D-Day … local, global … self, other … space, time
Today
100-years-olds’ personal memories
D-Day and beyond
Putin in 2004 and in 2014; Zelensky in 2024
Local remembrances and world wars: World Wars I and II
Conceptions of the national past: who won the war?
The United Nations map, 1945
The UN Security Council map
Israel and Palestine: self and other, positive and negative
Ukraine 2014: united or divided? the West-East gradient; living with others
Ukraine 2022-
Conceptions of the national self …
... Conceptions of national action and the national future
General Sir Patrick Sanders and Peter van den Dungen
Today
Today is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, 6th June 1944.
BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-69089969
100-years-olds’ personal memories
“The star attraction in Normandy this week is certainly not world leaders. It’s the surviving D-Day veterans, the youngest of whom are now in their 90s. Wherever they travel along the coast, they’re feted, photographed and fawned over, especially by the locals.
I met young mum Vanessa Foulon, queuing with her six-year-old son to get a D-Day commemorative cap signed by an American veteran. Why is this so important to them, I asked?
“Liberté” she said simply. “They gave us our freedom.” And she burst into tears.
“People here are nice,” 99-year-old US veteran Donald Cobb told me. “We enjoy coming back.”
He’d been taking part in a veterans’ march in picturesque Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. The streets here are festooned with banners claiming to be “the first liberated village”.
Donald remembers landing on nearby Omaha beach at 05:30 on 6 June 1944. The water was choppy, the wind biting, he says.
At 19, he must have been petrified.
“Honestly,” he said, “I would rather have been anywhere else.”
BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-69089969
D-Day and beyond
General Lord Dannatt remembers not just Normandy but other locations around the world.
“… While attention rightly focuses on D-Day’s 80th anniversary, 1944 saw service personnel from across the Commonwealth fight important battles all over the world, from Monte Cassino in Italy to Burma and Northern India … the service of Commonwealth forces as part of the British Empire in WW2, from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and beyond, has shaped the multi-ethnic and multi-faith society we share today.”
General Lord Dannatt, chairman, Normandy memorial Trust, former chief of defence
staff; and six others. The Times, June 5 2024: 24.
Letters to the Times contain memories from many different locations: D-Day people involved in many different roles; the ‘D-Day Dodgers’ in Italy mentioned by
Dannatt. Ships in the North of Scotland at Scapa Flow.
Putin in 2004 and in 2014; Zelensky in 2024
There are also local remembrances of the Eastern Front.
“Putin took part in commemorations for the 60th D-Day anniversary in 2004 and in 2014 for the 70th anniversary, shortly after Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine.”
President Zelensky of Ukraine “is expected to play a prominent part” in today’s commemorations in Normandy. President Macron has invited him to address the French parliament on Friday – a move criticised by Marine Le Pen, leader of National Rally.
“Diplomats defend not inviting Putin.” The Times, June 6, 2024: 7.
“Macron accused of ‘using war for political gain’.” The Times, June 6, 2024: 7.
Local remembrances and world wars: World Wars I and II
A world event is a structure of local events. Remembrance of a world event is a structure of local remembrances. Thinking about the two world wars, I have come to feel that the phrase “local remembrances and world wars” provides a helpful framing. Moving beyond British remembrances what are the different remembrances from around the world?:
World Wars I and II: extracts from the 2014 and 2015 Yearbooks
Conceptions of the national past: who won the war?
Local remembrances lead to different local opinions about the global event. Local or global relates to self and other. …
pp 3-8 in The self and the other: national opinions worldwide.
The United Nations map, 1945
The book cover: in blue are the member states of the UN in 1945
Values, World Society and Modelling Yearbook, 2015.
The UN Security Council map
The book cover: in red are the permanent members of the UN Security Council
Values, World Society and Modelling Yearbook, 2017.
Israel and Palestine: self and other, positive and negative; 2023
Israel and Palestine: self and other, positive and negative; 2023
Ukraine 2014: united or divided? the West-East gradient; living with others
Ukraine: united or divided? West and East; living with others: pages 148-174
Ukraine 2022-
Ukraine ... and World Society 2023.
Conceptions of the national self …
Nations and world: variation and self.
Britannia: Three Prime Ministers and a Queen :
2 VE Day: Winston Churchill and George VI on the balcony
6 United in grief? Variation in people’s opinions
Rishi Sunak leaves D-Day early:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn001p1x49ro
... Conceptions of national action and the national future
Trump’s “make America great gain”. Putin’s Rus. Johnson’s Britannia. Xi in China.
General Sir Patrick Sanders and Peter van den Dungen
General Sir Patrick Sanders:
“Britain not ready for another world war, army chief warns.
Britain should be better prepared for a war so large that it could kill tens of millions of people, the outgoing head of the army has said.”
The Times, June 6, 2024: 2.
Peter van den Dungen:
“It is not surprising that for a military historian such as Max Hastings “a towering lesson of history is that the best prospect of averting war is to be sufficiently armed to deter aggression” (“Defence should be at the centre of this election”, May 27).
However, “if you want peace, prepare for war” is not so much a lesson of history as one of its oldest maxims, increasingly contested and discredited, certainly in an age when the nature of war and weapons have been transformed. Preparing for war increases the chances of bringing it about: averting war requires global demilitarisation, including the reduction and abolition of standing armies and their arsenal. This has been the prescription of many great thinkers on the subject such as Immanuel Kant, Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein and not a few Laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Peter van den Dungen. The Times, May 29 2024: 26.
THE END