Echoes of war

We’ve written about Operation Overlord twice before; once on the 70th anniversary, and again five years later. In both of those pieces we noted that the events of D-Day were moving from lived history into half-remembered mythology, but now we’ve reached the 80-year mark it’s all looking frighteningly contemporary.

The immediate reason for this is of course the fact that there is an active war grumbling on in the heart of Europe, not to mention the genocide unfolding in Palestine, and bloody conflicts in Sudan and Myanmar, all adding up to a scale of worldwide violence not seen since the 1940s. Even without the fighting, there would still be the unsettling feeling that civilisation is unravelling, with living standards declining, infrastructure crumbling, and fascism on the rise, much like the years leading up to WW2.

I’m comforting myself with the possibly delusional hope that the forthcoming election will also be a throwback to the middle of the twentieth century, and usher in a reforming government that will nationalise everything and rebuild the welfare state. I guess that in the darkest hours we have to stay focused on the promise of a new dawn.