A Picture Worth a Thousand Words: Thoughts on an Armistice Photo

For me, this will be the abiding image of this weekend's Armistice centenary commemorations.

Amid so much that has been moving in the ceremonies in France and Belgium, and here in the UK, I keep coming back to this photograph. It was taken at Compiègne in northern France where the Armistice was signed in a railway carriage in 1918. It has added poignancy because it was on this very spot that Adolph Hitler received the surrender of France in 1940, a highly symbolic location chosen out of revenge for the Treaty of Versailles.

That clasp of hands, the touching embrace that followed: it came across as completely authentic, entirely unstaged. It touched me deeply, and I wasn't alone. Here's what a non-European posted on Twitter. I'm from the Middle East. This picture moves me nearly to tears - curiously, more than I find it moves young Europeans. Do young Europeans even realize what has been achieved? It's nothing less than sacred, because peace is sacred, because human life is sacred.

I ended my last blog by writing that "there is nothing left to say. Except to be thankful". That's still true today. A picture's worth a thousand words. Yet there is more to say, and I want to write it while the events of this extraordinary weekend are still vivid in the memory. Here are three comments I'd like to make.

First, and most important, could we have asked for a more powerful image of reconciliation and friendship than this? France and Germany had fought each other no fewer than three times in the century leading up to the end of the last war. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 and the Great War of 1914-18 had cost both nations dear. France, especially, had suffered unimaginably. Among elderly French people, bitter memories even of the earlier conflict were still alive in the 1960s when I started visiting France. To them, the second world war with its terrible destructiveness was an inevitable aftermath of those earlier wars, a continuation of a story of European conflict that would never come to an end.

Up to the time I was born, exactly half-way through the twentieth century, it was inconceivable that these two great European powers could ever be friends. Do young Europeans even realise what has been achieved? asked my middle-eastern Tweeter. Maybe even older Europeans like me haven't quite taken it in. To anyone with a feeling for modern history, it does seem like a miracle. Not that these two leaders should stand together at such an emblematic site, but that their meeting should be so genuine, their gestures so spontaneous, so deeply felt by them both. These are the kinds of events that define history, and that promise great hope for the future. Isn't this what those who fell in war went to their deaths for?

Secondly, as I tried to argue in my last blog, we need to understand what's made this difference. I don't think that reconciliation just happens, or that time is automatically a great healer. Many - maybe most? - of the conflicts of our time are caused precisely because of old wounds that are opened up afresh, unhealed memories that are allowed to fester. What's different on continental Europe is the intention not to allow historical injuries to blight the lives of succeeding generations. "Parents have eaten sour grapes" as the prophet Ezekiel says (18.2), but that's no reason for their children's teeth for ever to be set on edge.

You know what I'm going to say. It's the European project that has created an environment where relationships can be negotiated afresh. The European Union, as we now have it, has brought peoples together in a purposeful way. It has helped fashion a different kind of narrative and discourse where nation-states stop fracturing the continent and instead start living together in peaceful, collaborative relationships in a common European home. We mustn't forget how hard-won that achievement is. Monsieur Macron said today in Paris that "patriotism and nationalism are opposites", that "nationalism is treason" because it is driven by a nation's self-interest, not the welfare of others. This is what causes wars. How much better to affiliate to families of peoples that will protect us from the nationalisms that tear our world apart. It's not that we shouldn't love our country - only that we shouldn't think of it as somehow better than any other country. I don't hesitate to say that renouncing nationalism is one of the most urgent tasks facing our world today. If we don't succeed, I fear it may end up destroying us.

