Coronavirus: fighting the war and facing an enemy together

So it’s going to be war.

Soldiers from the Spanish 'Military Emergency Unit' (UME)
deploy outside the main station in Valencia

The leaders of nation after nation have assured us that what we’re going into now is war against Coronavirus. Which neatly covers two of the horsemen of the Apocalypse, War and Pestilence. Coronavirus itself provides us with Death, but since shops are still being restocked at the moment, Famine hasn’t put in an appearance yet. Long may it stay that way.

Curiously, that was a remark made by one of Danielle’s aunts, who lived through the Second World War. 

“We have enough food, but otherwise, it’s just like back then,” she told Danielle.

War. Both my grandfathers had their lives profoundly affected by World War One. Both served, in different ways: my paternal grandfather in the artillery, my maternal grandfather in gaol, as a conscientious objector. Both displayed admirable courage and both paid a high price – my paternal grandfather carried shrapnel in his hand until the day he died.

My mother Leatrice, my grandfather Nat and, well, me (a while back)
Nat served two years in Dartmoor Prison as a pacifist

Leaders have taken to using the vocabulary of war too. Pedro Sánchez, Prime Minister of our adopted nation, Spain, declared the other day that “we shall leave no one behind”. It’s an encouraging thought, especially in the light of the idea that Boris Johnson was toying with in the UK, of letting people become infected to build ‘herd immunity’, though his experts calculated this might leave up to 500,000 dead.

Rather a lot not merely left behind, but left in the ground.

It’s ironic, too, that the US is dragging its feet over combating the epidemic. The notion of ‘leaving no one behind’ is one I associate with the US marines. Odd to see that nation having to be dragged into awareness of the threat, against a spirit of denial to which Trump clung as long as he could.

The Spanish Prime Minister’s commitment to leave no one behind reminded me of my parents’ description of life during World War 2. My father served in the air force, my mother was secretary to a Labour MP. She told me how moved, and how strengthened, she was, by a speech of Winston Churchill’s. It included the words:

We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

He made the speech in May 1940 at a time when the possibility of surrender was very much in the air. Hearing the Prime Minister declare that “we shall never surrender”, she said, stiffened her resolve and that of most of her compatriots. There were, of course, the profiteers and the black marketers, but overall the nation pulled together. A sense of solidarity for a time overcame extreme individualism.

My father Leonard, with his mother and his father, also Leonard
My father is in his RAF uniform for service in World War 2.
My grandfather served and was injured in World War 1.

The spirit of war. With grandparents who experienced World War One and parents who lived through World War Two, I had always expected as a child that I would, on reaching adulthood, have to face it myself. It’s been not just a pleasure but a relief that I never have.

Until now, at any rate. It’s a bit of a surprise, and not without a grain of excitement, to be facing my own war this late in my life. And, at least, it isn’t one in which man is being called on to kill man.

Which doesn’t mean it isn’t lethal. As with any war, we go in not knowing how many will die. We don’t even know whether we ourselves will make it through – any more than my father did. It took him a long time to understand how he survived when so many of his friends didn’t. 

This war, like any war, is a harrowing experience.

On the other hand, if we can recapture the spirit of solidarity, it won’t be entirely bleak. If we all pull together, if we show we can serve a common goal with at least patience and some courage, what a welcome change that will be in societies more divided than they have been for decades.

It strikes me that Italy, Spain, France and a number of other countries are beginning to get things right. Social distancing, unnatural and painful though it may seem for a species that thrives on social contact, is probably the best way to beat the epidemic.

We’re going into battle with an intelligent strategy. We’re going in together. We’re going to suffer losses, but may be uplifted by our sense of common purpose.

Because that too is part of war, probably the best part, as well as an essential ingredient of our top shared objective.

Beating this damn thing.