To not want to 'celebrate' VE

[Ramblethroughthebrambles]

I've been asked to take part in VE celebrations this week. I've politely declined. It feels OK to me to join in a solemn commemoration, with a focus on how to make sure this never happens again, but not a celebration of victory which all the UK events seem to be. I'm grateful for the sacrifices so many soldiers and others made and that we didn't become part of the Nazi empire. I completely get why people originally celebrated the end of such an awful war and its hardships. But celebrating military victory 80 years on doesn't sit right with me, especially given the conflicts in the world today. It seems to normalise military intervention and sends the message that military victory is a 'good thing' when often it's a result of failures in international diplomacy/ strategy / long term thinking. I'm not a complete pacifist and recognise there are times when military intervention is a necessary evil. But that doesn't make me want to celebrate it.

I never hear anyone else expressing this view in public. There seems to be an expectation that we'll all want to get the bunting out and have a tea party. So AIBU?

It’s not ‘glorifying war’ FFS. It’s marking the end of years of so much fighting, suffering and millions of deaths, at least in Europe. The war with Japan was still going on - my DF was just one of so many who came home only months later.
He died at only 72 so a whole sixth of his life was spent in fighting WW2 with the RN.

Only a very few of his final year at school ever came home - many of those very young men had gone into the RAF as aircrew - the death rate was horrendous.

Well, given that we live in a free country, you have every right not to celebrate the victory of the allies in WW2.

People fought and died for your right not to celebrate something that you don’t want to celebrate, so I don’t criticise you for that.

It’s like voting. The hard-fought right to
vote also includes the right not to vote.

If you didn’t have the right not to celebrate, then it wouldn’t be a free country.

As someone who had relatives who fought and died in both wars, and knowing what the alternative would have been if the Nazis had won (think gas chambers for all BAME, disabled, gay and people who disagree with the government) I’m shouting my thanks from the rooftops and flying the flags of all the countries that helped rid the world of that evil nutter who made Trump look like
the Dali Llama!

I think we need to teach our children about the Commonwealth soldiers from Africa, Asia (including many many Muslims) and the Caribbean who also fought and died for our freedom. It might make people less racist if they knew their shared history!

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER He died at only 72 so a whole sixth of his life was spent in fighting WW2 with the RN.

Not as bad as you think. 6 years fighting from a life of 72 years is only 1/12th not 1/6th. But a massive thing to have done.

...But it's very essence and poignancy remain the same. I take your point about new generations, although I'd like to think the outcome of WW2 paved and shaped the way for those generations.

“Even look at the difference between the ways in which the end of WWI and WW2 are marked in the UK. One is very much a ‘commemoration’, the other a ‘celebration’”

I think that’s because WW1 was a war that should never have happened, between two groups of very similar countries, that happened because a load of alliances just kicked in and the whole thing exploded, costing millions of lives for nothing. That is something to be mourned and remembered.

WW2 was about stopping an evil genocidal
maniac from taking over the world. That really is something to be celebrated.

I see the anti-british rhetoric is alive and kicking. How vile.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, other that every country does bad stuff sometimes. I'm not debating the fact that the European (and other) empires did awful things, particularly pre-1900. But by 1930, the boundaries of what was considered acceptable by democratic western populations had changed enormously.

And it was the Belgians in the Congo, not the Dutch. And they were truly dreadful, but even there, by 1930, things had improved enormously.

By the late1930s, Britain was just starting to consider the eventual independence of many constituent countries of the British Empire. And rule in many parts of that Empire relied on a large degree of co-option and consent. Also by the 1930s, within Britain there were restrictions on the hours that could be worked and so on. We had universal suffrage. We didn't have vast prison camps housing political dissidents or various types of people considered undesirable.

And I most definitely do not need educating about what the Japanese got up before and during World War II: I grew up on those stories, because they resulted in the deaths of several of my relatives, and the torture and starvation of many others.

