An excerpt from War Game by Michael Foreman:
Later he saw a pale ball of gold in the misty sky. 'There's a ball in Heaven,' he thought. 'Thank God. We'll all have a game when this nightmare's over.'
At home when he had a bad dream he knew that if he opened his eyes, the bad dream would end. But here his eyes were already open.
Perhaps if he closed them, the nightmare would end.
He closed his eyes.
Hello! I've been sitting on this blog for a couple of days, but my studies have just got in the way and I haven't had time to write it - until now! Anyway, as everyone knows, this year marks the centenary of World War I. In the past I haven't thought a huge amount about this war - I have learned more about the Second World War, and I confess to not being quite as knowledgable about this one as I possibly should be. However, recently this subject has begun to interest me more and more, quite possibly because it is being talked about so much this year. I was born in 1993, and it has hit home to me that were I born 100 years earlier, I would most likely have been caught up in it. If it happened in this day and age, I would probably declare myself a conscientious objector or even an absolutist (which is a step up from being a conscientious objector, where you don't do anything to assist the war effort in any way). However, I don't think I would have grasped that concept was I alive at that time, so I think it extremely likely that I would have been among the countless young men who lost their lives at that time, which is a very sobering thought indeed.
Now, it is my belief (whether or not I am proven correct) that this year is focussing on something contrary to what I think it should be focussing on. I feel that the intentions are not to remember the sacrifices made by the people of the day, but more to justify the reasons that we went to war, therefore giving the public more faith in warfare and making it more likely that they will support the wars that we are taking part in today. There are many reasons that I feel this way, but one of the key ones is the fact that there are plans to release a new £2 coin featuring an image of the then Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, saying 'Your country needs you!' the way that he did on recruitment posters at the time. I find this pretty immoral actually. At the time, it was not known by those young men what this form of war would be like, and I believe that many of them expected it to be an adventure as such. These posters were designed to encourage and entice new blood into taking part, and as a result countless numbers lost their lives. It is not that I have any objection to a commemorative coin, but I feel that having this particular image gives the wrong impression of the war.
I saw a petition recently for an alternative WWI coin which I thought was a fantastic idea, and I wanted to share it with my readers. The idea is to have a coin which features Edith Cavell instead of Lord Kitchener. Edith Cavell was a nurse in the early stages of the war. What made her notable was that she treated everyone, regardless of which side they were on. Ultimately, she was executed for treason with regards to aiding the enemy in 1915. The person who created the petition feels Edith to be a hero, and I agree. She is certainly more worthy of a coin than Lord Kitchener. So, I have decided to share this petition with you. I really hope that this convinces someone with decision-making power to listen and commemorate someone who deserves to be remembered and recognised, rather than someone who promoted an immoral war.
The petition is here (thanks to Sioned-Mair Richards for starting it):
http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-british-treasury-issue-a-2-coin-with-the-face-of-edith-cavell-on-it
There is another thing that I would like to discuss on this blog. There is a proposed Government Bill being discussed at the moment called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This is a free-trade agreement between the European Union and the United States, and essentially means that Europe and the United States would be run under a single market. I believe that the idea is to remove the regulatory differences between the USA and European nations. However, with this scheme there is something considerably more sinister at work. There is a mechanism involved called investor-state dispute settlement. I have been researching it over the last couple of days in preparation for writing this blog, and what it essentially entails is that corporations would be able to sue Governments for legislation which affects their profits.
Consider this for a moment. A corporation, acting in its best interests, is able to sue a Government for impacting its profits. This would essentially mean that if a corporation was making money out of harmful or dangerous activities (and as I'm sure you know, there are quite a few that do), our Government would not be able to pass any legislation to prevent them from doing that. It could cause huge sabotage to environmental campaigning in particular. When a company wants to engage in fracking, collecting of fossil fuels or the destruction of the rainforest, it would be very hard for them to be stopped without paying a huge amount of compensation. Similar things have already happened internationally, in countries such as Argentina, El Salvador and Canada. It could also severely scupper the idea of ordering cigarettes to be packaged plainly (this is not a definite plan in the UK as yet, but it is being talked about, and I for one very much hope it goes ahead.)
Personally, I feel that this is not acceptable in any way. What I like about the UK is that we have one of the least corrupt law and justice systems in the world (and I'm not suggesting that it is not corrupt at all - it is far from that as we all know that dirty things go on behind closed doors, but I think that compared to numerous other countries we have a better deal, though it still could use some vast improvements.) I find the idea of a corporation acting in its own interests having more influence than the Government, who may be acting in the interests of its people, pretty sickening actually. There was recently a Bill passed to prevent lobbying of the Government by pressure groups around election time; I disagreed strongly with that as I support numerous pressure groups and I think that anyone should be able to put the Government under pressure if they think that their policies are unfair, but there are positive elements involved with that general idea as well. Corporations should be all means be able to state their viewpoint and how they will be affected by any law, but that is only one of many things that the Government needs to take into account. If the corporations themselves actually had the right to sue for compensation as a result of legislation, that would make our legal system considerably more corrupt than it currently is. I should also note that the bodies making up the arbitration panels which examine the claims will be composed of corporate lawyers, who will be considerably more invested in the interests of the claimants than of the people.
I am strongly against this whole idea, and I would encourage anyone else to be as well. I have summarised it here as best I can; if you'd like to learn more about it, there is a mine of information on the Internet. Whilst researching the subject for this blog, I read a few really good articles by George Monbiot for the Guardian. The Wikipedia article has quite a lot of information, and obviously that can be tracked back to its sources. The one positive thing is that the final decision on this will not be made until the end of 2014, so we have a good few months to work on getting this to stop. I believe that it can happen; these things have been stopped before, such as SOPA and PIPA out in the States. This can be as well; it just requires a lot of people raising a stink. When this started, it was kept very quiet specifically so that that would not happen; the information is getting a bit more public now, so I remain cautiously optimistic. I implore readers to share this information with everyone, look it up online and just watch out for anything that you can do which would help keep our legal system fair. I will update with any petitions or other means of protest tactic that I hear about. We can stop this, but only with the right information and enough people standing up for what is right.
Just before I finish, I'd like to end this blog on a positive note. I am so happy that equal marriage has finally come through! It has been a long time coming, but the right side triumphed, and I wish anyone who is now able to marry their partner the very best in their life and their relationship. I am so satisfied when such things happen; as a political activist, you come across so many campaigns that seem entirely futile. When something like this happens, it restores my faith in humanity.
Will blog again soon! Please share with your friends if you think they'd be interested, it would be great for this blog to get a bit more known.
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