Bah! The season of humbug and sycophancy is upon us. No, not the looming presence of Christmas but the even nearer Remembrance Day.
The whole thing is a politically correct sycophant’s delight. “Oh, you’re not wearing a poppy?” – so you’re not patriotic and don’t care about those who were sacrificed in two world wars. Work for TV? No poppy, no job, it seems – even football pundits are made to wear poppies! If those who were sacrificed died for anything it was to free us from such tyrannies.
I’m not unpatriotic. Nor am I ungrateful to those who were sacrificed: much as I abhor the idea of war I concede it is occasionally necessary. I likely wouldn’t go as far as my father: a conscientious objector in WWII, who played just as valuable a part in the war effort by working on the land and in hospitals. And certainly not as far as my grandfather: a conscientious objector in the Great War but who volunteered for the RAMC as a stretcher bearer at the front; probably a whole lot more gruesome, and no less dangerous, than the lot of any cannon fodder squaddie. (I’m much prouder of my grandfather for this than if he’d towed the line and been cannon fodder.) But Remembrance Day, and everything associated with it, makes me sick.
While we’re here let us remember three other things about Remembrance Day:
- Many of the fallen in the Great War were sacrificed by testosterone-fuelled and blinkered senior officers (eg. Kitchener) who could not see beyond the old horrors of trench warfare. Yes the Great War was a war of technological change (tanks, aircraft etc.) but stagnant trench warfare wasn’t, as I understand it, a necessity. The senior officers were aided and abetted by the politicians who needed the war to protect the oil interests which Britain had in the Arab world. (See AN Wilson, After the Victorians)
- Remembrance Day is all about the two so-called world wars; there is no remembrance that I’m aware of for the fallen of the Boer War, the Crimean War, the Falkland’s War or the Battle of Hastings.
- There is also precious little recognition of those who didn’t fight but still contributed much (like my father and grandfather), nor for the many civilian fallen. Did these people not contribute and sacrifice much too?
Yes by all means let those who wish remember the fallen. But, as with all belief systems, don’t ram it down other people’s throats after the style of so much of Christianity. (Oh, I thought Christianity was supposed to be anti-violence?!) What is maybe worse is that the whole charade is so backward looking; it focuses on the past and almost yearns for the “good old days” to return – forgetting that the “good old days” were once known as “these trying times”. It’s like someone grieving for their dead child or spouse: sooner or later one has to come to terms with it and move on; go forward. But with Remembrance Day we don’t move on – it has been set in stone as forever sacred and gets an extra coat of gilding every year with poppies going on sale ever earlier (it’s become Remembrance Month, not Remembrance Day).
Stop it! Let go! Especially now there are effectively no survivors of those who fought in the Great War. Sadly though I suspect to be able to let go of the Remembrance Day sycophancy we will have to kill off the British Legion first; now there’s an organisation looking for something to do if ever there was one, and in Remembrance Day they think they’ve hatched a golden goose egg. By all means remember if you need to, but cut the sycophancy and the tyranny; let’s move forward.
None of this means I’m not grateful to those who fought (and in many cases died) to give me the freedom to write this. I just find the whole thing very sick and would rather we look forward as most of the fallen (having secured us “a better life”) would I’m sure have wanted. So I will not be wearing a poppy, making a donation or observing two minutes silence, whatever the day. Remembrance should be a question of individual conscience not some politically-imposed public tyranny. Bah! Humbug!
I agree completely with this. It's about time we stopped having Remembrance Day.The film which brought home to me more than anything the sheer futility of war was 'Oh What a Lovely War'. Scenes such as both sides at church services saying God is on our side. The troops meeting in the middle of no man's land at Christmas. Millions killed but the generals still going on about a right and just war. It ought to be required viewing for everyone IMO
Your view that "Many of the fallen in the Great War were sacrificed by testosterone-fuelled and blinkered senior officers (eg. Kitchener)" cannot be supported by actual evidence. It is supported by the common view, but the Great War is a lot more complex than the Blackadder, buthers & bunglers stereotype. Whilst there is much humbug on Remembrance Day, do not fall into the old trap. If the senior officers were so bad, how come they beat what was supposed to be the world's best army? It is because they were better.
