Our 'Last Battle'?

Recently I’ve been listening to “God in the Dock” on Youtube at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj8dRBw_Ouw
How prophetic were Lewis’s words, that in contrast to all previous generations, our generations seek to sit in judgement over God almighty and decide whether He is politically correct enough to deserve our attention; ‘as if a lunatic could extinguish the sun by scrawling “Darkness” on the walls of his cell’ (please excuse the paraphrase from memory).

None of my 63 years so far have ever felt so much like we are living through Narnia’s Last Battle. NATO’s proxy Ukraine is firing missiles into Russia itself, and Russia is threatening to bomb Western Europe in retaliation: “It could all be over by Christmas”. Three missiles, they boast, is all it would take to annihilate the country and the culture that Lewis once loved and fought for.
Meanwhile that so-called United Kingdom has decayed beyond belief. It is no longer recognisable as the country I grew up in. The Calormenes, who entered (and continue to enter) the country in small numbers, ostensibly seeking asylum from their own cruel regimes, are now a substantial and obstreperous minority who roam the streets whenever they wish, brandishing knives and machetes. The much vaunted British police now turn a blind eye, or flee – preferring the relatively safe task of policing citizens’ social media posts, and jailing them for “hate speech” (i.e. speech that the government hates). Christians are arrested and jailed for praying silently within sight of an abortion clinic, i.e. for a “Thought Crime”. The BBC has degenerated into a corrupt government’s “Ministry of Truth”. The credibility indeed of most of the institutions we once trusted – our national health service, doctors, police, judiciary, the monarchy, the media, our democratically elected government, the Church of England – has all but vanished. The anger and fear on the streets is palpable.

Please pray for C.S.Lewis’s beloved homeland: nearly 1000 years since Britain was last conquered she now faces her gravest battle yet.

I am finding it really hard to respond to this email. Lewis certainly did not intend the Calormenes to represent the middle eastern people who arrive as migrants seeking either safety or a decent life. I am afraid I see this letter as the “hate mail” which it mocks. Jesus and his family were migrants to Egypt, and we do not know if it was legitimate or not or what the borders were like at that time. Again and again in the Bible we are reminded to behave with courtesy and charity to the “strangers within our gates”.
Incidentally I cannot be regarded as a wild young juvenile as I have 87 summers behind me and with reference to the writers comments on the support for Ukraine in their current battle to maintain their independence from Russia I was actually alive during Britain’s stand against Hitler and Nazi Germany and know very well that at some point you have to stand up against dictators who march into other people’s countries. So far Britain and Europe’s stand against Putin has been very moderate and we have watched the destruction of Ukraine and the deaths of their civilian population with a sort of helpless horror as the smaller boys in a playground might watch the large playground bully torturing and mistreating his victims.
I actually find this letter unsuitable and very wrong within the Spare’Oom forum. By all means pray for Britain, that her rulers and people may be motivated by the greatest of all virtues charity.

In defense of Hyoi, except for his use of the term Calormene to refer to the migrant criminal class, his overall societal observations seem spot on. Is it “hate” to speak about what is actually happening? I’m curious what you think it is Hyoi wrote that is untrue?

Putin is a murderous thug, but I think it is also true the the USA under Biden’s minders along with NATO ministers almost made it impossible for Putin not to invade. They so so badly mishandled the situation. Anyone could have predicted it, and many wise analysts did predict it.

One thing it’s hard to argue with Trump about is that it never would have happened if not for Biden rather than Trump being President. In addition, the supreme incompetence of the Afghanistan panicked evacuation and the subsequent capitulation to and refunding of Iran made it inevitable.

Regards,
Michael

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…so it is therefore completely fallacious to use that situation as comparable to the massive illegal immigration invasion that the United States has seen over the past four years, though I can’t speak to the question of middle-eastern immigration to the UK.

And we’re also reminded again and again that God establishes the nations and their borders. Inherent in nationhood is the ability and authority to control its borders. Also inherent in nationhood is a shared cultural identity. Neither of these is present with unchecked immigration.

Oh well. I am appalled at this. How about how Europeans invaded the Americas (and many other lands) and massacred the native peoples there? Wasn’t that also unchecked immigration? Did the Europeans share a culture with the native peoples? Why is one okay and the other criticised?

