The rise of militarism JONATHAN TULLOCH


Old lies and glory “W


hat the **** are you lot doing?” an angry voice demands. The voice becomes a figure lurch-


ing towards our “Not in My Name” banner. It’s 2003 and in London the then Prime Minister Tony Blair is just about to press the red button against Iraq; meanwhile, here in a Yorkshire market town square, about 20 of us have gathered to protest against any new conflict. Our average age is about 70. And, to my surprise, we’re already attracting aggressive detractors. “People like you make me sick,” the figure continues, a thickset man in his mid-40s.


I feel a punch of fear in the midriff. A hostile group is now materialising around us. Most of us look away. One of our number however, an elderly veteran of the Second World War, steps forward to explain. “We’re making a peaceful protest against the war in Iraq.” That’s real bravery, I remember thinking, real courage. “I fought in the Second World War … ” The elderly protester continues, but he can’t be heard above the torrent of abuse. “I


fought in the Second World War and I refuse to be shouted over …” Fortunately, no one was injured that


evening, though the same cannot be said about Iraq. The Lancet sets the death toll there as high as 942,636, and the website WikiLeaks, which logs every war death in Iraq, calculates that 80 per cent are likely to have been non-


Remembrance Sunday this weekend comes at a time when the courage and professionalism of Britain’s armed forces command huge respect. Nonetheless, this writer argues, it is vital that the Church continues to speak out against war and its innocent victims


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combatants. That means children, the elderly, the sick – the innocent. Add to this the scan- dalously unknown number of deaths in Afghanistan since 2001, and now Libya too, and in the 10 years that the UK has been con- tinuously at war, a picture of slaughter clearly emerges. That market-square fracas, minor as it might have seemed set alongside such a death toll, illustrates a growing fear for peace cam- paigners; matching the British Government’s rising appetite for warfare is the rising fervour of militarism within society itself. Think about it. When was the last time that a week passed without you being reminded about the bravery of the armed forces? We all remember the funeral corteges winding through Wootton Bassett and the coverage of trips to Camp Bastion by the likes of David Beckham. Just this week I opened our local newspaper and saw a furniture shop adver- tising “Help for Heroes” beds: each bed sold brought a donation to the injured services personnel charity. Already Help for Heroes is a constant presence outside many supermar- kets. In a time of so-called austerity, £30 million has been made available by the Ministry of Defence for the community covenant grant scheme, which gives up to £250,000 to groups promoting closer ties between local communities and the military. This is on top of the national Armed Forces Day, which began in 2009 (and which this year took place on 25 June), and a recruitment campaign that markets itself as “self-devel- opment powered through the army” – an apprenticeship, university education or mid- dle-management course, according to taste. Pat Gaffney, of the Catholic peace organi- sation Pax Christi, and many others, fear that the rising profile of the military is no accident but a deliberate ploy, not only to deflect crit- icism from the wars’ unpopularity by highlighting the courage of the armed forces, but also to propagandise. In short, to wage constant war you need a constant supply of people willing to wage it for you. Governments at war will always do every-


thing in their power to make themselves, and as many of their citizens as possible, believe they are fighting a just cause. After all, the scorpion must believe in its own right to sting. In centuries past, we fought with God on our side; now we fight on the side of freedom – the war against Afghanistan began as


10 | THE TABLET | 12 November 2011


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