The Patriot Game..... with god on our side?

The Patriot Game (Song) The Patriot Game (Wiki)

"Come all ye young rebels, and list while I sing/ For the love of one's country is a terrible thing/ It banishes fear with the speed of a flame/ And it makes us all part of the patriot game."

Once upon a time, a young girl grew up in a divided country. A poor country, on the edge of Western Europe. Her childhood was embroidered with the myths and legends of her land.
She was raised on the stories of a glorious "before the conqueror past", and the sacrifices of the freedom fighters and the martyrs for the cause of freedom. Rebel songs and stories told of their struggle against their mighty imperialistic foe across the sea. She learned the rebel songs.

"My name is O'Hanlon, I've just turned sixteen/ My home is in Monaghan and where I was weaned/ I learned all my life the cruel English to blame/ So now I am part of the patriot game."

In her country, the people looked, and had long looked, through centuries of foreign domination, and oppression because of their Catholic faith, to their religious leader thousands of miles away. It was their Church and their faith, they believed that had supported them through the dark night of occupation, when the world did not care.

"This Ireland of ours has long been half free/ Six counties lie under John Bull's tyranny/ So I gave up my Bible to drill and to train/ To play my own part in the patriot game."

One day when she was 14 years old, the young girl came upon a book. The story within told of a people who because of their religious beliefs, had become the scapegoats of a totalitarian regime. The story told in detail how this country had organised the killing and murder of these people in the same way as her uncle, the farmer, would periodically organise the slaughter of his livestock.
The girl didn't understand, why no-one spoke of this. When she asked adults around her, their eyes moved away and they slipped off the subject. She asked her Father, who's eyes stayed with hers. He was suprised and asked how she knew of this. "I read one of your library books". Her Father thought for a moment and said, that this could happen anywhere, and probably at any time, and for many reasons, none of which would be any reason at all.

She mentioned it in her history class at school; the nun sent her to the headmistress for no reason she could understand. When in the headmistress's office she cried for being punished for speaking the truth, the headmistress telephoned her Father at work and asked him to come, immediately. The girl remembers her Father saying to the headmistress, "How can you punish a child for telling the truth?" The headmistress was silent. Her Father continued, "If you expel her, I will send her to the Protestant Grammar School". Secretly the girl was pleased with this, as her best friend was at this school, where they played hockey and were allowed to join the Guides.

But on hearing the Father's decision, the headmistress backpedalled and any threat of expulsion was lifted. "But", said she, "your father should not allow your to read books that are for adults, and remember, they killed Christ". The Father replied, "Perhaps you'd be more specific, Sister, as to who they, might be". Again the headmistress was silent.

As they left the headmistresses office the Father said to his daughter, "Just because people like Sister X, are considered to be holy, doesn't mean they are right in everything they say or do".
The girl never forgot any of this. She learned the protest songs of her own generation, singing out for an end to war and inhumanity.

"Oh my name it is nothing/ my age it means less/ the country I come from/ Is called the midwest/ I's born and brought up there/ It's laws to abide/ And that the land that I live in/ Has God on it's side." "With God on Our Side" - Bob Dylan's version of The Patriot Game.

When she was 21, she went to work in a country in Europe. Living there she met many people, English, American, German, French, Spanish. She met a survivor of the Holocaust, and a young Israeli woman, a Sabra. When she was there a "war" began between the two countries on her island. What had begun as a peaceful movement for equality became a war between people of differing religious beliefs, albeit both christian. Catholic and Protestant. She read the newspapers and watched as the army of the "foe across the sea" returned to "maintain peace". Then the Republicans and Loyalists armed themselves to protect their own.

"They told me how Connolly was shot in his chair, His wounds from the fighting all bloody and bare. His fine body twisted, all battered and lame They soon made me part of the patriot game."

People burned out of their homes became refugees and moved south. Her Mother wrote that she was helping refugees. Her Father wrote that all army reservists had been called up, and the Irish Government considered moving into Northern Ireland. This "war" was to continue for many years. And one of her friends was killed. Many tried to bring peace to the country. But both "sides" seemed implacable and refused to work with each other. There was no trust, and many memories of the wrongs done by both sides.

Time went by and later she began to hear that in the country founded for the survivors of this genocide, Israel, the Palestinian people suffered injustices. She could not understand how in Israel, a people so persecuted, could in turn treat other humans unjustly. What she did understand was that now there were more victims of injustice. And each group believed itself to be so threatened that they would defend their land with their lives.

And then one summer's day she woke up to another war. Israel was bombing Lebanon it's neighbour. The world cried out, but did little.

As the days passed, something changed within this girl now a woman, who's heart would always be with those oppressed by anything, she began to see things differently.

Who exactly is the oppressor here and who the oppressed?

A small country stands alone surrounded by some who have expressed a wish to see that country destroyed. Another small country is used as a base to attack it and now suffers military retaliation.

One country, we are told is backed by a mighty power. The other country, where a militant organisation has based itself in order to attack the first, is also we are told backed by mighty powers.

And what of the Israeli and Lebanese people caught up in this struggle of might and power; living their lives with a daily threat?

Are the lives of the Lebanese, Israeli's and Palestinian children also embroidered with myth and legends of the conquored peoples, their sadness and their shame? Are their children told the stories of the "glorious before the conqueror past", and of their martyrs for freedom?

Do these children sing the "rebel songs"?

I write this because I feel I see this human problem repeated. I write this because lately I've been returned to my childhood; to the stories I was told, to the rebel songs we sang; to the irrefutableness of the religious beliefs I was raised in and it's enmeshment in politics.

I understand now why I so strongly believe in the separation of State and Church; why I cannot take a stand on either "side". And why I cry whenever I see these images of death and despair, whether they be Palestinian, Israeli, or Lebanese.

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