"Susa, the great holy city, abode of their Gods, seat of their mysteries, I conquered. I entered its palaces, I opened their treasuries where silver and gold, goods and wealth were amassed...the treasures of Sumer, Akkad, and Babylon that the ancient kings of Elam had looted and carried away. I destroyed the ziggurat of Susa. I smashed its shining copper horns. I reduced the temples of Elam to naught; their goods and goddesses I scattered to the winds. The tombs of their ancient and recent kings I devastated, I exposed to the sun, and I carried away their bones toward the land of Ashur. I devastated the provinces of Elam and on their lands I sowed salt."
Ashurbanipal-647 B.C.
I don't think that there is any chance of people forgetting that wars happen; but what is it exactly that we are urged to remember at 11 o'clock this morning?
I suppose it is solidarity with those who have been destroyed: physically or psychologically by war. A two minutes visit' an entering into hell, a Goth fest of pain, and the beauty of it...
When I was at primary school the Vietnam war was 'War of the Day' (cue signature tune for Match of the Day). I was outraged by it. If I was not playing Dr Who with my friends, I tied bunches of grass as prayers for the dead.
I used to buy poppies too, each paper flower felt archaic and tasted of pomegranate.
I liked the idea of the old, old soldiers sending out their blood-symbol least we forget them.
But now they are all dead.
I don't buy poppies any more...I can't bring myself to do it. Superficially I think that 'We' should have more sense than the 'old'.
But the truth is, war isn't because we 'forget'.
War is because 'we' like it.
'We' have never forgotten war.
There are a huge number of clay tablets preserved from Sumer, amongst them the ersemma. These were laments or praises, usually addressed directly to one god written by the priests of the city of Ur. The habit spread and the ersemma became the balag.
The balag is always a lamentation. It was chanted, probably to the accompaniment of a drum beat, as a temple was pulled down, or rebuilt; or to mark ceremonies and festivals. Balags were written to lament the destruction of cities.
The balag was recited as a performance to ease the heart, ostensibly of the deity, but it gave space to the pain shared by all and the words from 'Babylon' echo down to us undiminished by thousands of years:
The heads of its men slain by the axe were not covered with a cloth.It will not change...
Like a gazelle caught in a trap, their mouths bit the dust.
Men struck down by the spear were not bound with bandages.
As if in the place where their mothers had laboured, they lay in their own blood.
Its men who were finished off by the battle-mace were not bandaged with new cloth.
Although they were not drunk with strong drink, their necks drooped on their shoulders.
He who stood up to the weapon was crushed by the weapon
-- the people groan.
He who ran away from it was overwhelmed by the storm
-- the people groan.
The weak and the strong of Urim perished from hunger.
Mothers and fathers who did not leave their houses were consumed by fire. The little ones lying in their mothers' arms were carried off like fish by the waters. Among the nursemaids with their strong embrace, the embrace was pried open
'She (Inanna) filled the wells of the Land with blood, it was blood that the irrigated orchards of the Land yielded, it was blood that the slave who went to collect firewood drank, it was blood that the slave girl who went out to draw water drew, and it was blood that the black-headed people drank.
No one knew when this would end
