It’s Blitz season again, and it seems to be bigger than ever. The BBC alone boasts ten programmes in the space of a week. That’s aside from news reports and memorials and related features on Antiques Roadshow. Considering seventy years have already passed, it seems safe to assume we can look forward to Blitz season again in autumn 2020 and 2030, with a jumbo special in 2040, long after every active participant and all but a handful of the war-babies have died.
And of course things don’t stop with the Blitz. The great thing about a six year war is that it leaves only four years blank per decade. I don’t know whether the planners at Broadcasting House have drawn-up a timetable yet but I’m happy for them to borrow mine:
***** 2019 2029 2039* ‘Declaration of War in Europe’ season
***** 2020 2030 2040* ‘Dunkirk’ and ‘Battle of Britain’ seasons
2011 2021 2031 2041* ‘Pearl Harbour’ season
2012 2022 2032 2042* ‘El Alamein’ season
2013 2023 2033 2043* ‘Burma’ season
2014 2024 2034 2044* ‘D-Day’ season
2015 2025 2035 2045* ‘VE Day’ and 'VJ Day' seasons
* Bumper centenary editions
Then in 2049 presumably we can start the whole cycle off again.
Both my parents served in the war. They certainly reminisced on it – but probably no more than anyone tends to talk about the events of their late teens and early twenties. They certainly didn’t dwell on it, and define themselves by it, as the media tend to now. One can see several reasons behind this growing obsession. Ostensibly we are told:
We owe it to those who fought and died to remember their sacrifice.
An important lesson was learned by the experience of WWII, and we need to ensure it is not forgotten by future generations.
While there’s something to the first point, the second is a sad joke. Apart from developing a strong mistrust of politicians alighting from aeroplanes brandishing pieces of paper we seem to have learned nothing. More honestly we also have:
It’s an interesting subject
It produces a warm patriotic glow
Again there’s some truth to the first point, but you have to wonder how much this is just a product of the second. After all, we’re not the only country in the world that has come close to being invaded by something nasty. If it’s history we’re interested in then why make such a fetish of our own country’s history?
Given the full historical record point two looks like a very dubious pleasure. Clearly the warmth comes from associating ourselves with a period of courage, resilience and victory. But is it morally right for the people of a country currently engaged in two illegal and catastrophic occupations of other countries to spend so much time with their heads in the Spitfire-filled clouds, fantasising about the courage of previous generations? Wouldn’t moralists and historians be better occupied analysing the crimes of today rather than one six year period over half a century ago?
It takes nothing away from the memory or sacrifices of the dead to recognise that the Second World War has become a very useful propaganda tool. Britain spent much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries invading, enslaving, subjugating and exploiting other countries. Our material wealth rests upon it. Small wonder when it comes to considering our history we cherry-pick the six brief years when we were the plucky underdog, rather than the acquisitive aggressor. ‘Battle of Britain Season’ makes far more comfortable viewing than ‘Fallujah Blitz Season’ let alone ‘Fallujah Cancer Statistics Season’.
Seventy years on, it’s difficult to imagine the event that might shake Britain out of identifying itself with World War Two. One dreadful possibility is another equally appalling war. Fantasising about past victories will not help to avert this outcome. Daring to face up to our country’s current crimes just might.