The issue with Stalin's Russia was multi-faceted:

1. There was an agreement during World War II that the Allies would not take the opportunity for territorial aggrandisement. This meant that even when you had a population within a state that been linked to the Axis, that was actually quite keen to become, at least for a time, a part of the British Empire (as a route to eventual independence), like the Malays in southern Thailand, this had to be refused. Stalin, however, used WWII to wipe out the political opposition in the countries in the Soviet-controlled zone in Eastern Europe and instal puppet governments, essentially turning those countries into client states. Take a look at what happened to Imre Nagy.
2. Russia was not (and never has been) a democracy. Under Stalin, it was a brutally repressive state, and ordinary Russians arguably had less freedom to criticise their own government than did subjects of the British Empire. People could be sent to labour camps for extremely long terms for relatively minor infractions (or none).
3. Stalin treated his POWs and surrendered enemy personnel appallingly. The vast, vast majority of German POWs in British hands were safely home by early 1948. Over a third of the 3 million German soldiers who fell into Soviet hand, most of them in the final year of the war, did not make it home - even the NKVD admitted that about 14% died in their hands.

The reason that many people are deeply suspicious of communism is that wherever it is tried, it leads to political repression. Russian, Cuba, China, North Korea... Awful stuff happens under many other governments (theocracies and monarchies in particular), but it doesn't seem to be quite as inevitable as it is under communism.

The fact that the Russians also celebrate VE Day doesn't stop me doing so, though for the reasons given above, VJ Day is more significant to me.

Arguably, WW1 led to WW2. The Treaty of Versailles was far too onerous on Germany, the punishment was too great and it allowed grievance to take hold and fester, particularly after the wall street crash. There are no winners in war, but when winners rubs losers faces in the dirt, the long term consequences are not peace.

Thanks for your thoughtful posts @MarkingBad

"You do as you please but please let others choose to commemorate, celebrate, or ignore as they wish.". Yes, that's generally my approach, but it becomes difficult when community events are organized and there is an expectation that everyone wants to mark WW2 in the same way. If there was less of the celebratory element perhaps more people would feel able to join in.

Thanks - that's a helpful reminder of what was unique about WW2 and why commemoration and gratitude are important to so many people. I just wish we could do this without the celebratory angle.

@MissyGirlie for who in the 1930's improved for? The WC were still dying in droves from malnutrition and slum housing. Eugenics was still the norm (until the 70's), then there was the removal of babies from unmarried women and the use of asylums etc. Child migration to Australia didn't end until 1970. Many people were still considered undesirable and disposable. We'll just ignore the Bengal famine, the Biafran crisis and many other events. Re the Dutch I meant to say SA and add in the Belgiums. You can't really pick between any of the Wealthy men wanting power when it comes to the more evil.

And Philips mother hid Jews from the Nazis.

How much influence do you think the Royal family would have had over Philips family? The Queen and Philip weren't even dating yet so they were just very distant cousins.

They'd already made it quite clear that Edward and Wallis Simpson were not welcome around the place.

I'm still not sure what point you're trying to make. By the 1930s it's true that the UK wasn't a Utopia for everyone, but average living standards were improving: life expectancy in 1905 was about 50; by 1935 it was 61. I have no idea what you mean by 'eugenics was still the norm'. 'Norm' implies that it was enforced on most people, which it clearly wasn't.

Ot perhaps you are arguing that the Politburo of the USSR was no worse than the governments of the UK, USA etc, in which case I'd recommend that you read Anne Applebaum.

The world isn't neatly split into good and evil. A government that cocks a few things up is still a lot better than a government that cocks the same sort of things up but also has vast slave labour camps (a million and a half dead in the Soviet gulags - or dying soon after release), show trials, a tightly controlled press and no hope of promotion for someone born into the 'wrong' sort of family (i.e. dissidents, not members of the Party - I knew someone years ago who had left Czechoslovakia for exactly this reason).

So yeah, I'm very confused about what it is that you are arguing.

Totally fine not to take part but remember millions died for your right to be an arsehole.

@OneAmusedSharkI think that’s a really good point honouring all the Commonwealth soldiers, including so many Muslims, who died in WWII, often without even a plaque or mention. If more people knew about our shared history, it might actually reduce racism. It could help people feel more connected and included, especially those from diaspora communities who often feel overlooked and probably weirded out by VE day despite their families sacrifices.

Then don't 'celebrate' it and overthink it. I'm going to a VE event, where there will be a 1940s band with singing. I'm going to don my VE 80 badge, have a drink a jive and enjoy the freedom many men and women gave me. It's called gratitude.

