unoriginalname38 – the blog of Dave Cole

Don't Mention the War

Basically, I am fed up with the endless, banal, jingoistic vomit that an awful lot of channels throw up presented as programming on World War Two. These are generally titled in the form of a question ('Was Hitler a paedophile?' is about par for the course) and are scraping the bottom of the barrel of acadæmia for some port-soaked old duffer who will provide 'legitimacy' to this buttock-clenchingly awful 'documentary'.

I suppose that this alone wouldn't be too bad; the number of people awake to see this unending river of vomit on a regular basis is small. These programmes go out around the clock and the pseudo-scientific analysis continues being contemptible when people might actually see them and believe them to be true.

We then also have endless commemorations. WWII lasted for six years, so by the time we have finished commemorating the fiftieth anniversary, sixtieth anniversary 'celebrations' are well underway. Each celebration, we are told by Colonel Blimp (ret'd.), is absolutely right and proper.

Instead of a look at how bloody awful war is, we see people puffing themselves up and saying how much camaraderie there was during the war.

I am not keen on the military. I dislike the parading and the polishing, the shouting and the stamping. I don't like the stratification into ranks and commissioned and non commissioned because it reminds me of the informal fagging system that operated at my school and because it rapidly becomes, despite its patent artificiality, taken to be a natural determinant of worth.

In short, I dislike the armed forces. I am willing to accept the need or desire for commemoration, but what we see is not remembrance but glorification.

Nor do we hear anywhere near as much about WWI. Or Korea. Or Suez. Or Cyprus, the Falklands, two Gulf Wars and assorted smaller operations.

Worst of all, all the commentary and commemoration of WWII glosses over or ignores completely the Holocaust.

It makes me sick when some idiot is brought out to wax lyrical about how much they enjoyed the war and not a mention is made of the five million murdered Jews.

It is worth considering how big a number five million is. Imagine a square composed of squares, ten across and ten down. Picture it. Now imagine each of the smaller squares is made up of ten squares by ten squares. Now imagine each of the smallest squares is made up of ten squares by ten squares. That's just one million. It is an unimaginably vast number and represents the greatest crime in European history, sine qua non, and probably in the history of the world.

Instead of talking about the core issue of WWII, something that needs doing more than ever in an atmosphere of growing anti-Semitism, we have pictures of tanks dressed up as analysis and endless glorification of the war.

xD.

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