'Dunkirk Without Ships'.

Denis O’Brien, ‘the leading Irish businessman’, described Brexit at Davos as ‘Dunkirk without the ships’. What truth is there in this arresting observation? Brexiteers themselves, particularly in the wake of the movie, are wont to invoke the ‘Dunkirk spirit’, as if it were the retreat from Europe in itself that ‘saved the Nation’s bacon’. They seem to have missed the fact that it was a disaster that only by good luck avoided being a catastrophe, and it was extremely fortunate that the British army was able to return four years later to participate in the real triumph.

What's more there is a clear continuity between that considerable section of the British establishment that had evinced sympathy for fascism in the 1930’s and the Brexiteers. Certain tabloids that supported both come to  mind. Some more pertinent facts are that Hitler established his authority by means of referenda and of exploiting popular fears and resentments of ‘others’, resentments that went with a sense of national humiliation*, and of establishing full employment on the back of borrowed if not merely stolen or printed money.

So yes, Brexit promises a massive and potentially catastrophic withdrawal from British involvement on the Continent that may be compared with Dunkirk, and what’s even worse, a degree of collusion with ‘the Enemy’ and an abrogation of responsibility; for we may compare the existential challenge to civilisation of the last century, as represented by totalitarianism, to that posed by the three-headed hydra of environmental disaster, chronic wealth disparity and warfare these days. This century again, those existential challenges clearly call for efforts in response that transcend merely national ones. Politically speaking, such response for us in Europe is invested primarily in the EU.

As for the ‘without ships’ bit, well the Duckie promises an American navy coming to the rescue, and that’s the man who far from combating the existential threats we face this time around, does his best to embody them.

Surely we are at last at a critical juncture where we have to get serious about our response. The science, the warnings, the evidence of galloping threats are all out there. But how can one in practice live with them and respond to them?   It is extremely tempting to fall back on saying that it won’t be too bad yet awhile, that we’ll manage something when we really have to, and meanwhile ‘sufficient to the day are the evils thereof’? From time immemorial, we may say, people have been subject to catastrophic threats, some real, some imaginary. We are all going to die anyway, and really fear of catastrophe is an inescapable part of the human condition.

It is clear that Christ did not mean us to merely take what was coming. While there is an unprecedented global totality about the threats that are now looming, there are also clear indications of how to combat them. I actually do hope for the best. For a start, with regard to Brexit, I have not given up hope of the whole sorry saga resulting in a much deeper and more authentic European Union, but if we have to get there by way of some kind of Dunkirk, where might we hope to see some ships showing up to take us off the beach?
 

Possibly this is to over-dramatise what is merely a good old English mess, but disaster is already a day to day reality for very many people, and apart from the imperative to help one another, I think it wise to construct our lives on the assumption that the world will become increasingly unstable and dangerous for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, if we face the threats rather than try to ignore them, we may even find that they have a positive side and that facing up to them generates well-being even right now. For example, if we think that the present industrial structure of food production and distribution will probably come to a bad end, then surely we should start now finding ways of producing organic food for ourselves. We just might find out that it’s also fun to produce and good to eat.

With young people locked into stressful city life and careers that involve moving here and there, while family and country life decays, we might try to recover the Irish tradition of keeping up with the family ‘back home’ in the country, Mum and the children spending the summer there, and so on. The trouble is, there is nowadays rarely a family farm back in the country, and if there is, the work is mechanised. It has been said that the human race’s worst enemy is boredom. Besides having nothing to do, it involves a sense of radical powerlessness, of inability to engage with life. Anxiety and fear have to be up there with it, and wealth may hide them but does not assuage them. How may we get from  the dull misery of awaiting doom to some place where we may respond effectively, engage, celebrate and enjoy life?

Fiona and I aspire to make our home here on Sherkin Island a place such as this; one of beauty, order and security, where memories and traditions are cherished, flowers and vegetables grown, and the simple old survival skills passed on. Such are the boats that might ‘take us off the beach’ these days! Damn it, if I can get the ‘Anna M’ going again, we might do so literally!  But time is running out for the Fundit scheme, do please take a look at the link** and see if you can find more people to participate!

*https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/26/dunkirk-brexit-retreat-europe-britain-eec

** https://fundit.ie/project/restore-the-anna-m-1

Sherkin Island