Why is Britain the only country which seems to be so considerate towards other countries feelings when it comes to marking the anniversiary of any battle where we were the victors?
Obviously my thought dwell upon the impending 'celebration' of Nelsons victory at Trafalgar. As part of the Fleet Review, which is normally carried out to commemorate either the coronation or jubilee of a monarch, there will be a mock battle involving ships from several nation. Rather than have what would be expected on this particular anniversary, the Navy has decided to have a Reds vs. Blues contest. This quote, by our own Second Sea Lord, demonstrates the depths to which this compassion has sunk(forgive the pun):
"the event is a celebration of a battle at sea at the time of Nelson - not an exact mock-up of the British and French at Trafalgar".
OK, so why wait until the 200th anniverary of this particular battle? Surely the best time to perform the Fleet Review would have been in 2002 during the Golden Jubilee celebrations. Oh no, three years ago it was considered too expensive. I'd love to know why it's now cheap enough to do. Do we get a discount from Admiral to insurance the event this year (pun intended on that one) and does that include unintentional emotional distress cover?
History is written by the winning side so the saying goes. I wonder why it is now being changed to ensure we upset no-one when it's mentioned? is anyone else doing it? I doubt it.
I can understand why the defeated nations (and I include Britain) gloss over certain battles where it did nothing to distinguish itself. Example - how many people can name a battle other than Rouke's Drift during the Zulu Wars? I'll even go so far as to accept the constant desire for Hollywood to abuse the term 'artistic licence' in order to get a happy ending (although I stand by my principles for anything where the Yanks were not even involved, I'll just say Braveheart and leave it at that).
The one area I do draw the line is to prevent anyone getting upset about the result.
Do we skirt around the issue every Saterday afternoon when the footie finishes? More often than not there is a winning side and a losing side. Where are President Tony's thought police then? No where in in sight, although that's one bandwagon onto which our illustrious leader often jumps when it suits him.
Note: I'm not going to go off on one about the mentality of football suporters in this post. I'll save that one for later.
What's past is past. History has gone, the result written in the great annals of time. You can't change what happenned after the battle was won. Re-writing the Civil War isn't going to re-attach Charles I's head, re-writing what happened at Hirosima and Nagasaki isn't going to bring millions of people back to life.
Accepting the past is the only way we can we learn from it.
2 comments:
History is written by the victors. However, I think you'll find that the EU won all the wars in the last 2000 years according to who is actually writing the history. When Sam was doing her History degree, she was in a seminar group with a German who had been taught at school that the Germans won the Second World War...
This, unfortunately, proves my final point...
To (almost certainly mis-)quote Messers Pete and Dud:
"I've looked back at my previous mistakes and feel sure I can replicate them perfectly"
It's been a while since I listened to the sketch, but you get then general gist.
Well, call me Cassandra and then ignore me (one for the classically educated there).
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