Between the Lines: The Patriot Game (1989)

The Between the Lines column from the September 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Patriot Game

"Come all you young rebels, enlist while I
 sing

For the love of one's country is a terrible 
thing.

It banishes fear with the speed of a flame


And makes us all part of the patriot game".

These are the opening lines of a song called The Patriot Game, written by Dominic Behan who died last month. The love of countries is, indeed, a terrible thing. It makes fools out of all patriots; it takes noble sentiments of home and community and equips them with guns and bombs. First Tuesday (ITV, 1 August. 10.35pm) allowed the voices of British troops in Northern Ireland to be heard. There are 10,000 of them on active service there: the mugs and thugs who do the dirty work for the British ruling class.

"If you're going to Ireland and afraid of being shot, then you're not doing your job", declared a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Green Jackets who exhibited the kind of wisdom that would not qualify him to look after my cat, let alone a pile of machine guns. Thankfully, most of the workers in uniform interviewed were not as desensitised as that they were frightened—petrified. They did not want to be there. Choice had not brought them: most were economic conscripts. making big money by taking big risks. "You get a load of bull when you join . . . you get told it's a good life, so you believe it". What was most striking about these soldiers was their immaturity. Listening to them, it was quite obvious that most had a conception of conflict which had not developed beyond the traditions of the school playground and the more juvenile antics of the football terraces. They were like puerile gang members: They try to wind us up, you try to wind them up”, explained one young keeper of the peace. He explained how they told him that his mother was sleeping with a black man. so he made them stand in the rain for ten minutes for a security check. They call it the war of nerves; well, they wouldn't call it a war of brains.

What was sickening about this patriotic parade was the brutal deference displayed towards violence. Said one soldier of his gun. “We take better care of it than a woman. Without it you're defenceless’. This

must have explained a lot to his wife if she was watching. But, more importantly, "without it you're defenceless"—the piece of designed killing machinery upholds life. It is little wonder that one of the officers, with more than a touch of perverse pride in his voice, declared that the IRA are the best terrorists in the world. Well, there's a compliment, from a man who gets paid and given medals for being a legalised Queen's terrorist.

By contrast—but not by contrast at all— Families At War (BBC1, 7 August, 9,30pm) was about Shane O'Doherty who became a volunteer for the IRA. Because of the state censorship law forbidding interviews with current members of the IRA the BBC had to interview O'Doherty, who has now denounced violence as being counter-productive. It must be said that O'Doherty came across as a much more human being than the current practitioners of armed brutality in the British army. Silly old British state: they pass a law preventing themselves from depicting the sick views of Irish Nationalists who really believe in the nobility of blowing up their fellow workers. O'Doherty had become a victim of the romantic folly of the patriot game by the time he was eight years old: at fifteen he joined the IRA and within a short time was indulging in such 'liberationary" acts as planting a bomb at Baker Street station in London. I bet he treated his gun better than any woman. They all do. And they go to sleep dreaming of piles of dead bodies on the other side. Their minds have been screwed up and they are victims of war; the gun. though pointed away from them, has inflicted an immeasurable injury upon their dignity and decency.

Shooting from the mouth

Whoever said that the pen is mightier than the sword was right. And talking is more potent than shooting. The present writer would not fancy a fist fight with the uniformed dummies in their Irish barracks, but in a debate they would be bloody slaughtered. A Gift Of The Gab (BBC2. 8 August, 9.50pm) was an interesting three-part series by Ludovic Kennedy about the art of oratory. As expected. Kennedy made some highly perceptive points in his first programme (the only one seen at the time of writing), but the series seems in danger of concentrating too much on the well-recorded oratory of parliamentarians and Presidents This emphasis misses a point: the main impetus for public speaking is the need to communicate beyond the available channels. The MP can go through the motions of repeating sterile speech-making formulae and the trade union leader can wave his arms in the time-honoured fashion, but it is the dissident, denied all opportunity to relate to a big audience except through the wit of holding them with his or her words, who usually makes the most intriguing speaker. To be specific. Churchill might have carved out a reputation as a brilliant pro-war orator, but that skill amounted to little compared with the brilliant eloquence of the orator whose dissenting words shout out against the popular support for warfare. "The love of one's country is a terrible thing" and to extinguish such fool's love is a skill to be admired.

Steve Coleman