Remembrance means many things - gratitude, sadness and pride among them. But lament for the past needs to be part of it too, and this means a mental and spiritual toughness that is capable of thinking forward to a future that is different from our broken history. So to me, this Armistice centenary and Brexit are closely linked. The peace of 1918 and the peace of 1945 both point to the crying need for nations to reimagine their "belonging", to think beyond national self-interest to the common flourishing of humanity. During the referendum campaign, we heard endlessly about "what's best for Britain", and not nearly enough about what the UK has to contribute to Europe and the wider world. Europeanism is not the end of a process but a beginning, for if we are incapable of thinking globally, then it's likely that the globe itself doesn't have a future worth working for. Clearly, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron understood the profound political significance of the day. How we remember shapes us in the present and (for good or ill) sets directions for the future. The logic that connects the Armistice with the European project is inescapable. It says: choose a different way, a more excellent way. Cultivate love, reconciliation and all that makes for peace. It's all there in that photograph.

Thirdly, and as a bit of an afterthought, it seems to me that there someone is palpably absent from the photo. It's our Prime Minister. Now, there may be all sorts of good reasons why she couldn't be there just then. Maybe she needed to set off for London to be back in time for the evening's Festival of Remembrance. We would all understand that and support it. Maybe the Macron-Merkel photo was set up as "Europhiles only" and she would have been de trop. Perhaps she was asked and politely declined. Nevertheless, her absence is striking.  At Compiègne on 11 November 1918, there were not two signatory nations but three: France, Germany and Great Britain. In the light of that, how could the British not have been included in this powerful image of postwar reconciliation?

I don't know the answer. But what I read in the photo is a European future from which Britain is absent. And that distresses me beyond measure. Just think what a three-way embrace would have symbolised, how powerful its message would have been! But Brexit means Brexit. So while it's a wonderful photograph to treasure out of this weekend of commemorations, it's also a forlorn one, at least as far as Europeans in Britain are concerned. We could have been part of this true European entente cordiale, this tender reaching out of hands to those who have become firm friends and allies.

But while they are better together, we have turned away. We are on our own. And that is unbearably sad. 

Not a Good Week

It's easy to love your country when things are going well. Later today there will be an outburst of patriotic pride in either France or Croatia. What if England had won the World Cup? How Mrs May must have longed for some good news to mitigate the effects of her septimana horribilis. Anything to make us proud to be British once again.

I admit I'm struggling with my patriotic duty right now. Not with the concept, for I'm clear that we ought to love our country not because it's better than anyone else's, but because it's ours, it's where we live and belong. (Just as we ought to love our county or city, our village, neighbourhood or town - belonging ro our own "place" should engender a sense of gratitude and pride and concern for its welfare. In classical thought, this attitude was called pietas, the recognition of what we owe to the dust that bore us, shaped us and made us aware, to echo Rupert Brooke's great poem "The Soldier".)

No, it's not the idea of patriotism that worries me, but how hard it is to put it into practice at times. I'm thinking of occasions when you have to say, patriotic love is not because of but in spite of - in spite of the follies being committed in our name, in spite of the disregard for moderation and common sense that is being shown, despite the cavalier attitude being taken by our leaders to the future welfare of the nation.

Yes, it's back to Brexit of course, and how the current government is (not) managing it. This past week has thrown our national dilemma into sharp relief. First came the Chequers agreement that at first looked like a welcome step back from a hard Brexit or from a fatal crashing out of the EU altogether. For a few hours, the cabinet centre held. But not for long. Two big resignations later and it's clear that "things fall apart". The administration is all at sea (just as the UK will be, shorn of its European moorings). Even magical thinking can't save the Tory party from polarising and possibly breaking its back on the shoals of Brexit.

Then, when things could hardly get worse, President Donald Trump landed on our shores. It was an ill-fated invitation if ever there was one, hardly calculated to raise the Prime Minister's standing in the world and enhance her dignity. His insulting Sun interview disparaging her leadership and rubbishing her approach to Brexit was beyond belief. When I read it, I felt for Mrs May on the point of welcoming a visiting head of state and going the second mile in showing the courtesies due to the so-called leader of the free world. But I have to say that she brought it on herself. Her rush to invite him in the first place was already something to wonder at. The sight of her dressed like a woman from The Handmaid's Tale holding Mr Trump's hand was a toe-curling sign of submission to a domineering, capricious and cruel man. These are images we shan't quickly forget. It felt pitiful and demeaning. And no emollient words later on about the "higher than special" relationship could make up for it.

