Sir, - Whatever Ruth Dudley Edwards might think (Opinion, November 16th), non-attendance at Remembrance Day ceremonies is neither petulant nor adolescent. It is a wholly legitimate decision taken by many people in Ireland and Britain. The hypocrisy of those political leaders who last weekend stood at war memorials and intoned "never again" while preparing to unleash yet more death and suffering on the civilian population of Iraq is reason enough to recoil from such ceremonies.
Despite the "war to end all wars", the UK armaments industry, in accounting for nearly a quarter of all global arms sales, contributes significantly to the increase in repression, war and poverty in the developing world. There are 25 armed conflicts currently taking place around the globe and it is estimated that 8 per cent of the victims of those conflicts are innocent civilians. The same British politicians, senior civil servants and military leaders who were prominent at Remembrance Day ceremonies have each played their part in the arms deals which fuel these conflicts.
James Connolly described the first World War as a crime in which the working class was to be sacrificed "that a small clique of rulers and armaments makers might sate their lust for power and their greed for wealth." Remembering that war should occasion not flag-waving militarism but rage at the millions of lives squandered in the service of capitalist greed. - Yours, etc., Paul Laughlin,
Dundrum Park,
Foyle Springs,
Derry.