I find it hard to watch the commemoration of 100th anniversary of the start of World War One. I have spent my lifetime reading about that dreadful conflict. I have the medals my great-grandfather brought home from the Western Front after serving there from 1915-1918, though no one has any idea what he did as he never spoke of it. My difficulty tonight is hearing the praise of heroes from modern leaders and the modern media. Heroes is a cheap word these days. The civilian army that was marched to the battlefield were victims of a madness that swept through the ruling classes of Europe. If there be praise tonight, let it include those who fought to stop the war and those who refused to engage with it. History surely proved their point, as 1914 marked the beginning of a series of wars and confrontations that blackened the entire 20th century. It is still echoing through the villages and towns of Syria, Iraq and Palestine tonight. The peoples poet, the then Reverend T.E. Nicholas (Niclas y Glais), a native of North Pembrokeshire and a close friend of Keir Hardie, was amongst those who suffered jail for opposing the slaughter. In December 1914 he published a letter the newspapers refused to print, along with a revolutionary anti-war poem entitled Dros Eich Gwlad (For Your Country). His letter included these words (translated from the Welsh); This isnt the peoples war, but the war of the ruling class. The only thing the people will get is death in the trenches, and a bill for the cost. I do not know how you can sleep at night, knowing that men are laying in the trenches, each one of them the son of a mother, raised as lovingly as you were raised. This suffering has been caused by half-a-dozen rulers. And you stand up for their rights. I believe in war; I have fought wars and intend to do so again; but I do not believe in fighting WITH men; I have been too busy fighting FOR men. I refuse to allow Sir Edward Grey and Kitchener to tell me who my enemies are. I refuse to be silent in a crisis such as this, for those who are silent allow our rulers to get away with too much. This is an unjust war and unjust men are driving it forward. The dearest sons of our land are turned into killers to realise the plans of tyrants. I have no enemies in this world, and if I did have an enemy, the Founder of my religion would want me to pray for him and love him. I will let the future pass judgement on the position I have taken with regard to this war.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 23:16:04 +0000
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