Tuesday, May 8, 2018

ANOTHER DIFFICULT ANNIVERSARY!


Forgetting anniversaries is a very human thing, we can all occasionally do it - its when the State has selective absences of memory that are deliberate and that it can become a problem. I wonder if the 13th April 2019 will be doubly underlined in the diary of whoever is sitting in 10 Downing Street next year - I suspect that it won't be underlined. The 13th April 2019 will be the 100th anniversary of the Jallianwala Bagh or Amritsar massacre - which was somewhat half-heartedly referenced by then no doubt somewhat embarrassed PM David Cameron as a 'shameful event' -so much for making an attempt at a sincere if somewhat belated apology (back in 2013). Whatever you choose to call it - murder is still murder, an atrocity is still an atrocity, even if it was 99, a 100 or 101 years ago.  Perhaps in the aftermath of BREXIT (more than ever) there is a real need to temper the wave of post imperial Brit nostalgia for empire with some post colonial responsibility. 

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