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Against Forgetting

The world is a launderette:
no matter the corpses piled up,
the good torture and the bad;

bloody clothes washed clean,
each bullet hole repaired,
all made obscenely pristine.

Amnesia grips mankind anew,
all sins forgiven: values
like flesh rendered to glue.

Christopher T. George

True dat.

CTG there has been a concerted effort by our new labour government to expunge history from secondary education in this country. I was astonished to hear from my nephew that he and his class mates regarded the end of the second world war as the basis for the start of their historical knowledge of my country and Europe. Basically they were being 'denied' access to facts which inform that, mistakes from the past must be learned, when about to make decisions for the future. At my uni., 10 years ago, my history academics were bemoaning the lack of essential historical knowledge shown by the new cohorts. When people are denied knowledge, they cannot make informed and considered decisions.

Byron wrote:CTG there has been a concerted effort by our new labour government to expunge history from secondary education in this country. I was astonished to hear from my nephew that he and his class mates regarded the end of the second world war as the basis for the start of their historical knowledge of my country and Europe. Basically they were being 'denied' access to facts which inform that, mistakes from the past must be learned, when about to make decisions for the future. At my uni., 10 years ago, my history academics were bemoaning the lack of essential historical knowledge shown by the new cohorts. When people are denied knowledge, they cannot make informed and considered decisions.

Thank you, KjeXXXer and Byron. Byron, what you say about the Labour government in Britain trying to expunge history from secondary education is indeed alarming. It's a cliché to say that there are lessons to be learned in history and another to say that history is doomed to repeat itself but both sayings are true. So certainly as a historian and a poet such a trend disturbs me, along with the fact that many youngsters don't have the cognizance of what went on in the past that the young of old did. And this is progress???

All the best

Chris

We must remember that the ancient Greeks executed poets, because poets think, observe, consider, encapsulate and tell the truth. Remember Sassoon during his conversion in the First World War? From supporter of the War, to declaring the obscenity of trench warfare. Awarded the Military Cross for bravery and then throwing it away in disgust at the way their 'leaders' behaved towards the ordinary man/soldier.

This makes for interesting reading...
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/fea ... e_continue