A throwback to just one hundred years ago, the biggest global conflagration (until then) in human history ended. At precisely 11.00 a.m. on 11th November 1918, the First World War ended. Millions died in vain and countless more suffered in its aftermath.

Sourced From Wikipedia: First World War Soldiers

In 1939, barely 21 years later, before lessons on humanity could be drawn, the Second World War started (earlier in the Far East). It was a much larger global human conflict than the First ~ and the advent of thermonuclear bombs threatened the annihilation of the entire human race. It still does.

From RAF Website – Enactment of the Battle of Britain (Second World War)

Did we not learn anything after the countless millions (on either side of the alliances) who were “ordered to die”, to borrow the words of an Ottoman general?

I may have forgotten much of what I read from  Aldous Huxley’s Ends And Means, but I remember his observation about us humans – that we are the only species in the animal kingdom which kill its own species other than for food.

Truck Attack In Nice On Bastille Day 2016

The “ordered to die” syndrome has taken on a more sinister threat and reality now. One man, controlling a single truck, can and has killed over 80 of his own species. Hundreds more were maimed, many rendered physically handicapped for life. What’s going on with our human race here on our blue planet? That is just one of the many futile killings in the past months of ordinary citizens – men, women and children.

Is the answer to all the prevailing violence just blowing in the wind? For me, I would like to imagine, as John Lennon did:

Imagine All The People 

Living Life In Peace.

This is my tribute to all those who have lost their lives in the futile killings and to John Lennon, whose life was cut short by gun shots whilst walking home one evening in New York. You may also say that I’m a dreamer, but surely I’m not the only one. I loved this song when I first heard it sometime in 1971. And I still do now, more so in fact. Imagine, the song and its lyrics have a timely relevance to the world around us.

The lyrics of Imagine, poetic and poignant, are written here for posterity :

Imagine there’s no heaven

it’s easy if you try

no hell below us

above us only sky

Imagine all the people

living for today…

Imagine there’s no countries

it isn’t hard to do

nothing to kill or die for

no religion too

Imagine all the people

living life in peace…

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

no need for greed or hunger

a brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

sharing all the world…

you may say I’m a dreamer

but I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

and the world will be as one.

Wild Poppies by Claude Monet. The rememberance poppy is used to commemorate fallen soldiers.