NATIONS COMES ALIVE INSOFAR AS THEY ARE FED WITH THE BODIES OF SOLDIERS
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Commenting on the First World War in 1915, P. H. Pearse, founder of the Irish Revolutionary movement, gushed that the previous 16 months had been the "most glorious in the history of Europe." The earth, he said, needed to be "warmed with the red wine of the battlefields." He described the carnage as an offering to God: millions of lives "given gladly for love of country."

The First World War was undertaken, justified and perpetuated in the name of countries. The assumption being that the "lives" of nations were more significant than the lives of human beings. Germany, France and Great Britain were fed with the bodies and blood of soldiers—sacrificial victims—in order to keep these entities alive.

"The individual must die so that the nation might live" has been uttered throughout the history of modern warfare. But what does this mean? The First World War represented an enactment of this fantasy: the nation comes alive insofar as it is fed with the bodies and blood soldiers.

Richard Koenigsberg