Oh right, it’s fine when it’s white people doing it. My bad.

To Junia, No - “Your Good”. So absolutely right. I am absolutely shocked at the lack of charity shown by my fellow Spare’Oomers. What is the message on the Statue of Liberty, something about bringing your poor. Perhaps it should be changed to bring your wealthy, white and well heeled. The number of migrants crossing your borders from the South is miniscule when compared to the overall population and the land available in your country. Now I begin to realise why America voted for a white, male criminal rapist, rather than an intelligent black woman.
I lived in the US for 12 years in the 50s and 60s, the time of civil rights and marches. We felt the (God help us) Goldwater was too right wing. At least he was a decent man. We thought we were winning when it came to civil rights. We were wrong. It is really sad. I am almost glad that my dear husband has passed away. He loved America so much and would have been so grieved to see it now.
We came back to Ireland or rather I came back and he joined me as we could not afford to live in the US. We would not have had enough money for me to be a legal immigrant, and of course I would not have had medical insurance. Actually I dare not go to visit my grandchildren or my son who has Alzeimers as if I became ill it could bankrupt the family.
Sometimes I think that the immigrants (legal and illegal) really do not know how hard life is going to be in the new country, but I do know that in England (post Brexit) there have been a lot of problems in picking the crops on farms. The work done by the incomers was nearly always something which the native population did not really want to do.
Finally Dan, I am disgusted by your use of the word “invasion”. Clearly you do not know what invasion means. Putin invaded Ukraine, with guns and bombs and shells. Hitler invaded Poland, France, Belgium, Norway etc. A few thousand people crossing a border in the hope of a better life does not constitute and invasion.

I would like to comment on the Russia-Ukraine war. This war did not begin in 2022. It began in 2014, when there was a violent overthrow in Kiev of a democratically elected Russian-leaning president. This put the Russian fleet in Crimea in danger, and Russia took over Crimea to protect it. This was very favorably received by the Russian population of Crimea, and they voted overwhelmingly to become a part of Russia. Since this was achieved so easily, the majority Russian population of eastern Ukraine also wanted the same outcome. But this proved to be more difficult, and a civil war ensued in eastern Ukraine. After a while, a part of that territory was under the control of the Russian separatists, with Russian support, but without official recognition by Russia. This left those territories in an untenable economic position, with no support from Ukraine and very little economic support from Russia. Another concerning factor for Russia was the intent of NATO to expand into Ukraine, which NATO was not willing to give up. This finally ended with the 2022 invasion. Not too long after the invasion, an agreement was actually negotiated between Russia and Ukraine to end the war. However, this was not to the liking of the US and NATO, who convinced the Ukrainian authorities to continue the war, with the assumption that Ukraine could prevail with NATO assistance. Clearly, this has not happened, and it’s very difficult for the US and its NATO allies to admit defeat. I don’t know whether Trump will be able to make any difference, since he has already said that he would not agree to the peace proposal offered by Putin, which would involve ceding to Russia four Ukrainian predominantly Russian territories, already partly occupied by Russia.

Well, folks, this has been quite an eye-opener! At least the old forum has livened up a bit!

My base post was about how I, as an ex-pat Brit, feel like my country is living through a book called “The Last Battle”, by C.S.Lewis, whom some here may remember. I provided a few examples as to why, and will provide more. But the topic has quickly degenerated into a squabble about Rep/Dem politics, immigration, colonialism, racism, war…
Elizabeth has even suggested that my original post is “unsuitable” for a C.S.Lewis forum and presumably should be deleted: Woke “Cancel culture” for SpareOom?

“I did not know till now that the usages of Sulva were so common among you.” - from “That Hideous Strength”

(Yes, I know, Merlin is talking about contraception here, but that’s a squabble for another day).

First, a word about Calormenes. In the Narniad these are the traditional enemies of Narnia and of Aslan; inhabitants of a country beyond a desert, far to the south. They are almost universally depicted as cruel, mendacious, treacherous and avaricious. In “The Horse and his Boy” they attempt to conquer Narnia by stealth. In The “Last Battle” they succeed.

