Canadian cogitations about politics, social issues, and science. Vituperation optional.
Remembrance day is supposed to remind us of the horrors of war and the terrible sacrifices that were made by people and nations. The hope for the future is not to tread again on these grim paths of barbarity.
Yet we do.
Repeatedly.
Syria
Yemen (drone massacre of a wedding party)
Iraq
So remembering isn’t enough.
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12 comments
November 11, 2015 at 5:48 am
john zande
Yep
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November 11, 2015 at 6:08 am
roughseasinthemed
Of course it matters. If you’re white and western.
And, tbh, I wouldn’t disrespect those who were killed or their surviving families in any wars from WW1 onwards.
Current wars don’t involve conscription. WW1 and 2 did. Perhaps I should just quote Wilfred Owen, (via Horace):
And how do we seriously stop global companies influencing governments to pursue such aggressive tactics bombing the shit out of everywhere on farcical blatantly spurious excuses such as WMD? I mean, that was the best. How many people fell for that? Fucking millions. And selling arms one minute to one group and then fighting them the next? It’s nauseating.
But what do we do? Seriously?
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November 11, 2015 at 7:46 am
bob
A proposal for a womens’ veterans memorial at the West Virginia Capitol was submitted by sculptor P. Joseph Mullins which would have changed the way people view wars. His statue would have been a woman in a plain dress, carrying a baby, a toddler clutching her and her extended hand letting go of her oldest as he/ she departed in uniform. The concept was politely rejected by the government committee for his “more acceptable” woman in desert fatigues.
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November 11, 2015 at 8:48 am
tildeb
What is ‘it’ we’re to remember?
Well, maybe I’m a bit spoiled being Canadian, living where there is ‘peace, order, and good government’ with a family where every generation has its military members since the country’s inception and all have volunteered to be subject to serving in some kind of armed conflict and so perhaps my view is coloured by this ongoing and lived history. We serve for a reason. Add to that ongoing exposure to McCrae’s poem about what ‘it’ is “to you from failing hands we throw the torch. Be yours to hold it high.”
What torch? What does that represent to you… something important enough to take up arms and risk all? I know what it is for me and my immediate family members who now and have served in uniform, know from letters and diaries why previous generations served… and the reasons are the same.
That’s what Remembrance Day is all about: remembering our small but ever-so-important individual part in carrying that shared torch.
We recognize and honour those who have not just done this but who are the ones who have personally passed the torch from their failing hands on to each of us. Every one of us. This is the day to be reminded that we have an obligation paid for in blood and sacrifice to do our part in ensuring that the torch remains high and not to fail in our duty to it. For those who still aren’t sure what that torch is, this is the day to get to work and figure it out. Now I have to get to the cenotaph.
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November 11, 2015 at 9:23 am
VR Kaine
“Of course it matters. If you’re white and western.”
Wow. And will we see you out there at a cenotaph today, roughseasinthemed? Scorning and despising a bunch of soldiers who seem to think are corporate puppets, or appreciating and honoring those who have died for the freedom and safety you have?
What a totally ignorant and selfish thing to say. These men and women have had more worse days in battle than I’m sure you’ve ever had, so can there be one day that isn’t about your despise for Western society and instead for the people who fought, bled, suffered, and died for the society that you yourself take full advantage of living in?
Tildeb: “That’s what Remembrance Day is all about: remembering our small but ever-so-important individual part in carrying that shared torch.
We recognize and honour those who have not just done this but who are the ones who have personally passed the torch from their failing hands on to each of us. Every one of us. This is the day to be reminded that we have an obligation paid for in blood and sacrifice to do our part in ensuring that the torch remains high and not to fail in our duty to it. For those who still aren’t sure what that torch is, this is the day to get to work and figure it out. Now I have to get to the cenotaph.”
Very well said, and thank you. Depending on the cenotaph you happen to go to, I’ll see you there. :)
My respect, thoughts, and thank-you’s for all of those who serve, and all of those who have family members who have served and honor both their service and their memory. We honor them best through peace.
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November 11, 2015 at 10:24 am
The Arbourist
@Tildeb
The problem is that our torches are fuelled by the liquified misery and degradation of others. Preserving our way of life has costs, and once the military becomes involved it seems the costs are paid by people who don’t happen to look like us. They have the same rights and aspirations as us, but just happen to be unlucky in the birth lottery.
Sucks to be them… – not exactly cenotaph worthy material as determined by our society.
The torch they have is the lit candles on the graves of their children, their mothers and fathers, their family. They get to experience Remembrance Day everyday. But they have no patriotic narrative to cloak their grief, no glossed heroic story to soften the horror of what war is – what they have is the gaping hole torn in their families and societies.
They *wish* they could have a Remembrance Day – but their atrocities don’t kindly remain in the past – they keep happening, and will continue to happen because that’s the way the world works right now.
So yeah.
I’m glad you have your commitments. Duty, honour, and sacrifice, torch bearing and what not. You do what you need to do. Carry on.
When we can all have a Remembrance Day, I might get on board. Untill then, as I said in the post, remembering is not enough.
