As Sri Lanka decends into a "a low intensity war", I am reminded of Wilfred Owen's seminal WW I poem. The title is Latin which basically translates as, "It is honourable and just to die for one's country", and is the central point of the poem.
Owen skillfully uses this saying and turns it on his head after detailing a grotesque gas attack in which the narrator, presumably Owen himself, witnesses the death of another soldier. As he watched the man die, Owen says:
" If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood/Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs/Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues/– My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/To children ardent for some desperate glory/The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori"
Someone should hand this to both sides in the Sri Lankan conflict. Certainly makes more sense than anything that comes out of the mouths of politicians / terrorists / freedom fighters / <insert another war-mongering idiot here>
Dulce Et Decorum Est
By: Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!– An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.–
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
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