REMEMBRANCE FASCISTS

As usual at this time of year, we get the words of hatred thrown at anyone that decides that they don't want to wear a poppy. James McClean, of Wigan Athletic, was this year's hate figure as he refused to wear a poppy at Friday's match. Of course, McMurdo and his disciples are straight in there with the usual bile towards anybody that's Irish.

One of the disciples calls those that won't wear a poppy, 'fascist bigots'. McMurdo, meanwhile, uses phrases like 'conform,' 'uniform' and 'stricter policy' - which all sound rather fascist to my ears! And then we have that old chestnut, 'Those men died for your freedom.' But isn't forcing people to wear a poppy taking away that freedom? So in that case they didn't die for freedom at all.

What these clowns don't get is that the ordinary man in uniform in WWI was not fighting for freedom and democracy at all. In fact, more people had the vote in Germany than in Britain and it's been estimated that over half Britain's fighting men had no say in the running of their own country. Anybody that has studied history can tell you that all the Great Powers were spoiling for a fight for nearly two decades, Britain included. At various times in the 1890s and into the 20th Century, Britain was all set to go to war with the USA, France, Russia and then Germany. It had nothing whatsoever to do with 'freedom' and 'democracy'.

So why did so many men enlist in WWI? The answer lies in what I remember from the 1970s. Germans were invited to Remembrance services and the letters pages in the papers were red-hot with angry pensioners, who 'remembered' how German soldiers raped and pillaged their way through Belgium, throwing babies into the air and impaling them on bayonets. These people were incensed that such bloodthirsty savages were invited to remember the fallen. If we are to accept that German soldiers did behave like this, then those old people were right in their indignation. If it had been merely propaganda then those men in WWI were fighting for a lie.

Memories of WWI were still raw when WWII started. There was none of the enthusiastic volunteering to go and fight that there had been in 1914 and conscription had to be introduced. It wasn't that these men were cowards or traitors; they just didn't want to go and be killed for some place on the map that they knew absolutely nothing about. They didn't care about Nazi ideology; in fact they either knew nothing about it or, in some cases, actually agreed with it. Of course, the propaganda machine went into overdrive again.

With all that we know nowadays about the Nazis, it is easy to see WWII as a great moral crusade. At the time, however, that wasn't the case. Black propaganda was needed to make everyone hate and fear the enemy. People of my parents' and grandparents' generations still refused to have anything in the house from Germany well into the late 20th Century. I remember at my graduation my mother caused a bit of a row for condemning people around her that were applauding a Japanese girl going up to collect her degree!

The bulk of the ire of McMurdo's Mob is reserved, of course, for Ireland and the Irish. McMurdo himself talks of those 'too bitter or cowardly to sign up.' He adds, for good measure, 'Of this small band, the IRA was formed.' Again, this shows a remarkable ignorance, or disdain, for history. Everyone expected that the war was going to be over by Christmas. For many Irishmen the sooner this 'sideshow' was over, the sooner they could get back to the main issue of Irish indpendence. The UVF felt the same way; they refused to hand over the weapons they had imported from Germany, keeping a hold of them to fight against British troops once the war with Germany was over. And, yet, those that joined the IRA are supposed to be 'traitors'!

Then we get the old, old story about German U-Boats refuelling in Ireland during WWII, even though this actually never happened. The truth was that the British High Command was as keen as anyone in keeping Ireland out of the war. Ireland was still getting over the Civil War and hardly had much of an army to speak of; the country would have been invaded and overrun in no time. It is perhaps understandable that Irish folk were not keen to have British soldiers stationed on their land, while the British High Command did not want to have to fight a war on two fronts. Ireland, therefore, stayed neutral, while a heavy armed presence was maintained in Ulster, ready to help out should the Germans decide to invade. Keeping Ireland neutral also meant that supplies from America could be channelled through here and many Irish merchant seamen lost their lives to the U-Boats. None of them were hiding in shipyards!

The Irish seem to have been vilified in this country since time immemorial; lies are still invented to make them seem like some kind of 'enemy within'. And those of Irish descent are subject to the same bile and lies. Every heard the story of Celtic Park leaving the floodlights on to guide in German bombers? This would have been some feat considering there were no floodlights there until the 1950s! And when Catholic men returned from both wars they were told to 'piss off' as their kind weren't wanted in the heavy industries of Glasgow.

And what of the dead from the Catholic Irish community in Scotland? Do we mourn the 15 or 16-year old brother of my grandfather, shot for 'cowardice' by his captain? And what about the thousands of others that stood before a firing squad due to shell shock and mental illness? And we've to remember the dead of other wars as well. If some IRA man shot the bastards that set my great-great grandmother on fire and laughed while she died, am I to mourn them? What about those that fought against Indian independence or against insurgents in Africa; do we mourn them, even though they were guilty of some of the worst attrocities in history? McMurdo would have it that they were just following orders. I remember hearing that excuse somewhere before!

And what of the six million Jews murdered in extermination camps? I don't see any mourning for them. In fact, they're never mentioned at all unless it's to provide some kind of support for Israeli aggression. (Of course, McMurdo has at least one friend that denies that the Holocaust happened at all.) What about the army friends of my father, killed in Palestine by Israeli terrorists? Do we remember and mourn them, while supporting Israel's 'right to defend itself'?

The big problem is that, despite what The Peeppul might think, Britain was not always a force for good. There are millions around the world that have good cause to hate Britain for what they did; in India and Pakistan, the Middle East, Africa and in Ireland. Mention any of this and you're told that 'it's in the past' and that we should 'move on'. So let me get this straight: people that fought against Britain for their freedom have to move on and let the past go while we are told to be grateful to a whole generation of men massacred in a pointless war? The fact that lies have to be told about these men dying for our freedom, while others that did die for freedom are vilified, only goes to show that the whole thing is all about glorifying war. Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves et al would hardly recognise the war that we are constantly being told was fought. There was nothing remotely glorious about it.

So if we are to remember those that died in historic wars, then surely others are entitled to remember the past as well? Nobody is forcing anyone not to wear a poppy; the same privilege should be extended to those that don't want to wear one for whatever reason. It is churlish and chauvinistic to remember those that died at the Somme and Ypres while denying others the right to remember their own people's history and how they died at the hands of British soldiers. In this respect, the poppy has just become a representation of British Nationalism at its worst, which is the reason why I don't want to wear one anymore.

P.S. If The Peeppul are so proud of Scotland's contribution in the World Wars then why does their team insist on wearing an English poppy?