BELFAST RB BOOKLET 2020 - Flipbook - Page 82
Ci t y of Belf ast Grand Bl ack Chapt er - Dem onst rat i on Bookl et 2020
precious little to spare. Indeed Britain had
largely been bankrupted fighting the war whilst
France had been stripped almost bare by the
invading Nazis and their associated brutality.
Indeed many feared that the four
horsemen of the apocalypse (illustrated previous
page) depicting pestilence, war, famine and
death; so familiar during the middle ages;
had again made another comparable
appearance within the modern world.
Politically, the impact of the war looked as
though the once mighty powers of Japan and
Germany would never rise again. In retrospect
of course, however it is now easy to see that
their populaces, highly educated and skilled,
still possessed the capacity to rebuild their
respective shattered societies.
Meanwhile the main worldwide influential
powers, America and Russia remained so
dominate in 1945, that a new term, which
remains to this day, was coined for them ..
'superpowers'.
The United States was both a military and
economic might whilst the Soviet Union still
imposed brute force along with the intangible
attraction of a Marxist ideology to stem any
unrest amongst its own people.
The great European dominions, that had
controlled much of the globe, from Africa to
Asia, were by now on their last legs and soon
disappeared through their own internal
weaknesses and rising nationalist movements.
Despite this the war should not be viewed
as being responsible for all of this, for
much of it had already been happening
long before 1939; but in reality had indeed
acted as more than a mere accelerator.
However it had also heightened change in
various other ways; for example in the field of
science and technology as by that time the
world had developed/manufactured atomic
weapons, resulting in global, atomic power.
Under the stimulus of war, governments also
poured valuable resources into developing
new medicines and technologies for without
the conflict, it would have taken much longer,
if ever, to enjoy the benefits of penicillin,
microwaves or the computer, the list goes on.
Equally the shared suffering and sacrifice
of those years strengthened a belief in
most democracies that governments had a
moral obligation to provide even basic care
for all of their citizens.
When elected in the summer of 1945, the
Labour government under Clement Attlee
(below) moved rapidly to establish the
welfare state within the UK.
The rights of women also took a huge step
forward as a reward for their contribution to the
war effort, as well as their own share in the
suffering, whilst across the Channel in France
and Italy, women finally got the vote.
The end of the war inevitably brought a
settling of old scores, where across many
parts of battered Europe and Asia, people
took extreme measures into their own
hands.
Collaborators were beaten, lynched or shot;
women
who
had
fraternised with German
soldiers also had their
heads shaven or
worse.
Various
Governments followed
suit, by setting up
special war crimes
courts, charging those
identified as having worked with the enemy;
even to the extent of purging the civil service
and police. However much of this revenge was
used by some, solely to gain self or financial
advantage in the post-war world.
In China as well as parts of eastern
Europe, communists took it to mean that
anyone accused of collaboration with the
Japs or the Nazis to be more of an excuse,
in order to eliminate and get rid of either
their political or class enemies, or in some
cases, both.
For a time the Allies also introduced an
ambitious programme into Germany, known as
'de-nazification', although later this was quietly
abandoned, when it became clear that any
German society would be totally unworkable, if
former Nazis were physically debarred from
holding down a job.
IN MEMORY OF THE FALLEN - 80 - AND THE FUTURE OF THE LIVING