COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
A third of young
people don't feel comfortable wearing a poppy – but we should all remember the
history that came before us
Many of those who are
reluctant to wear a poppy say it ‘glorifies war’
It is the normal reaction of the human mind to gradually
forget about terrible things.
It's just a practical response to allow life to go on.
Deliberately trying to keep terrible things alive is simply
perverse, if not morbid.
The World Wars obviously will always be in our history
books, and that is where they should be.
A century, just about, after the end of WWI, poppies are
overdue to become history themselves.
For anyone who believes the myth that by remembering in this
fashion we can in effect make it so it will never happen again, all I can say
is that is utter foolishness.
The Great War itself proves that. Just over twenty years
later, Europe was at it again, and in an even bloodier war.
And just look back in recent history with George Bush's and
Tony Blair's illegal and brutal invasion of Iraq.
Annual poppy wearing did nothing to prevent a horror in
which about a million died, a couple of million were made refugees, tens of
thousands were left shattered, and poisons like depleted uranium dust were
generously deposited to keep killing for years ahead - all in the destruction
of what had been one of the Arab world's most advanced societies.
"Never again" in anything is just a phrase.
