Yet the poppy, from the joke it was – no matter how ordinary innocent people feel about wearing it, has been “hijacked,” or so we are told. It has now become the totem of hyper-aggressive, right-wing racist British nationalism. On the football field it has become the weapon of choice to be deployed against non-British outsiders; Irish Catholics and Argentinians – very much victims of British imperial and colonial violence – who play for English clubs. On the lapels of knuckle-dragging thugs it has become a compliment to the Nazi swastika tattooed on their necks.
Who Should We Blame For Brussels?
Blaming Muslims, refugees, and migrants in Europe for these terrible events is like blaming bread for the Great Fire of London. The truth is more uncomfortable, and the culprits are not such soft targets.
Stop Being So Surprised By Terrorism
Has it really escaped our attention that the European Union (of which Brussels is the nerve centre), together with the United States and the United Kingdom, is involved in a globalised war, and that all of us are now collateral in the violence of this war?
Another Twisted Armistice Day
Today, regardless of what we think we are doing, we are not remembering the dead of that horrific war. The so-called ‘Great War’ is now all but beyond the horizon of living memory. Instead we are sharing in – not remembering – an imagined past; a glorious celebration of invented heroes who serve only to justify more modern, less morally justifiable wars – land and resource grabs.
In Flanders Exactly One Hundred Years Ago Today
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
Are You a Victim of Optimism?
Follow @UrFhasaidh We might as well call this the general ignorance round. While taking in a few of the splendid beers Belgium has to offer, during our fortnight in Flanders, we were frequently accosted by the advertising banner for The Wipers Times beer, and it is only now that I am making the connection. ‘Wipers’ … Continue reading Are You a Victim of Optimism?
We Are Waiting on One More Passenger
Without a valid passport or any other form of photographic identification, I travelled from Dublin to Brussels. I made the journey by coach because neither Ryanair nor Aer Lingus would permit me to travel with an expired passport, and unable to wait for a new one to be sent to me I made the decision to take the bus.
Futility and Farce at the Menin Gate
Remembrance is the lifeblood of modern Ypres. Every night of the week military and paramilitary style bands flock to the Menin Gate to pay homage to the dead. In many respects this is a noble gesture, and few can pause beneath the lists of the butchered engraved on the panels of the gate and be unmoved by the scale of the slaughter.
