Joyeux Noel Film - the true message of Christmas portrayed

Click on image above to view the singing by a German soldier of 'Stille Nacht' & 'Adeste Fideles', the latter to the accompaniment of bagpipes played by Scottish soldiers

The French 2005 production 'Joyeux Noel' is one of the most emotionally captivating films that I have ever witnessed. In my humble opinion, it captures the true message of Christmas, namely 'Peace and Goodwill To All Peoples'. 

May I wish you and yours a joyful festive holiday (still a few days left!) and a progressive New Year.

Background to the film:
Along the Western Front on Christmas Eve 1914, soldiers from German, Scottish, English and French regiments organised unofficial ceasefires. Troops ventured into No Man's Land to exchange gifts, play football, sing songs together and bury their dead. 
Ordinary soldiers saw that they were one and the same, no matter what was the colour of the uniform.

Click on image above to hear Scottish soldier pipers playing "I'm Dreaming of Home"

Generals on both sides were incensed and scared that this laying down of arms and friendship across the divide would spread. So they ensured that no such large scale fraternisation ever happened again by ordering artillery barrages during subsequent Christmases. In an insane brutal war, there were already 3.5 million casualties by the end of 1914. Another 32 million would die before the war ended. 

The leaders of the main warring nations dressed up the conflict as a 'War To End Wars', a struggle for peace and liberty when in reality they were only concerned about expanding their empires. Whilst the ‘Allies’ promoted the war as a struggle to free small nations (e.g. Belgium) from German, Austrian and Turkish tyranny, World War One actually resulted in the victorious French and British dividing up the Middle East between them against the wishes of the local populations. 
The horrible legacy of this imperial carve up and the promises made to financiers and oilmen during and soon after WW1 are the conflicts in Iraq, Libya and Palestine that we have today. 

John Lennon and Yoko Ono recognised that throughout the ages, war and conflict were used by those in power to kill, butcher and maim peoples and the planet in order to maintain and expand their control. Their 1971 classic, Happy Christmas, War is Over (below) perfectly encapsulates this message

Peace, Justice and Equality to All Men and Women! 

Click on image above  to hear John, Yoko & Plastic Ono Band sing their 1971 anti-war song 'Happy Christmas, War is Over'

Merry Christmas

Christmas Truce 1914: A Flickering of Humanity in a Brutal Imperial War

I watched this thought-provoking and emotive French film Joyeux Noel (Merry Xmas) over Christmas. More than any other movie I have seen in recent times, it portrays the true message of Christmas, namely 'Peace on Earth and Goodwill To All Men'.

It was so beautiful to hear in the film the haunting sounds of the Celtic bagpipes. But so sad to know that so many of the men enjoying the friendships that sprung up between the soldiery of the opposing armies during that Christmas Week would be dead within weeks.
So May I wish all readers and their friends and families a joyful festive holiday and a progressive 2012.

Christmas Truce 1914

Along the Western Front on Christmas Eve 1914, soldiers from German, Scottish, English & French regiments organised unofficial ceasefires. Troops ventured into No Man's Land to exchange gifts, play football, sing songs together & bury their dead. Generals on both sides were outraged & ensured that no such large scale fraternization ever happened again by ordering shelling during subsequent Christmases. In an insane brutal war, there were already 3.5million casualties by then; another 32million would die before the war ended.

The leaders of the main warring nations dressed up the conflict as the 'War To End All Wars', a struggle for peace and liberty when in reality they were only concerned about expanding their empires.
For example the war resulted in the victorious French and British dividing up the Middle East between them. In the process, they created an artificial country known as Iraq to unite under British control the oilfields of Kurdistan in the north with the oilfields around Basra in the south. The consequences of such a decision lie with us today.

Irish Nationalists Join War To Enslave Nations
The Irish nationalists under Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party allowed themselves under the pretext of 'Freedom of Small Nations' (Belgium) to support an imperial war that denied freedom and democracy to so many. Nearly 50,000 members of the Irish divisions of the British military died fighting in a conflict that entrapped even more Africans, Arabs, Kurds, Chinese, Polynesians within the empires of France, Italy, Japan and Britain.

The Irish rebels were aware of this deception by the British. We Serve Neither King nor Kaiser was the motto of the Irish Citizens Army as they joined with the Irish Volunteers in Easter 1916 to overthrow British rule in Ireland.
So I cannot join with those historians of today that are trying to rewrite history and to glorify the deeds of the Irish regiments of the British Army. These Irish men, during the 19th and early 20th century, were a key component of a brutal military occupation force in countries such as South Africa, Sudan, Kenya, Afghanistan, India, Ceylon, Burma and China. Ironically, the Catholic Irish soldiery, as with the Indian and African members of this army, were despised by their military English officers and superiors who viewed them as primitive and stupid peoples.

Madness of War: Blackadder - Last Scene (Over the Top)

The last episode of Ben Elton's brilliant Blackadder series poignantly sums up the madness of the generals and politicians of the Allies and Central Powers (click image above).
Though I have major disagreements with the democratic deficit within the structures of today's European Union, nevertheless I recognise that it has ended the slaughter that used to characterise the relationships between nations and peoples of the continent of Europe.

 Warhorse -  Slaughter of the Animals in the service of Humanity

As Steven Spielberg's latest film Warhorse shows, animals suffered the most during this human conflict.  Vast areas of forests and other main areas of wildlife habitats were totally obliterated by shell and fire. At least 485,000 horses serving with the British forces were killed and millions more died in the armies of the Ottoman, British, French, Russian, Austrian, Bulgarian, Rumanian and Serbian. Sadly the history of 'civilization' is a history of the enslavement and destruction of  so many other denizens of Earth by humanity in the pursuit of pleasure, torture and self-indulgence.