Tomorrow marks the end
of the European chapter of the bloodiest conflict in global history, involving a
total of 190 countries. Over just 6 years an estimated 60 million people died -
20 million military and 40 million civilian (almost half of whom were in
Russia). Many, many, millions more were injured, traumatised or displaced. And
the damage wasn’t confined to people – the impact on marine and terrestrial
ecosystems is still being felt.
To commemorate the 75th
anniversary of that day by flogging the dead horse of British exceptionalism, or
by using bunting & flag-waving to distract either from the clusterfuck of the UK
government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, or from the impending car crash of a hard Brexit
at a time of global economic meltdown, would be a grotesque abuse of the memory
of all those millions.
Instead let’s remember,
and celebrate, the collective international effort which transcended petty
nationalism to bring that appalling and devastating war to an end.
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