We shall never surrender!
I’ve always liked Churchill’s famous war speech (We
shall fight on the beaches) to reflect the modern parallel of a dire threat (like
the Nazi war machine) being waged against humanity. Killing or being killed is
heady stuff, especially when it’s your family and the soldiers are running amok
and day to day survival is on the line.
Although the dire consequences
of a full out invasion or worse is palpable compared to the boring slow creep
of something equally dire to humanity as something like climate change; this is
my modest attempt at adapting Churchill’s words to suit another real threat based on
humanity’s unsustainable and greedy practices. Of course this time, some 80 years after
the second great war to end all wars, our military industrial growth is like a
gun pointed at ourselves…
The following speech that Churchill gave that rainy morning in
Parliament back in 1940 was hugely successful in uniting and galvanizing the people of the
fading British Empire against what seemed like
an inevitable invasion and tyranny. The closet Deep Ecologist in me thinks that the world needs
a similarly worded “war cry” for the environment. We - the people, need a
call to arms for a peaceful revolution to give back to the land. Where is Winston Churchill when you need him.
“Even though large
tracts of the (natural) world (and biodiversity and cultural loss) have fallen
or may fall into the grip of (mega corporations) and all the odious apparatus
of (banking and Big Government), we can not afford to flag. We (the people) shall
prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the
storm of this unholy war (on nature), and to outlive the menace of (economic tyranny).
At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do.
We shall go on to the
end, we shall fight in (Kiribati – ocean rise), we shall fight on the (polluted)
seas and (the depleted) oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and
growing strength in (restoring) the air (and water), we shall defend our Island,
whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the (oil soaked) beaches, we shall
fight for (wildlife breeding) grounds, we shall fight in the (overgrazed) fields
and in the (toxic ponds and streams), we shall fight in the (deforested) hills,
we shall never surrender!
This is the will
of (Mankind) linked together in their
cause and in their need, who will defend to the death their native soil, aiding
each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength and ability. Even
if we’re subjugated and starving, we would carry on the struggle alone if
necessary, until, in good time, the New World (Order),
with all its (virtue and) power and (creative technologies), steps forth to the
rescue and the liberation of the old (in a spirit of reconciliation not recrimination)”
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