- Joe Priestley

What is the point of Remembrance Day?

At a family gathering in November I had a long conversation with an elderly relative who during the Second World War had served in France, Holland, and Germany. When our conversation inevitably arrived at the subject of the war I was interested to hear him say that British society couldn’t be any worse than it is now had Germany been victorious, or indeed had the USSR gone on to overrun Western Europe. He concluded by saying that he no longer understood the point of Remembrance Day - what did those men and women lay down their lives for; surely they weren’t fighting for what we have now. And I knew what he meant.

The first Armistice Day took place on 11th November 1921, three years to the day after the end of the First World War. The red poppy that’s traditionally worn is a reference to the poppy fields in Flanders, site of some of the bloodiest carnage in WWI, and since then red poppies have been sold by The British Legion on and around the November 11th as a means of raising money for ex-servicemen and women (or in BBC newspeak, members of the ‘ex-service community’) that have fallen on hard times; it is a means by which “Civilians can remember the people who have given their lives for peace and freedom.”

And then in order to include our fallen of the Second World War, after 1945 Armistice Day became Remembrance Day and two minutes silence was introduced into proceedings during which, “All locomotion should cease so that in perfect stillness the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead.”

Metamorphism

Originally conceived as a commemoration of those who fell in the First World War, by 1980 Armistice Day had morphed into, “.the remembrance of all who have suffered and died in conflict in the service of their country and all those who mourn them.”* And thus the remembering of our own war dead quite naturally became the remembering of just about anybody in the world who might have suffered in some way or another at the hands of conflict.

I say quite naturally because this shift in the meaning of Remembrance Day is just another expression of the shift that has taken place in Britain and in British society these past 60 years. The movement has been away from a sense of Britishness, togetherness, and exclusivity, and towards a stateless, people-less ‘egalitarianism’ that Britain’s ruling class of quislings promotes.

Our political and media elites have twisted Remembrance Day so that now it is as much about celebrating diversity and legitimising the status quo as it is about our own war dead.

Contradiction

This is another of the many inherent contradictions of liberalism**. On the one hand we are to remember without qualification “.all those who have suffered in the service of their country.” yet on the other we are to remember just one cause, that of “peace and freedom.” Whereas the sufferers are equal their causes are not.

And when we think of suffering we are encouraged to be inclusive, but when we think of cause we are intimidated into exclusiveness. Thus our war dead have been made to serve two contradictory purposes, both of which are intended to reinforce the establishment’s contradictory position; where the equality of man idea sits in awkward conjunction with the superiority of the liberal.

“Peace and freedom” is newspeak for liberalism, but of course no one actually goes so far as to say that our servicemen and women gave their lives for liberalism and its manifestations, multiculturalism and the multiracial society. That might make too many people think. It is far better to say that they made the ultimate sacrifice for us, with its subliminal suggestion that they died so that we could have what we’ve got. It’s as if it’s calculated to make one feel that criticism of the status quo is an expression of ingratitude.

Reason for fighting

It is suggestion instead of argument, and it’s aimed at the emotions - but then that’s liberalism for you. In order to respect the memory of those who died, we must celebrate Britain as it is now.

Historian David Irving has said that had those servicemen who stormed the beaches on D Day known what would become of Britain post war, they’d have given up in disgust. My guess is that many veterans would concur.

So the question remains, what is it that we remember on Remembrance Day?

If our servicemen and women did indeed fight for freedom, and freedom is what we have now, how then can those of us who oppose what Britain (and the West) has become commemorate those who fought and died? A major consequence of their fighting and dying, and of the alleged victory of freedom over tyranny, is that huge swathes of Britain have become foreign and they are now British only in a geographic sense. If that’s a consequence of freedom then freedom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

And surely we can’t remember them outside the context of why they fought. Very many heroic acts were committed by our servicemen and women, but we don’t commemorate them for their heroism alone. What they did, so we are told, they did for us, and it is their sacrifice on our behalf that we remember. They died for us; they willingly gave up their lives so that we might be free.

