Blind mouths

Let us forget the Megrahi debate. Let us forget Kenny MacAskill's idealism and the blind mouths stuffed with party loyalties who opposed him. Perhaps we are too young a nation to expect something better. We would like to think so but maybe it was always so.
     I was 13 when war broke out; soon to be 14. This is the age of puberty; the age of corruption. Corrupted I was. Or was I? Now, on the eve of my 84th birthday I look back and no longer blame the Germans and the Japanese for what happened in 1939. Our whole species was mad then. That is the only way to remember the worst century our world has ever known.
     Yet there was idealism too. I could still give you the names of some of the idealists. They fought in Spain. They fought in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939. They saw that a foreigner's fight was their own fight and they joined in not for party or nationalist causes, but for their ideals. They wanted the right to be left with their own thoughts and with bread in the mouths of their children.
     In 1939 there were many people with ideals. I can speak of them because I was one. I had a schoolboy's ideals and they persisted until I was old. I would have bombed Dresden. I nearly did. I volunteered while still a schoolboy to be a bomber pilot. Fifty-five thousand five hundred of them flew from airfields in the east of England and never came back. They're all dead. There are a few bunches of flowers on the continent where they fell. Apart from these flowers they are forgotten. Their average age was 22. Don't try to remember them. They're gone for good.
     For me they represent the youth of all nations who die for causes. We didn't understand these causes. We thought we did but we didn't. By that one word 'we' I mean the youth of all nations who did terrible things to one another and to old people and to children. I am haunted, (as who is not?) by the memory of a photograph of an eight-year-old boy in a big cap standing on the edge of a crowd with his hands in the air. Near him stands a German soldier. Together these two represent the youth of all mankind. We stood there, as we still stand: ready to be corrupted or killed: or already corrupted. In the long history of our species it matters little. In the 20th century we were nearly all corrupted. In my youth I loved war and couldn't wait to take part. I was more dangerous than a 15-year-old with a knife and a drink in him. I would have killed more than any 15-year-old. I would have bombed Dresden. I was an idealist.
     That is perhaps why we need some stupid people along the margins of power. Germany has produced some of the most civilised people of our species; the Japanese some of the most gentle. In the First World War the Japanese were taught to treat their prisoners as their guests. Then a new set of leaders taught them a different duty. With the idealism of youth they accepted each teaching.
     Because youth is so easily corrupted we must be careful of the idealism of grown-ups. When an ideal is forced on others it becomes a tyranny. To persuade youth to follow age can lead to the worst actions known to our species. The gas chambers are one result. On a lesser scale are the blowing from the sky of Flight 103 and the bombing of Dresden. Both were done by people who believed they were doing right.
     That is why looking at the blind mouths of the majority of the Scottish parliament I am glad that since 1945 we have never had total agreement on anything in these islands. Total agreement is tyranny. Libya with its prancing horses and its dancing girls is an example. Am I the only person who watches the extending violence of the United States with fear? The youth of any country is so easily corrupted that when I see an American serviceman put his hand on his heart and say, 'God Bless America', I fear for us all.
     I return to the Scottish parliament. I have no doubt that Kenny MacAskill did the right thing. Mercy and compassion are fine ideals. Yet I have a sneaking feeling that in any country we are lucky also to have the stupid, the dullards, and the blind mouths which gape without understanding. Maybe they are there to stop us idealists from going too far.
     Remember! I write as an idealist who would have bombed Dresden.

Ian Hamilton QC was born in Paisley in 1925 and was educated at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. He was called to the Scottish Bar in 1954. He is the author of 'The Taking of the Stone of Destiny', a book recounting his own part in the event.