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From birth boys are encouraged to play with war toys, fighting toys. Yet the main victims of war are children, children are dragged into fighting, all nations condemn the use of children in war, with the exception of their own, children suffer the loss of parents and the loss of limbs, their humanity is distorted by war as is their civility. Of all the forms of warfare aerial bombing is the most indiscriminate, even the smartest of smart bombs seem suffer memory failure. Dropped from an aeroplane thousands of feet in the sky, or travelling at hundreds of miles an hour, or crudely manufactured and pushed out the doors of helicopters, and in the latest obscenity released from an aeroplane controlled by an operator thousands of miles away as if playing a video game, all bombing detaches the bomber from the reality of their killing, the victims are normally women and children. All aerial warfare is indiscriminate and a form of terrorism. When Mussolini came to power in Italy he wanted to reestablish an empire, the only piece of Africa he could find that was not claimed by a western power was Ethiopia. To establish control over it and set his empire in motion he organised the systematic terror bombing of the villages, it had no military significance beyond demoralising the population. Near where I live there is a a little statue, a monument against aerial warfare. It was erected by Emily Pankhurst when she started her campaign against aerial warfare and her lifelong support for Ethiopia. The print on the floor is of the head of a dead child, it had opened up rather like a grotesque flower, but it is difficult to see. There was an earlier version, the maquette, made of card. Mixed media kinetic sculpture and floor print. H; 50cm, W; 46, L; 64, turning circle; 190cm diameter, Floor print; 77 x 50

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