A LONG WAIT...
Just recently the British Government issued what amounted to an official apology when Foreign Secretary William Hague expressed `sincere regret` over the treatment of detainees during the Mau Mau uprising against British rule in Kenya in the 1950s. Moreover, HM Gov. will hand over £14million in compensation and also finance the building of a permanent memorial in Kenya to the victims of torture.
I`ve no problem with that, as such, although it might be remembered that there were victims on the other side too, especially the white farmers and those Kenyans who supported the British and I hear no apology concerning them. I doubt we will ever hear one or, if we do, it will only be after yet another very long wait.
Yesterday some details were announced about how the centenary of the 1914-18 Great War will be marked. `Events` costing £50million will be run over the four year period beginning on 4 August next year and will include candlelit vigils, commemoration services and trips for schoolchildren to visit the western front. I`ve no real problem with that either, although I would imagine it to be more appropriate and certainly far more telling for events to be held in November 2018 to mark the ending of that terrible conflict.
Now I`m currently reading Duncan Hamilton`s heart rending book `The Footballer Who Could Fly` which is partly about football history but more significantly it`s about his relationship with his father. In it he recalls the events leading up to the Second World War and the discomfort of the England football team who were ordered by a craven British Government to give the Nazi salute to Hitler and his cronies as the teams lined up in Berlin`s Olympic Stadium before the game.
He quotes the Manchester Evening Chronicle`s football reporter, Arthur Walmsley, who witnessed the scene and said, "In the stadium the near hysteria of the Germans was almost tangible and unnervingly unhealthy. Here were all the frightening, ugly undertones of those Nuremberg rallies; a nation reduced to robots in the insane pursuit of superiority." And he was just reporting on a football match which, by the way, England won 3-1, possibly as a precursor for events yet to come.
All of which returns me to the business of apologies and it seems to be in fashion these days for Governments to say sorry for events long past as if it makes everything alright, enables them to draw a line in the sand and move on at the end of the day, so to speak. And it leads me to suggest that the 11th November, 2018 might be a good time for Frau Sauer (aka Angela Merkel) and her chums to finally get around to apologising not just to the Allies but to all mankind for twice inflicting upon us the most apocalyptic terrors the world has ever known. Gives then time to think about it..... but something just tells me I might be in for yet another long wait.
Now I`m currently reading Duncan Hamilton`s heart rending book `The Footballer Who Could Fly` which is partly about football history but more significantly it`s about his relationship with his father. In it he recalls the events leading up to the Second World War and the discomfort of the England football team who were ordered by a craven British Government to give the Nazi salute to Hitler and his cronies as the teams lined up in Berlin`s Olympic Stadium before the game.
He quotes the Manchester Evening Chronicle`s football reporter, Arthur Walmsley, who witnessed the scene and said, "In the stadium the near hysteria of the Germans was almost tangible and unnervingly unhealthy. Here were all the frightening, ugly undertones of those Nuremberg rallies; a nation reduced to robots in the insane pursuit of superiority." And he was just reporting on a football match which, by the way, England won 3-1, possibly as a precursor for events yet to come.
All of which returns me to the business of apologies and it seems to be in fashion these days for Governments to say sorry for events long past as if it makes everything alright, enables them to draw a line in the sand and move on at the end of the day, so to speak. And it leads me to suggest that the 11th November, 2018 might be a good time for Frau Sauer (aka Angela Merkel) and her chums to finally get around to apologising not just to the Allies but to all mankind for twice inflicting upon us the most apocalyptic terrors the world has ever known. Gives then time to think about it..... but something just tells me I might be in for yet another long wait.
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