D-Day 75th Anniversary

Moral Maze

BBC

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.4 • 623 Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2019

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

The Allied invasion of Normandy, 75 years ago, was the biggest land, air and naval operation in history. It led to the liberation of Europe from Nazi control and was the galvanising moment of the age, but it came at a cost that is almost unimaginable: at least 2,700 British soldiers, sailors and airmen lost their lives in the first 24 hours. Their sacrifice ensured that later generations would enjoy a lifetime of peace in Europe. Very few people in Britain today, other than military professionals, have ever worried about having to fight a war. Does that collective comfort also mean that we would be incapable of answering the same call? It is instructive to consider how society has changed in 75 years of peacetime - in particular our loss of deference. Some say that’s a good thing; it empowers us to stand up to institutions on behalf of the marginalised and the oppressed. Others, however, lament the erosion of the national virtues – duty, self-sacrifice, respect for our leaders – that made D-Day possible. As the author David Brooks put it, we’ve moved as a society from “We’re all in this together” to “I’m free to be myself”. And what of the nature of warfare itself? In 1944, though the cost to human life was enormous, it was a straightforward fight with a uniformed enemy led by villains. Conversely, modern, surgical warfare kills fewer people but is more remote and, according to its critics, further blurs the distinction between soldiers and civilians. What does D-Day teach us about how we might judge ourselves morally against our forebears?

Producer: Dan Tierney

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a programme from BBC Radio 4.
0:04.3	Good evening. Exactly 75 years ago tonight, hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers, sailors and airmen were getting ready to fling themselves onto the beaches of Normandy.
0:14.1	It was the largest seaborne invasion in history, arguably the Allies' biggest gamble of the war.
0:19.7	Thousands died on those beaches. A lot didn't even make it ashore. "'Many more died in the desperate fighting "'through the Normandy Boccage. "'There remains lie in ordered rows "'in cemeteries all over northern France, "'peacefully under pine trees, "'such a counterpoint to the violence and carnage that killed them. "'Three generations have passed since then without a major war, and much has changed.
0:41.6	It's not just that we wonder if we still have the virtues we're celebrating this week.
0:45.7	Duties, self-sacrifice, patriotism, national cohesion, respect for our leaders.
0:50.5	Many question whether these are virtues at all.
0:53.6	And warfare itself has changed. Not many conflicts
0:56.3	have ever been as morally unambiguous as the one we waged against Nazi tyranny, but today's
1:01.5	wars are as likely as not to be as the jargon has it asymmetric against terrorists, religious
1:07.1	fanatics, rogue movements, not the commissioned, uniformed, regular forces of equivalent sovereign states.
1:13.2	Technology, too, has changed the way we see war, on the one hand, distancing us by making aerial bombardment look like a computer game.
1:21.2	On the other, reported in real time by 24-hour news and social media, we can be deluge with conflict's consequences.
1:28.2	Ever since Vietnam, strategists have worried that'll mean we would no longer have the
1:32.6	stomach for a long struggle, which may or may not be a good thing.
1:36.9	75 years on, how would we cope?
1:39.1	What does D-Day tell us about how we measure up morally to our forebears?
1:43.7	That's our moral maze tonight.
1:45.1	The panel, the former Conservative Defence Secretary Michael Portillo, Matthew Taylor,
1:49.0	who was Tony Blair's Chief Political Advisor, now Chief Executive of the RSA,
1:53.2	Anne McElvoy, Senior Editor at The Economist and the Priest and Pilemousist, Giles Fraser.
1:58.2	Michael Portillo, you were once responsible for our armed forces. How do we
	...

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