I’ve just been listening to BBC Radio Six Counties, where they’re united in amazement that Blair Mayne from Newtownards (known as ‘Paddy’ in those good old days) was never awarded a Victoria Cross. Their wonder springs from the fact that Mayne – tall, good-looking, boxer, rugby player – was also a founder member of the SAS.
The SAS are regarded as an elite group of British soldiers and the Victoria Cross (VC) is awarded for “valour in the presence of the enemy”. The general impression on BBC 6C is that Mayne engaged in all l sorts of acts of valour and was decorated with all sorts of medals, and wasn’t it truly unjust that he never got the top gong. After all, he showed highly skilled killing ability in Lebanon, Egypt, Lybia, Sicily, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Norway.
I’ve been asking myself what that “valour in the presence of the enemy” really means. I guess it means that the enemy have lots of weapons to kill you but guess what, you kill them instead. King George VI remarked on the fact that the top gong for killing “so strangely eluded him [Mayne]”.
So were all the medals pinned on Mayne’s chest the glorification of violence? It does sound the teeniest bit like it is.
It’s strange, really. Republicans are frequently accused of rewriting the past, when they honour IRA volunteers killed by the British ‘security’ forces; yet British ‘security’ forces are decorated and given heroic status for their part in killing lots of Britain’s enemies.
Yes I know, I know, Virginia. It is the courage of British soldiers like Mayne that is honoured, the risks they took with their lives when they killed lots of enemy soldiers. In other words, they were so intent on killing enemy people, they took great risks with their own lives.
It really is sobering, to know that hundreds, thousands of men (and some women) are carefully trained in how best to take human life, and that when they do what they were taught to do, they are lauded for their valour.
Would it be going too far to say that such people – those honouring and those being honoured – are a bit sick in the head?
Good thoughts.
The reality of this hypocrisy is that Politicians, Newspaper publishers, Bishops, edgy pop stars, etc. are not intrinsically opposed to brutal violence.
They are opposed to violence by the poor against the wealthy, by the powerless against the powerful, by the occupied against the imperialist. They are not opposed to the opposites of these.
Their silence or acquiescence or collaboration in the brutal massacre of the people in Gaza is merely the latest evidence of this truth.
We saw this in Ireland as well.
‘Twas always so.
gmail.coVery good Jude free Palestine
Thank you, James…Ditto
Irishmen only get praised by the media if they fight on behalf of Britain.