Where the poppies bloom

Two shots rang out just after 10:45 on 28 June 1914, shattering the tenuous peace in Europe along every possible fault line. Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, were dead. Shortly after, the Great War broke out.

The War to End all Wars they came to call it - the wretched beast that spred its wretched wings and reaped grim havoc from the Ottoman Empire in the east to the poppy fields of France in the west. Its brutal appetite was vast indeed. As many as 20 million casualties were suffered.

Tomorrow, we shall commemorate the dead and lost innocence of that dark moment in history that lingered on for four fierce years, and beyond. For the War did not end all wars. Merely 20 years later the young and brave stood once more in trenches on the fields of Europe, to shoot and hack and maim one another for God and country.

So it was in great hope and optimism that the 35th president of the USA drove out into the crowds one morning in 1963, barely 20 years after the end of World War II. A nation clung to the new promise of revival of the American Dream. But then, just after 12:30 on 22 November, three shots rang out in Dallas to extinguish the youthful hope of a nation.

In the years that followed, America mutated from the saving grace of WWII into a self-serving behemoth that invaded, occupied, cahooted across the world in a one-sided hegemony.

But one week ago, a new hope was born, of the restoration of America and the world. A young senator of Illinois became the first black president-elect of the USA. He rode in on a wave of restored democracy, carried forth by millions of individual contributions - the voice and support of the common person.

Tomorrow, we shall wear our poppies as we remember. Yet let our remembrance gather strength, and our strength give rise to hope - the hope that one man may inspire many to turn the world and, perhaps, end all wars.