Today I will not join in with the jingoistic celebrations. They make me very uneasy. I do not like the nationalistic tone.
Instead I shall think about what it all meant. I shall think about my Mother. She had a lot of friends killed when a doodlebug (V1 rocket) landed in the street across from her. She went on to work in Churchill’s bunker in Downing Street and was very much part of the war effort.
I shall think of my father who went off to fight in Sicily and Italy as a despatch rider.
Fortunately they both survived but I think they were both scarred mentally and traumatised by what they had seen and the friends they had lost.
War is a bastard.
I feel incredibly fortunate that neither myself nor my children have had to go off and fight in any war. I’ve seen the effect on Vietnam and Iraq veterans. The violence, death and horror warp minds. People are changed forever.
So – it is worth celebrating that war is over.
It is worth celebrating that fascism was defeated.
It is worth celebrating that the racism that put millions into death camps was beaten.
But I won’t join in with the sentiment that Britain was great and we beat the Germans. I hate that jingoistic nationalism.
Inside Germany there was a resistance to what Hitler and his scummy friends were doing. I’m with those in Germany who fought and risked torture and death to overthrow a dictatorship.
I am opposed to those who have purloined the Union Jack as a nationalistic symbol of their fascist ideals.
Unfortunately the Union Jack has come to symbolise an ideology I am utterly opposed to.
NIE WIEDER !!!
Never Again!! Indeed!
Ah, so this day did get mentioned, both tastefully and respectfully. Also have to agree with Matthias, despite Trumpist desires to haqve it all happen again to better advance their agenda. Never Again. This is the 75th anniversary of VE day, and still not enough time has past to erase the pain. Although done as a memorial to WW1 dead, a small and appropriate offering from Mark Knofler ends my tip of the hat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9e78gG6q0
Thanks for that Jeff – he played it beautifully! Hendrix could not have done much better!
I thought the same first time I heard it. Agreed, Hendrix would have been hard pressed to do it better.
I’d have liked to have heard him try though!!
Beautiful text! As a Dutchman (a country that suffered dramatically from nazi occupation), now living in Germany, and with two German sons (that now live in Belgium and the Netherlands again), I detest patriotism too. War is not a game of winners or losers; war only knows losers. Also, my sons and I were born after the war, and we are not guilty of the Nazi atrocities, nor can we take on any responsibility for them. Likewise, the sons and daughters of the allied forces cannot take any credit for winning the war against fascism, only their brave soldiers can.
Thank you for reply. I think the war against fascism is sadly still being fought. Let us hope that a better, more cosmopolitan world comes out of all this!