Defaced Memorials, Bomber Command and Dr Kehinde Andrews

Last week, vandals defaced a number of war memorials in London, including the statue of Winston Churchill, seen above. The Bomber Command memorial, the Royal Marines Memorial, the Canada Memorial and the statue of Franklin Roosevelt were also targeted. Significantly, the Bomber Command memorial has been attacked three times before. This apparent animus to Bomber Command means that the attackers, whoever they are, are likely to be drawn from one of three main groups: Neo-Nazis, the pacifist extreme Left or Jihadists. No-one has admitted responsibility yet, and perhaps never will. These three groupings, whom I shall ironically describe as the "Triple Alliance" from now on, actively hate each other and would like to see the blame fall on their enemies.

Understandably, there was a wave of public anger over the attacks. Nor were matters improved when Dr Kehinde Andrews, pictured above, went on TV Tuesday morning to say that building memorials to Bomber Command was akin to justifying terrorism:

"He said: ‘We are talking about a war crime. I think it is a tragedy they died, but we don’t need a statue.’ "

From this, then, we infer that Dr Andrews believes that all the men who flew with Bomber Command were terrorists and war criminals. Piers Morgan and others who conducted the interview were understandably angered at this viewpoint. So was I initially, until I became more analytical and realised that this viewpoint is common to two strands of the Triple Alliance; David Irving says much the same thing in his books. Dr Andrews is a professor of black studies in the school of social sciences at Birmingham City University. He has published several books attacking racism in British society, but his views on Bomber Command and Winston Churchill match those of the extreme Right.
 Now, I am not doubting Dr Andrews' sincerity, but I suspect that he has other motives behind his apparently unorthodox stance. History is a difficult academic discipline to succeed in, and it is not unknown for up and coming historians to take a "maverick" stand. David Irving is an extreme example of this, but other examples are those of Professor Gary Sheffield and Dan Snow, who were both reviled for writing favourably about Britain's WW1 generals. I cannot prove this about Andrews, but there are indications. Before his appearance on TV, he tweeted that he was headed "into the lions' den", which indicates to me that he is revelling in the storm of publicity he provokes.

In fairness, I must quote Dr Andrews at length. He said about the defacing of the memorials:

‘I’m not defending the vandalism of memorials at all. What I’m saying is the way we put up these memorials is the wrong way" (Would upside down have been better?).

He went on to say:

‘It’s a tragedy, and those lives lost were also a tragedy. But the majority of those bombers were going to civilian targets – over half a million German civilians, men and women, were killed. This was a war crime...In that story we forget the 500,000 people who died. We don’t hear about the killing of civilians, which was a war crime'.

At this point, it needs to be said that every Neo-Nazi and Leftist /pacifist member of the Triple Alliance would agree with Professor Andrews. Indeed, there is much horror at the results of the Allied bombing of Germany in WW2 beyond the ranks of the Triple Alliance (TA). What is significant, however, is that the TA only deplore British bombing, not American or Soviet Union bombing. This appears to be irrelevant to the TA. Instead, they focus determinedly (and dementedly) upon the area bombing policy of R.A.F. Bomber Command, with particular focus upon one terrible event: the bombing of Dresden. This attack is still controversial, as to whether it was right or wrong to launch "Operation Thunderclap" in 1945. Discussion of this topic would take up too much space here. Instead, I would like to add some observations of my own.

As far as I am concerned, we should take a longer view of Allied bombing of Germany in WW2. The whole debate about Dresden, Hamburg, etc, should be set in a wider context. As Tariq Ali said of Viet Cong atrocities in 1968 (as far as I can remember):
"We dismiss them as irrelevant. The French Resistance in WW2 committed what might be considered atrocities. What matters is the cause".
Yes, the Allies committed atrocities: the RAF incinerated Hamburg and Dresden; British naval officers shot survivors of damaged U-Boats; American GIs killed POWs; the French Resistance killed innocent civilians in reprisals; the USA dropped atomic bombs on Japan; Soviet troops committed sex crimes by the thousand in Germany. However, we must not fall into the moral relativist trap that the TA want us to drop into. Atrocities they might have been, but they were retaliatory actions, as distinct from the crimes of genocidal aggression perpetrated by the Nazis and the Japanese military. Set these admittedly deplorable actions by the Allies against the crimes of Hitler's regime, and they pale into anaemic irrelevance. As W. H. Auden wrote:

 "Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return". ("September 1, 1939")

Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, as were many political and religious opponents, resistance fighters and gays. The Soviet Union suffered unbelievable damage.

