A Quote by David Olusoga
As well as remembering the service of the non-white soldiers and auxiliaries of the first world war, we have also to remember what happened to them and their dreams of justice in the months and years after the armistice.
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When my elders mentioned 'The War,' they invariably meant that of 1914-1918, even after 1939, for the Second World War was merely the continuation of the first, 'an armistice of 20 years,' as Marshal Foch had accurately predicted at the Versailles Peace Conference, with some changes of side.
Remembering the loss of those Irishmen from all parts of the island who were sent to their deaths in the imperialist slaughter of the First World War is crucial to understanding our history. It is also important to recognise the special significance in which the Battle of the Somme and the First World War is held.
I don't remember men in our village after World War II: during the war, one out of four Belarusians perished, either fighting at the front or with the partisans. After the war, we children lived in a world of women. What I remember most is that women talked about love, not death.
I think in many ways, the Spanish Civil War was the first battle of World War II. After all, where else in the world at this point did you have Americans in uniform who were being bombed by Nazi planes four years before the U.S. entered World War II? Hitler and Mussolini jumped in on the side of Francisco Franco and his Spanish nationalists, sent them vast amounts of military aid, airplanes, tanks - and Mussolini sent 80,000 ground troops as well - because they wanted a sympathetic ally in power. So I think it really was the opening act of World War II.
Our lives are structured by our memories of events. Event X happened just before the big Paris vacation. I was doing Y in the first summer after I learned to drive. Z happened the weekend after I landed my first job. We remember events by positioning them in time relative to other events.
Most bayonets throughout history have probably not been used because soldiers just can't do it, something holds them back... the same goes for shooting the enemy. We've got this fascinating evidence from the Second World War, and also from other wars, that most soldiers couldn't do it.
It's very important to understand that World War II is at the base of this new policy. From the 1890s on, the U.S. was always imperialistic. We went after the Philippines, and we did the same in Cuba, in Hawaii. We controlled South America. Woodrow Wilson was not what he was supposed to be. He was very much a white man first. "The world must be made safe for democracy." It really accelerates after World War II.
The problem started before World War I. The gold standard was working fairly well. But it broke down because of the war and what happened in the 1920s. And then the U.S. started to become so dominant in the world, with the dollar becoming the central currency after the 1930s, the whole world economy shifted.
My first job was singing at the Hammersmith Odeon. It was years ago, so I can't remember who I was performing with. I was a sort of anti-climax after two hours of heavy rock-'n'-roll. Seventeen years old in a white dress. It was the first time that I got applause. Wonderful, that noise in my ears.
I think maybe the destructive pleasure got turned into the destructive pleasure of war (something we see still in the images of US soldiers urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban soldiers). Something of the pleasure in destruction gets unleashed, and then becomes part of war effort rationalised first as revenge (or justice defined as revenge). But then it takes new forms, as we see now.
Numerous candidates lose their first White House race and try again four years later - but all of them do so after running surprisingly well the first time. No one ever talked about John Connally or Phil Gramm running again.
I took every chance I could to meet with U.S. soldiers. I talked with them and read the books they gave me about the war. I decided I needed to return to my country and join with them - active duty soldiers and Vietnam Veterans in particular - to try and end the war.
In 1953, after the armistice ending the Korean War, South Korea lay in ruins. President Eisenhower was eager to put an end to hostilities that had left his predecessor deeply unpopular, and the war ended in an uneasy stalemate.
I don't write from dreams because I don't remember mine, but I had a fragment of an image left about twins, whose father was telling them how their lives were going to go for the next eight years. I wrote a scene about that, and then another and then another and then another, and after five months I had 732 pages.
That first world title has to be the most wonderful moment and to beat Bristow, the No 1 in the world, was the ultimate. There's not many matches I remember, but I do remember that one, remember playing really, really well. Bristow was so upset he wouldn't talk to me for a few weeks after I beat him.
The Z’s will kill us all, and then the Z’s will die out and in sixty years there will be no one to remember our silly war, Caroline’s wasted ammunition, my year of zombic survivalism, Rene DesCartes’s musings, or Michelangelo’s sculptures. And that is really only the sadness here as I drink a thousand-dollar bottle of wine down here in the cellar: We did a few things worth remembering, and I wish for someone to remember them.
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