Well that’s what we’re told, and it’s here that the dilemma lies.

Who won?

The common understanding is that ‘we’ won the two world wars. Yet paradoxically, in spite of these victories, particularly that of WWII, Britain came out of the wars weaker than when she went in. And during the 60 years following the end of the 1939-45 conflict going on 7 million aliens have made this country their own and have turned large areas of it into replicas of their ethnic homelands. Britons are now excluded from parts of their own land, they’ve become second class citizens, they are subject to violence, their women are assaulted, and their culture and traditions are treated with contempt - isn’t that what happens to the vanquished? If ever there was a hollow victory then this is it.

Whoever won the war, it wasn’t the British.

And whatever it was that those men and women fought and died for it is inconceivable that what they had in mind was what Britain has become today.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a man whom I’ve known for years and who has been a dedicated nationalist since before I understood the meaning of the word. And I was interested to know what he’d think of my doubts about Remembrance Day.

Betrayal

He told me that both his grandfathers had served in the same Pals Regiment during the First World War. Both fought on the Somme, one survived the war and the other fell in battle and left a wife and three children. He felt that the soldiers believed they were fighting for their country, but that their patriotism had been betrayed and their willingness for sacrifice had been treated with contempt.

Well yes, by definition their patriotism was betrayed - they fought for a cause that sought to eliminate the nation state, but doesn’t this say as much about our own shortcomings as it does about the shortcomings of those whom we trust to lead us? I am not a great believer in blind obedience, and I find it hard to interpret First World War soldiers climbing out of their trenches and walking towards a hail of machine gun bullets as an act of heroism.

My friend recalled his grandfather describing the scene: How he’d looked down the line of soldiers to his left and right and seen many fall, how he’d seen others turn up the collars of their battle dress as if somehow that might protect them from bullets in the same way as it would from a chill wind.

I know we shouldn’t view the behaviour of yesterday through the eyes of today, but isn’t there a difference between fighting to the last man in defence of hearth and home and walking towards almost certain death for causes that still remains unclear? This isn’t to besmirch the memory of those who in my mind died so pointlessly, but it is not more heroic to refuse to throw away one’s life than it is to follow orders that defy all logic - especially when the alternative is the firing squad.

And just as our forebears turned up their collars against a hail of bullets, so our present day brothers and sisters turn up their collars against the onslaught of liberalism, mass third world immigration, and enforced multiculturalism. Deep down we know where it’s leading, but rather than think for ourselves we prefer conformity to healthy scepticism. Incredibly, we find it easier to face a hail of bullets or even our total destruction than we do to buck the trend.

Fraud

Remembrance Day is a fraud; it is a political tool used for our control. And the insincerity of the establishment in respect of Britain’s war dead is exposed by the half-heartedness of the two minutes silence and the need for ex-servicemen and women to rely on the charity of poppy sales.

And although it is tragic that so many of our servicemen have fought and died in conflicts that have very little to do with Britain, we fool ourselves if we think they died for us. They died for the globalist ambitions of the international power elite that rules the west - the conflict in Iraq where our forces are little more than mercenaries is the clearest example of this. Couldn’t they see that for themselves?

We need to move away from this romantic and mawkishly sentimental understanding of our armed forces, especially during the conflicts of the 20th and 21st century. They were great fighters, they were brave, and they knew how to die, but they didn’t fight for Britain; they fought and are still fighting for a liberal establishment whose aim is world-wide hegemony. And I wonder, were they told it was their duty, how many of today’s heroes in Iraq would dare refuse to use their might against those of us who oppose what Britain has become.

* Quoted from the Department for culture, media, and sport government website.

** Liberalism is one of those words that mean different things to different people - when I use the word I mean the ‘official establishment attitude’ of the Western political, media, and entertainment elite, and all its manifestations; liberalism is the practical application of the belief in the equality of man.

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