Thursday, August 06, 2009

Harry Patch

Harry Patch, aged 111, the last surving British veteran of the First World War, was buried today in Somerset.

Very soon there will be none left alive. In some ways now it seems that with the passing of the ancient veterans, the age of modern war, where mechanised death has come into its own, entrenching itself in the human sojourn through time and space. There are almost none left alive who knew a world before our fascination with machines and technology and our fear of the other got the better of us and our politics. Almost none who are witness to the transition from limited war of horses and leather boots, to the the loss of innocence that came with the millions dead in festering mud. We're on our now, with the memory of a different world passing from living purchase and into the constructions of our collective imagination.

I am struck by the resonance of this quote from Mr. Patch, turned to lyrics by Thom Yorke*-

I am the only one that got through,
the others died where ever they fell.
It was an ambush,
they came up from all sides.
Give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves.
I've seen devils coming up from the ground.
I've seen hell upon this earth.
The next will be chemical but they will never learn.


-with the words of other older veterans I've been privileged to audience. There are no politics with them. No mention of evil doers or scumbags. Just elder's careworn plea that we not follow the same path.

But our young world does not listen to them. We are too preoccupied with yellow ribbons and smart bombs. Our hollow rhetoric, and our politics of division, and the tremendous but easy effort we put into convincing ourselves that some group of humans are so profoundly different from us that we are compelled to march off and slaughter them. Particularly, now it seems, if they do not have the capacity to return the favour at anywhere near the same level. Perhaps if the blood were more equally spilt, as it was in Harry's day, things would be different.

Perhaps we need to run out of oil before the machines will finally seize and we can create a different world.


*The song costs £1, and proceeds go to the Royal British Legion.

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