Take up arms to defend freedom

Spain, 1936. As civil war sweeps through the country, volunteers from all over Europe flock to the standards of the Republican and Nationalist armies. Made iconic through Hemingway’s dry prose and Picasso’s chilling canvas, the Spanish Civil war was probably the last real instance in which thousands of individuals across Europe took up arms to defend their ideals in a foreign state regardless of their own nation’s views on the matter.

Almost every country in the EU hails from the blood of foreign nationals who risked their lives to free them from their oppressors. From the Hungarian Legion in Italy during its Risorgimento to the British citizens, most famously Lord Byron, fighting for the freedom of Greece, modern-day Europe was born of a sense of brotherhood common to its people. Nor was this a phenomenon which was limited to the Mediterranean: in South America, the British Legion fought for the independence of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru, while Garibaldi defended that of Uruguay. Lafayette and other French volunteers sailed to North America to aid in the American Revolutionary War, and the citizens of the US reciprocated in both World Wars.

So where are today’s Byrons? As the fiery Arab Revolution blazes on, one is left to wonder if the citizens of our nations will ever heed the call to arms. A stunningly cynical apathy is rife amongst the members of our generation, as if the seventy-five year gap which separates us from our grandparents’ situation in Spain had bred nothing but a contemptible attachment to the easy lifestyle our ancestors shed their blood for.

This is not the first time the citizens of democratic nations have failed their neighbours. As part of a wider blaze of protests in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus which accompanied the death of Stalin, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 bears many resemblances to the current situation in Libya. There too a whole nation spontaneously rose to rid itself of a hated government. But a disillusioned and spineless West simply stared on, not lifting a finger in the hypocritical attempt to preserve a freedom they let others lose.

We all insist on the values of a liberal and democratic government, but it would appear that we are also in too much of a lethargic state to provide any practical help to people who are trying to form one of their own. Since the fall of the Berlin wall, only religious extremism seems to be able to mobilize our complacent generation to the ultimate sacrifice. The political organisations formed the only internal political structures which allowed British and other foreign nationals to take a stance in Spain against the express wish of their governments, and these no longer exist. In 1848 democrats all over Europe took up arms and readily offered their lives for the cause of freedom, while today’s liberals can scarcely be bothered to lift their pens.

Ours is a generation of cowards, more interested in flicking between channels to satisfy our perverse curiosity than to actually take any affirmative action ourselves. Too comfortable in our well planned-out lives, we will always be too busy with our own petty problems to occupy ourselves with defending a freedom we do not deserve.