Armistice Day: Remember the stain of wars…

At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the guns fell silent in World War I and a battered world really hoped that this one had been “the war to end all wars”.

It wasn’t. Millions of deaths and untold destruction later, today’s commemoration of the Armistice should remind us, starkly and painfully, that killing is still very much in the nature of humankind.

The celebration of the day with poppies – the same as those which were the first things to grow back in the ruined, blood-soaked soil of Flanders battlefields – has spread further than just being a British commemoration.

Many around the world mark the day.

And that is why we should never allow the tradition to be hijacked by those pursuing right-wing nationalist agendas, or even those who want to bury all remnants of the past under the gravestone of colonialism.

Today’s pause – for that is what it will be in many places – should be for all those who never came home, who lie forever in some foreign field; for those who died fighting against injustice; as well as those hoodwinked into believing they sacrificed for a cause.

Wars stain our present and rob us of our future.