Eurofighter Typhoon. Photo: Photo: #Bladerunner / flickr CC.
Bang, bang! My gun shoots you dead!
Rebecca Lowe reflects on her visit to an airshow in Swansea
I hadn’t intended to visit the airshow. It just sort of happened. One minute I was on my way down Swansea’s St Helen’s Road, distributing posters for Quaker Quest in the windows of the launderettes, enjoying the sunshine and generally feeling happy with the world, and the next I heard this enormous roaring sound, like a space shuttle taking off. I looked up and there, very close, scarily low, was an RAF Eurofighter Typhoon, doing loop-the-loops and rolls in the sky. It was at this point that I remembered reading in the local newspaper that an air display was going to take place sometime soon, put two and two together, and realised my life was not in immediate peril.
A recruiting ground
For a moment, the air display was simply magical. It truly is the most amazing thing, if you’ve never seen one, incredibly aerobatic, and such a sense of power – the sight of it sweeping over the bay was awesome. I sped on down the road, following its path to the sea, where I joined many others on the beach, looking up at it, then followed the crowd, and the noise, to a series of tents at the side of the bay.
And that is how I found myself in the airshow display area, which – let’s be honest – was actually little more than an RAF recruiting ground. I found myself strangely drawn in because, on the one hand, as I’ve said, there is something magical about watching aeroplanes in flight and yet… and yet…
The first display I came across was for RAF Careers, a sort of mock-cockpit with steps leading up and nice, happy people handing out stickers and posters and goodie bags to the kids, with motifs like ‘Future RAF pilot’.
Under a canopy of camouflage-netting, an RAF regiment stand had a range of (not loaded) guns set up for the kids to play with. Behind them a glossy promo video showed men with rifles running through long grass and cadets marching in a band to the accompaniment of motivational music.
A uniformed man explained how the gun mechanism worked to a fascinated audience of eight-year-olds. ‘Want a go?’ he asked a little boy, ‘Now, be careful you don’t get your little fingers trapped.’
The eight-year-old tore the gun from the soldier’s hands, impatiently. He already knew what to do with it. He pointed it at the man in the uniform.
‘Bang, bang! My gun shoots you dead!’
His mum tutted: ‘Don’t do that, it’s not nice.’
The soldier took the gun back, laughed awkwardly and ruffled the boy’s hair. The moment passed.
The devastation of war
I walked past an RAF climbing wall, past the ‘1940s Museum’ stand with leaflets announcing ‘Experience the sights and sounds of an air raid! Wear a gas mask! Eat Spam!’ I noticed that, among the camouflage baseball caps and the world war two museum pencil cases and googly-eyed bugs, they didn’t have a single exhibit or picture showing the actual devastation of the war. There were no pictures of Swansea flattened, of Oxford Street reduced to a field of matchwood, of people’s houses ruined, St Mary’s Church roofless and in tatters, people’s homes and businesses ruined. There were no images of soldiers with limbs missing or internal organs shot to pieces, or civilians burnt and bleeding – that would be unsuitable for such a family occasion, obviously.
Outside the Tornado Maintenance School tent was a display of air-to-air (ASRAAM) missiles. I read the accompanying literature: ‘The ASRAAM has unparalleled immunity to countermeasures and a very high kill capability.’
Inside was a Mauser cannon and a display of ammunition, plus a poster display showing ‘A day in the life of a bomb’ – tracing the story from removal from storage to loading and ending in a picture of an explosion and the words ‘Direct Hit!’ next to a video showing a series of test explosions.
Greed and stupidity
I’d had enough. I went outside, walked past the ‘Junior Cadets’ section with the sign saying ‘Are you aged eleven to thirteen? Looking for adventure?’ and sat on the war memorial, next to a woman with a toddler in camouflage-gear eating candy floss.
I looked out to sea, at the beauty of the water and the sands, and I thought about Swansea’s history, about how so much of Swansea’s heritage was destroyed by bombers, thought about how many people, both soldiers and civilians, died in that war. I thought of our own bombers out in Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting for… who knows what? I thought of all the greed and stupidity of human beings over the years, over the centuries, and thought how, despite all that pain and suffering, we had learned nothing, absolutely nothing at all.
It occurred to me that perhaps it is part of our culture, that from an early age little boys are encouraged to believe that war – and all the trappings that go with it – is glamorous and exciting. Or is there something deeper going on? Is it the case that, deep down, the idea of handling all that power actually thrills us?
And I thought about how even the image of Christ on the cross – that most pacifistic act of all – has become imbued with the imagery of violent redemption and all-conquering victory.
Love your enemies
I thought about how the Jesus I had been raised to love – the one who preached ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’ and who prayed, on the cross, ‘Father, forgive them, they know not what they do’ – had been subtly replaced with the sort of kick-ass superman who, at his death, descends to Hell, gives the Devil a good kicking, then comes back to earth with a promise that there will be more of that in store for anyone who doesn’t follow him.
I tried to think of an alternative to these stories – one that didn’t involve violent retribution, one where love could triumph over anger, where reconciliation could replace revenge, and where, for once, nobody had to die. But, by this stage, my ears were too full of the sound of gunfire and my brain too frazzled to think of anything at all.
So, I did the only reasonable thing I could think of. I picked up a stick and carved out a big CND peace symbol on the sands – big enough, I hoped, for the Eurofighter Typhoon pilots to see. And then I strolled back across the beach, and went back to delivering my Quaker Quest leaflets.
This article was first published in the Student Christian Movement magazine: Movement.
