{"id":3322,"date":"2014-11-09T11:00:35","date_gmt":"2014-11-09T11:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aniam.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3322"},"modified":"2014-11-10T00:54:59","modified_gmt":"2014-11-10T00:54:59","slug":"for-the-fallen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aniam.co.uk\/blog\/for-the-fallen\/","title":{"rendered":"For The Fallen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"poppy\"Today is Remembrance Sunday, when we honour the sacrifice of those who have fallen in battle. I always have mixed feelings about this day. Although I mourn the passing of these brave (or hapless) souls, I can’t help but feel that they died in vain, ordered to their demise by those sitting comfortably behind desks, far removed from any danger, let alone in peril of their own lives and I feel sad and rather angry about that.\u00a0The “War To End All Wars” and all the others that followed, their pain\u00a0forgotten like that of childbirth by\u00a0those who have no excuse for sending the next\u00a0generation like lambs to slaughter.<\/p>\n

The idea of war fills me with a kind of horror and deep sadness that seems inexplicably absent from the Remembrance\u00a0festivities<\/del>\u00a0ceremonies surrounding this day. It’s all very solemn and proper\u00a0but never results in\u00a0sufficient regret to prevent it happening again. And all the events marking the start of the Great War this year, seem to have a detachment almost bordering on the kind of jollity and gung-ho of\u00a0those who flocked to enlist. Mind you, I find it hard to associate\u00a0the poor, innocent poppy with such abhorrence. I know why it is used*, but before I did, seeing these delicate and brightly-coloured flowers\u00a0waving in the breeze\u00a0brought me\u00a0a sense of joy that I have never been able to reconcile\u00a0with war.<\/p>\n

*Poppies grow on disturbed ground, hence they filled the war-torn Flanders fields. My school was near to a quarry, so poppies were a common sight and I grew up with a fondness for them which pre-dated my knowledge of this and simply heralded the warm Summer days and the end of the school year.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes, it is necessary to fight, often it isn’t, but it pains me to belong to a species where\u00a0we learn nothing from our bloodshed. Even the acts of Remembrance increasingly feel like just another occasion to dress up (even the poppies have morphed into a kind of blingy jewellery), look solemn and play at horror, like distant relatives at a funeral just going through the motions, or Hallowe’en, another festival where the meaning has been lost. War or Treat, anyone?<\/p>\n

In happier news, today also marks the day of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nobody can\u00a0argue that *this* was bad thing, particularly those of use who grew up in the shadow of the Cold War and possibility of total nuclear annihilation that was only ever 3 minutes away. To mark this, DH has insisted that I share this with you as an appropriate tune.\u00a0So on an altogether *much* lighter note, I give you:<\/p>\n\n