Lockerbie - 35 years on

Repost from 2018

July 1981. On my way north with family for the annual holiday. After a late afternoon break in the long journey in Swaledale, we crossed the Scottish border at 6pm. As we headed north up the A74, an all enveloping horror made me lie down on the back seat. I cannot explain what it was about, or why. But after I had given in to my emotion, I looked up again and asked where we were. "Lockerbie", came the answer, and I saw the sign for the A709 turn-off to Lockerbie and Lochmaben flash by.

The same sign that can be seen in the footage from December 1988. The location where parts of the plane came down. Don't ask me to explain the coincidence. I can't. In 1988, I was a student in Holland, and given to watch rubbish on the television. That evening, the Lockerbie images flashed by - and that road sign. A74 Glasgow, the North - A709 Lockerbie, Lochmaben. The documentaries that were shown these past few days were traumatic to watch. The eye witnesses that spoke were moved to tears, even after all those years. I'm no better. May the innocent victims of Lockerbie, from the plane, or on the ground, all rest in peace.

Eleventh

 On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918

the guns fell silent on the battlefields of the Great War, on land and at sea. Millions lay dead, countries were upended and subjected to revolution. 

The war to end all wars. 

Fast forward twenty years and ten months, to September 1939, and it started all over again. World War II did not come to a proper end until nearly six years later, after an atomic bomb vaporised the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

The war to end all wars. 

Well, Korea, Suez, Vietnam, the Middle East, the Balkans, Ukraine followed. 

Lest we forget what sacrifices were made to safeguard our freedoms. Fragile as though it may be.

Reichskristallnacht 1938

 It is 85 years ago since the Night of Broken Glass [Kristallnacht]. That night, an organised mob of Nazi forces and sympathisers went on the rampage in towns and cities across Germany, smashing and destroying Jewish-owned property and businesses. It was a foretaste of what was to come during World War II. The extermination of anyone deemed sub-human by the warped mind of Adolf Hitler and his henchmen. Jews topped their league of the unfit, closely followed by gypsies, the mentally ill and many many others. The Reichskristallnacht was a night of infamy, and not just to Germany. Hitler had already been allowed to get away with murder for several years beforehand. In 1936, he occupied the Rhineland which had been ceded to France at the end of the First World War. The League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations, cried wolf but had no bite. On 12 March 1938, Nazi forces marched into Austria to join that country to Germany, an event referred to as the Anschluss. Neville Chamberlain flew to Munich to meet with Adolf Hitler on 30 September 1938, returning with the infamous phrase: "Peace for our time". Six weeks later, the Reichskristallnacht took place. Only a few months later, Germany invaded the Sudetenland area of Czecho-Slovakia, and again, nobody moved a finger to stop. In September 1939, Hitler thought he could get away with the invasion of Poland. But this time, it prompted a declaration of war, signalling the outbreak of the Second World War. The lights have gone out in Europe, it was said at the time. The lights in Europe had already been extinguished in 1914, and had not been relit, not even at the end of the First World War. The Versailles Peace Treaty of June 1919 contained all the ingredients for another war, which duly materialised. After the unspeakable atrocities of the Second World War, Germany was divided into four by the victorious allies. The British, French and American sectors became West Germany, whilst the Soviet sector was turned into East Germany, a communist state. Berlin was similarly divided. Until 1961, people from the East fled to the West in droves. A barrier was erected across Berlin in August 1961, later replaced by a high, concrete wall. Similar barriers were put up along the borders between East and West Germany. Anyone trying to flee from East to West was shot on sight, no questions asked. The advent of Mikhail Gorbatchov as leader of the USSR in the 1980s heralded a start of change. And when this wind of change blew across eastern Europe, it blew away all the communist regimes within the space of a few months in 1989.

The Berlin Wall was torn down on 9 November 1989, and you can see the dilemma. Do we remember the Kristallnacht, and not celebrate the reunification of Germany? Do we celebrate the reunification, and ignore the Night of Broken Glass? Maybe the two can be reconciled. The Berliners remember the Kristallnacht in a very low-key but poignant manner. Every year, in the evening of November 9th, candles are left on the doorsteps of houses that were ransacked that night.

