‘We’ll never escape the shadow of the Second World War’ is the title of an article in the Telegraph, penned by one of its political journalists, Madeline Grant. This article of 16 March 2022 also has the sub-heading of ‘The invasion of Ukraine is a warning of the power of history and the danger of forgetting its lessons.’ Really, Ms Grant? We shall see.
After a little stroll down her family wartime history in which she reveals that WW2 has always felt like history to her (perhaps because it is) before adding “or even mythology” (that would be your bourgeois journalistic training kicking in there Ms Grant). Then, before even getting through the first paragraph, adds again that “the conflict has taken on mythic status.”
Ms Grant’s mind then, presumably to prove to herself that she’s thinking of the real thing and not some myth, takes a flowery little jaunt through 40s actors, actresses and singers with clipped voices to prepare us for her conclusion re WW2, history, Ukraine and forgotten lessons. Oh, before we reach that weighty conclusion, we now have to take a quick detour through some 70s tv shows such as Dads Army and one episode of Fawlty Towers, before making a limp observation regarding violent video games such as ‘Call of Duty’ which she claims; “have made the Second World War an almost hyper-real experience to younger ones.”
Having reminded us that we know, or think we know something about WW2 as a nation, Ms Grant turns to her interpretations of the lessons to be learned from history, but you would be wrong to think that these lessons would be informed by facts such as the Soviet Union losing 27 million people smashing fascism to save much of the world, or, that Ukrainian nationalists not only supported the German invasion but had their own SS battalion which committed such excesses of bestiality and inhumanity that they stood out even among their German SS peers.
No, her lessons to be remembered are summed up as; “Here we see once again blisteringly bold resistance, the biggest flight of people in Europe since those days, families again working out if they can welcome refugees and how many. Children are being born in bomb shelters.” In a very short time, we believe, we will see just how bold and blistering the resistance to the Russian army has been, but let us look at her claim of “the biggest flight of people in Europe since those days” There is still a constant stream of refugees going through Europe from the many wars of US, UK, EU NATO brigandage and both the attempted and to some extent successful regime change (asset stealing) to this day but if you want to only count refugees who are European, we cannot yet have seen anything like the numbers of refugees caused by the NATO led, high explosive, smashing of former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
Madeline then waxes lyrical on the “overnight heroes” such as “President Zelensky and the Klitschko brothers” who will “bolster morale” and “help unify” the population providing “a new-found understanding of the Blitz spirit.”
Ms Grant treats us to a bit more slapstick with a bash at the French would-be mediators and the German post war pacifists for not drooling for Russian blood before telling us “Vladimir Putin is obsessed with European history – though in true despot style, he specialises in misrepresenting it to suit his imperial barbarism.” Understanding and learning European history may be seen as ‘obsessive’ by Ms. Grant, but President Putin does understand the lessons of history and when fascist-supporting, armed to the teeth bands of serial invaders such as NATO march up to the Russian border, he doesn’t have to look to far into the past to know the danger and how to deal with it.
Having spectacularly not made any case for anything ,the strident Ms. Grant can’t help but end this sad little article with a squeal in defence of her heroic Zelensky, claiming; “Putin is accusing a Ukrainian-Russian Jew whose relatives were murdered in the Holocaust of leading a Government populated by neo-Nazis.” And that, Ms. Grant, is exactly why US imperialism and its NATO gang, chose Zelensky to fill that position, to try to distract from the fact that the fascists are in that government seated under the portrait of national hero Stepan Bandera, albeit in a suit and not his SS uniform. Zelensky is just convenient camouflage and he knows it.