It is strange  how those who deplore the bombing of Hamburg and Dresden overlook these issues, but that's the TA for you. Facts such as the Blitz, the Holocaust, the 20 million dead of the Soviet Union are irrelevant to them. In the case of the neo-Nazis, it is understandable; for the pacifist Left, it is inexcusable. Whatever else may be said, there is a moral difference between the Allies and the Axis in WW2, as there is between the violence of the attacker and that of the defender. Let's not forget: Britain, France, the USA and USSR did not start the war, nor did they set out to invade and subjugate other countries, or practise genocide, whatever David Irving and the neo-Nazis say. It was the German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion who first practised terror bombing against a civilian centre of population during the Spanish Civil War by bombing the Basque town of Guernica in 1937.  The first city in WW2 to be destroyed by bombing wasn't Dresden, but Warsaw, in 1939. The Luftwaffe went on to ravage many more cities in Europe and the USSR, until the tide of war turned against them. Perhaps we should remember that, instead of listening to the Triple Alliance - and Professor Kehinde Andrews. The road to the destruction of Dresden in 1945 began with the indiscriminate bombing of Warsaw.

28/1/2019: By way of a footnote, I learned this morning, much to my disgust, that the memorial to the murdered police officer, WPC Yvonne Fletcher, was also defaced last week. Attentive readers will have noticed that, even though I wrote of a "Triple Alliance" of fascists, ultra-Leftie pacifists and Jihadis who were likely suspects for the vandalism, I only really mentioned the first two. Other than the spraying of what appears to have been Islamic graffiti on memorials in Central London in 2013, I had no evidence of Jihadi activity. The desecration of WPC Fletcher's memorial, though, might point to their involvement. Neither the fascists or pacifists would have any reason to carry out this attack. Gaddafi was in power when WPC Fletcher was murdered, and he was no friend of the Jihadis. However, the Middle East connection, and the police crackdown on Jihadi terrorism might have provided sufficient reason for the Jihadis to carry out the defacement.

Brexit and the Damage Done - So Far

Anna Soubry

The recent abuse directed at Anna Soubry MP outside the House of Commons highlights what I consider to be one of the most damaging aspects of the whole Brexit debacle: the polarisation of British public opinion. From the outset, the referendum in 2016, and the subsequent farce, has divided families, friendships, workplaces and political parties. In the Labour Party, for example:

"Today, Labour’s MPs, individual members and affiliated trade unions are overwhelmingly pro-EU and hostile to Brexit. All but about ten Labour MPs voted “Remain” in the referendum. A recent poll of party members found 90% would now vote for Britain to remain in the EU. The problem is that the party leader doesn’t always seem to share their enthusiasm."

Piers Morgan, a man who does not command universal respect and admiration,  was surely correct when he said recently that Brexit has brought an unfamiliar element of intolerant anger from both sides of the debate. This has led to "Remainer" Anna Soubry being called a Nazi by far right protesters (!), and "Leave" dilettante, Nigel Farage, being attacked in his car when with his family. In the 1970s, I took part in protests against extreme right figures like John Tyndall and Martin Webster. I thought this justified as these men stood for violence against political opponents and mass deportation (or worse!) of ethnic minorities. I see no justification for violence or intimidation by either side in the Brexit debate - but it has happened, and may prove to be a genie difficult to get back into the bottle.

For the genie of violence has gone beyond  the limits of the 1970s. We all remember the horrific murder of Jo Cox, M.P., by the Leave campaigner, Thomas Mair. We should also bear in mind the death of Duncan Keating in 2016, two days after the referendum. Keating, a "Leave" voter, died after a fight with a Remain-voting neighbour, Graham Dunn. And, of course, let's not forget the rise in hate crime, which has doubled in the past five years, according to the Home Office.

All this is bad enough, but there have been other negative effects. The economy, predicted to suffer post-Brexit, is suffering already. As The Guardian says:

"The UK economy is already 2.5% smaller than it would have been had Remain won the referendum. Public finances have been dented by £26bn a year, more than half of the defence budget. This translates to a penalty of £500m a week, a figure that is growing."

My final area of concern is the growth of Populism and the commensurate rise of the Far Right. Anna Soubry is not a Nazi; anyone with a minimal grasp of political theory knows this to be a ridiculous accusation. The problem is that many people are ignorant of political theory and political history, and do not fully understand the meanings of terms they use as abuse. The protesters who abused and harangued Anna Soubry, however, would react with hostile derision if you pointed this out to them. Subtleties such as facts are of no interest to what was clearly a shower of ex-English Defence League members, acting like Nazis themselves.I believe this to be part of what I can only describe as a celebration of ignorance. My main charge against the referendum and Brexit is this: it has legitimised prejudice, division and unthinking hostility to people of different opinions. This does not, of course, mean that we are engaged in internecine warfare, but at times it feels like it.
By way of an afterthought, there is one more area where Brexit has caused us damage: our international prestige has been seriously weakened by the referendum result, the absurd antics we have seen during the past two years of "negotiations" with the EC and the recent defeats of the government's efforts to provide a solution. All this has made us look insular and incapable of sane governance to people abroad - in other words, a laughing stock. And we haven't even left the EC yet, nor has the Irish border problem been resolved. Social division, political intolerance and violence, the rise of the far right, an economy that already looks shaky and diminished prestige abroad - if there's light at the end of the tunnel, I can't see it.

Soldiers of ignorance: EDL in all their glory