It's clear that Mr Trump despises not only NATO and the European Union, but the whole consensus on which western politics has been constructed since the last war. Never mind our damaged pride - we must live with that (and that may be good for us - being humbled often is). Far more important is what we have learned in the past few days. It's that this is a profoundly dangerous moment for the liberal democracies of our world (and that includes the USA). Mr Trump's fickle behaviour on his European tour - saying one thing to The Sun, then doing a U-turn hours later, shows that he is not a man we can safely trust. Is it a case of agreeing with the last person you spoke to? If so, his lack of stability and reliability is deeply worrying. If you don't know where you are with your closest ally, can he be said to be an ally any longer? Today the EU is lumped together with China and Russia as a "foe" of America. A leader in today's Observer asks: “Hooking our national fortunes to this caricature of a president & any benevolence he may or may not choose to show Britain” - is this what we really want?

This visit that has so humiliated our country has had the effect of throwing Brexit into sharp relief. We can now see it for what it is in the full light of day. The truth is that by "taking back control", we shall be getting far, far more than we bargained for. We shall be on our own in an ocean of indifference to our fate. The EU will not feel it owes us any favours after what the UK has put it through both before and after the referendum. The USA has demonstrated that these islands of ours are of little consequence as it seeks to "put America first". We shall no longer have the global reach and influence we once had when we pooled our sovereignty with our friends and allies in the European Union. We get the worst of all possible worlds. The much scorned Project Fear was right all along.

What our nation is on the point of throwing away beggars belief. I never had the UK down as reckless in its actions. But recklessness is the word that comes to mind now when it comes to Britain's standing in the world and how others see us. And not the least of it comes down to many of those elected members who warned all along that Brexit would expose us to dangers we needed to heed. Among these is the Prime Minister who voted Remain in 2016. If she and her fellow Remainer MPs thought then that it was in the best interests of the nation to stay in the EU, their conviction cannot overnight have been negated by a popular vote. Or if it has been, what do representative government let alone integrity and principle matter any more? To the questions we asked during the referendum campaign - What is prudent? What makes for our flourishing? What holds out the best promise of peace and justice and environmental care in our continent and beyond? - the answers given then by Remainer MPs cannot have changed just because a narrow majority claimed to express "the will of the people". (Don't let's get started on the gross folly of allowing huge constitutional change on the flimsy basis of a simple majority vote. In my view, David Cameron has more to answer for in his leadership of the nation than any PM since Anthony Eden.)

This is why my patriotic love of country is under strain at the moment, why it's in spite of rather than because of. I love Britain for many reasons, among which three stand out. First, its instinct for fairness and toleration, its temperamental stability and its innate common-sense. Second, its traditions of generosity, hospitality and welcome to incomers and refugees (but for which, as I've often said, I wouldn't be here today, my mother being an asylum seeker who found sanctuary in Britain during the Nazi era). And third, its outward-facing openness to peoples beyond its borders, its belief in maintaining strong connections across the world through supra-national bodies like the Commonwealth and the EU. All these virtues are under threat at present. In their place our great nation is turning into an inward-looking, self-interested, isolationist, bad-tempered archipelago feuding with itself while all the while losing its way when it comes to finding its place in the modern world and exercising lasting global influence.

All of which is beyond sad. For the first time in my life, I don't feel at home in this country as it is fast becoming. I am an exile in my own land, out of sympathy with the prevailing mores that turn their back on the alliances that make for our health and strength and greatness as a nation. Make no mistake: Brexit will enfeeble us, rob us of our influence, weaken our ability to make a difference in the world. From what I've seen and heard, there are a fair number of us who feel the same way, maybe over half the electorate now. Which is why the British public must be allowed a vote on the final Brexit deal that is agreed, including the option to remain within the EU. The best we can hope for is that we recover quickly from this fit of craziness that has overtaken us. If not, I fear for my children and grandchildren and the country we shall have bequeathed to them when we are gone.