“Certainly”, you say? Perhaps you’d like to provide some evidence for that opinion? For my part, I suspect Lewis would say it rather depends on what they are seeking besides “safety and a decent life”. Take the following quote from TLB:

There was no reason, of course, why one should not meet a Calormene or two in Narnia — a merchant or an ambassador — for there was peace between Narnia and Calormen in those days. But Tirian could not understand why there are so many of them: nor why they were cutting down a Narnian forest. He grasped his sword tighter and rolled his cloak round his left arm.

Now the fact is that organized boatloads of mainly fighting-age men land frequently on the British coast, and quickly disperse to avoid capture. They despise the decent life that British citizens have had hitherto. Their idea of a decent life is to wage jihad and impose sharia law on everybody else, that is, to recreate in the UK the same oppressive regimes that they are supposed to be fleeing from. Note that Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Caribbean and East Asian communities are usually peacefully integrated, i.e. this is an ideological problem, not a racial one. Moreover, for genuine refugees there has always been a legal immigration process.

And then the last battle of the last King of Narnia began. What made it hopeless, even apart from the numbers of the enemy, was the spears. The Calormenes who had been with the Ape almost from the beginning had had no spears: that was because they had come into Narnia by ones and twos, pretending to be peaceful merchants, and of course they had carried no spears for a spear is not a thing you can hide. The new ones must have come in later, after the Ape was already strong and they could march openly.

Now the sad thing is that, in today’s UK, the Ape and the Cat and the old home-grown enemies of Aslan are already in power. Cair Paravel has already fallen. Roonwit’s army has been annihilated. The Calormenes can carry weapons openly, aided and abetted by a corrupt government, judiciary and “two tier” policing. Nor, sadly, do we have a faithful and valiant king like Tirian to lead the remnant – King Charles III still thinks “Defender of the Faith” has something to do with his Land Rover.

So that’s the enemy within; enough justification, perhaps, for a Brit’s feeling he’s living through “The Last Battle”? But what about the enemy without, the threat of annihilation from Putin’s Russia?

Some of you may remember the “Cuban missile crisis” of 1962. It is frequently portrayed as the closest the world has come to nuclear war. Now imagine that JFK had blinked first, that the missile bases had been set up in Cuba and that Russian missiles are being fired (by Russians of course, because the Cubans are not trained to use them) into the USA, bringing destruction to US cities. Now, whether you think him a monster or a saviour, Putin is currently in the situation of that hypothetical JFK. What would JFK have done? This is the 1962 crisis on steroids, and it is here and it is now.

So I repeat my request, please pray for the country Lewis lived in, loved and (in all charity) fought her enemies for. Those enemies, within and without, have never posed a bigger threat to her.

I was in the US during the Cuban missile crisis. I can remember driving down to Washington from our home in New Jersey with my children and wondering if we would be returning alive. WE knew very well what “the bomb” could do as my husband had spent his army days at the test sites near Vegas. Actually the nearest that the world came to a nuclear war was when there was a mistaken reading and Russia thought they were under nuclear attack and if it had not been for one man saying “wait” the missiles would have been released.
As an ex-pat Brit perhaps you are getting a “Fox News” picture of the “boat loads” of middle eastern armed soldiers landing on the shores of your ex country. I will admit that there is a criminal element among the migrants, but this has always been so among new migrants to a country, you need only look at the Italians and Irish in the US during the early years of the last century, to see that unfortunately is how it works. I certainly do not see Lewis as a prophet who foretold the entry of evil foreigners and to be honest I think he would have been horrified if anyone had said that The Last Battle had any such intention. The main interest in the UK appears to be the problem of “people trafficking” that is the making of money by putting desperate migrants into unsafe boats or lorries which can lead to their deaths. My English (I am Anglo-Irish) side is so very proud of the RNLI and the Coastguard who go out to save the lives of these people regardless of where they come from or whether they are legal or not.
It is a total nonsense to say that Putin is in the situation of the hypothetical JFK. Ukraine does not have a nuclear capability. Putin quite shamelessly would like to return the Eastern part of Europe to again being the USSR. There are no Russian cities destroyed and reduced to ashes by constant bombardment with missiles. There are no Russian children having their school lessons in subway stations. If Ukraine falls who is next, Lithuania, Latvia, Esthonia?? Where will it end. NATO is not the villain here.
Anne Lee

Fact check: not a “few thousand” — millions. 8 million nationwide:

Elaine