Many Angry Gerbils

Oh! England, my Lionheart,

Two weeks before April 1^st and Lord Goldsmith, ex-Lord Chancellor of the ex-Labour Government, has proposed that some of the most vulnerable and easily-led people in the country should show their love for democracy and British ‘values’ by swearing allegiance to a German aristocrat. Coming a mere day after the Party announced that a City fund manager has been appointed as its new General Secretary, it’s clear that our masters still appreciate a good chuckle.

The idea that we should have to swear allegiance to the Queen is a travesty of democracy, morality, and good sense as I expect most regular readers of this blog would agree (I note that Philip Challinor has given his own characteristic verdict on the matter). I also think it’s a little ironic that, while the Government is fixated on crushing and humiliating benefits claimants, there’s one family, who have never done a proper day’s work in their lives, and who live on an estate while living off the state, who we’re all supposed to love. Still, good sense and taste seem irrelevant when Lord Goldsmith can say, presumably without smirking, that he can see no reason why republicans would object to swearing an oath, even if they disagree with the present system of government. He does concede, however, that people may prefer to pledge loyalty to the country rather than to the millionairess pensioner and her dysfunctional family.

The justification for this idea, which I suspect is already peering mournfully at us through a dense canopy of long grass, is that:

"It does make sense to promote a sense of shared belonging, a sense that you are part of a community with a common venture, to integrate better newcomers to our society and be clearer about what the rights and responsibilities are."

I feel a certain degree of commonality with many of those around me, even in our modern, more individualistic society. Yet I refuse to believe that this can be heightened by swearing allegiance to a monarch with whom, so far as I’m aware, I’m engaged in no “common venture” whatsoever. The same applies to holding allegiance to the nation (whatever that might be) and certainly the State. Indeed, I’ll go further to say that I refuse to take any lessons on citizenship from the British Government, which in a global context particularly, is such an appalling citizen: an arrogant bully’s lackey; a lying, hypocritical, perfidious, selfish, murderous rogue of a state. Why should I swear allegiance? Is it not enough to support my country when I think it’s right?

National pride, they trumpet, but pride in what? In plain terms, what has my country done of which I can be proud? Ask this question and people rapidly spin us back to World War Two as the last (relatively) uncontroversial instance of this country standing proud - and even that is a difficult case. I firmly believe that many people found Hitler’s ideology abhorrent but I don’t think we “defended Europe” as some sort of great crusade for the light but because the State’s material interests were threatened by the moustachioed upstart. Indeed, I’ve met several elderly people who fought Germany while sharing most of Hitler’s views on Jews, Blacks, gays, gypsies and so on. My own grandmother was ideologically indistinguishable from Oswald Mosley and, even a few years ago, would probably have been happy to join the Ku Klux Klan if they’d allowed rubber sheets. All this talk of pride in one’s country might actually have more weight if politicians were equally inclined to encourage a sense of shame about our more shabby acts -Iraq, Afghanistan, Diego Garcia, Kenya, Vietnam, and so on. Yet these episodes are effaced from, or distorted in, the national narrative -and so long as that is the case the greatest service one can do for one’s country during celebrations of national glory is to leave the paper hat folded in front of you while telling anyone who’ll listen about how much the party’s cost.

Is it even possible to take pride in one’s country when one can claim no credit for being a part of it? So other people on this island, either now or in the past, have done things worthy of acclaim -I can claim no credit for that so how can I be proud of them? I’m British by an accident of birth, it is not my personal achievement. While I’m immensely fond of the place for all sorts of marvellously trivial, "warm beer and cricket" reasons, I can take no credit for the way it is or for my belonging to it. Ironically, the only people who should claim pride in being British are immigrants, both legal and illegal. There are people in this country who’ve sold everything to pay people traffickers, said goodbye to their families, braved dangerous seas and risked death in the backs of lorries before being subjected to interrogation and humiliation at the hands of the British State. They’ve worked to be British. Me? I was handed it on a plate, the fallout of a brief collision of geography and biology. I’ll do my best to be the best citizen I can, not out of loyalty to an octogenarian toff or a bunch of besuited gangsters, but out of duty to my fellow humans -regardless of whatever piece of land they happen to have been conceived on.

God save the queen cos tourists are money
And our figurehead is not what she seems
Oh God save history God save your mad parade
Oh lord God have mercy all crimes are paid

Pick up your gun and shut up.

I’ve been resisting the urge to write anything about the current flap concerning Armed Forces members being “abused” in Peterborough. The story appears to be a thin concoction based on a single incident some 15 months ago. Nor, as it happens, do I see much point in hurling verbal abuse at squaddies, anyway. Unfortunately, the sheer inanity and reflexive nationalist windbaggery that the story has called forth (exemplified by the pre-fascist racist bear pit that is the BBC’s Have Your Say) is just too maddening. I shall try to be brief.

Argument number one from the blusterers is that the troops deserve our support regardless of whether we agree with the war(s). Our anger, they say, would be better directed at the Government who sent them. This position is similar to that which the Liberal Democrats adopted during the invasion of Iraq -their “opposition” lasted only as long as it hadn’t happened. The moment it did they fell meekly into line and supported “our boys”.

