It's already November 11th in Australia. I was posting to FB friends there, and other parts of the Commonwealth. Remembering WW1 is a serious matter to that population to those cultures. Here it's mostly forgotten. It's a niche knowledge.
History fans, and political science students, and professionals are aware of it in the States,...few others. The Vietnam experience dimed our interest in anything celebrating or memorializing past wars.
Some young people are not aware there was a WW1. Others have the vaguest notion of the Second War or which side of the Korean or Vietnam wars we fought on.
We are a nation with few memories now. This bodes badly for our future.
However for those that do remember the 11th day at the 11th hour in the 18th year of the then somewhat new 20th century. The First World War came to an end. This the first round in the Second Hundred years War. 1914~2001.
The First Hundred years war was in the 15th century the Third beginning in 2001. The Fourth perhaps around 2110. After that there may be no organized human culture left to fight.
Not because of the wars. Rather due to the Earth itself rebelling against our presence upon it, and washing us away, and starving us via it's rising oceans, and expanding deserts.
...grim.
However we have it in us to adapt. Adapt out of our habit of conflicts, and adapt to a new planetary climate. We can do this are more than capable of it.
However likely wont.
I spotted a speech on YouTube by a lady, probably British, arguing that Britain shouldn't have fought in WWI. I haven't listened yet, but I agree with the thesis. Such wars should be commemorated, not celebrated. At the Somme alone there is a huge cemetery, at the center of which is an ossuary containing the bones of 130,000 young men. Yet some people wanted the war because they made money by it.
ReplyDeleteScary what young people don't know about history these days. I suspect their geography is sketchy too. This in the USA, not necessarily other countries.
Z
At this moment I am watching cspan3 were an American man and a Frech man are walking through the area where we fought 100 years ago. Incredibly live ammunition is still being washed out of the soil.
ReplyDeletePadraig
The effects of industrial warfare are very long lasting.
ReplyDeleteAgent Orange still poisons the forests, and jungles of Vietnam.
40 years later that, and birth defects still occur. Vets on both sides as they age still suffer the effects. My own brother died at 62 from a heart attack directly related to the health issues he got from that war.
The Vietnam War is still killing soldiers on both sides.