No, it has not been the best of weeks. But nil desperandum. It looked pretty bleak in 1940. God can help us find our true selves again, and deliver us from the threats that ambush us. Onwards and upwards as they say. Never lose heart. Kyrie eleison.

**I have another blog exploring patriotism in relation to Brexit: follow this link.

Am I Being Unpatriotic?

Dear Michael, I begin to feel that your negativity is bordering on the unpatriotic! Don't you think that our leaders deserve our support?

That was an intriguing tweet to receive yesterday, not as a personal message but publicly. She (it was from someone I know) was responding to a tweet I'd posted that contained a link to an article in The Guardian. It was lamenting our political leaders' lack of imagination and sense of history in their handling of the Brexit negotiations, specifically the matter of the Irish border.

In the two years I've been blogging about the EU, I've been accused of many things: being intemperate, ignorant, theologically inept (yes!), and over-confident about being a Remainer. But this is the first time my patriotism has been called into question (though it's a common jibe from people who should know better that Europhiles collectively are not acting patriotically).

So let's go there. First, we need to disentangle patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism means a love of and loyalty to your homeland. In Roman thought, you owe your homeland that much simply because it bore you and nurtured you. It's an act of piety (pietas) to acknowledge your debt to the people and institutions that have formed you. This is not at all the same as saying that your homeland is better than anyone else's. It's simply yours. It's part of your identity as a human being. That's why it's precious to you. At its best, patriotism is a virtue that is liberal, humane, peaceable and beneficent.

Nationalism is different. "Hard" nationalisms survive and flourish because of an innate conviction that somehow, your nation is superior to others. This can be on the grounds of almost anything you care to name, your proud history for example, or your race, religion, intellectual enlightenment, military prowess or wealth. "Soft" nationalisms are more subtle, and not always conscious. But they are expressed by aims and behaviours such as pursuing political or economic purposes that benefit your own nation in preference to, or at the expense of, others. This tends to foster national autonomy and self-determination, where the good of a nation state is no longer understood in the setting of the wider human family. It's hard not to think that agressive flag-waving, hostility to immigrants and rigorous border controls encourage a kind of national egoism that owes more to a romantic notion of "blood and soil" than to a rational idea of what it means to be good citizens.ii

I've often written about my late mother's side of our family. She was a German Jewess who escaped from the Third Reich before the war and was welcomed as a refugee in the UK. She settled here permanently, married my (gentile) father and wanted nothing else than to live out her days in domestic tranquility. She absorbed British ways, learned to speak English free of any German accent, brought her children up to love this country as the civilised, generous nation she had found it to be when she needed rescuing. She became, I think it's fair to say, a patriotic British citizen (she would never have said "English") and encouraged us to be the same. But her keenly attuned antennae abhorred the slightest whiff of self-regarding nationalism. She was a citizen of the world and of her continent, and for this reason was appalled that her adopted country opted to leave the EU just before she died.

For me, this is the nub of Brexit. What was the patriotic thing to do when we voted in last year's Referendum? Part of the answer is surely, to think about what would be in our country's best interests, what would enable it to flourish in the future. I'm sure that most people voted in that way, whether they were Brexiters or Remainers.

But patriotism (precisely because it is not nationalism) doesn't restrict that question only to "what's best for Britain" (to quote the tiresome rhetoric of David Cameron when he tried to renegotiate the UK's relationship with the EU). It asks how the welfare of our nation sits alongside the welfare of all the nations and of the world as a whole. It plays with the conjecture that what's best for Britain in the long run will also turn out to be best not only for Europe but for the worldwide human family. What if we even entertained the thought that we should start at the other end of the question, so to speak, and begin by asking what's best for others, especially those a lot less privileged than we are? I want to say that that option, too, is a patriotic one because it sees flourishing as mutual. We only prosper in any profound sense when everyone else does as well. It's what it means to love your neighbour as yourself. That Golden Rule should have been right at the heart of the Referendum debate. It grieved me that it wasn't.

