I find this (see
http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/plans-for-war-memorial-1-6466282
) quite sad. Disturbing even.
For one thing, there is already a perfectly good
war memorial in Ramsey. and public money was spent to make it
wheelchair accessible as part of the recent square redevelopment.
This means that a contingent of old soldiers and their relatives
(which gets smaller and less mobile year on year) can pay their
respects on Remembrance Sunday.
While I find that particular Christocentric and
jingoistic ceremony absolutely pointless – even offensive - I would
never make public comment on or interfere with something which,
presumably, brings genuine comfort to those attending. And I have no
problem with some of my taxes and rates being spent to make it
easier and more comforting.
But in the 21st century, how sick is a
cross as a mark of respect?
Any number of elderly men who fought on both sides
of that conflict and their descendants I've spoken to over the years
related to me how their lords and masters told them they would
prevail because God was on their side. Even if you believed in a deity
(which I don't) you would have to ask how he, she or it
simultaneously and equally failed to protect millions of innocents on
both sides, while seemingly managing to ensure those too rich or
powerful to become cannon fodder emerged from that war even richer
and more powerful.
So why perpetuate that lie into a new century?
Why
spend any public money at all perpetuating a sick joke which will
blight the side of a public building for years? I, for one, would
find it so awful, so offensive, that I would never again waste time
in a (currently very pleasant) public square which has just been renovated
at considerable public expense.
If this is just a question of using up central government funds which are going begging, and if the Manx really want to mark the tragic waste of life
in a more fitting manner perhaps, instead, they could stop using this
centenary as yet another weak excuse to allow MOD recruiters into
schools, and try some objective education on the causes, and possible
means of averting, wars.
