The returned home world war 1

Joyce86 wrote: »

We are a voluntary group who are researching those Irish Men and Women who returned home from world war 1 to the island of Ireland. This is not for profit research, not going to be sold and our aim is to try and get the names into a more permanent form. So far we have 20,000 names on www.thereturnedww1.com We are doing this because we think those who returned deserve to be remembered. They all had their own reasons for enlisting. If you know any names, please consider sending the name to us.

We have started a petition "Dublin City Council: To name the new luas bridge "The returned home WW1"" and need your help to get it off the ground. We would be most appreciative if you would consider supporting our application. Here is the link:-
http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/dublin-city-council-to-name-the-new-luas-bridge-the-returned-home-ww1
You can sign our petition by clicking here.
If you know of anyone else who might support our petition, please feel free to pass this on.

Many thanks,

Eh, no thanks. I'd rather not commemorate people for being paid mercenaries of the British Empire in its imperial war against imperial Germany in order to maintain a balance of power in Europe which had favoured British imperialism since 1815 during a period when the same empire inflicted its profound cultural colonialism, racism and imperialist supremacy upon the Irish as a sovereign people.

There is absolutely nothing noble about fighting for that British imperialist ideology. This delusional cant about them not fighting for the British Empire but rather for noble things like Irish independence when they were wearing the British Empire's uniform and fighting under orders from it is offensive. Offensive, yet ubiquitous. If there was anybody naive enough to fight for British imperialism in World War they made up in part for their sins by fighting for Irish freedom afterwards and it is for that latter role as defenders of freedom that people like Tom Barry could be honoured by the sovereign Irish state.

British imperialism got away with inflicting its supremacist, exploiting evil across the world because it had (paid) mercenaries like the people you now wish to commemorate. After WW II, such footsoldiers on the German side were told they were culpable in the crimes of the Nazi régime. Yet the massive double standard from the British and supporters of their footsoldiers on the issue of moral responsibility for the crimes of the British Empire is disgusting. The hypocrisy of all of these pro-British campaigners on the abject immorality of imperialist warfare never ceases to amaze. To them, violence from British imperial forces represents a "greater good" (for their tribe, of course). These "campaigners" have no moral compass, no moral consistency - at all. It's a tribal campaign to honour mercenaries for the British tribe. It's not about right or wrong, because if it were the victims of British imperialism would be honoured by these people. Instead, they seek to honour the perpetrators of British imperialism. Because, you see, they were family members and that means all judgements on the morality of their actions are suspended. That's about as tribal, rightwing and heartless as any group of human beings can get. If I had a mé féiner self-serving murderer in my family history, I certainly wouldn't be seeking to honour them. Lunacy. Yet these buckos get a campaign to honour them because they wore the uniform of the British Empire.

These people were willing pawns of British imperialism in WW I whose descendants (most of whom never actually knew them, to make these campaigns more comical) are seeking to rehabilitate their reputation. They should be assessed honestly and not in this historical distortion of assumed innocence. For instance, the dominant role of money in their decisions to fight for British imperialism in WW I is rarely if ever mentioned - there were "various reasons" for joining. Mar dhea. We can't have these putative "heroes" being assessed as money-hungry little sleveen mé féiners who'd sell their own grannies to advance themselves, who'd fight for the advance of the very same British Empire that was occupying Ireland. At least the Black slaves on the Confederate side in the US Civil War had little choice in the matter. But the Irish-born who took the King's shilling to fight for imperialist interests in a war in which they did not expect to be killed? You're going to get very little volunteerism for bravery there. They took a gamble, many of them lost. Tough. You'll get "after-the-fact" bravery in the trenches, of course. Accidental "heroes"; they hadn't a notion when they signed up that war would be of the new sort, and in the trenches they took their chances in the awareness that they'd certainly be shot if they deserted. That reality of these people is certainly not the sort of "bravery" one would be commemorated for.

In contrast, the 10,000 Irish Volunteers who stayed in Ireland and the members of the Irish Citizens Army who supported "neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland" are among the people we should be commemorating, if this society is going down that glorification of war road beloved of British jingoists/imperialists/nationalists. If apologists for footsoldiers of the British Empire want official recognition let them seek it from the British state, not from the independent sovereign state of the Irish people, the very state which their ancestors by their membership of the very force which was preventing Irish independence was fighting against.

When will people start discussing honestly the morality of Irish people being paid to fight for the British Empire and keep peoples across the world subservient to the needs of the British state and its elite? The last thing such people deserve is commemoration. They are, quite frankly, a source of shame to people who believe in justice and the rights of small countries to exist, just as the entire British Empire is a source of shame to open-minded and decent British people today.

Well this really seems to be gathering pace: