Our Cursed War, our Blessed Religion
To underscore the mythical - indeed, mystical - aspect of our reverence for all things "war", the recent dismissal of SBS journalist Scott McIntyre in Australia for private comments he made on social media which went against the grain of accepted 'reality' that is the essence of that seemingly indestructible, unassailable ANZAC myth, is a testament to the collective power it commands in our national identity and the manner in which it fuels our individual personal pride in what it means to be mindful of, and connected to, that same identity.
Far from being just a parochial Australian based news-story, such was the fallout from the McIntyre sacking that even Glen Greenwald from the Intercept in the U.S. weighed into the controversy. After defining "mandated worship not just of its military but of its wars" as the "real religion" of the supposedly "secular West", Greenwald added:
"The central dogma of this religion is tribal superiority: Our Side is more civilized, more peaceful, [and therefore] superior to Their Side...McIntyre was fired because he committed blasphemy against that religion." [My Italics]
Greenwald's analogy of 'war as religion' is apposite to be sure. In his excellent essay "Are Nations Really Made in War", Australian historian Henry Reynolds muses on this seemingly universal theme by citing any number of people who've extolled such sentiments. Not least of these is British historian J.A. Cramb. Interestingly, Cramb died the year before the Great War erupted, and his two major works were published posthumously; Germany and England in 1914 and The Origin and Destiny of Imperial Britain in 1915.
In the first tome, Cramb 'waxed pious' by intoning that in war man had a "possession" which he "values above religion, above industry and above social comfort", and he further 'riffed' on the "the might, majesty, and the mystery of war". In the second book he spoke of the "intensification of life" engendered by armed conflict, and spoke of the battlefield as,
"...an altar; the sacrifice the most awful the human eye can contemplate or the imagination with all its efforts invent".
One wonders whether Cramb, had he lived to witness with his own eye the horrors of the trenches and/or had a loved one or two who 'sacrificed' themselves to said "horrors", would either "contemplate" or be able to imagine after the fact holding to the same view and for the same reasons.
In the final analysis, it appears then that that aforementioned "collective power" (or 'religious' fervour) prevails for all the wrong reasons. And as McIntyre found to his professional detriment (and doubtless personal dismay), woe betide anyone who dares question it, or to inject a reality check into any discussion about our military past. Understandably, in such a milieu, Mcintyre was treated as a heretic.
With this in mind, it just might be time for us all to reassess the whole basis upon which we commemorate not just Gallipoli but the Great War itself, not to mention all the other ones that followed in its wake. I cannot imagine a more appropriate point to begin that journey of understanding than to read Hidden History. And when they bring themselves to do so, I imagine that many will read it and weep!
For those folks who take the time to do so, I suspect that Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand, Veterans' Day in America, and Remembrance Day in the U.K. and similar commemorative days elsewhere will assume a whole new meaning and import next time they comes round.
As it should.
Postscript:
Even if one accepts the established - and Establishment - record of events before, during and after Great War, it is patently obvious how seminal it was in the overall scheme of things. In a sense World War 1 was the Pandora's Box of Modern History. But in the wake of the revelations in Hidden History, it amongst other things opens up a myriad range of possibilities of what might have been.
Most importantly though, it provides us something of a Rosetta Stone of sorts by which not just to interpret (or reinterpret) modern history. Docherty and Macgregor's interpretation also provides a prism through which we might view current events, and where they are almost certainly will lead humanity if we do not call to account the "Secret Elites" that determine the current geopolitical firmament. The aforementioned Pandora's Box once opened, cannot be closed of course. But at the bottom of the Box there was was one thing left behind - hope!
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