Fighting Fascism Then, and Now

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John Pilger | Fighting Fascism Then, and Now

Sun, 17 Jul 2005 09:02:28 -0700

 

 

John Pilger | Fighting Fascism Then, and Now

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/071705Y.shtml

 

 

Fighting Fascism Then, and Now

By John Pilger

t r u t h o u t | Perspective

 

 

Sunday 17 July 2005

 

It was the International Brigades' Memorial Day in Jubilee Park

beside the Thames in London. It was a hot day with no breeze, " a

Spanish day " , one of the Brigaders said. Like the others, all in their

eighties and older, he took shelter in the shade and rested on his

walking stick. He wore his red beret. Twenty yards away, tourists

waiting to board the London Eye, the great ferris wheel built for the

Milennium, looked bemused at the elderly men in their berets, and the

rest of us, without knowing who we were, what the men had done and why

we were celebrating them.

 

Between 1936 and 1939, the International Brigade fought in Spain

on the side of the Republican government against the fascist forces of

General Franco. There were British, Americans, Irish, Canadians,

Australians and others. They were very young and all volunteers,

determined to stop fascism in its tracks. They made a difference.

 

Although the government eventually fell, in February 1937, the

600-strong British Battalion of the XVth International Brigade stopped

Franco's advance on Madrid. Four hundred were killed, wounded or

captured in four days' bloody battle, Madrid was spared. There were

many battles like that. Sam Russell, a Brigader, described eloquently

how on the Sierra del Pandols, " there was not enough soil to bury the

dead, so we covered them with stones " . The poet Martin Green who had

written of his father, George Green, stood at the edge of the crowd.

George was killed when Martin was four years old. For his father, he

wrote:

 

You had no funeral nor hearse

No grave except the place you fell

No dirge but a soldier's curse

And an explosion tolled your knell

… I was a boy too young

To take the blow that felled

The tree that was your man.

 

On this warm Saturday 67 years on, we stood and sang a tribute to

them. To the tune of " Red River Valley " , we sang the song of their

battle for Madrid and to which they marched and rallied:

 

There's a valley in Spain called Jarama

It's a place that we all know so well

It is there that we gave of our manhood

And so many of our brave comrades fell.

 

We are proud of the British Battalion

And the stand for Madrid that they made

There we fought like true sons of the people

As part of the Fifteenth Brigade

 

Now that we've left that dark valley of sorrow

And its memories we ne'er shall forget

So before we continue to this reunion

Let us stand to our glorious dead.

 

And we stood and remembered them. Jack Jones, the president of the

International Brigade Memorial Trust, read out the names of his

comrades who had died since their last reunion: Charlie Matthews (who

had been reported killed on the battlefield in 1939 and whose obituary

had appeared his local paper) and Cyril Sexton, who was wounded at

Jarama and went on to fight at Aragon, Belchite, Gandesa and Ebro

where he was wounded again. Last April, he died at the age of 91.

 

I was given the honour of describing the meaning of the Brigaders'

heroism today. I thanked David Marshall, an International Brigader who

had put my name forward and whose poetry had been an inspiration for

what I wanted to say. This is what I said:

 

I first understood the importance of the struggle in Spain from

Martha Gellhorn. Martha was one of my oldest friends. She was one of

the greatest war correspondents and is remembered for her dispatches

from Spain during the Civil War. In November 1938, she wrote this:

 

" In Barcelona, it was perfect bombing weather. The cafes along the

Ramblas were crowded. There was nothing much to drink: a sweet fizzy

poison called orangeade and a horrible liquid supposed to be sherry.

There was, of course, nothing to eat. Everyone was out, enjoying the

cold afternoon sunlight. No bombers had come for at least two hours.

The flower stalls look bright and pretty along the promenade. 'The

flowers are all sold, Senores. For the funerals of those killed in the

eleven o'clock bombing, poor souls'. It had been a clear and cold day

all yesterday …'What beautiful weather', a woman said, and she stood,

holding her shawl around her, staring at the sky. 'And the nights are

as fine as the days. A catastrophe,' she said … everyone listened for

the sirens all the time, and when we saw the bombers, they were like

tiny silver bullets, moving forever up, across the sky. "

 

How familiar that sounds. Barcelona. Guernica. Hiroshima. Vietnam.

Cambodia. Palestine. Afghanistan. Iraq.

 

Martha never tired of explaining why people fought for the

Republic, " the Causa " , and why going to Spain was so important. She

wrote of the International Brigade: " Whatever their nationality,

whether they were Communists, anarchists, socialists, poets, plumbers,

middle-class professional men, or the one Abyssinian prince … they

were fighting for us all in Spain. "

 

The enemy then was fascism, out-and-out fascism. Armband wearing,

strutting, ranting fascism.

 

The enemy then was a great world power, rapacious, with plans of

domination, of capturing the world's natural resources: the oil fields

of the Caspian and the Middle east, the mineral riches of Africa. They

seemed invincible.

 

The enemy then was also lies. Deceit. News dressed up as

propaganda. Appeasement. A large section of the British establishment

saw fascism as its friend. Their voice was a section of the British

press: The Times, the Daily Mail.

 

To them, the real threat was from ordinary people, who were

dreamers, many of them, who imagined a new world in which the dignity

of ordinary life was respected and celebrated. Some were wise dreamers

and some were foolish dreamers, but they understood the nature of

fascism, and they saw through the lies ands the deceit and the

appeasement.

 

They also knew that the true enemy didn't always wear arm bands,

and didn't always strut, or command great rallies, but were impeccable

English gentlemen who supported ruthless power behind a smokescreen of

propaganda that appropriated noble concepts like " democracy " and

" freedom " and " our way of life " and " our values " .

 

Does all this sound familiar?

 

I ask that question, because when I read the aims of the

International Brigade Memorial Trust, I was struck by a reference to

" the historical legacy of the men and women who fought with the

International Brigades against fascism … "

 

The " historical legacy " of the International Brigade, as Martha

Gellhorn wrote, is that they were fighting for us all. For me, that

means a legacy of truth - a way of seeing through the smokescreen of

propaganda, including and especially the propaganda of our own

governments: a legacy of confronting great and rapacious power in

whatever form it appears.

 

That legacy is needed today more than ever. Impeccable gentlemen

now invade defenceless countries in our name. They speak of freedom

and democracy, and our way of life and our values. They don't wear

armbands and they don't strut. They are different from fascists. But

their goals are not different. Conquest, domination, the control of

vital resources.

 

When the judges at Nuremberg laid down the ground rules of

international law following the Second World War, they described an

unprovoked, violent invasion of a defenceless country as " a crime

against humanity, the paramount war crime. "

 

The world is a very different place from Barcelona in 1938, and

from the Sierra del Pandols, and the Valley of Jarama, and all the

battlefields of Spain, but the legacy of those who confronted fascism

then endures as a warning to us all today.

 

It is a warning about sinister power behind democratic facades

that uses the battle cries of democracy. It is a warning about

messianic politicians, apparently touched by God, and about

appeasement and truth. And it is about moral courage: about speaking

out, breaking a silence. I salute those of you International Brigaders

who are here today, who did more than speak out. I thank you and your

fallen comrades for what you did for us all, and for your legacy of

truth and your moral courage. La Lucha continua!

 

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