I remember attending a conference in the far NW of the USA. At the end one of the others there, Jacques from France, suggested we “do a petit tour”. So three of us set off to explore the area, myself, Jacques and Dr Schweer from Germany (never did call him by his first name). We stopped at a memorial in Klickitat – a replica of Stonehenge.
It was a memorial to the soldiers that died in the first world war. The artist had believed that there had been child sacrifice at Stonehenge and chose it for the memorial saying “They are killing their children again”.
I looked around at my French and German colleagues and wondered how our countries could have ended up with such horrific wars.
A few years ago I headed over to the memorial service at Ranville in France. One of the things that struck me was the flags.
To see the German flag flying beside the French flag meant a lot to me. At the memorial representatives from UK, France and Germany took part.
Walking around the graveyard there were graves of young men of all countries involved, British, Belgian, Polish, French and German.´This grave was of a 17 year old boy that died in the fighting around the beaches.
In the German graves I found boys under 16.
There has been a lot of discussion over the terms “Black Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter”. I thought back to 1944. Then we would have said “British Lives Matter” and it would have been almost treasonable to accept that German lives mattered. But today we can look back and say those 15 year old German boys – yes their lives mattered.
I find it hard to accept dividing society. I saw it when I was at university in London, how the local Bangladeshi community were made in to a sort of ghetto by the local authority.
I remember hearing about Harry and Meghan. Then a news article popped up saying black groups thought she should not be marrying Harry because of the things his ancestors had done. I had never noticed her skin colour. Actually, Harry’s ancestors did wrong to a lot of people, it wasn’t limited to people with a certain skin colour, so why Meghan’s skin colour should be brought in to it was weird to me.
I look at the future and I know that I don’t want anything that creates an us and them scenario to exist. In my future the term “Black Lives Matter” will be as unbelievable as us saying “British Lives Matter”. So, I am sorry, I cannot use the language of division, not because I don’t care, but because I am not prepared to accept the separation, because I want that separation to end. Because everywhere lives are being treated cheaply, and separation is what makes us feel distant to it. I believe people will always care more about “our” lives than “their” lives.
So forgive me, I will say “Our Lives Matter”.
As for Day 10 of my USA trip 4 years ago – this was a day visit to Bryce Canyon. I’m not going to say much about it, just leave you with some photos to look at. It really is stunning, the red rock and green trees create fantastic contrasts.
