"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

The above quotation is from George Santayana (1863 - 1952), a Spanish philosopher. Many of you will know it, and I suspect, most of you disregard it as a glib truism. But I believe it. Without the knowing of our past, how can we know where we came from, who we are and where we are going?

Without knowing our history, how can we appreciate (and forgive and assimilate) those traits in our make-up as a people that are hopelessly out of kilter with modern society? Yet treasure our barbarous past, while retaining some remnant of that heroic spirit, should history present us with the need to depend on it again?

To know how we were moulded is to know where we are going. And to give us sign posts as to how to get to a better place.

"We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events." Gerda Lerner (b. 1920)

So stop it with the gip you lot!

As Winston said, "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it!"