We Won't Remember Them

Even now that Remembrance Sunday has been more or less officially re-branded as a rah-rah for the troops, the poppy-wearing patriotic consciousness remains in need of protection from certain British soldiers. During the Spanish civil war about 2500 British and Irish citizens joined up to fight against Franco's coup, and the current Spanish government is commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Franco's death by bestowing citizenship on some of the volunteers' descendants. Among them is the son of a Latvian immigrant who had the temerity to study medicine at Edinburgh and then try to infiltrate the territorial army; whereupon, with unimpeachable British decency, the authorities responded first by threatening him with deportation and later by conscripting him. Along with that of the other International Brigades volunteers, his memory is unlikely to be welcome behind any of the well-fed would-be-solemn faces at the Cenotaph next week.