Remembrance Day

 

On the eleventh day of the eleventh month we remember: today is Remembrance Day.

We especially remember today the sacrifice of soldier-conscripts, police-officers, fire-fighters, ambulance-workers, stretcher-bearers, medics, civil defence volunteers and all others swept up in the evils of war.

We recall the sacrifice too of the animals used in warfare: horses; mules; donkeys; dogs; pigeons; and mascots.

I personally reflect upon the effort of members of my family who were directly involved in the war-front (Great Uncle Ted - a life-long professional soldier in India who died at Ypres; Grandad Cyril - Far East; Grandad Doug - Arnhem) and those who were obliged to stay home to work for the war-effort in essential jobs (Grandad Horace).

We also recall the huge effort made by wimminfolk to take up the jobs left by their menfolk, and especially those who worked & died in the armaments industry.

We recall the civilians killed in war-time: those who had different opinions, such as Communists, Socialists; those who had a different religion, such as Jews, Jehovahs Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists; we recall those who had different life-styles, Homosexuals & other Queers like myself, Romanies; and those just killed because they were in the wrong place by guns or bombs. 

I remember all the tens of thousands of disabled people, just like me, who were killed under the NAZI’s Aktion T4 programme, the precursor to the Holocaust. And additionally all those disabled folk euthanised by countries like USA and India even when not in a state of war, but in wars against their own citizens.

We remember the indigenous peoples killed to make way for colonists or to gain access to assets. We remember those killed by colonial powers so that they could retain hold on colonies, such as Belgian Congo or British Raj in India.

We remember all those places where war still rages, such as Syria, Yemen.

We recall the deaths of the poor due to actions of the rich, the exploitative economic war of extreme social injustice waged across much of the World.

As a Quaker and Pacifist, I also remember the sacrifice of the conscientious-objectors, who remind us all that Peace can always be an alternative. Many were forced to work in dangerous mines and died as a result.

We are thankful for all those who have helped to bring Peace, no matter their rôle, and brought wars to an end.

We shall remember them. 🙏🏻💕🌺

[Image description: my Great Uncle Ted in his Indian uniform and in his WWI attire.]

NAZI Treatment of the Disabled

(Image description: 1930's NAZI poster of an invalid and a carer towering over him. The text reads in German, "60,000 [Marks] kostet dieser Erbkranke die Volksgemeinschaft auf Lebenszeit [.] Volksgenosse das ist auch dein Geld"; this translates as, "60,000 [Marks] is the cost to the national community of this genetically defective person over a lifetime [.] Member of the people that is your money".)

Around the time of National Holocaust Memorial Day I posted the following on my facebook page:

"The ConDems began a huge propaganda campaign against mentally and physically disabled Brits. They did not fit into the Neo-Liberal stereotype of the pure hard-working family, that is physically fit with an obedient mind to serve the economy." This is a quotation I have taken about the NAZI era and replaced the words in bold type with those relevant to the situation that is current in the United Kingdom, especially England.

"A DOCTOR yesterday likened the UK Government’s welfare reform crackdown on disabled people to the “barbarism” of the NAZIS." The Scottish Sun  Having some understanding of what occurred under the NAZIs and seeing parallels with today, I posted this quotation with link on my facebook page yesterday, only to receive the following (edited) response:

"Doctors come in all shapes and forms Colin. This one sounds a bit like [a] nutter... Whatever your feelings about the government's welfare reforms, it's hard to compare them with Nazi policies of the 1930's. Nobody is sending anyone to gas chambers - they're simply making sure only the genuinely disabled stay on benefits. It's like they keep telling us, we're all in it together - and that includes the sick, lame and lazy!"

I am quite shocked that in this day and age an intelligent person (from a minority to boot) has so little knowledge about history or what is going on here in Britain, despite my very regular facebook updates.

"Most of us are familiar with the words of Pastor Neimoller, but we are much less familiar with the true origins of the holocaust. The first victims of the Nazi holocaust were the 'anti-socials', mostly disabled people... Marked with a black triangle, labelled as 'useless eaters' and an economic drain, the Nazi's learnt how to exterminate other human beings by experimenting on these vulnerable people with Zyklon B gas, techniques that would later be refined in order to commit the mass murder of millions of people." Benefit Scrounging Scum

"The Nazis began a huge propaganda campaign against mentally and physically disabled Germans. They did not fit into the Nazi stereotype of the pure Aryan, that is physically fit with an obedient mind to serve the Reich. [Recognise this? If not, see above!] In addition, they were viewed as a burden on society, as they were unable to work and drained resources from the state.

As early as July 1933, the Nazis passed a law that allowed forced sterilisation of 350,000 men and women, who were deemed likely to produce 'inferior' children.

Between 1939 and 1941 a programme of euthanasia (so called ‘mercy killing’), ordered by the state, led to the murder, by doctors and medical staff, of at least 70,000 people." The Holocaust Explained

"The Nazi campaign started by targeting not the Jews but disabled people. They where quietly gassed in the first experiments with Zyklon B, these people were comparatively low in numbers, were less likely to be missed, could not speak up for themselves, and had no-one to speak up for them.

Then after a large propaganda campaign that tapped into the populations anger about the country['s] economic state, the murder of millions began, long standing prejudice's like.......

"they think the world owes them something"

"They are a drain on the country's limited resources"

"they do not work so they are worthless"

"It would be kinder not to mention cheaper to kill them, preferably at birth"

......Are stomach turning yet they are statements I hear from people and politicians every day. Maybe not put quite as frankly or bluntly as that but the underlining argument and sentiment is the same." Rabbi Debbie Young-Sommers

Here's a news item from April this year:

"Two medical ethicists connected to Oxford University are arguing in Oxford’s Journal of Medical Ethics that babies have no moral status, and can be killed because they are only “potential persons” rather than “actual persons.” They also argue that if a newborn is disabled, it can be killed.

The journal’s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, said in their defence, “The goal of the Journal of Medical Ethics is not to present the Truth or promote some one moral view. It is to present well reasoned argument based on widely accepted premises.” When asked about the threats made against the article’s authors, he casually categorised them as “fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society.”

The article, “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?”, was written by two of Prof Savulescu’s former associates, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva. They wrote:

“The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a foetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual … Both a foetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her … it is not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense …

what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.”

And in the time-honoured philosophy of those who see life as purely a utilitarian matter, they conclude: “To bring up such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.”"British Ethicists & Infanticide

The parallels are there plainly to see, if one is willing to open one's eyes and look and use one's ears to hear. Recently, a politician suggested that folk on benefits should not be permitted to vote. Meanwhile the Govt. has reclassified what is disability and has withdrawn benefits from some of the terminally ill, cancer patients and so on.

So you think these kinds of hate crimes couldn't happen today? Well, this very morrow I read this:

"A while ago, someone threatened Kaliya Franklin [a disabled activist] with the gas chamber. She's Jewish and disabled. They said they would gas her to death, it was what she deserved. Now that's a genuine threat." Sue Marsh

So, before anyone else tells me that what is going on today is nothing like what the NAZIs got up to, please go away and do some research, some reading and some pondering. It could be you next...