bar

The British pubs co-operated and stuck up signs saying “Black troops only” – which is obviously not what the US authorities wanted.

Well of course they did – under what kind of authority do the ‘US military authorities’ have to impose a colour bar? They are after all nothing more than guests in the country, so of course British pub owners would interpret it “perversely”.

It is nice to think that this is an indication that the British of the time weren’t racist. Wrong of course – Bamber Bridge is just a couple of hours away from Hartlepool where according to legend a ship-wrecked monkey was hanged for being a French spy. The British regarded themselves as better than anyone else (so just like everybody else then), but the presence of non-whites was very low especially in a small town without a port.

And besides, the British were told to be nice to visiting US troops and nobody mentioned that it wasn’t supposed to apply to non-white US troops. And of course there is sympathy for the underdog.

What Happened Afterwards?

At least the videos I’ve seen neglect to mention what happened after the incident. Except to say that many of the black troops were court-martialed.

But what also happened was that the general in charge (Ira Eaker) placed most of the blame on the white officers and MPs, merged the unit with other trucking units, and purged the new unit of racist and inexperienced officers. Which is supposed to have improved things considerably for black troops.

British Racism?

It is easy to assume that the British attitude during the incident means that the British aren’t racist. The fact is that black people were relatively rare in Britain during WWII and were most likely concentrated in the great port cities rather than a small village in rural Lancashire.

Immigration of black British from the colonies was strongly encouraged after the war, and with their arrival racism reared its ugly head. I would argue that the racism in Britain against black people was never quite as bad as in the USA, but I’m white, so what the hell do I know?

Posts leading out to the sea.
Into The Water; Stillness and Motion
Nov 102013
 

Today (at least it is when I’m writing this) is Remembrance Sunday in the UK; traditionally a day to commemorate the sacrifice of ordinary men in the two world wars.

I did not watch the ceremony at The Cenotaph, or attend any of the more local ceremonies, although I have in the past. But one thing that is a noticeable change since my childhood – there is a much greater emphasis on the sacrifices made by our armed forces in all wars up to and including the present.

Fair enough; I don’t have a problem with commemorating the war dead from any war, but the the armed forces already have a day – Armed Forces Day – and Remembrance Sunday is special. It is special because it remembers the two world wars when ordinary men were called to service in their droves; whereas other wars involved soldiers, sailors, and airmen who had chosen to be shot at for a living.

Before WWI, there was nothing like Remembrance Sunday despite all the wars that the UK fought before – nothing for the Boer War, the Crimean War, the Napoleonic Wars, and nothing before. There were war memorials constructed – as a resident of Portsmouth, I can visit an unusually large number, but as for national ceremonies … excluding the burial of heros such as Nelson, they had to wait until after WWI.

Perhaps we need to move the Armed Forces Day to next to Remembrance Sunday to more clearly distinguish between the two days.

Perhaps we also need to make the commemorations somewhat less military in nature – encourage those whose relatives served in the two world wars to attend in place of them. After all the number of world war veterans is dwindling; it won’t be too long before none of them are left, and it would be a great shame to leave Remembrance Sunday to the politicians and the present-day military.

 

Sep 072010
 

Today there has been a lot of coverage of the London Blitz that started 70 years ago today; where the Nazi’s war machine began waging total war against civilians in London. But perhaps we should look a little deeper than the media’s claim that this was the beginning of a new era in total warfare.

Pcasso's Gernica

Picasso’s Gernica.

Despite the media’s claim that the London Blitz was the dawn of a new era of warfare against civilians, the terror-killing of civilians had been practised earlier by the Nazi’s during the Spanish Civil War – at Gernika (note that I use the Basque spelling which seems more natural to us odd-ball English people). This happened three years earlier than the London Blitz in 1937 and in retrospect was clearly a honing of tactics by the Nazis.

The scale of course was quite different – between 400 to 1600 people were killed at Gernika whereas the London Blitz killed around 20,000 civilians with even more killed in other cities in the UK. We should remember the victims of the Blitz both in London and elsewhere, but we should also remember the Basque victims of the Nazi terror bombing and their other victims too.

Perhaps we need to have a national day of mourning for the victims of all such terror bombings of civilians.

