I am not a pacifist.
As a child I endured the blitz during the Second World War and saw neighbours and friends killed. After a V2 fell close to our home, my mother and brother were dug out badly injured but they survived. I think Britain had to resist invasion but I do not think Britain had to participate in the First World War.
War should not be glorified. The Westminster Government has financed the commemoration of the First World War. Rightly, we should remember those who were killed. The trouble is that the media focus has been on the violence, the flag waving, the triumphant victories. Simon Jenkins has written The Great War: Our Nightly Pornography of Violence.
On Monday I watched on television the commemoration service at Glasgow Cathedral. I was hoping for reflection on the evils of war, for repentance about the millions of unnecessary deaths and numerable disabled men and broken families, for a prayerful commitment to scale down the arms industry and for ideas on how to avoid future wars.
There were moments of inspiration but, overall, it gave me more despair than hope.
It was dominated by what The Herald called "the great and the good", the dignitaries in the best seats, the clergy in their robes, the political leaders, the high-ranking soldiers showing off their war medals and uniforms; and Prince Charles in naval attire greeted by trumpets.
Ironically, David Cameron read from a section of the gospels in which Jesus criticises the mighty who lord it over others and calls his followers to be humble servants. The working class, the unemployed, the victims of welfare know about sufferings. They should have been more prominent.
Not surprisingly, General Sir Peter Wall, chief of the General Staff, declared that the military had learned from its decade-long operations in Afghanistan and now had "a warrior generation of troops ready for future conflict". I was also disappointed that little was said about the peace campaigners of the First World War. Some of them were Christians who took Jesus's words to heart.
Others were socialists who believed that love and respect for each other forbade slaughter. They were not cowards. More than 6,000 were jailed and some died in prison or shortly after their release.
I am a member of a group that asked Glasgow City Council to erect a small memorial to the citizens who argued for peace. We were told that such a plaque would not be allowed in George Square and, in any case, we would have to pay for it.
A number of sympathetic councillors proposed a motion for a memorial "in memory of those who opposed World War One". The full council meeting altered this to exclude any mention of opposition to war.
The council leaders present at the cathedral would have heard the Rev Laurence Whitley, minister of Glasgow Cathedral, make a mention of those who wanted peace. He could have dwelt on those Christians whose war experiences made them change their minds.
The choir sang beautifully a poem by Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy called The Suffering God but he was more than a poet. Studdert Kennedy, better known as Woodbine Willie, enlisted as a padre, always went with the troops to the front and won the Military Cross.
Yet the sight of hundreds of young men being needlessly mown down by machine guns in a fruitless effort to advance a few yards, the task of burying their bodies and then writing to their parents led to him becoming an opponent of war.
Even before the war was over, he wrote that he wanted to make his sons "uncompromising and bitter rebels against the cruelty and folly and waste of war, and plant in their minds a strong healthy suspicion of the scheming, lying and greed that brings it about." And after the war, he became a crusader for peace.
The commemorations will continue. I hope they will be better balanced.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article