I have grandparents and greatgrandparents who were part of the first world war and my wife’s family has five relatives who were part of the Second World War. Both of us have people who are buried overseas from both wars. Those loses and even the returning veterans had a deep effect onboth our families for generations.
Whenever Remembrance Day commemorations take place, it bothers me that the remembrance almost always centers around ‘remembering heros’, ‘remembering the dead’, ‘remember soldiers’ … and in many ways an almost glorification or celebration of war, great battles and heroic duties and events. I am all for commemorating the memory of soldiers and especially the dead but it should be much more than that.
We should do our very best to remember WHY these wars took place and the origins of these conflicts in the first place. And I’m no talking about just fighting evil fascism and dictators like Hitler or Mussolini … but to think about how, where and why these circumstances happen in the first place. Dictatorships, authoritarianism, fascism doesn’t just spontaneously happen … they happen because an entire community of people, professionals and wealthy backers support it, create it, build it and maintain it … and if these conditions fester long enough and build enough power and authority, it consumes a country to the point of affecting entire global regions and leading to world wars.
So whenever I think about Remembrance Day … I don’t just think about remembering the fallen dead or the wounded returning veterans … I think about why these world wide events happen in the first place and what we could do to prevent them from leading to terrible global tragedies in the first place.
We need to remember the past critically and honestly so that we don’t repeat those same pitfalls in the future.
It’s always meant that to me. Lest we forget is not just to honor them but to avoid making the same mistakes that lead to global warfare.
Outsider’s perspective chiming in with my 2 pence, but whenever I heard my online friends repeat “lest we forget” every year, it always seemed to me “lest we forget… And make the same mistakes that lead to it”
Of course I am nowhere near people who honor Remembrance Day, so I have no idea what people do to actually celebrate/remember/honor it…
It seems many countries and religions tend to glorify wartime dead as if their deaths were noble sacrifice instead of needless murder for people who never once saw a battle.
If you look back on your family history, there is sure to be an individual or two who took part in a war of some sort … and for whichever side it may be. And it doesn’t matter what side of a conflict anyone is on because it is always the same … the ones who start a war or are shouting the loudest for it, are usually not the ones fighting it (they also actively do not want to include their children or families in it either).
The remembrance I always try to point out to people is to remember the fallen and the broken soldiers that became part of any war … that means all the fighting men and women on either side of a conflict … because in the end, no matter what your perspective, everyone is coerced by their leadership (whether democratic or authoritarian or fascist) to convince good people to fight for whatever cause has gripped their nation at the time. Most people the world over and across time would rather live a quiet peaceful life than to take part in global politics to kill other people because kings, queens, politicians and corporate heads are having a disagreement about something.
The remembrance I’m talking about is to remember why we fight, why we start wars and what the root causes of these conflicts are.
That is how we honour the dead of the past, by remembering not to do these same things or to lead to these same circumstances again in the future.
