A thought for Remembrance Sunday, expressed by a collage I made to accompany a poem by Adrien’s Mitchell, ‘To the British Armed Forces’ / ‘Blood and Oil’ (below):

 

Remembrance Sunday often falls around the time of my birthday, meaning I feel this weird connection with it. War is a horrible thing. Remembrance Sunday, for me, is not only about mourning for and honouring those who died in battle or on the side lines, on either side, but also for thinking about what a waste it was. What a pity it was. What a horror war is. While we remember the past, wars still go on. It continues.

 

Pristine paper poppies. Go to war because it’s your duty. Die because you’re doing your duty. For your country. Go. It’s an honour. You’re a hero. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

 

This isn’t to disrespect, just to encourage questioning. Sometimes Remembrance Sunday seems too much like a glorification of dying for one’s country. Military rituals. It’s how we cope. Because why else did they die? But can we prevent? This poem just questions what the armed forces are fighting for. Protecting their country?

 

Just remember that the people who give the orders are never the ones who do the fighting. Blood and oil.

 

 

*To the British Armed Forces*

 

And once again the politicians
Whose greatest talent is for lying
Are sending you where they’re afraid to go
To do their killing and their dying.
You are young you’ve been trained to fight.
You’re brave and well-equipped and loyal.
That’s why they’re sending you to Hell –
Blood and Oil.

It’s not to defend the Falklands sheep
Or keep Christians apart in Ireland,
But to sit you in a tank until you are moved
On a giant chessboard of desert sand.
You’re not there to fight against tyrranny,
Or free hostages or defend British soil
But for economics, the dollars of death –
Blood and Oil.

And the soldiers you fight will be young men
With no reason to kill, young men like you
With beautiful families back home
And some with wives and children too.
But no politicians will be there
When the lungs tear and the arteries boil
They’ll be filmed with survivors in hospital –
Blood and Oil.

Yes, once the politicians
Whose greatest talent is lying
Are sending young men where old men dare not go
To do their killing and their dying –
Blood and Oil
Blood and Oil
Blood and Oil

 

– by Adrien Mitchell