While we forget
In solemn tones, the BBC coverage from the Cenotaph tomorrow will remind us that we're remembering all those fallen in wars. This year, I'm not buying it. I've worn a poppy in November of every year I can remember. But the last couple of years I've found it difficult to square the display with my conscience. Not because I've suddenly awoken to the horrors of war - I don't agree with those who claim Remembrance is a glorification of violence, although there are certainly those who see it that way - but because of a growing suspicion that Remembrance has come to mask the very thing of which it's supposed to remind us. That feeling has grown from the everyday news from Ukraine since February 2022. There is a war going on in Europe. It's being fought in trenches, in conditions very similar to those in the first half of the last century. It's claimed perhaps half a million lives so far, with many Ukrainian civilians among them - many more th...