The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow,
No gas, no barbed wire; no guns firing now!
But here in this graveyard, that's still no mans land,
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand,
To a man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
And a whole generation were butchered and damned
Aye, I'm getting both philosophish and hippieish now. Thereby more or less accidentally finding the eminent song of
The Green Fields of France, originally written by Eric Bogle and masterly covered (slightly surprisingly) by Irishpunk-band Dropkick Murphy's. It's a song telling the tale about someone sitting by the grave of you Pvt. Willie McBride, that died at age 19 in the year of 1916, with the narrator of the song thinking about the young man's destiny and what might've happened to him. It's a beautiful song, and I advice you to get it. The Dropkick Murphy's version is the best one, so I advice you to get that.
The reason of my sudden change of mood, to philosophical from simply lazy and happy, is a movie I watched (sadly not the whole at the same time, but half yesterday and the rest today). I take for granted that you've all heard about it: Schindler's List, starring Liam Neeson and Ben Kingsley in the leading roles, and Ralph Fiennes as the most twisted German officer I've seen on screen. The movie itself, directed by the probably greatest director of our time, Stephen Spielberg, is nothing but a masterpiece.
The movie is based upon the true story of the German businessman and convinced nazi Oskar Schindler, that arrives to Kraków soon after the Germans have invaded Poland. With a good sense for making contacts and a brilliant sense for
building up a business, even if it mainly means dealing over the responsibility to skilled sub-workers, he starts a factory using only Jewish workers: by that, he can pay them less. Their salaries goes to the SS, but the point to him is that they are cheaper than Polish workers.
As the story goes on Schindler is starting to doubt though, and the change of him as a person is
the astonishing part of the movie. 198 minutes long, but that's 198 minutes of art, and nothing less. I won't give any more of the story, since I consider it everyones duty to watch it themselves as soon as possible. No discussion about it.
When I had finished watching the movie I was discretly sobbing and felt as if my eyes had been opened again, even though I've seen quite a few movies about the Holocaust and also have read a lot about it. That's the feeling you get when seeing something simply astonishing. However, after some thinking and listening to sweet ballads about peace and love and the Emerald Isle I feel resurrected, and I feel more for writing something hopeful, rather than grieving for a happening I can never affect, but only do my best to prevent from happening again.
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause,
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffring', the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing and dying it was all done in vain.
After World War II there hasn't been any really big war (not counting civil wars and revolts in the USSR) or armed conflict on European soil, more than the wars in Yugoslavia. And in Yugoslavia it was mostly concerning the Balkan countries, until it started to get too much so that the United States of America took their responsibility and cleaned up. And with all due respect, I dare to claim that the major part of the Swedish population only were affected by the war through immigration to their hometowns.
I believe Europe is getting slightly spoiled and left out from the horrible things of the world, it almost feels a little unfair. Unfair in the way that people in general, I stumble across them everywhere, get more and more apathic when it comes to war and violence. "Conquer those, crush those, yada yada and smash those, they might get dangerous in the future".
Where's the morale in that?
Now, this was ages before my own birth, but I still wonder if Europe has escaped the clouds of the two World Wars, when our continent was turned in to a big, muddy battlefield, stinking of mustard gas.
Oh Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again and again and again and again!
The battlefield has since been moved. The target for the worlds armed forces has been moved from Berlin to Baghdad, and the warning triangle from Moscow to Pyongyang and Tehran. All the time further away from Europe. All of a sudden the europeans, the ones that ages ago created a proud tradition of killing eachother has been the peaceful and civilized population of the world, and this only in a matter of a century or so.
And of course it's wonderful. I don't want to have to live to see soldiers' boots crossing the borders into my country, nor any other country in our vicinity. I want to see peace through my days and I want my children, and grandchildren to grow up in peaceful times. Of course it matters a lot for me.
But does it matter less to the rest of the world? Does it make any difference if you're Irani and have a nutjob dictator building nukes, or if you're Iraqi and probably will have to see your land fall apart in an armed conflict between militia and foreign armed forces, or if you're Korean and don't get any food, since the holy leader of your country is giving the bread to the army?
Does it make any difference at all?
Doesn't this illustrate the absurd thing in the western world taking responsibility for the rest through invading their countries, deposing their leaders without any plans on how to revive a working state? And as well the absurdity in young men and women joining the army to travel over half of the world to reach a battlefield, a hellhole where they are living with the risk of getting killed during both day and night, as well as morning and evening?
To continue with the subject I'd like to mention one of the most genial movie scenes I've seen: In the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore that I also assume that all of you have heard about Moore is in one scene standing outside the Capitolium. He is dressed as a draftsman, and every U.S. Senator that walks past him is stopped, and encouraged to let his son join the army to fight for his land. To noone's surprise, none of them were to keen on it and Moore was eventually shoved away from the place.
Doesn't this say quite a lot? Everyone (well, let's say almost everyone) wants to get rid of all the injustice in the world and have everyone live freely and happily for the rest of their lives.
But noone (well, let's say almost noone) wants to send their son or daughter to fight for it. Not in a place from where bodybags are coming by the week, and increasing in numbers.
My point in this is that yes, of course we want freedom, both for ourselves and for others. The farther away it is though, the less it concerns us. And countries liberating/invading (I'll let you choose the term you see best fit) other countries can do so, as long as it doesn't interfere with our daily life and routines.
We can accept a battlefield in the other end of the world since we've forgotten, or are ignoring, the horror of how it once was here, in Europe, on our own home continent.
I will not change the world with this blog post, of course not. It will be read by at most 20 people, commented by a few, and then I'll write a new blog post tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and eventually this will just be another post among many.
But I'd like to remind you, reader, that this planet is ours, and ours only in the future. If many enough of us remembers it, we can one day get an end to pointless killing and illegitimate wars.
Cheers, and peace.