So I see patriotism as inextricably linked to our belonging, our citizenship, not only in a national sense but in a global one. Patriotism is certainly not less than loving your country (and why not also your region, your locality, the city, town or village where you live?). If wherever we call "home" is important to us, then we should love it and everyone else whose home it also is. But belonging has concentric circles. I love my European homeland and am proud to carry a passport that announces me to be an EU citizen as well as a British one. I love the planet I have been born on, so broken and divided and carrying infinite burdens of pain, yet for all that still full of beauty and goodness, so rich in the diversity of its peoples with whom it's a joyful mystery of life that we share this globe together. Theresa May was quite wrong to say that if you are a citizen of everywhere, "a citizen of the world", you are a citizen of nowhere. Patriotism means we can be glad and grateful to be citizens of many different "somewheres", all of which we can be loyal to and love, whether it's the world we live in, the nation of our origins, or the particular place that we call "home".

This is why I believe that my vote to remain in the EU was profoundly patriotic. A patriotism for today means that we must continue to strive for a peaceable commonwealth of nations and peoples that transcends national boundaries, in which our own flourishing is part of everyone else's. So was it "bordering on the unpatriotic" to question the leadership of those who are trying to negotiate a Brexit settlement with the EU? I don't think so. A grown-up democracy doesn't blindly follow its leaders, least of all when it fears it may be heading for disaster. Yes, there is a loyalty to democratic choices that is required of all citizens, whether it is the outcome of a referendum or the government we have elected.

But it can never be an uncritical loyalty. To go on questioning, exploring, doubting, challenging, being open to change in the light of new evidence or arguments - these are both the privileges and duties of all of us in a democratic society. When it comes to Brexit, the national conversation was not suddenly closed off on 23 June 2016. On the contrary, each new step forward requires that conversation to be shifted and reconfigured in the light of altered circumstances or newly understood realities. It's patriotic to want the best out of each iteration. And it would be patriotic as well as democratic if, in the light of circumstances, we decided as a nation to change our minds about Brexit. (The "will of the people" refrain trotted out by some of our elected members including many who voted Remain doesn't advance intelligent discourse in any way that I can see.)

So you can call me a member of Her Majesty's loyal "Brexit Opposition" if you like. A twenty-first century recusant even, as Tony Dickinson suggested in response to the first version of this blog. For I believe that it's not only allowable but positively necessary to monitor how such a major decision is being worked out in practice, interrogate it closely, scrutinise the performance of those who are steering it so that we can hold them to account. If I say that I just don't believe that the case has been made for Brexit, and that this year has felt like a catalogue of mistakes, unintended consequences and muddled aims, is that unpatriotic? Not if it's said out of a genuine care for the welfare of my nation. On the contrary, maybe it's those who won't engage any further in the Brexit conversation who don't care enough about what happens to our nation.

I don't accuse the good person (whose tweet started this whole thing off) of not caring. Far from it. But I did think I needed to explain myself and defend what I want to describe as a liberal global patriotism. In these times, we have to learn to construe patriotism in the largest, most international way we can. Our world is simply too small for any of us to imagine that supposedly sacrosanct national borders can still define the limits of our concern. We urgently need to cultivate a good patriotism if all life on the planet is going to be respected and conserved. Nations and peoples need to act together to solve the world’s problems. In partnerships, we can achieve vastly more than we ever can on our own.

As I see it, Brexit is propelling the nation in completely the wrong direction, towards isolationism and disintegration. That’s dangerous. It’s not unpatriotic to say so.