Prince Harry: good little soldier
I’m not sure I understand all the fuss about Prince Harry and his use of racial epithets like ‘paki’ and ‘raghead’. It is, after all, merely an explicit expression of the essential dehumanisation of our enemies (that is, in this instance, brown people) that allows our armed forces to do their jobs without going totally insane and that allows us to skip over the news of Middle Eastern atrocities without doing the same. Harry’s crime, it seems to me, is to openly express the taboo to which we’re all signed up. It’s a psychological defence mechanism appropriate to who we’re fighting at any given moment. It’s a casual, easy contempt that makes it easier to take – to accept the taking of – another’s life when told to by the ruling classes. In earlier days it was ‘gook’ and ‘kraut’ and ‘nip’ and ‘eyetie’. The fuel needed to propel the war machine changes and the inexorable turning of its wheels means that – right now – it’s ‘pakis’ and ‘ragheads’ that we’re using to stoke the boiler.
Posted on January 11th, 2009 at 8:08pm under Miscellaneous misanthropy, T.W.A.T.
So put another wog on the fire.
Perhaps tellingly his vaguely homophobic comments are often left off the story-
“Off camera, he adds: “How do you feel? Gay? Queer on the side?”
But anyway your point is correct, killing must be done discreetly in hot far away places so the racist processes that facilitate it also must be kept politely unacknowledged. The military is an odd thing, it’s like a huge extended family that just so happens at its core to be about killing people. Like the Manson Family with drill.
And Royal authority is in part indicative of an implicit belief in eugenics among supporters (not that many recognise that implication), really the Royals should be expected to be huge bigots, the very institution rests on inequality.
Perhaps tellingly his vaguely homophobic comments are often left off the story
I suppose it’s because we’re not at war with queers as a group, only paki and raghead queers, who we can lump in with their compatriots.
I have to admit that I didn’t get the far down the NOTW article before writing the post. (I see even the Guardian left the homophobia to the second-to-last paragraph.)
Still, I suppose we should applaud the egalitarianism that has elevated such sentiments away from the great unwashed and into the officer classes. We’re all twats now.
I’m glad RickB will never be in any army I need to defend me, or that I’d jopin to defend my country.
And you’re starting to look like a troll. Cool it.
Troll?
Jesus wept.
I’m glad RickB will never be in any army I need to defend me
WOAH THERE ANON CP TIT FACE!… you fanny!
The RickB thing was fair enough, he went to town on the military, as if war has a nice set of rules and that before you shoot the chap you call him sir. It bugged the hell out of me, it came across to me as somehow demeaning of the work done by our troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
As for CP, I have a problem with the use of the word genocide when there isn’t one and calls of cowardice to a blogger I like when they leave no contact details in their two letter handle.
Peace.
The most bizarre thing about it is the statement issued by St James’s Palace:
It doesn’t even seem to be an attempt to spin it in Harry’s favour (and it’s just occurred to me how sad it is that I’m reduced to lamenting the quality of the spin rather than the spin itself). It’s just a very weak combination of “he can’t be racist, the Paki is his friend” and “not all ragheads are terrorists, but all terrorists are ragheads”.
In my seven years in the Forces, I served with the following:
Several Paddys;
A couple of Micks (no, that wasn’t their real name);
Two black guys, called ‘Chalky’ and ‘Roots’ respectively;
An Asian lad called ‘Cornershop’.
Were these racist nicknames? Nope. They were good colleagues, good naval ratings and good mates. It’s just a name. Intent is everything.
This is just something old and irrelevant for the Tabloid Gutter to get themselves aerated about – nothing more.
D
The thing is, we’re talking about a hugely dysfunctional family with some serious previous form on this front. Three generations actually.
I’m with Dungeekin on this one and as for de-humansing the enemy with name calling, call me a bigot but if someone was trying to kill me all day or had taken the lives of comrades, I’d be calling him every fucking name going.
That’s war.
Define ‘enemy’, Daniel. An awful lot of civilians tend to get caught up in these things as you know.
I don’t need to define enemy, if I was in the army it’s whoever is on the other side and is a threat to me and my comrades.
I am sick and fucking tired of people mithering and moaning about one poxy issue in order for them to draw it out into a far wider one about de-humanising our enemy, which is exactly what you have to do if they are your enemy.
That’s war, that’s professional soldiering.
How about this:
Mike Prysner, 24 years old, was told that racism no longer existed in the military when he first joined up in the summer of 2001.
“We would sit through mandatory classes and every unit had this representative to ensure that no elements of racism could resurface,” he said. Prysner was deployed to Iraq with the 10th Mounted Division in March 2003.
“Then September 11th happened and I began to hear new words like ‘towelhead’ and ‘camel jockey,’ and the most disturbing: ‘sand nigger.’ These words did not initially come from my fellow soldiers but from my superiors: my platoon sergeant, my company first sergeant, my battalion commander. All the way up the chain of command these terms, these viciously racist terms were suddenly acceptable.”
Prysner was one of more than 200 veterans who attended the Winter Soldier hearings organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) held in mid-March. Like the other veterans assembled in Silver Springs, Maryland, Prysner spoke openly about what he saw and did during his tours in Iraq.
“When I got to Iraq in 2003, I learned a new word: ‘Haji,’ ” he said. “Haji was the enemy. Haji was every Iraqi. He was not a person, or a father, or a teacher, or a worker.”
I don’t think it would have been prudent for his family to attempt any justification of his comments, even if they weren’t meant in a vindictive way.
Working in the palace press office must be one of the most thankless tasks this country has to offer.
That’s highly unlikely.
I am dismayed that UK blogs like Justin’s are afraid to post about the genocide in GAZA.
How did you get the impression I’m afraid? What possible effect do you think a post on this blog about Gaza would have?
WOAH THERE ANON CP TIT FACE!
There is no genocide in Gaza for one thing and as for Justin being afraid, how about giving some contact details you fanny!
What possible effect do you think a post on this blog about Gaza would have?
At least it might be cathartic?
I’m sure that’ll help.