Oct 222009
 

The BBC have invited Nick Griffin – the head of the BNP neanderthals onto Question Time (a public question and answer forum with a panel of politicians of various kinds). Of course there is a lot of fuss about this – any self-respecting person of almost every political persuasion is horrified at the prospect of seeing the BNP use national TV to peddle their filth. The BBC’s argument is that the BNP has achieved sufficient electoral success for them to be invited to take part – along the same lines as the Green party receive invitations.

The BBC has pointed out (quite rightly) that their role is not to impose any form of political censureship and if the BNP has achieved the level of electoral success that allows other political parties to be included in programmes such as Question Time, then they cannot legitimately not include the BNP. Given the amount of time that has passed since the BNP achieved its electoral success in the last European elections, the fault for “allowing” the BNP to take part in Question Time must be passed directly to those in parliament who hae not passed legislation prohibiting the BNP from being heard on TV or radio (as happened to Sinn Fein in the 1980s).

There is an argument that says that because we have free speech, we should allow Nick Griffin to spout any kind of rubbish he wants to on Question Time. Well, perhaps although our tradition of freedom of speech is not unlimited. And certainly Nick Griffin’s freedom of speech does not give him a license to spout his rubbish on Question Time.

Of course Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time does allow us to more easily see how foolish and immature his views are. Interestingly he has already portrayed just how deranged he is even before the programme when he was making comments on the way to the studio.

He claimed that the reason that the Labour Party had paid for protesters  to show up outside the BBC studios. Whilst I do not have any evidence to refute this, it does seem more than a little ridiculous to think that the anti-fascist protesters would need paying to turn up. Especially when you consider that protesters have shown up outside regional BBC offices – why would anyone pay for them to appear there when they could have been paid to appear in London ?

Let’s have a look at some of his statements …

“I am the most loathed man in Britain”

I somehow doubt it. He just isn’t that significant. Compare Nick Griffin with some of the British monsters like Harold Shipman.

“We are the aborigines here”

Presumably meaning that the English white people originally arrived in the UK shortly after the last ice age finished. Well perhaps there are some still left but the UK has seen immigration ever since the ice age – first of all Celts (yes! they didn’t originally come from here), Angles, Saxons (the BNP of course lump the two into the mythical “Anglo-Saxons”), Vikings, and Normans.

And of course the Romans who undoubtedly left more than a few genes behind. Which undoubtedly included a few ‘black’ genes given that they also (in their later days) included “native” troops in their army and shipped them around to where they might be needed. Wouldn’t it be funny if Nick were “tainted” with a bit of “black blood” ? I’m not normally given to using such phrases; I don’t believe in them, but old Nick would certainly be upset if he found out he wasn’t “pure white”.

At least in the UK, the whole concept of “indigenous” people at least in terms of “aborigines” is foolish in the extreme and shows an immense ignorance of British history. Really quite peculiar for someone thinks they are as patriotic as Nick undoubtedly thinks he is.

The reason behind Nick’s blatant racism is that he is terrified of being swarmed under by hordes of non-British immigrants. Even ignoring that immigration makes Britain a more dynamic and interesting place, such fears show that the racists are the kind of people who need to take their socks off to count beyond 10. If you look at the statistics, 92% of the current population of the UK is white. We’re hardly in danger of disappearing!

“I can’t explain …”

In relation to his allegedly changed views on the truth of the Jewish holocaust in WWII. Of course the obvious conclusion when he claims he cannot explain himself due to European law is that his views have not changed and that he still denies the holocaust. Or perhaps he refuses to accept the holocaust because he would loose his core supporters if he did.

And of course there is no European law in force in this country against denying the holocaust; that clause of the law can be blocked in individual countries who feel that it is an unacceptable limit on freedom of expression. And yes the UK opted out of that bit of the law. It is interesting that someone who has previously denied the holocaust and is a European politician is ignorant of this!

“You can stay …”

In response to a question from an Englishman asking whether he (not white enough for Nasty Nick) would be allowed to stay in a BNP controlled country. Kind of contradicts the BNP website (and the constitution) where it is campaigning for a white Britain. Which one is it ? Are you confused Nick ? Or just lying ?

“Adolf (Hitler) went a bit too far”

Which was not something that Nick said on the programme itself, but something he is supposed to have said in a video. The interesting thing that came out in the programme is that Nick consistent denies having said embarrassing things in the past even when there is clear evidence that he did say such things.

It was plainly obvious that you simply cannot believe any denials Nick makes.