The 22nd January is the 65th anniversary of Operation Shingle. Just as in all grand muck ups by the axis of eejits, more commonly known as the Allies in the conflagration lasting between 1939-45, (and ever since) this was badly executed with deadly results. However, for my purposes here I am not about to provide scholarly scrutiny of this battle or analysis of another Churchillian decision, mostly because that is beyond my competence and my interest. Rather I want to focus on an aspect of that Operation which lead to the Ballad below written in defiance of Nancy Astor’s alleged remarks comparing the troops in Anzio with those preparing for D-Day.
BALLAD OF THE D-DAY DODGERS
(A rumour started in Italy that Lady Astor had referred to the boys of the C.M.F. as D-Day dodgers).
To the tune of Lili Marleen
Once we heard a rumour that we were going home,Back to dear old Blighty—never more to roam.Then someone said: "In France you'll fight!”We said: "No fear—we'll just sit tight!”(The windy D-Day dodgers, way out in Italy).
Dear Lady Astor, you think you know a lot,Standing on a platform and talking tommy-rot.You, England's sweetheart and its pride,We think your mouth's too bleeding wideThat's from your D-Day Dodgers—in far off Italy.
(Extract)
SEUMAS MOR MACEANRUIG
http://www.drinkingsongs.net/html/books-and-manuscripts/1940s/1947ca-ballads-of-world-war-ii-(PB)/1947ca-ballads-of-world-war-ii-by-henderson.htm
Astor’s career is peppered with ill-advised remarks, many of which would not get her selected for parliament (even by the Tories) nowadays. Hers is a story of class, privilege and inegalitarian attitudes, although she managed to fairly equally offend a wide range of people. Her best lines remain quotable, but that does not let her off the hook, even if the following makes me smirk:
“I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on a woman.”
I cannot help but empathise with the distress felt by troops in Italy hearing reports of her comments about them “dodging the real war in France”. This got me thinking about women and politics and war.
Some time back, Ms Thatcher engaged in conflict. Whatever the rights, wrongs or otherwise of that South Atlantic yomp, and without accurate recollection of her many proclamations, I remember she made much of ‘the boys’ fighting out there, or even ‘her boys’. Did these individuals give up their lives or suffer ghastly injury to make her the Iron Lady? It takes no guessing to know what many thought of Ms Thatcher: as her portrayal in Spitting Image immortalised her, as the only man in the Cabinet.
And now there is the Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni desperately trying to out-hard-line her competitors in the forthcoming election, by her constant justifications for the unspeakable war in Gaza. How horrible!
The question I am circuitously, even tortuously inching towards is whether women politicians are judged differently when they send troops into conflicts, or declare war on other democratically elected countries. And I have no easy answer, because my relatively pacifistic feminism can only analyse from a comparatively simplistic baseline of THERE SHOULD BE NO WAR.
Trying to take it further, it is clear that war for oil or other scarce resources is theft and immoral. Invasion and occupation, which is a hallmark of empires old and new is also inexcusable. And there is enough history around that no one can make any credible argument in favour of that. We now get to hear the stories of indigenous people, even if no one gives them proper apologies for land theft in previous centuries, or seriously tries to alleviate their continued discrimination.
The above goes for whatever gender of politician declares/supports war, so what is different about women leaders and how they are judged? Do women have to prove they are harder than the males when they are in power? Is it this which promotes the received wisdom that ‘women are worse than men in …….’ (add your own example). Is this really just another case of women having to be twice as good/hard/bad/strong as men to be taken seriously? If so, then that is more than enough reason for women in politics to examine the dynamics of the patriarchy and to search their conscience about committing to acts of war.
But what about when it is one’s own country that is invaded and occupied? How then are women who resist to be judged? Are they freedom fighters or terrorists? How do we compare Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in her Noble Laureate resistance with the women freedom fighters in the PKK, or the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ of Rosa Luxemburg during the Russian revolution?
Each case is vastly different in time, geography and historical events, but these are women acting for change in their land and for their countrypersons.
I reluctantly conclude that there is no conclusion so leave this for discussion another day, or for anyone who wants to comment, and I meander back to Nancy Astor for a final quote:
“Women have got to make the world safe for men since men have made it so darned unsafe for women.”
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/nancy_astor.htm
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
http://www.dassk.com/index.php
Kurdish women
http://www.feministing.com/archives/007965.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.pkk/index.html
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