Father Frank's Rants - The Pity of War

FATHER FRANK’S RANTS

Rant Number 316 25 August 2008

The Pity of War

Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori. It sweet and right to die for your country. Ringing words. Yet its author, the Latin poet Horace, did not quite live up to them. As a young man, a soldier in Brutus and Cassius’ republican army at Philippi, when he saw the battle lost he threw away his shield and fled. Hypocritical? Maybe, yet don’t judge him too harshly. Hypocrisy is after all the compliment vice pays to virtue.

A poet Horace inspired is Wilfrid Owen. Before falling on the killing fields of WWI, Owen wrote Strange Meeting. The dream encounter in hell of a British soldier with the German enemy he has killed. An infinitely moving poem. Reading it made the priest really restless. As the 115th – and counting – British serviceman fell last week in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban, it plunged me into a strange meditation. A dream about a dream. That of a dead Taliban warrior meeting his English enemy in the dark realms beyond the grave:

“The infidels’ cowardly missile flung me out of the shadow world, down, down into some dark cave. It seemed strewn with long bundles of rags. Then I saw they were men. Asleep.

‘Arise, you lazy sleepers! Prayer is better than sleep’ I shouted at them.

Then one slim shape stood up. A blood-spattered, split young face stared at me. Smiled a pitiful smile. He raised a long, thin pale hand. I flinched. Quickly reached for my Kalashnikov - it was gone. The white hand bore no weapon, though. It slowly traced a strange sign in the air. What was that? Like a cross. The way infidels bless. That angered me. I took a step forward but then recognition dawned. My enemy! The Englishman I shot yesterday. What kind of magic was that? A trick of Shaytan or…’

‘Aren’t you dead, o crusader? Are you a ghost? What do you want from me? Speak!’

He was silent. Smiled a compassionate, terrible smile. That disturbed me even more. ‘Speak! In God’s name! Don’t try your evil ways on me. Or I swear I’ll kill you again, with my bare hands!’

Still he said not a word. Fury mounted. Yet, my anger suddenly vanished. Because I felt sorry for him. You see, he looked like my younger brother Ahmad. Same age, same height, same dark eyes, same shy smile.

After that, I did not know what to do. He had invaded my land, bombed my people, was an unbeliever, so it was right he should die. Still, the enemy too, like all men, is descended from the Prophet Adam. We all come from God and to Him we shall return.’

I had killed him. So I owed him a little friendliness. I asked: ‘You are young. You must have regrets.’

At last he spoke: ‘The pity, the pity of war engendered. The rage, the rage, the discontent. The days unlived. The hopes unhoped. The light dimmed. The dream undreamt. The flesh untouched. The mouth unkissed. All those I miss. And the fresh air above. The smell of cut grass in Clovelly park. The taste of honey. My mum and dad, my Tracy – who’ll she wed now? – my mates. Sam, my kid brother…I wonder if he at his homework now?’

It was strange the Christian made no mention of God. He must have read my mind, because he said: ‘In God indeed I too believe, friend. And in His only Son.’

One should not be rude to a dead man, but I had to tell him: ‘God is on my side.’

He smiled another sad, most beautiful smile: ‘Here we learn there is only one side. The Creator is on the side of us all. Your side. My side. Everyone’s side. The side of humanity, friend.’

The ravings of a poor ghost! ‘Why do you call me friend? There can’t be friendship between us. I have robbed you of your life. Sent you to this gloomy place. Jehannum, hell, surely. Surely you must hate me.’

He sighed: ‘Hate is left out of here. And this is no hell. Hell isn’t a place. Hell is inside of us, like Heaven. You’ll learn that. Let me rest now. Go in peace, brother.”

The pity of war. Indeed! Yet, I say with a heavy heart, Christian ethics does not intrinsically condemn soldiering. St Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, ruled that waging war is not always a sin. Further, ‘It is lawful for Christian men…to bear weapons and serve in the wars’ states article 37 of the Anglican Prayer Book. The priest himself, though peace-loving, is not a pacifist. Patriotism is still a prima facie duty. The same poet who penned his powerful anti-war poem did not turn conscientious objector. Owen fought bravely and fell on the battlefield, only days before the war’s end. War, certainly an evil, may at times be the lesser evil. Still, one may legitimately ask of a particular war: is it right? Also, is it necessary?

Both sides fighting in Afghanistan of course would answer ‘yes’. The Taliban are waging jihad on infidel invaders. They believe they are continuing the same struggle they fought against the Soviets – only, this time against their former allies. NATO (a putative defensive alliance: what’s it doing thousands of miles away from the West?) claim to make a stand against Al Qaeda. PM Gordon Brown told the British troops they are fighting there to prevent terrorism back at home. A critic might observe the intervention is putting us all in more danger, by helping to engender a new generation of jihadists. And even some generals now suggest sotto voce that this war ain’t working. The Brits in the days of the Raj, their great Indian empire, failed twice to subjugate the fierce Afghan tribesmen. They probably realise full well this war is unwinnable.

OK. The poor priest admits it: he is no strategist. During his own young, conscript service in the Italian Army (spare me the jokes, please!) he hardly fired a shot. Nor could he really march in step. Pathetic, eh? Plead guilty, folks. But he begs leave to ask, in fear and trembling, of any young life, any NATO soldier (and others, too – humanity is one) slain in Afghanistan: ‘Why did he have to die?’

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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