Quote of the day - 12th October 2013
“I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.”
(Edith Cavell)
Today is the 98th anniversary of the judicial murder by the german army of British Nurse Edith Cavell, who was shot at dawn by for "treason" because she had helped a number of British and French soldiers to escape.
She said the above words the night before her execution to the Reverend Stirling Gahan, who had been allowed to see her and give her holy communion.
The idea that a British nurse in Belgium could commit "treason" against Germany avoids being funny only because the consequences were so terrible: her actions were in breach of contemporary German law, but the imposition of the death penalty was rightly seen as barbarism in most of the civilised world.
The german civil governor of occupied Belgium, Baron von der Lancken, is known to have argued that Cavell should be pardoned because of her complete honesty and because her nursing had helped save many lives, German as well as Allied.
However, he was over-ruled by the german military governor of Brussels, Traugott von Sauberzweig, who ordered that "in the interests of the State" Nurse Cavell should be shot immediately, which denied higher authorities an opportunity to consider clemency. It is that decision which I regard as judicial murder.
Her final words, 98 years ago this morning, are recorded as having been a request to the german Lutheran prison chaplain, Reverend Paul Le Seur, to "Ask Father Gahan to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country."
The measure of Edith Cavell's greatness is that when I read the story of how she was treated I am tempted to feel extreme anger towards her german contemporaries in general and General von Sauberzweig in particular, but then I think of her words quoted at the head of this article and realise that she would have wanted her life to be remembered as a symbil of compassion, courage and reconciliation, and absolutely not as a cause of hatred.
In response to Councillor Charles Fifield, @charlesfifield, who had tweeted that quote this morning, Lord Ashcroft described it here as a "Great line from a great woman"
In the spirit of reconciliation advocated by Edith Cavell herself, perhaps the last word should be given to the german military chaplain, Le Seur, who was present at her execution:
"I do not believe that Miss Cavell wanted to be a martyr…but she was ready to die for her country… Miss Cavell was a very brave woman and a faithful Christian".
Comments
Her trial and subsequent "execution" or as you rightly say murder, are examples of how an idea is so much more dangerous to the powers that be than an opposition party, In the case of Edith Cavell the idea that the preservation of human life is more important than the nationality or the national cause, seemed more dangerous to the German power than any political opposition would be.
An idea is hard to kill, so to nip it in the but early, is often seen as the only way to stop it spreading. If you think about it if her message had gotten through, then where would that leave the officers of World war 1? - I mean every brit refusing to shoot a german and every german refusing to shoot a brit, and if the officers said shoot them or we will shoot you, then it would quickly be realised the troops out manned and out gunned the officers.................. that is why to tptb ideas are so dangerous, and that is why the trial of this great woman is so unjust.
RIP Edith Cavell.
A classic example was once regarded as a Jewish Heritic, the message he was spreading was very dangerous at the time. Thing was they could not act before the idea had stared to spread.
Granted they nailed the man to a wooden cross and murdered him, but the idea was already spreading. You know exactly what I mean.
In history there are many cases where hostile forces managed to wipe off the map a nation state. There are rather fewer cases where someone managed to largely eliminate an ethnic group through not, sadly, through lack of attempts.
But the only cases I know of when material force alone sufficed to largely eliminate an idea, was when that idea was so morally bankrupt that only force backed by a powerful and ruthless theocratic or totalitarian state such as Nazi Germany or the Aztec state was maintaining the idea in the first place.
When a totalitarian party or religion is stripped of the power to send those who refuse to support it to the concentration camp, gas chambers, or any other form of imprisonment or execution, it tends to lose support far more rapidly than a party or faith whose support was built on something more positive than fear.