I drove to Caen WWII Memorial Centre and spent 3 hours dedicated to reminding myself about this momentous and horrendous time period in not just Europe but the world’s 20th century history.
In continuing to my overnight stop at the village of Asnelles – the D-Day landing site ‘Gold Beach’, it was obvious how much this area of France commemorates with respect what happened in June 1944. Streets in Asnelles are named after British regiments – eg, Rue du Devonshire Regiment – there are plaques and streetlight banners highlighting armed forces individuals who fought in the Battle of Normandy. And up and down the beaches are wartime defenses, and equipment just left there as a very vivid reminder of what happened then.
I decided to watch the film ‘Saving Private Ryan’, which I really feel should be compulsory viewing in schools for all 16 year olds, as well as films such as Schindler’s List, as the still living participants and witnesses of it all become ever fewer. We should make all efforts to not forget the horror which was unleashed as a result of evil philosophy on behalf of leaders who in Germany, Italy and others were able to seize power, and then distort almost completely the moral framework of their citizens. The fact that such ideologies continue to flourish and have since then managed to escape Pandora’s box, and wreak similar evil in our lifetimes, means we must not take for granted the relative freedoms and prosperities we have enjoyed in our liberal democracies.
In conversation with others, the fear of the rise of populism and nationalism in its worst forms throughout Europe was a repeated theme.
As I set off this morning and stopped briefly on the cliff tops at Arromanches, I thought about the EU, and how I want to celebrate the force for good that I, in my simple perception and knowledge, feel it to have been through its evolution since the second world war. In reflecting on how difficult it is for the opposing sides in Northern Ireland to overcome the wounds and legacies of that historical conflict, imagine the gulf, the bitterness, and the need for revenge and retribution, amongst and within the nations of Europe arising from WWII, coming also after WWI. In the span of one person’s lifetime, I am proud that these nations’ representatives have worked so hard together within this structure and its previous incarnations, I feel, to establish an order which indeed has restrained enmity and sought to enable its peoples to flourish from out of the devastation of that war.
Perhaps one will say that indeed it served this purpose in the 20th century, but now it needs reform and is no longer right for the world as it is now, and Great Britain’s place within it. My view remains that all things considered, the EU is still a force for peace, for prosperity, for flourishing of its peoples, and yes for ‘good’ , which the United Kingdom is leaving for an empty slogan of ‘taking back sovereignty’, and a misplaced confidence in a Britain of its empire of the past. To face the challenges of now – strong-man politics, the rise of populism and nationalism, globalisation with potentially rampant corporations in reality stronger than nations, climate change, we need to be part of that bigger community, to be able to stand together as a block to defend and continue to develop the values of freedom, human rights and social democracy, which have been so hard won .
In conversation with others, whether Dutch, German, or French, sadness at the departure of the United Kingdom from the EU was a repeated theme.
