Valentine Ackland’s poem is a moving and powerful indictment of the British Government’s non-interventionist policy in the Spanish Civil War - during which Ackland heroically worked for the Red Cross.
Her plaintive refrain ‘note nothing of why or how, enquire no deeper than you need’ as Franco’s superior equipped armed forces overthrew the Spanish Republic echoes down the years to the 1999 NATO bombing of a defenceless Belgrade, to the US concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay and related rendition torture centres over the past decade. Today’s continuing blockade of Gaza, compounding last year’s acts of genocide by the IDF, is why it remains vital that UNISON members and branches continue to support the efforts of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Stop the War Coalition.
We must force today’s British Government to speak out against war crimes and breaches of international law whenever and wherever they occur – not just when they are permitted to by their puppet masters in the White House.
Bob Oram