I have little idea what the exhortation to support our troops really means, particularly when it is said that we can support them without supporting the war. If this is so then clearly it cannot mean wishing them success. Rather, it must mean wishing that they don’t get hurt. Well, fair enough, I don’t want to see British troops get hurt. But then I don’t want any troops to get hurt. I do recognise that it's inevitable, however, so if combatants on one side or another have to get hurt, as complicated as matters may be, I’d rather it was the aggressors. The logic of this is clear. If I see a man attacked in the street, I do not want to see either him or his assailant hurt unnecessarily but, since I recognise both the victim’s right to self defence and the attacker’s aggression, I’d rather see the latter hurt than the former. The same is true for our troops in Iraq. I don’t want to see any of them killed but if they continue to aggress against the Iraqis, then I’d rather British troops were hurt. Anything else is simple racism. Yet those who call on us to support our boys, while saying that we don’t have to support the war, were they to apply their principle evenly, would be calling on us to support the mugger even if we don’t agree with mugging. “Just doing my job” is no defence if your job stinks.

As a side point, it’s also worth stating something else that really should be obvious: there is nothing intrinsically honourable about serving in the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces are an organisation maintained to pursue certain goals, frequently through violence. How honourable it is to be a soldier depends upon how honourable the goal is and the methods one uses – if you’re defending a people against aggression with minimum force, be proud. If you do it with excessive force, be less proud. But if you’re inflicting aggression against a defenceless people, hang your head. I might feel proud of getting involved in a pub fight if the cause of my violence was to defend a man from a racist attack but I would feel ashamed if I was involved in the same fight in order to commit such an attack. Nor is being a soldier honourable becaue they are often in genuine danger and carry out their orders knowing that there is a serious risk they might be killed. Otherwise,  being a terrorist would be honourable for the same reason and suicide bombers would be confered even greater respect. There is nothing intrinically honourable or dishonourable, respectable or ignoble, about placing oneself at risk. Again, the cause in which one does it is key. Nor is bravery an issue: I’m not brave enough to be an armed robber, doesn’t mean I can’t condemn them.

Nor do I accept the defence that soldiers are only obeying orders and have no choice. Of course they have a choice, they can refuse to obey orders, which I believe they should. Yes, consequences flow from that choice but I'd rather go to the stockade than kill innocent people. I'd also hope that I'd be brave enough still to take that stance if I faced a firing squad instead. To argue in the 21^st century that “theirs is not to reason why” is actually an insult to them -it suggests that either they are incapable of moral judgements or that they should ignore their own consciences. I believe the first is false and the second indefensible, not least because those who take this line are unlikely to apply it universally. Would those who believe that our troops should follow orders without question have condemned Iraqi troops who defied Saddam? Or German troops who refused to take orders from the 3^rd Reich? Of course not. Certainly, it is true that many of our forces, from the poorer and less educated parts of society, may have joined the army because they needed a job and are very likely heavily indoctrinated once they’re in. But this can only be a mitigation. If they are fully aware of what they are doing, disagree with it, yet do it anyway, they are cowards. If they are propagandised then they are to be pitied in the same way that some who are convicted of a criminal offence are judged to be less than competent and so not entirely responsible for their actions. Uncritical devotion to authority is not honourable, it's pathological.

Then there is the argument that we should support our troops out of gratitude, for defending us now or for having defended us in the past. Both arguments are misguided. It is no more logical to support the army uncritically because of good it does in some areas than it would be to support any other organisation for similar reasons. I’m grateful for nurses: doesn’t mean I have to support them when they start offing pensioners.

The argument that we should show respect because of the British Army’s defence of Britain during WWII is similarly vacuous. What it actually amounts to is capitulating to a group of people today because a group of people under the same name 60 years ago did us a very big favour. In fact, it is entirely the same principle that a few people still use for disliking Germans today -because of what ‘they’ did 60 years ago. In fact, with a few exceptions, Germans today did nothing 60 years ago -it was another bunch of people who happened to live on the same piece of land.

Nor is true, in any case, that the army is defending us now. In fact, it is much more plausible to make the case that they are actively endangering us. Several studies have shown that, by “riding pillion” on US policy, the British Government and its Armed Forces are actually putting all of us at far greater risk. Having been reduced to a mercenary force for US strategic interests, it should hardly be surprising that the actions of the British Army have made us a target for terrorists.

In any case, it’s a pretty repugnant argument that our gratitude to troops for services rendered to us excuses atrocities committed against others. It’s a selfish assertion that our welfare outweighs that of someone else. I might be grateful to my next door neighbour for the loan of his lawnmower but I don’t have to defend him when he’s found guilty of beating his wife.

Another argument in the windbags’ arsenal is that one shouldn’t criticise the troops because we don’t know what it’s like on the front line. Again, it's a specious argument. Otherwise, it would be wrong for me to criticise the “enemy” troops as well. I certainly don’t recall criticism of Iraqi troops being off the table during the Gulf War because we didn’t know what everyday life in the Republican Guard was like. The argument makes about as much sense as saying that we shouldn't criticise a murderer because we don’t know the circumstances in which he did it. If one disagrees with the objective then the circumstances of its pursuance are simply not relevant.

Our troops may fight bravely sometimes (when they're not slaughtering people from miles away at sea or up in the air) and, amongst the imperialist carnage, there are doubtless genuine acts of bravery and heroism. Nor do I believe that every squaddie out there goes to the Middle East with the intention of doing ill. In the end, though, this does not matter. What matters is that they are thinking, feeling human beings who are responsible for their actions. If they agree with the war(s), they are culpable, if they oppose them yet fight anyway, they're cowardly. If they 're conditioned, they are pitiable. True bravery is not to fight against people who are not your enemy -it is to make a stand for what you believe is right, even knowing that you may suffer greatly for doing so. Sometimes that can mean picking up a gun. Too often, it means never picking it up to begin with.