We are not only a martial country
(See previous post on here:
National Identity in a Time of Crisis)
But we are also a nation of slaving sea-dogs, of course,
A piratical, press-gang country,
A maritime, buccaneering sort of place,
And here again we find a treasure chest
Of metaphor and rhetorical tropes:
A shot across the bows; all at sea; anchors aweigh;
Batten down the hatches; broad in the beam;
Between the devil and the deep blue sea;
Close quarters; copper bottomed;
All ship-shape and Bristol fashion;
Dead in the water; edging forward; fathom out;
Figure head … shiver my timbers …
I could go on and on and on
About the cruel sea, and then about
Convoys and submarine warfare,
And how my ears pricked up when I heard Matt Hancock
Say something like we got through the war
‘Despite’ rather than ‘because of’ rationing …
We live in a martial country,
And so I heard some general or other on Radio 4
Say that the country will come out of this more united;
He mentioned charities and the military,
Communities coming together,
But not World War Two and the Beveridge Report,
And the Welfare State and how there could be no return
To the 1930s and mass unemployment, poverty,
And the Great Depression,
And how the Welfare State was the thank you
To the working class for the privations it had endured.
And this is the lurking ideological and material battle to come:
In a nutshell:
Laissez-faire and market forces
Versus
State intervention and collectivism;
Charity versus Collectivism,
Charity versus Parity;
Taxing the rich rather than clapping in the street,
Making sure there is no return to austerity,
To pay for the recent state spending,
But making sure that state spending
And taxing the rich become the new normal,
So that hedge funds and food banks become history,
So that ‘key workers’ get paid their due,
And the gig economy is rejigged.
One final point: because of our history,
We are an institutionally racist society,
With covid-19 having a disproportionate impact
Upon BAME communities -
And as the old normal wasn’t normal,
As the old normal meant institutional racism,
Rees Mogg can no longer act as some sort of Pontius Pilate,
Washing his hands as he sings the national anthem,
And as we forget those past millions of deaths in India and Ireland,
As examples of the famines caused by imperial rule,
For one thing we have once more learned,
The old lie is still peddled:
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori –
But whereas the Great War was followed by unemployment,
The Great Depression, the means test, cuts in benefits,
The Second World War was followed by the Welfare State.
It is our duty to ensure that
We follow in the wake of 1945 and not 1918,
And even though the Church of England
Has been dubbed ‘The Tory Party at prayer’,
The Archbishop of Canterbury
Now appears to be on our side;
Firmly on our side:
For today is Easter Sunday,
And the Archbishop of Canterbury speaks to the nation
(On the Andrew Marr show):
‘Do we take hold of our destiny
And make sure differences are mitigated,
Abolished where possible –
Or do we just let things happen,
Do we let the market rule,
In which case there will be enormous suffering’.
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