Markin comment:
Recently I posted in this space under my Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By series a lesser-known anti-war song by Bob Dylan from the early 1960s, John Brown. (See archives, September 15, 2010). As part of the commentary about the lyrics of the song, which I have again included below, I mentioned some of my own experiences growing up in a working class neighborhood and the pressures faced from the neighbors, and others, to conform to the unquestionably accepted social-patriotic working class war stance during the early stages of the Vietnam War. I mentioned there that the “shawlies” put considerable pressure on my parents, my mother in particular, to get me to knuckle under to the war hysteria once it was known that I was, frankly, even rather mildly opposed to the war. The shawlies were not unlike the mother in John Brown, despite the known consequences that some sons, their sons, were not going to come back, or if they did come back, as many did, would be in Brother Brown’s condition.
Someone mentioned to me that they did not know what a “shawlie” was and further that I should expand on my commentary about my own working class anti-war experiences. I intended to do this in any case but when I thought about it a bit I wanted to, additionally, suggest that there is a certain working class attitude toward war somewhat different, as bespeaks those who, one way or another, bear the brunt of the “grunt” work of war, from other classes and that requires a different kind of anti-war work from that of the campuses or in middle class towns, and for our cause, is more problematic. (We will not even discuss the rich; they did not, and do not, sent their kids to war, under any circumstances. Hell, they no longer even bother to provide the general staff officers anymore like in the old days of the WASP stranglehold on the military command posts.) Until I get a chance to write that up for now I will make some general points in aid of that proposition.
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Most of us have gone through over the past decade (and continue to go through), at least here in America, two major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The initial response by the vast majority of the citizenry to the Afghan war in October 2001 in the aftermath of the World Trade Center atrocities was overwhelming support for the Bush Administration to bomb them (presumably the Taliban and Al Qaeda) back to the Stone Age, or further back if possible. No questions asked. I have related on other occasions my own fears, for one of the few times in my long political career, to be out on the streets of America protesting that war. The point that I want to make here is more that this “quick war” does not serve as a fair model for how the working class quarters response to war calls by the American president, any president. Virtually the whole populace was up in arms, and to about the same degree.
Iraq (2003), and the build-up to the invasion to Iraq, is more indicative. We will leave aside the machinations and other manipulations by the Bush Administration to “prove” whatever it was they were out to prove. What is important, and I will listen to contrary evidence on this, but I think I have it pretty accurate is that in most working class areas, city or small town, the initial response was to support, and to support vocally, the invasion, whatever the rationale as an extension of the Al Qaeda hunt. And this from people, from mothers, mothers like John Brown’s who would be sending their sons and daughters off with the ubiquitous yellow ribbon.
I know the heat of that fervor from personal experience in that period, as I witnessed it closely, too closely, in at least two pro-war rallies, both in working class areas, hard working class areas (South Boston, Massachusetts and the Albany, New York triangle), as well as anecdotal evidence from others in industrial Chicago and New Jersey. In this sense, for those who either forgets or who are too young to remember and who want to get a feel for what unabashed early support for the Vietnam War looked like down at the working class base those more current examples should suffice.
And that brings us back to my own anti-war experiences with the “shawlies.”, the Irish working class mothers who sent their sons (and now daughters) off to war without so much as a flinch. In our neighborhood, although I confess I only heard it used by more recent or older immigrants, it signified that circle, council if you will, unofficial of course, of mothers, young and old, who set the moral tone, at least the public moral tone of the place. In short, the gossips, old hags, and rumor-mongers (I am being polite here) who had their own devious grapevine, and more importantly, were a constant source of information about you to your own mother. Usually nothing good either.
I actually know the term better as used in the Irish playwright Sean O’Casey’s Dublin plays set during the First World War, and signified those mothers who were receiving money from the British government for the use of their sons in that war as cannon fodder oops, soldiers. Notwithstanding that Ireland was then the prime colony of dear old “Mother England.” Those “sawflies” moreover were the first to denounce the boys (and the few girls) of the Easter, 1916 uprising for national liberation in order to keep the bloody British dole coming. So, this is clearly not a term of endearment.
However the "shawlies” are still with us. They do not have to be in Dublin or its environs, nor do they have to be Irish, for that matter. My use here, reflecting Bob Dylan’s lyrics, is of that mother (or father, sister, uncle, or brother) who in knee-jerk reaction is more than willing to give up their young relatives to the American imperial state. And the hard fact of life, and of left-wing political organizing from the Bolsheviks forward has been the struggle to break that allegiance, or as is more usually the case take advantage of war-weariness when it finally hits the working class.
