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Harvey Belovski, rabbi at Golders Green United Synagogue:Ìý
Today is Waterloo Day, the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, fought in Belgium between the British forces led by the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon’s army. These days, few people outside the Army mark it, and the battle is effectively memorialised by Waterloo Bridge in London, and the nearby Waterloo Station, the largest and busiest in the UK. But mention Waterloo and most of us probably think of the song by ABBA. It starts of course with the line ‘at Waterloo Napoleon did surrender’, which is quite true.
After 20 years of conflict in Europe, Napoleon was exiled to the island St Helena in South Atlantic – as far as way as possible from Europe and died six years later. The Battle of Waterloo was a horrible and bloody with huge casualties on each side. Napoleon failed to reach Brussels and the battle was a turning point in the history of Europe, which ushered in a period of peace, prosperity and cooperation between nations. I’ve been thinking it is awfully sad that it takes the death of tens of thousands to get people to cooperate, to live in peace with each other. I noticed another line in the ABBA Waterloo song: ‘The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself’.Ìý
We seem to have learned very little in the 200 years since the Battle of Waterloo. This echoes the famous sentiment of the philosopher George Santayana – ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’. The tendency to fight, even at huge cost, rather than compromise and cooperate, seems to affect not just countries, but each of us as individuals too. I’ve seen many relationships fall apart because of the inability to compromise and families that are split for generations over money. At school, work or love, we often compromise only after we’ve been hurt. It’s said of a famous rabbi that he was always willing to compromise, but only once all other options had been exhausted. It’s interesting that every Jewish prayer ends with peace.Ìý
I used to think that this is because peace is always the objective, the endpoint. But now I’m wondering if it’s because it’s often the last resort! Maybe one day, whether in politics, at work, or at home, we might learn to try peace first.