Historical Distance
July 28 2014


When we say The Great War
a century after its final shot
there are mostly puzzled looks.
How can war be Great, they seem to say.
And there is only irony, not greatness
in a noble death
for a stupid cause.

The First World War was named
in 1918.
I am surprised
that with Europe exhausted, millions slaughtered
some sharp-eyed observer
was so quick to predict

the Second,
direct descendant
in a dynasty of war.
As if this were inevitable, like progress;
industrial killing
even more efficient,
its profiteers
richer and richer.

Now

there are small wars, smouldering conflicts
on every continent
all at once.
The world is constantly warring,
but with no declaration, or final shot
we have yet to anoint
a Third.

Although once we thought
the Third World War
would incinerate the planet.
So be thankful, perhaps
that we have learned to get on with our lives,
ignoring
the pall of smoke
the mangled bodies.
Safe in our tribes,
bound by the ties
of culture, and blood.

In modernity
the art of prediction
is served best by thinking the worst.
Historical distance
has proved unnecessary.

In 1918
they were already biding their time
to the next.
And now, even better
distracting ourselves to death.


I was shocked to read this (in an article by Burt Solomon -- published July 22 2014 on The Atlantic Wire -- who attributes some unnamed British journalist). I had always imagined that the designation Great War morphed into First World War only after a second erupted 25 years later. In retrospect, of course, we can see how the Treaty of Versailles sowed the seeds for the second; but that was hardly evident in 1918. After all, wasn't it also known as The War to End All Wars?

Another lesson of that war was the value of empire. We think of exploitation and colonialism, and of racism, its evil sibling. But the Roman, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and British empires were surprisingly cosmopolitan, as well as tolerant: pay obeisance, pay your taxes, and we'll leave you alone. It was the idealistic Wilsonian call of "national self-determination" that undermined a peaceful status quo: that nation-state became smaller and more ethnic; the call for more and more subdivision endless. When ineffective nation-states offer no protection or stability or rule of law, than people naturally turn to their more reliable tribes: the native tribes of blood, the adoptive tribes of culture and language and religion. Think of modern day Iraq. Destructive centrifugal forces are set in motion. ...Which, I know, is a lot to glean from the 3 short lines that end the 4th stanza!

A world war in the Europe of 1914 seemed unthinkable. Here, now, in the peaceable kingdom (Canada ...fortress North America) we also think ourselves immune to war. And overwhelmed by unimaginable suffering, desensitized by the endless litany of crises, and feeling despair at problems that seem unsolvable (the Israeli/Arab conflict comes to mind!), we have become adept at tuning out. "Distracting ourselves to death", as it were.

Setting out to write a piece like this was very daunting for me. It's a bit too political and historical and impersonal. It has a flavour of idealistic advocacy I find very difficult to pull off in poetry. So I'm very pleased with the result. I think it was the language that invited me in: the play on "great"; the dynastic metaphor offered up by first, second, and third. Not to mention being energized by the shock and despair at the revelation that set me off in the first place: that it was already, in 1918, being called the First World War?!!

I think my impetus also comes out of the context of what's happening these days, in the first two decades of the 21st century. I've been an attentive observer of world affairs for almost 50 years. But I think the onslaught of crisis after crisis, as well as the medieval levels of brutality and ideology, are all unprecedented. Was the Enlightenment only imagined? For one, who would have thought that after the Holocaust, genocides would still go on? Or that gleeful beheadings of sectarian rivals would be happening, based on a fundamentalist perversion of one of the world's mainstream religions? Or that in the most stubborn act of colossal ignorance, climate change would be smugly and strenuously and persistently denied by important decision-makers, despite a vast and urgent scientific consensus? The feelings of helplessness, despair, and misanthropy are almost overwhelming. So I'm glad I could write out (which is a writer's way of working out) at least something of this.