I come from the same generation as Jeremy Corbyn. We were all born into families who had lived through the war.
My dad joined up as soon as he could and was in the navy for five years. My mum was in a reserved occupation. Her first boyfriend was a rear gunner who was shot down over Berlin in 1943, aged 19.
One of my uncles lost his leg at Niemagen. My primary school had air raid shelters. Most of the dads of my friends had been in the services.
So we all knew about war, and the sacrifice that many of their friends and relatives had made. That is precisely why many of us grew up to be opposed to war and nuclear weapons, and why our generation was so identified as an anti-war generation.
We did not want to have to go through what our parents and grandparents had been through in two world wars. We knew that future wars would be even more deadly, after the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I am not a pacifist, but I think there has to be a very good reason to go to war. Which brings me to the question of respect for those who died as we commemorate the Battle of Britain 75 years ago.
Again, I know from my mother how frightened people in London were in the summer of 1940 and how important that battle was to them. So we should respect their memory and courage.
But I have to say that those in the military, the media and the opportunist politicians who are using their memory to attack Corbyn should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. These are people, let us never forget, who were cheerleaders for the illegal war in Iraq, who bravely applauded the bombing in Libya, who told us that the war in Afghanistan would be over by Christmas … 2001.
They have never apologised for any of this, and their only solution to the disastrous mess created by them is more bombing, more war and more scapegoating of refugees.
Corbyn’s victory is a threat to them because he stands against warmongering and the hypocrisy that accompanies it. The pathetic attempts to pillory him are a smokescreen to divert from the real questions of war and peace that affect us all.
[Lindsey German is convenor of Stop the War UK. Reprinted from StopWar.org.uk.]
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