It is amazing to think that music can be such a powerful medium which we often forget about and it can often prompt one to think about our values, norms and supposed ethics.

As the killing raged in Libya some months ago, Syrian President Bashar Assad proceeded to do the same to his own people. The world was, and still is outraged. Europe, in particular took a solid stance and got involved, squeezing the life out of the Gaddafi and Assad regimes through sanctions. In Gaddafi’s case, Europe and Nato sent in the bombers as we all watched, aghast, as mercenaries and troops opened fire indiscriminately. It was terrible.

But what about incidents in the Western world? The author of this article drew inspiration from the U2 track, Sunday Bloody Sunday. Love or hate U2’s Bono, the message is clear. It is a song about the massacre of 30 January 1972 – the Bogside Massacre.

British troops had been deployed in Northern Ireland to quell ‘The Troubles’, which had been simmering sectarian violence which eventually exploded. If one reads up on the story of the time, British troops were at first welcomed. Many were just young lads and there are photos which show them being given cups of tea by Catholics and Protestants alike, all smiling, thinking they would be sent home once it all died down.

But it didn’t. The Troubles continued and culminated on Bloody Sunday. The massacre took place in Derry, where 26 unarmed protesters and bystanders were shot by soldiers of the British Army. A total of 13 men, seven of whom were teenagers, died immediately and another man died months later. Two protesters were also injured when they were run down by army vehicles and five of the wounded were shot in the back.

Two investigations were carried out by the British government. The first one, concluded in the immediate aftermath, largely cleared the soldiers of blame, but said the shooting “bordered on the reckless”. But in 1998, another inquiry was opened, chaired by Lord Saville. It was finally published in 2010 and found that all of those shot were unarmed, and that the killings were both “unjustified and unjustifiable”. Prime Minister David Cameron has since apologised on behalf of the British government.

We also do not have to stray too far from our own shores. While there has never been any massacres by government troops or law enforcement units, there were dark, dark days when civilians were fired upon in the Tal-Barrani mass meeting, and another in Rabat. While thankfully no one died, acts of violence were committed by police officers who were acting as the thugs of the Malta Labour Party government of the time. Through the ‘politics of reconciliation’ adopted by the Fenech Adami administration, many of the perpetrators of violence (or those who incited it) were ‘let off’.

Some still serve in the Police Corps, others still sit in our Parliament. While Fenech Adami’s policy was implemented in good faith, in hindsight, one wonders whether the matter should have been pursued further.

So while we watch aghast at goings on in other parts of the world, we must not forget that while we have set our standards, our past is not as rosy as we sometimes like to believe. Incidents such as the Bogside Massacre and what took place in Malta in the dark days of the 1980s should never, ever happen again.