11/11/04
Armistice Day.
Poppy day.
Remembrance day.
Dulce et Decorum est
Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime. —
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum ;
Pro patria mori.
I remember being eight and living on the Isle Of Man and wearing poppies and being in awe of all the white crosses in the cemetery. The cold of November and the brief service and the incredible sadness. I must have being nine or ten before I learnt the above poem, and it gave me nightmares for weeks, the horror of gas and being unable to breathe. As a child and even now I suppose I was obsessed with the horror of World War II and how people could so callously treat others as lower than animals and decide to exterminate them: jews, gays, gypsies, disabled, mentally retarded, communists, catholics, the list is endless who all went to the camps and died.
And yet, the world is so callous and cruel it still happens today: Rwanda, Sudan, iraq, Saudi Arabia, Korea, China the list is still endless and we still turn a blind eye as it is not here where we live, “not in our house” all these counties have policies spoken or unspoken against women, children and religious groups, or political groups, in China less than 10 years ago they killed people publicly for wanting to move to a more capitalistic system, and they still murder and torture Tibetans. In Rwanda the Hutsis and Tutsis are still killing each other, and the Congolese, in Sudan slavery is a fact of life, Iraq women are still oppressed and never mind Afghanistan and Iran and Saudi Arabia. The horrors still continue and I could go on about Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Germany, Cuba, it devastates me.
Remembrance Day, do we remember what the world tried to fight for or have we forgotten?