Apathetic performance and a pathetic decision

This year marks the centinary of the beginning of the First World War, seventy years since the d day landings & 86 years since everyone has been entitled to vote. Three very different anniversaries but all with a connection. As a result of the gargantuant effort and sacrifice of millions of ordinary people during WW1 the powers that be kindly allowed ordinary people to vote and have their say...though it took another 14 years for them to recognise that women may have the same thinking power as men and in most cases more. Then as we all know came the greatest threat to the new found emancipation with fascism and dictatorship threatening our shores, June 1944 was the beginning of the end of that, allowing a general public to at least have the minimum say when it comes to who ruins err runs our lives. Millions of normal everyday folk gave everything for that right and exercised it eagerly thereafter. Well eagerly upto the past decade or so. The turn out for elections must leave our forefathers wondering "why did we bother in the two wars?" And that feeling must be multiplied by the events of the past week. The 60% or so who didn't bother have helped to create a very dangerous situation, not only here but all over Europe, the same Europe everyone fought to free has been handed to people who would have it return to the 1920s and 30s. Insular, nationalistic, paranoid. The excuse of "they are all the same" does not wash anymore as,clearly, they are not all the same at all. Fuelled by nationalistic media and over exaggerated statistics, a great many of the 36% or so that did vote chose an extreme party. I will repeat that figure, 36%. Not even half.... What would the situation be like if 70,or 80% had voted? I hope beyond hope that it would have been very different. All the main parties need to take a good long look at themselves as much as the general public does as the self regulated, self judged vested interests have turned people off and that now needs urgent change as it is no longer just a case of " we will win with 40% of 36%" and leave it at that, these low turnouts are now threatening to make the extreme the norm and put in jeapordy the freedom won at such a cost. One last thing to think about, there have recently been elections in Afghanistan and India. How many saw the lines of queuing people waiting in some cases hours and hours to cast their vote, a vote that means so much to them, the same vote that seems to mean so little to us. I never intended this blog to become a outlet for spleen venting but I have to mention a decision that does have a kind of link to the above. Remember my term insular? Well I cannot see any good reason why our so called Education Minister has scrapped children reading American classics such as To Kill A Mockingbird, The Crucible or Of Mice And Men in English Literature. The reason? They are not British...apparently there is another reason for Of Mice...Mr Gove hates it...good sound policy reason that one! I can remember reading all three of these in English Literature and along with the 4 Shakespeare plays I can still remember them clearly now 30 years later! They are brilliant stories and powerful and I don't think it turned me off reading anything "made in England" since. I hope that these titles and others are still passed onto students for spare time reading as they should not be allowed to gather dust on the shelf or the digital equivalent on Kindle. Maybe Mr Gove doesn't like the tragic ending to Of Mice...perhaps seeing himself as Lenny asking George (or David) "tell us again why I scrapped this book?"