BELFAST RB BOOKLET 2020 - Flipbook - Page 84
Ci t y of Belf ast Grand Bl ack Chapt er - Dem onst rat i on Bookl et 2020
But two very different German
societies were also beginning to
emerge with western powers
alarmed at the elimination of
non-communist political forces
in eastern Europe to the
establishment of Peoples'
Republics under the dictatorial
thumb of the Stalin (right)
regime within the Soviet Union.
So much so that within two
years of the finality of WWII the
cold war had become an
established fact.
Soon both sides had begun
to build military alliances in
anticipation of a new shooting
war that many feared was bound to come.
In 1949, the Soviet Union also exploded its
first atomic bomb, giving it a somewhat parity
when playing hardball, with the United States
of America.
At that juncture, one factor preventing
the cold war from turning into more than a
hot one, was attributed to the terrifying
new power of atomic weapons thus
creating an opposing stand-off between the
two superpowers, in what became known
as .. MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction).
By now, Japan and Italy had lost much of
their previous empires as a result of their final
defeat in WWII. Britain and France as well as
the Netherlands also saw many of their
imperial possessions soon beginning to
disappear in the aftermath of the war.
These former imperial powers no longer
had the financial or even the military
capacity to hang on to their vast territories,
nor did people want to pay the price of
retaining imperial territories, whether in
money or blood, which was particularly
exemplified when Britain pulled out of India
in 1947, leaving behind a split between the
Republics of India and Pakistan.
Others soon followed with both Sri Lanka
and Malaysia also opting for the road of
independence not long afterwards.
The Dutch too, fought a
losing war but finally in
1949, it conceded its East
Indies colony to Indonesia's
desire
for
its
own
independence.
By the end of the
century, the UN had grown
from an alliance of fiftyone in 1945 to one
hundred and eighty-nine
affiliated countries.
Because of the cold war,
there was never any
comprehensive
peace
settlement after WWII as
there had been in 1919; instead there were
just a number of separate agreements or mere
ad hoc decisions.
In Europe most of the borders established at
the end of WWI had by now been restored,
with the Soviet Union grabbing back some bits
of territory such as Bessarabia, which it had
lost back then, to Romania.
The one major exception being Poland,
often referred to as 'a country on wheels',
due to it having moved slightly, some two
hundred miles to the west, losing around
seventy thousand square metres to the
Soviets but gaining some, though slightly
less land to the west, from Germany.
In previous publications of our annual
Demonstration Booklet, we have long since
tried to absorb and deal with the physical
consequences of both World Wars, but it still
remains a very powerful set of memories.
How societies wish to remember and
commemorate the past often says
something about how they see themselves.
So how should the past be remembered
and should we ever want to forget?
WITHIN THIS GREAT UNITED KINGDOM
AND OUR ALLIES AROUND THE WORLD,
THE ANSWER IS PLAIN AND SIMPLE .. WE
MUST NEVER FORGET AND HERE'S WHY!!
IN MEMORY OF THE FALLEN - 82 - AND THE FUTURE OF THE LIVING