As I noted previously, for the last several years at least, at many of the peace rallies that I have attended there is usually a representative speaking for Military Families For Peace or some such organization that signifies that they too have gotten “hip” on the war question. What seems to be universally true is that in this overwhelmingly working class element of the anti-war movement (probably most prominently represented several years ago by Gold Star Mother, Cindy Sheehan, in her struggles to get ex-President George W. Bush’s attention) the initial pride, patriotism, and sense of glory turned to ashes when the deal went down. The simple, ubiquitous yellow ribbon didn’t mean a damn thing beyond some superficial nod to that service.
I speak from some experience on this turning against war, although somewhat from the opposition direction. My growing-up working class neighborhood provided more than its fair share of soldiers and other military personnel for the various stages of the Vietnam War. That wall down in Washington, the VA hospitals, the half-way houses and the flophouses of this country testify to that. Although, I am sure, every mother exhibited the usual anxieties about military service for her sons during war time no one, at least publicly, called for opposition to the Vietnam War early on (and later, when it was practically de rigueur to oppose it to do so quietly without public fanfare, to those of us on the other side’s utter frustration).
When I was called to military duty and “turned commie” for opposing the war while in uniform in the process, as my own mother related to me the opinions of other neighbor mothers, this was so “abnormal” that I was officially dis-invited from many homes. That part was, in the end, probably not important for me as I was heading out the door of that neighborhood anyway, but for those left behind, in this case my parents, this scorn was very real and very hurtful. Especially, as my parents, not without some very hard internal struggles went out of their way to support their son, not politically so much as because I was their son. Kudos.
Let me end this up like I did the previous commentary. When they (today’s shawlies) come, like vultures, at you for not “supporting” the troops, or some such argument show that you are “hip” and run this song (John Brown)at them. Oh, and scream to the high heavens, Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries (and whoever else they have running around) From Afghanistan And Iraq!
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John Brown-Bob Dylan lyrics
John Brown went off to war to fight on a foreign shore
His mama sure was proud of him!
He stood straight and tall in his uniform and all
His mama’s face broke out all in a grin
“Oh son, you look so fine, I’m glad you’re a son of mine
You make me proud to know you hold a gun
Do what the captain says, lots of medals you will get
And we’ll put them on the wall when you come home”
As that old train pulled out, John’s ma began to shout
Tellin’ ev’ryone in the neighborhood:
“That’s my son that’s about to go, he’s a soldier now, you know”
She made well sure her neighbors understood
She got a letter once in a while and her face broke into a smile
As she showed them to the people from next door
And she bragged about her son with his uniform and gun
And these things you called a good old-fashioned war
Oh! Good old-fashioned war!
Then the letters ceased to come, for a long time they did not come
They ceased to come for about ten months or more
Then a letter finally came saying, “Go down and meet the train
Your son’s a-coming home from the war”
She smiled and went right down, she looked everywhere around
But she could not see her soldier son in sight
But as all the people passed, she saw her son at last
When she did she could hardly believe her eyes
Oh his face was all shot up and his hand was all blown off
And he wore a metal brace around his waist
He whispered kind of slow, in a voice she did not know
While she couldn’t even recognize his face!
Oh! Lord! Not even recognize his face
“Oh tell me, my darling son, pray tell me what they done
How is it you come to be this way?”
He tried his best to talk but his mouth could hardly move
And the mother had to turn her face away
“Don’t you remember, Ma, when I went off to war
You thought it was the best thing I could do?
I was on the battleground, you were home . . . acting proud
You wasn’t there standing in my shoes”
“Oh, and I thought when I was there, God, what am I doing here?
I’m a-tryin’ to kill somebody or die tryin’
But the thing that scared me most was when my enemy came close
And I saw that his face looked just like mine”
Oh! Lord! Just like mine!
“And I couldn’t help but think, through the thunder rolling and stink
That I was just a puppet in a play
And through the roar and smoke, this string is finally broke
And a cannonball blew my eyes away”
As he turned away to walk, his Ma was still in shock
At seein’ the metal brace that helped him stand
But as he turned to go, he called his mother close
And he dropped his medals down into her hand
Copyright © 1963, 1968 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1996 by Special Rider Music
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