Forty years ago

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 21 October 2006 13:51:09

A lot of children were killed.

Perhaps one could use the word murdered to emphasize the relation between cause and effect? Perhaps one could or should be more charitable. As I briefly explained to my kids this morning why there was a two minute silence I did ponder what the attitudes would have been of those ultimately responsible. My usual picture of the mine-owning classes and their ilk is one where they view their labourers with no more sentiment than they would view the machinery, the ground, or anything else that could serve to earn them more money. And their labourers' children would only count as future labourers not as valued human beings in their own right. I tried to reach within me to find something that could feel that cold towards fellow humans, and I simply couldn't. Which may, on the one hand, be why I'll never own a mine and never vote tory, or it may be that I'm simply being too harsh. Maybe even those responsible did feel a little sorrow, or even guilt, on that day for the immense grief their greed had led to. Maybe.