IMPRINT 2020
05
PIXABAY @PEXELS
A LACK OF LEARNING FROM THE PAST IS NOT ONLY EVIDENT IN MORE RECENT HISTORY, BUT ALSO THROUGHOUT TIME.
Another period that we now look back on with disgust is the time of colonialism and slavery; vulnerable people were taken advantage of and put to work in awful conditions. Yet the same description could apply to the impoverished slaves of capitalism, working in sweatshops in poorer parts of the world. Evidently, Western countries have not learnt their lesson about abusing their wealth and power.
1908
After World War I, people could never have believed there could be another war in just over 20 years due to the sheer level of destruction, but it did happen.
After World War II, people didn’t want a third world war, however the USA and the Soviet Union spent over 40 years teetering on the precipice of nuclear war. A lack of learning from the past is not only evident in more recent history, but also throughout time. When Ethelred II ruled Anglo-Saxon Britain, the Danish Vikings kept invading and Ethelred kept raising a ‘Danegeld’ tax in order to pay off the Vikings and make them stop invading Britain. Ethelred kept paying the Vikings more and more, yet his efforts were in vain as they continued to invade. He obviously failed to learn from his past errors. Furthermore, in medieval times, Europeans used Christianity as an excuse to kill many innocent people in the Crusades. Now in modern times, ISIS is using Islam as an excuse for the murder of innocent people. Looking at history proves to us that, although we have made many mistakes, we continue to not learn from them. As Abraham Lincoln once said: ‘Human nature will not change’. Throughout time, even though we wish it didn’t, human nature remains more or less the same: the same desire for power, the same capability for evil and the same disregard for human life.
The school moves to its current site on Townsend Avenue, housing both Junior and Senior students.
Ultimately, I think that there are two questions that all of this boils down to … Should humans learn from the mistakes of the past to benefit them in the present and in the future? Absolutely. But do we as humans learn from the past errors of mankind? NO, WE DO NOT.
1911
A further example of persecution of ethnic minorities is the concentration camps in Xinjiang, China, which the world hardly knows about. Uighurs and other Muslim minorities have been sent to these camps against their will and without trials. In March 2019, the governor of Xinjiang dismissed the camps as ‘boarding schools’, but this is false. It’s not yet a genocide, but it could easily lead to one if the world chooses to turn a blind eye. Both of these examples show something rather ironic; by trying to not repeat the past and avoid a third world war, we are repeating the past by ignoring the oppression of ethnic minorities in countries around the world.
Netball is introduced as a school sport.
