Piper Alpha: in remembering, don’t forget

The memorials in Aberdeen to the victims of the Piper Alpha disaster are largely fitting. As one friend of mine in Aberdeen put it, if you didn’t know someone who lost a family member on the rig, you knew someone who knew someone. In the North East, Piper Alpha was a very big deal.

What is slightly unsettling is the language employed by the press today: "Lest we forget" the victims who "paid the highest price for oil" eulogised the Press and Journal this morning.

This is the kind of language governments use to shroud the ugly, resource-driven prosecution of wars in the white of glorious sacrifice.

The victims did not "pay the highest price" for oil, as if they were driven by a mission to keep us addicted to the stuff. They were workers out to feed their families who, like so many others worldwide, were fatally let down by their greedy and negligent employers.

No wonder the oil companies want to sanctify the work of the victims. This puts them at the heart of a supposed glorious mission, against which any malpractice looks like the collateral of a necessary crusade.

But let's not forget, it was for their profit these people's lives were taken.