
The discussion that follows was prompted by the article: The film "Merry Christmas" and the real story of the 1914 Christmas Truce. The discussion was initiated by Fred.
Below is the discussion so far. Feel free to add your own comments!
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The discussion that follows was prompted by the article: The film "Merry Christmas" and the real story of the 1914 Christmas Truce. The discussion was initiated by Fred.
Below is the discussion so far. Feel free to add your own comments!
I love fraternizations and want more! Fraternization is an expression of humanity's enormous yet almost completely suppressed capacity for love in the most generous, far reaching all-embracing meaning of the word. But today, the working class, splintered and atomised by austerity and decaying capitalism, has almost forgotten love and forgotten what it is. Love dare hardly speak its name.
But Fraternization! The love of the working class for itself, the comrades it nurtures, and the possibility it generates of a global universal love obliterating all borders and artificial divisions, and opening up the chance for humanity to learn how to love itself forever in joy and satisfaction. In communism!
That fraternization was able to express itself at moments throughout the First World War was a miraculous sign of hope. That it was unable so obviously to do this during World War Two was a sign of defeat and the triumph of the inhumanity of the loveless bourgeoisie: all greed, resentment and hate!
Yet does a new opportunity show itself now? Tentatively and shy to begin with - after the counter revolution which rendered love, fraternization and communism matters of dirt and filth, not to be thought of anymore - can we find our way back to those glorious moments of love shown on the battlefields of World War One and the miracles of love and liberation which showed themselves in the Revolutionary Wave which followed?
Christmas 1914 was the time of the first fraternization, across borders, across nationalistic loathing. Christmas has never been quite the same since.