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RE: Benjamin Britten's War Requiem performed in Johannesburg last night
Hi kiligirl,
This post was nominated by a @curie curator to be featured in an upcoming Author Showcase that will be posted Late Saturday/Early Sunday (U.S. time) on the @curie blog.
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Thanks for your time and for creating great content.
Akpan (@curie curator)
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Oh my goodness, @misterakpan, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw that @curie had picked up my post. This is such an honour. I often write posts just to get thoughts out of my system, and I wrote this one in the context of the upcoming centennial of the Armistice, from which we've clearly learned bupkis about how to keep from killing millions of each other in the name of whatever greater cause requires the sacrifice of young lives at the time. Sometimes I think that the first world war ended just because of the Spanish flu epidemic, not because of any good sense on the part of decision makers or any actual moral victory.
The poppy has been a part of my life every November 11th as we remember the fallen on Remembrance Day, but somehow the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War 1 provides a greater impetus to reflect on the futility of that loss of young life, despite the gratitude we feel for their deaths having purchased our freedom.
Now we sit and watch passively as millions of Yemenis slowly starve to death in a completely man-made famine, a by-product of a proxy war which serves no apparent moral purpose. What have we learned a century after the end of "the war to end all wars"? How to make fancier, more technical wars? Yay us.
Is there a way to reach anyone who might possibly stop this kind of insanity within our lifetime? That's why a concert such as the War Requiem earlier this week moved me to write about the role the arts can play in getting ordinary people to think about the gross immorality of war, especially when a composer such as Britten combines his own musical prowess with the powerful poetry of Wilfred Owen to create such an extraordinary pro-peace piece...and over fifty years since it was first played, another group of dedicated musical professionals brought it to an audience who had likely never heard it live, nor would they get the chance again in their lifetime. It wasn't recorded, so I did what I can do to keep it alive - I wrote about it. And you honoured it by selecting my piece for @curie. Thank you, on behalf of the fallen millions, for the unlikely chance that their deaths and this music might influence someone, somewhere not to make war any more.