Today was Remembrance Day – the eleventh day of the eleventh month – which marks the falling silent of the guns on the western front at the end of the Great War.
In the UK it is a normal working day and the occasion is marked – for those who mark it at all – by a two minute silence at the eleventh hour. The UK has always made more of Remembrance Sunday, which is held on the nearest Sunday to Armistice Day itself.
In Canada the day is a public holiday!
Either way it is entirely right and proper that there should be an annual reminder of – and a chance to reflect upon and give thanks for – the sacrifices made by those obliged to become engaged in armed conflict on behalf of their countries and who have paid the price thereof. It is a time also to extend thoughts and sympathies to those left behind.
I have always personally felt ambivalent about the wearing of the poppy, though it is a splendid symbol and the campaign raises essential monies for a truly worthy cause. During the sixties and seventies – when I was in my youth – the campaign in the UK featured the tagline “Wear your poppy with pride”. The prevailing mood at the time seemed very much to celebrate our glorious military history.
I couldn’t help feeling that – whereas pride might be an appropriate emotion for the combatants themselves, given the part they had played – for those of us with no direct involvement neither pride nor glory had a place in the remembrance of loss and sacrifice. It was surely more appropriate to feel sadness, regret and shame… shame that our country had been obliged to ask its young men to kill the young men of other countries and to make the ultimate sacrifice themselves.
Whatever one’s notion might be of ‘just’ war it is indisputable that of all the conflicts that have raged throughout history wars that could truly be thus classified are far outnumbered by those that could have – should have – been avoided. It is a shameful reflection on humanity that, whereas we continually spend vast fortunes and devote considerable ingenuity to developing newer and more hideous ways to kill each other, we are incapable of making a similar investment towards bringing war itself to an end. We struggle even to terminate the most prosaic of conflicts.
Perhaps on this day of remembrance we should also turn our minds to all those who are responsible – through their madness, their bigotry, their misguided idealism, their fanaticism, their political ambitions, their misplaced xenophobia and jingoism, their greed, desire, lust – for any part in fomenting or promoting armed conflict.
It seems – tragically – that remembering the dead alone is not enough to bring an end to war. Perhaps we must also keep fresh in our memories all of those whose actions – or lack thereof – have helped to sew the seeds of conflict.
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Very beautifully said. Lots of love to la belle canadienne too xx
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How kind. Thank you. I have passed on your love as requested…
Andy
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Your writing expresses very well the mixture of feelings I have about wearing the poppy and about Remembrance Day. I was born in Canada and love my country, my father served as a pilot instructor in the RCAF in WW2. But my mother’s brothers were in the Wehrmacht… There have to be better ways to work out conflicts and protect people from misuses of power, even if we cannot do without a military.
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Hello Nancy
Thank you for your kind comment. I can entirely understand why you felt conflicted. Your situation must have been difficult to cope with particularly when you were growing up.
The Scottish side of my family were army folk for several generations – joining up in the first place in the 19th century when there was little work in Scotland. I have nothing but admiration for those who serve, but those who obey orders without question must be commanded by those truly able to take on that weighty responsibility. They in turn must be able to rely on political masters wise enough to exercise huge care as to when they ask their forces to take action.
We see once again tonight in Paris one of the unforeseen side effects of political will carelessly employed. I would not myself want to be the one ordering our troops into action – but those who push themselves forward into the political limelight must be prepared to shoulder that responsibility – and to be accountable for its misuse.
Best wishes
Andy
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