OP is not being an arsehole.

Reread your own post and note the word 'irony'.

Some people a few streets away have their whole house festooned with flags and a sign on the front gate saying "bomb shelter this way". Ho ho - what fun!

No - it wasn't fun - and wars aren't fun for the people in the world today who are suffering in them.

Two minute silence is at midday today.

At the very least I think we can all manage that given the number of people that have died.

Reading the thread two things jumped out.

I saw it suggested by one poster we should ‘forget Ww1/Ww2’ or similar words. This is a dangerous road. Forgetting history means over time we forget the lessons of that history. So while I understand the feelings of those on this thread who have a preference for commemoration not celebration, I think ignoring the past is too far to go.

On the subject of WW2 being different, it was. For me the biggest difference is that we had a power and land grabbing enemy actively seeking to invade our shores and physically take the country. Imagine a war being on your doorstep. Think of the home guard, the prisoners of war on our farms, the bombings, the evacuees, German planes overhead, and the threat of invasion. Beating that at a time when radio meant everyone knew what was happening. I can only imagine how it felt to be there when Churchill announced that was ending and the war in Europe was ended.

others are right, things will shift to commemoration as time passes. But I think it will always be different so rememberance of WW1. It was a very different war. Equally brutal and hard, but different.

Monday’s “celebrations” weren’t really supposed to be that. They were trying to create an event - possibly the last - commemorating the celebrations of 80 years ago today.
As someone whose parents lived through (and served) in WWII, I think a lot of younger people don’t ‘get’ this point - and that includes the BBC coverage on Monday, where some reporters clearly also didn’t get it, judging by some of the completely inane questions they were asking the veterans.
Luckily, quite a few of these very politely answered these questions with the gentle reminder that we were commemorating the relief of ordinary people who had lived through extraordinary times.
I suppose that those wanting to recreate the street parties (and run the gamut of being accused, by those ignorant of history, of celebration) were hoping to keep the memory alive for younger generations, in the hope that we remember the awfulness of war and work towards peace in the future.
We ignore history at our peril, and today, the actual anniversary, along with the rest of Europe, I will be remembering the fallen, the murdered and the survivors, from whom we are all descended, hoping and praying that we and our descendants never have to live through such terrible times as they did eighty years ago, and feeling thankful for the sacrifices made by ordinary people to ensure our safety during my lifetime…

I completely agree with you OP.

I've always been uncomfortable about it as it seems wrong to celebrate anything where huge numbers of people died but it's been brought home to me even more with the current Ukraine and Gaza situations that there aren't 'goodies' and 'baddies' but that people dying at the hands of others because of some desire for power at the top is just appalling. Our hands are not clean now and they won't have been then. Glorifying it and being the 'winner' doesn't make it ok. And all those saying 'we'd be nazis now if it wasn't for the sacrifice', look around you. We're on our way there again now and nobody seems to be bothered. The 'sacrifice' was for nothing.

Thank you for this

You are right

Exactly this. Excellent post which clearly pinpoints the horrible cycles of the repetition of history, and how a celebration of victory and of 'being right' should ring hollow in the ears of anyone paying attention to current events. Long before the last polling day it struck me how very similar political rhetoric and sentiment today was to that of the 1930s. It's a thought I find more than a little alarming. And it's not just the UK. There's a spread of it in much of the western world.

You are right, @mustytrusty: we are well on the way. We are eighty years into the future and the world has moved on whilst still harbouring the sentiments that led to two World Wars in the first place. Constantly commemorating history isn't preventing war and genocide from happening again: we had the rest of the last century to teach us that much. Yet our eyes are averted from preventing similar catastrophes in the past: quite likely because they're not happening directly on our doorstep.

The best 'commemoration' to our grandparents' generation would be to tackle the mess that's unfolding in front of us right now - just as they did in their own time. It starts at the polling booth, but there are various grass-roots social movements always tackling injustice, if you care enough to find them.

It's up to us.

One of my Grandfathers fought another was an air raid warden as too old to fight. I hate war but I will commemorate the end of WW2 and take time to feel proud of their contributions and explain them to my kids so that their memory will continue.