My Mistress was talking to me yesterday about it being twenty years since the Berlin Wall came down. It’s funny hearing that a city was cut in half by a wall and the people of the half behind the wall couldn’t travel to the other half. It started to make me realise what a lucky dog I am, living in a free society. Can you begin to imagine what it would be like to be told by your Government where you can and can’t travel? Can you imagine having a Government that would shoot you if you tried to do something they had told you not to do? It starts to put the benign ineptitude of our current Government into perspective. I think it also for me starts to put a little more perspective to things like Remembrance Day and the fact that there have been times in history when people have had little choice but to take up arms to fight against Governments that have lost the plot. I guess you just have to think yourself fortunate that that sort of thing hasn’t happened in this country for a while, but there are parts of the world where it is still happening and where normal people are afraid of their own Government. I suppose as well as those who have died in struggles over the years, it is a good time to remember all those engaged in struggles now. Not just those who are part of the military, but the civilians who are prepared to stand up to unjust regimes and who day by day lose their lives in the struggle.
I guess that’s all a bit sombre, but even a dog has times of reflection and thinks how lucky he is to be free. Ok, so I’m enslaved to a family, but I’m happy and I don’t risk being shot.