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November 11, 2015 at 10:37 am
roughseasinthemed
@ VR Kaine. You did read my extract from Dulce et Decorum Est I trust? by Wilfred Owen, generally regarded as the finest poet in WW1, because he wrote about the harsh reality of war. He was British, along with Siegfried Sassoon, so maybe you won’t have heard of either of them, or Read, or many others. Their point was exactly the opposite of yours, it’s not about glory and torch-bearing, it’s about horrific injury, brutality, mental illness, and being forgotten about when they are still alive – barely.
My comment about white and western, was that is what Remembrance Day is largely about. If you look at non-whites, then they were part of the British Empire, eg the Indian sub-continent and South East Asia. Regardless, it’s still primarily a white western day of commemoration.
So it’s been extend to all wars since WW2. Which ones? And whose deaths are being remembered? All the Vietnamese killed? All the ‘collateral damage’ and ‘friendly fire’ in the Middle East? To achieve what?
At what point did I say I thought military (all armed forces) were a bunch of corporate puppets?
However there is also a big difference between defence, and invasion. And however you look at it, war is about power games not freedom and safety.
When did I say I despised western society? Do you always make such crass assumptions?
No I didn’t go to a war memorial today or on Sunday. Sometimes I do sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I write about it. Here are some links:
Thanks for your respect, thoughts and thank-yous which I accept on behalf of the members of my family who served and didn’t particularly want to do it. If you don’t bother reading the links, my father served in the RN in WW2, my uncle was torpedoed twice and had to swim twice (same event), another uncle was in the army in India, and one in the RAF was shot down shortly before the end of WW2. My youngest uncle was too young for the war, but retired as Wing Co from the RAF.
I think The Arb’s point is not so much ignoring ‘lest we forget’ but rather ‘when do we learn?’
But perhaps I will add a post on my blog this evening, inspired by your somewhat churlish attack.
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November 11, 2015 at 11:07 am
tildeb
Arb, the torch you carry is expressed here in your commitment to speaking truth to power. Bravo. Don’t ever stop. But don’t forget for one second that you can do this here BECAUSE the military has served to protect your legal autonomy to do so. So, yes, you owe… and first recognizing and then showing appreciation for that selfless gift you have inherited is not a patriotic narrative or heroic story whatsoever and certainly doesn’t undermine your abhorrence to the effects of armed conflict nor your strong advocacy for peace. Vilifying their actions and misrepresenting their motives does.
The moral rock upon which you stand to do your public advocacy without censure, imprisonment, or fear of death, however, has been earned by those who were willing and able to take up arms in our common defense. It is to them you owe some measure of appreciation for your rights and freedoms you exercise in the here and now. That doesn;t come cheaply or without sacrifice. You see, it’s not the government, courts, or police that enable you to exercise these civil rights; it is the willingness and ability of others to commit to armed conflict to protect these common values against enemies of them foreign and domestic (always an ongoing battle with self-interest parties). Forgetting this lesson is dropping the torch for what I think are stupid, shortsighted, selfish, and ignorant rationalizations.
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November 11, 2015 at 11:47 am
The Arbourist
@Tildeb
And if protecting my legal autonomy and the rights of people were the primary focus of the military, I’d expect to be a little more gung-ho about the whole idea. However, what you list has often been a secondary result of military actions, whereas the primary reasons, geo-political gains – realpolitik as such – have almost always been at the forefront of military action.
How much we see the ‘national interest’ vs ‘protecting/promoting freedom democracy’ is where I think much our contention lies. The complexity of the issue makes judging and coming to a well defined conclusion difficult for me.
The OP contains no vilification of the military. Those pictures happened/continue to happen.
But this isn’t about my appreciation, this is about the idea that remembering isn’t enough. I’ve read enough history to appreciate where I am and how much I have to be thankful for, however it is because I’ve read/studied so much history that I find it so difficult to get on board with days like Remembrance Day.
And if was just this, many of my reservations would be allayed, but it never has been there is always more to the equation that just this.
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November 11, 2015 at 12:15 pm
The Arbourist
@RSITM
Nothing. I do not think that, given the current set of global conditions, we *can* do anything.
The iron rule of scarcity will continue to drive the global imbalance of resources and liberty.
There can be no freedom for anybody when someone somewhere else has to watch their children starve. Why should I have the expectation of clean drinking water when another my country has none? We can mobilize, organize, and equip thousands of people to rain death down on civilians in Syria, yet safe water to drink for our First Nations people – the ones we went all genocidal on, and continue to marginalize – is but a wild pipe-dream and political hot potato.
Freedom and rights, indeed.
But I digress. What we need to have happen is our scientists get their thinking caps on and get their shit together with fusion technology that makes the safe generation of energy essentially free and for all intensive purposes boundless. Only then can we get out of the tooth and nail struggle (and the many cloaks it wears) and start working toward what a just society would actually look like.
Right now we are bogged down with hierarchal bullshite, patriarchy and oligarchy just to name a few, that progress can be minimal at best.
I’m sorry that I only have the Star-trek prescription on the table. I just don’t feasibly see much else.
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November 11, 2015 at 1:43 pm
bob
Thanks to Arb And Roughseas for keeping on topic. And to Tildeb for demonstrating the blind patriotism that allows the powerful to perpetuate wars and injustices.
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November 12, 2015 at 10:51 am
sepultura13
Sad but true…sad but true.
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