The flame, burning at the top of this post, is my candle of remembrance for Kristallnacht.

Hallowe'en

 

Trick or treat, pumpkins, witches and warlocks. I did not grow up in a tradition of Hallowe'en, and I only really came to know it after I moved to the UK, now 26 years ago. Children knocking on your door, asking for sweets, and if you didn't give them the treat, they could play a trick on you. So, bags of sweeties at the ready.

There is a more serious side to it.
A misconception exists that black cats are associated with witches and wizardry (they are not), which some see as a pretext to mistreat the animals Absolutely unacceptable, and I repost the image from 2006 where an animal shelter will not give out black cats for adoption around October 31st.

Hallowe'en is the abbreviation for the Eve of All Hallows, November 1st, when we remember those who have gone on ahead in the past year. I shall do so in quiet contemplation. 

November 1st is also known as Samhainn, the start of the Celtic winter. The clocks went back last Sunday, putting our sunset time back to 4.45pm - and receding. Today was a nice day, with seasonally normal temperatures. But winter is coming, and the coal fire is lit tonight.

Wintertime

 The clocks went back last night, and we're on Greenwich Mean Time until late March. Darkness fell at 5pm this afternoon, a time that will creep forward to 3.30pm by late December. It did feel wintry this afternoon, with a keen easterly breeze making it feel nippy. I went out for a stroll to picture the leaves changing before they fall off the branches in the next few days and weeks. 

Aberfan - 57 years ago today

A clock.

Its hands pointing at a little after 9.13.
This was in the morning
The morning of 21st October 1966

The clock looks a bit battered.
It looks grimey.
Encrusted with black soot... 

The clock stopped permanently at the above time, when it was engulfed in an avalance of coal dust, which had come crashing down from a 111 ft high spoil heap, outside the Welsh mining town of Aberfan

The collapse claimed the lives of 116 children and 28 adults.
109 of the children were killed when their primary / elementary school was engulfed.

Lest we forget

Prevention and cure

After a week of horror stories from southern Israel and the Gaza Strip, I just do not understand why the underlying problems which spawned this unspeakable violence are not being addressed. I am well aware that this issue goes back to 1903, when the Palestinian protectorate was set up by the United Kingdom. It goes back to the 12th century, when the Crusaders were sent to liberate Jerusalem, in order to cover a temporary political problem for the Pope at the time - Innocent III. It goes back to the time of Jesus Christ, a minor prophet in Islam but a major one in Christianity. And it goes back to 1948, when the state of Israel was established, in the wake of the Holocaust, when 6 million people were killed, mainly because they were Jews, had Jewish ancestry, or were otherwise unfit to be alive according to the sick doctrine by a certain Adolf Hitler. 

Let's start in 1948. I remember a quote from a man in what was then Palestine who said: "If one of those people had come to me and explained that he had lost his family in the gas chambers and wanted to start a new life, I would have welcomed him, offered him a chunk of my olive groves and helped him on his feet". That didn't happen. Apparently, the local population was sent packing in order that the Jewish state could be set up on their land. The locals were gathered in refugee camps. And that situation has not changed since. For decades, we have seen explosions of violence emanating from such places, whether it be hijackings of planes, bomb attacks or whatever. Others have in turn hijacked this anger for their own political purposes, such as that preferably forgotten character Osama bin Laden. But the underlying problem has been left to fester for 75 years. 

Israel has formidable armed forces and doughty intelligence services. Because it has never properly addressed the issue of the Palestinians. They were latterly cooped up on the West Bank and fenced into the Gaza Strip. Hatred festered in that sprawling conurbation of more than 2 million in an area of barely 50 square kilometres. Israel thought it was safe beyond the fence, the gun emplacement, the Mossad and the army. Well, that illusion is now well and truly shattered. 

So here we are, embarking on another iteration of senseless violence and death for innocent civilians. In Israel, in Gaza - and, possibly, beyond. It is going to make it ever more difficult to come to a negotiated settlement, in which Palestinians and Israelis can live together in peace. But a negotiated settlement it'll have to be, at the end of the day. That will deprive extremists like Hamas and Hezbollah of the oxygen of support. It will pull the fuse out of the powder keg that is the Middle East. 

I hope it will come to pass.