Forget about remembering
For over 50 years I was unaware we had a family member involved in the first world war, and I held views on Remembrance Day similar to those of Simon Jenkins (Let’s consign the 20th century to history, 17 November). However, on the death of my mother in 2011, I found out from distant cousins that we had a great-uncle who died in 1917 in Belgium. Their research discovered his grave in a military cemetery near Ypres. We also discovered that this man rescued his brother (my grandfather) from a bomb blast and in so doing, was himself shot in the leg, dying one month later.
My grandfather survived to produce four more children, including my mother. So if it were not for my great-uncle’s act of bravery, several family members would not exist.
My brother, my wife and I paid a visit to Ypres on 1 April 2017, on the centenary of my great-uncle’s death, to show our respects.
Andrew Hardman
Cheadle Hulme, UK
• Simon Jenkins put into words what I have been thinking. As one of the few people alive who had a parent who fought in the first world war, I feel entitled to comment.
The “heroes” of the first war found themselves trapped in a meaningless conflict that had been brought about by degenerate rulers and ambitious politicians. They were faced with the choice of being killed by the enemy or executed on the orders of their own officers. The average man in the trenches learned quickly how to stay alive. The rest of the world has failed to learn from that conflict.
Today, it seems, nobody dares appear on television or at a public meeting without wearing a poppy. So I would like to suggest as an alternative we should have black poppies as a protest against all future wars. The proceeds could go to organisations dedicated to peace. But I fear that, if a million marchers were unable to stop the UK from getting into a meaningless war, we could be wearing black poppies for a long time.
Mike Kearney
La Mouche, France
• Simon Jenkins’s view that Remembrance Day has become a “synthetic festival” offends the decency of both British and Commonwealth people. I hereby register my disgust.
Whenever I visit Vimy Ridge, or the Ypres salient, I always express sorrow in the German cemeteries. The Germans too were lions led by donkeys as generals, and hyenas posing as politicians. They too left mothers and wives bereft.
I tried to book a hotel in Ypres for next year’s 100th anniversary. Everywhere is fully booked – it is fair to assume by people with high moral values. I will be at Vimy Ridge.
It is people like Jenkins who seek to stop the younger generations from comprehending that ordinary men and women believed. And, in so doing they sacrificed their todays so that people like him could have their tomorrows.
It is not admirable to subvert others by using the privileged pulpit of a newspaper: especially when such opinions could be extremely distasteful to many decent people.
Paul Cotton
Ornex, France
• May I congratulate Simon Jenkins on his brave article regarding the loss of meaning in our remembrance services. I really object to the Cenotaph’s inscription “The Glorious Dead”, while Wilfred Owen’s “The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/ Pro patria mori” is far more honest and profound.
Kay Nicholson
Sheffield, UK
Coping with the rise of China
Donald Trump is the latest US president who is struggling to deal with the inexorable rise of China to replace the US as the dominant global power. It is clear that Trump is singularly ill-equipped for this once-a-century transition in the global pecking order. It will certainly take more than a bromance between Trump and Xi Jinping to smooth the change under way (A bromance unlikely to run smooth, 17 November).
This time, after 500 years, it is out with the west and in with the east, compounding the scale of the break with the old order. This time the weapons at the disposal of both the rising and declining powers can destroy the planet. There is an imperative to ensure that the transition occurs while keeping global warming below 2C. This time the western conception of democracy will be replaced and the capitalist system will face unprecedented change.
We will need world leaders with the values, vision, patience and courage to create a better world. They are not currently available.
Stewart Sweeney
Adelaide, South Australia
Briefly
• Micah White says we need a binding global legal regime to prosecute financial crimes against humanity (17 November). I agree, but this is only one of the elements of a planetary legal regime. Another should be the international climate crimes tribunal. The time for drafting that one is now.
Stuart Reid
Mt Lawley, Western Australia
• Emmanuel Carrere reports that France’s president Emmanuel Macron, in Athens, recalled a reference by Hegel to Minerva and her wisdom-giving owl (17 November). Surely, whatever name Hegel may have used for the goddess of wisdom, so cultivated a man as the president would have called her by her Greek name Athena, after whom the city he was visiting was named.
Michael Drury
Brussels, Belgium
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