Peasmarsh Parish Council recently published its draft neighbourhood development plan, which is open for public consultation until December 12. I visited the web page to read the document and to provide feedback. I was somewhat taken aback by the homepage, which shows the iconic image of Lord Kitchener, telling us that ‘Your Country Needs You’, with the word ‘Country’ crossed out and substituted with ‘Village’. It is a light-hearted use of a popular meme, encouraging residents to participate in the democratic process, but it provoked in me a train of thought about whether the use of this image is still appropriate in this day and age.
Lord Kitchener was a controversial figure. On the one hand, at the start of the first world war, he organised the largest volunteer army that Britain has ever seen and was one of the few to foresee a long war. He was instrumental in Britain winning the war, even though he did not survive it.
On the other hand, he was responsible for instigating the ‘inhuman slaughter’ – in Churchill’s words - of thousands of wounded enemies following the battle of Omdurman in 1898. He also pursued a scorched earth policy during the second Boer war in 1900, which saw homesteads razed, wells poisoned, and concentration camps created, killing more than 26,000 women and children.
This then brought to mind the recent news that Manston Immigration Centre, designed to hold no more than 1,600 people for no more than 24 hours, has been crammed with 4,000 people, in terrible conditions for many weeks, including outbreaks of diphtheria. One of the detainees, a young girl, managed to throw a note over the fence, saying: “We are in a difficult life now … Some of us very sick”, adding that some pregnant women are held there and “they don’t do anything for them. We really need your help.”
I do worry that Kitchener’s darker side appears to be repeating itself in our age, with the Conservative government relentlessly putting the lives of refugees at risk, firstly by denying them safe passage to this country, secondly, by incarcerating them in conditions described by the PCS Union as ‘horrendous, inhumane and dangerous’, whilst delaying their asylum claims and thirdly, by normalising hate language, which then leads to physical and verbal abuse. Home Secretary Suella Braverman describes these fellow human beings seeking sanctuary here - people who have lost everything other than the clothes on their backs - as ‘an invasion’. Home Office minister Chris Philp criticises the ‘cheek’ of complaints about the conditions from people arriving ‘illegally’ in the country.
I much prefer the thoughts of Alex Fraser, British Red Cross director of refugee services, who says: “The UK government needs to urgently look at ways of reducing the backlog of asylum decisions and providing more safe routes so people who have been forced to leave their homes do not have to make dangerous journeys and gamble with their lives.”
“Our country has a proud history of helping people fleeing war and persecution. It doesn't matter how you got here, everyone deserves to be treated with compassion and humanity once you're on our shores.”
As for the Peasmarsh neighbourhood development plan, I think it is an excellent document, well researched and evidenced, clearly written and presented and well supported by maps, figures and images. Much to my relief, Lord Kitchener does not feature in it.
