You Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free

The Sermon preached by the Reverend Harry Bagnall in Christ Church Cathedral on Liberation Day, 14th June 1985

Today on the anniversary of the end of the 1982 conflict, we meet to give thanks for our Liberation.  We were released from the invaders three years ago.  At that time there was a great euphoria, a feeling of a job well done by the British Forces at a heavy cost of life and limb.  It was seen as a bold venture to restore human rights to a small community: a venture which most countries in the free world applauded, others did so secretly.

Sadly views have since changed.  We now read and hear that it was not worth it.  What must the feelings be of the next of kin when they discover, through politicians and headlines, that the lives of their loved ones were thrown away for nothing?  The deeds of valour to establish our freedom are not to be compared to the much greater cost of the maintaining of that freedom.

When was it that those things which are right and humane could only be permitted if they did not cost too much?  What is just and true has nothing to do with economics.  In a world which has had to watch helplessly as some countries are absorbed by tyrannical neighbours, this one successful reversal of that policy has become almost a dirty word.  These Islands have been reduced to a political pawn: not a pawn between nations - they have been that for a long time - but the pawn of British party politics.

Being British I believe that the cheap tricks being used to malign these Islands, merely to undermine the British Government, cannot succeed.  I believe I know the minds of the British people, and they will see through what is being said.  There is no time to say more on the subject.

We, who remember what happened when we lost our freedom, say to those in Britain - to the whole world - that our ideas have not changed.  We value our freedom more because it has a price on it: the real cost of freedom measured in those lives laid down.  Those who paid the price are not forgotten, and the cause for which they died cannot be cheapened just to win votes.  Please do not be misled.  We are a simple people who still value truth.  We are, therefore, ill prepared for chicanery at any level.  Our way of life means that we are also free of media pressure.  We do not depend on opinion polls to tell us what to think.  We cannot be manipulated by those who write the headlines.

We rejoice on this our Liberation Day; our thankfulness has not diminished.  In the great furore which we hear in Britain and the great confusion of words which come from there, I offer you one line of scripture as a guide in all this: Jesus' words in St. John, Chapter 8, verse 32: You shall know the trust and the truth shall set you free.

Reverend Harry Bagnall, a former butcher, was Rector of Christchurch Cathedral, Stanley from 1979 to 1986.  After leaving the Falkland Islands he became Rector of the village of Hook by Goole in North Humberside.  His account of the Falklands War was published as 'Faith Under Fire'.

This article first appeared in the Falkland Islands Newsletter, Edition 24, August 1985.  The Falkland Islands Association is an independent organisation which brings together those who support the continuing freedom of the people of the Falkland Islands.  Its Constitution states that its objectives are to assist the people of the Falkland Islands to decide their own future for themselves without being subjected to pressure direct or indirect from any quarter.

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