Notes on Remembrance? Forget It!

 

1. My use of the word Pogrom in my poem is deliberate, not flippant. I used it to draw attention to its use by lying news / propaganda outlets with reference to the recent situation in Amsterdam, a deliberately emotive and offensive trivialisation of the horrific reality of pogroms in Russia, and of events such as Kristallnacht. Its use there, was a cynical weaponisation of Antisemitism, (increasingly used) which compromises the safety of Jews everywhere.
2. Footage taken by a Dutch photographer, of a group of Israeli Maccabi supporters starting a fight and beating a Dutch man, was used without her permission, and was turned into “fake news” (lies) by an Anglophone news outlet, effectively accusing the Dutch fans of being the aggressors.
3. The title of my poem is prompted by the chants by Maccabi fans of: “Death to the Arabs”, “Let the IDF f’ck the Arabs”, “f’ck the Arabs”, all of which may lead families of the fallen to think: “Why the hell did we bother in WW2?”.

Amsterdam’s pogrom,

homes under assault,

Palestinian flags

ripped down by those thugs,

jeering “no schools in Gaza

because her children are dead”.

Yet again, British Bullshit

Corporate half-truths tell lies,

Remembrance? forgotten,

as humanity dies.