Good morning General Assembly of the UN. When we first established in 1946, our goal was to halt warfare and bring universal human rights to the globe after the atrocities of World War I. Humanity is still very far from achieving peace in 2017. Violations occur regularly, war happens constantly. Even fifty, even hundred years later we witness these same atrocities over and over again. We can NOT let this happen if we were to brand ourselves as a humanitarian society, if we let the same wars from centuries ago repeat.
We can not forget the many who were direct victims of war, risking their life for their country, only to be treated inhumanely in pathetic conditions. Today, I’m bringing forth late Wilfred Owen as a guest speaker and a war historian. Wilfred Owen: a passionate poet and soldier from World War I, who signed into the English military as a result from rife propaganda and societal standards, only t o be shocked by reality of war. Unable to ignore the shocking reality heavily watered down and glorified to the public, he wrote to his mother and wrote poetry about the real face of war behind the propaganda. Suffering PTSD soon after, he went to hospital and met Siegfried Sassoon, a man who changed the way Owen wrote , forever. In 2017, right now , his poems have survived to tell us the raw side of war, which is unfortunately happening 100 years later! War will continue to repeat itself until we consider not the cause, but its destruction . Owen’s most outstanding points of his poems are the mental state of soldiers, the naivety of new, young soldiers and major criticism to propaganda as well as organised religious beliefs which he describes in various melodic but brutal manners.
Insensibility, a poem about the process of psychological states of soldiers changing throughout war and Dulce Et Decorum Est, a poem criticising propaganda at the time and both explore horrors of war and how naïve men and society are taken advantage of during wartime.
The psychological state of the soldier and their self-worth is a theme that Owen plays a centre role of his poems, bringing the attention for the sake of soldier’s whose lives or undermined or even forgotten.
“Alive, he is not vital overmuch;
Dead, not mortal overmuch.”
This extract, from Insensibility, is a paradox that demonstrates a tragic truth of war and its treatment of soldiers. They are not important alive, and they are forgotten when they are dead. No matter how many ‘Lest we forget’s we place over memorials, that can not erase what these men and boys have been subjected to – neglect and abuse. Child soldiers in Nigeria, young people who are forced to take compulsory military camps in China, how can we ignore such issues for 100 years? This really questions what we think of war, how we think of soldiers are versus the reality of soldiers – we forget that they are more than soldiers, we forget that they are actually people. The paradox reveals a sudden truth which perplexes the reader upon the seemingly-contradicting truth. He continues;
“Nor sad, nor proud
Nor curious at all
He cannot tell
Old men’s placidity from his.”
The repetition of ‘nor’ in blunt word choices demonstrates a nihilistic state of the soldier – he has no meaning to his life but dying only to be forgotten. The psychological state of the young soldier is being juxtaposed to a senile man: no energy, not much to live for and simply waiting for their deaths. Their decline in their humanity and worth are perpetuated by other people, where one would feel sick from this. Blunt, solid sentences reinforce Owen’s points in the cruelty of war which us, the readers cannot do anything but feel guilty. It grabs the audience’s attention and the enjambment was deliberately put to create a climax effect that stuns the reader. The deprivation of emotion and sympathy of the persona questions our humanity as these basic human emotions are taken away from young boys, which is heartbreaking.
He further demonstrates the inhumane process of desensitising soldiers in Dulce Et Decorum Est:
“Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas shells dropping softly behind.”
The visual metaphor ‘Drunk with fatigue’ shows the dreadful life of a soldier, disorientated
even when they are on the verge of death. If they can not be bothered to hear about gas
shells being blasted behind the, that is an issue. As the audience, we should feel horrified from this visual scene Owen implemented to make us feel uncomfortable and scared that
such a situation happens, a situation where weapons of death and destruction dropping mean nothing. As of 2017, more than two and a half million men and women are in the
military, that is two and a half million people whose lives are potentially damaged.
Physical scars may fade but mental scars last for a lifetime for these men, and yet we simply unde rstate their lives as ‘fighting for their country’! To our children!
“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et Decorum zest
Pro patria mori
Dulce et Decorum Est:”
Dulce et Decorum Est: “How nice it is to die for your country.”
Owen heavily criticises the irony of propaganda and those who glorify war, talking with second person to directly address the reader as if to create a dialogue, communicating with you. You would not tell your children how beautiful war is, especially on how horrid war torments a young soldier, would you? Would you let your innocent, naïve sons experience the horrid tragedies of war that Owen himself has accounted for himself and millions of others? Moreover, ‘Lie’ is capitalised to be personified to give it an antagonistic character to emphasise on how many lives this cruel villain has taken. How many times has this happened? Thirty-one percent of veterans from the afghan war returned with PTSD! Half of them do not seek treatment. Patriotic lies passively harm people as well, we can not let this happen.
Sadly, many boys and men who were conscripted to war were naïve to the horrid tragedies of war, often excited to travel the world and to honour their family as they do, at least what they believe.
“Happy the lad whose mind was never trained:
His days are worth forgetting more than not. He sings along the March
Which we march taciturn…” Happy the boy who was never in war, and who was singing along in the march naively while the rest of the men are silent, knowing what war is going to give to the young man. Symphonic choice of words create a more tragic turn.
“In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.”
The violent visual imagery that expresses the guilt of the poet in Dulce Et Decorum Est, emphasising his tormented psychological state in that very moment. ‘Helpless sight’ dennotates his guilt of unable to save his comrade. How would you feel if you watched someone die in front of you, unable to save him? How horrid would you feel if the same man believed war was glorious? Owen implements first person to make the reader purposely uncomfortable, along with the cacophonous rhyme that dements the audience. “Behind the wagon we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,”
If war is not cruel enough, the aftermath creates a more vile fate for these young men. The alliteration of ‘w’ creates a long, unfortunate tone which gives a devastating effect to us, the readers. ‘White eyes writing’ is another violent visual imagery which emphasises the devastating memories of war Owen had, a scene that scarred him psychologically for his life, which he continues,
“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.”
Devil’s sick of sin, a biblical paradox that reveals the unmerciful scene of death in war – no glory, no hope. A violent visual and auditory imagery that truly reveals the horrific side of fighting in war and witnessing these deaths, Owen uses second person again to address you, the reader, to listen to him; to mark his words. Mark every shocking detail he says to you to picture that happening right in front of you. The gory imagery with blood gargling from the soldier’s corrupted lungs and his dying face that looks bitter as the digested cuds in your stomachs. With all these wars; Burma, Iraq, Venezuela and many more witness these horrors in this moment. We can not call ourselves an egalitarian society if we let this happen .
Wars and war crimes are shocking and the fact ‘powerful countries’ are ones who are assigned with weapons that take away lives of others and destroy the lives of ones who are forced to hold it should be a concern for us. For the past 70 years all we have been doing was waiting, but now it is time to stop. From Wilfred Owen’s compositions, we can clearly see that the fault does not only lie on those who cause the wars, it is our fault, too. It is also our fault we continue to torment our soldiers, our siblings, our seniors, and lack humanity for them. Naivety should not be taken advantage of, let our own men sacrifice their mental health nor should we ever sugarcoat the reality of joining the military, not even as a last resort. Nothing has changed from Wilfred Owen’s time until now, and the solution is not to consider the cause but consider the destruction , and from that we take precaution. We are 193 united nations, we have the power to overcome any war as 193 nations with compassion for humanity. We must start now.