I couldn't agree with you more that the act of remembrance should be a matter of personal choice. I couldn't disagree with you more about the purpose and meaning of remembrance day or of the Poppy appeal which is, of course, almost impossible to separate from the act of remembrance, but which is not the same thing.The origins of Remembrance Day in the aftermath of World War I were simple, but two fold. It was to remember the personal sacrifice of young men, but it was also to remind us all of the horror of war in an attempt to try to ensure that it didn't happen again. Having had the honour of taking part in the Festival of Remembrance at the Albert Hall, I can assure you that both of those original principles are still at the very core of Remembrance. Let's start with your 3 things about Remembrance Day.Your first point is, in large part, true – although modern historians suggest that much of the conventional wisdom of brave Tommies and a cowardly, snivelling officer class is a product of the revolutionary political climate of the time.But I fail to see how this makes the sacrifice of 886,342 British lives less tragic. Indeed, it seems to me a lesson from history we should never forget. Point two is simply wrong. True, there was a focus last year of the last few survivors of the First World War and this year much of the focus has been on World War Two and the Battle of Britain as the numbers of men directly affected by the greatest loss of life – the people who lost their friends – starts to diminish rapidly. It's right that they're the focus – and it's right that the two world wars are key to Remembrance message – between them they saw almost 1.3 million deaths. Since 1945 there have been 3,431.There's another difference between the two World Wars (and Korea and Suez) and later conflicts. The majority of those involved were conscripted, so their sacrifice was one that we, as a country, asked them to make.Yes, 'we' still decide when to send men into conflicts, but today those men chose to put themselves in a position where they might be sent. That doesn't make the sacrifice any less significant, but it does make it different.Having said all that, it's just plain wrong to say that other conflicts aren't remembered. As part of its remembrance week coverage, the BBC has run a programme every day this week from Camp Bastion in Afghanistan which has focussed on Korea, Kosovo, Bosnia, Sierra Leone and the Falklands as well as the two World Wars and, of course, Iraq and Afghanistan. Veterans of all those conflicts and more are marching past the Cenotaph as I type this – remembering friends who didn't come back (and those whose lives were changed forever).http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11743727You are correct in pointing out that conflicts prior to World War One are not part of the act of Remembrance, a conscious decision of those who founded the event to recognise the fact that, while war might have been a constant in Europe for more than 2000 years, World War One – and the technology that you mention – meant that this could no longer be the case.Your third point is wrong, too. The Merchant Navy, the police and fire services, St John's and St Andrew's Ambulance services, the British Red Cross and others as diverse as the Showman's Guild are present at the both the Festival of Remembrance and at the Cenotaph.> But, as with all belief systems, don’t ram it down other people’s throats after the style of so much of Christianity.And there you touch, obliquely, on my only problem with the event. As an atheist I find it deeply offensive to associate the fight for freedom with oppressive superstition, but the illogic of the God botherers of all persuasions who have told young, naive men that 'their' God is fighting alongside them while, in almost every case, the other side's God botherers have told the same lie is, genuinely, sickening.(Continued)
(Continued)> What is maybe worse is that the whole charade is so backward looking; it focuses on the past and almost yearns for the “good old days” to return – forgetting that the “good old days” were once known as “these trying times”.It's one of the stranger aspects of the whole thing, I admit. But for many of the people involved they were both the best of times and the worst of times. Think of it was remembering friends through the memories of good times they shared, as well as remembering how and why they died.> It’s like someone grieving for their dead child or spouse: sooner or later one has to come to terms with it and move on; go forward.No, it isn't like that. In most cases, the loss of a child or spouse doesn't come with a lesson we all have to learn…> poppies going on sale ever earlier (it’s become Remembrance Month, not Remembrance Day).First, I sold Poppies in the mid 1980s and they were always delivered early in October. Second, you're confusing Remembrance Day with the Poppy Appeal and, while the poppy is the symbol of remembrance, they aren't the same thing. The Poppy Appeal raises money to support those who did come back – whether they came back wounded or are just struggling to adjust back in to civilian life. Modern medicine means that your chances of dying on the battlefield are hugely reduced and many more are able to survive. But by and large, our responsibility to the men and women we send to war on our behalf ends when they return, unable to serve. And, by and large, it is the Royal British Legion that picks up the pieces, funded largely by the Poppy Appeal.> Stop it! Let go! Especially now there are effectively no survivors of those who fought in the Great War.The real test, I suspect, will come in 20 years or so when the last survivors of World War Two pass away. If, at that point, we allow ourselves to forget it would be a tragedy – just as it would if we allowed the Holocaust to slip away with the last survivor.> the British Legion … now there’s an organisation looking for something to do if ever there was oneYou couldn't be more wrong. The Legion has plenty to do, sadly – and does it magnificently. A good friend of mine might not have survived this year without them.> I just find the whole thing very sickAn opinion you are, of course, entitled to hold. But one which is built on foundations of misunderstanding and ignorance. A disappointing starting point for a 'working thinker'.