Thoughts on …

A Rethink for Remembrance Day

 

                             “AT THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN AND IN THE MORNING WE WILL REMEMBER THEM”

 

We will remember and  honour all those who have fought in two world wars and other conflicts such as Korea, The Falklands, and Afghanistan  We will remember those who were killed in batlle, and those who were seriously  wounded.

We will remember their families and loved ones and the pain and anguish they suffered  when they heard that a father, a son, a brother or a sister had been killed. We will try to imagine what  it was like to hear this terrible news.

We will remember the mental struggles and the PTSD that have afflicted so many of our servicemen and women. We will remember the carers and those who had to be so amazingly patient as they tended the physical and mental wounds of those they were looking after.

We will remember with the utmost humility that those who fought were fighting for all of us, not for themselves. Nor in the 2nd World War were they fighting for intangible concepts like democracy – they were fighting to preserve us from the  grotesque evils perpetrated by Hitler and the Nazis.

We will remember the incredible courage and heroism  of those who fought on land, in the air or at sea. On land being mown down as they waded through mud and became entangled in barbed wire at the Somme in the 1st World War; or in the 2nd World War being inside a tank in the North African desert, or in taking Monte Casino or landing in Normandy on D-day.

We will remember the courage of those who fought in the air: the  “Few” who defended us during the Battle of Britain and the crews of the Lancasters in Bomber Command, And we will remember the courage of those who fought at sea: the sailors on board the ships that escorted the Atlantic convoys and those involved in sinking the Bismarck.

We will remember members of our own family who fought in wars, particularly if they were killed in action, and we will remember the men and women in our local communities whose names are engraved on war memorials throughout the UK

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For me Remembrance Day is perhaps the most important annual ritual I observe. I have just watched the coverage from the Cenotaph  live on television and was moved by the sense of our nation solemnly coming together for the occasion. I watched the  politicians take up their positions on one side of the Cenotaph, followed by members of the Royal family. Like them I stood in silence for two minutes when Big Ben struck 11.

But each year recently I have had the same thoughts:  namely that I wonder what the commemoration actually achieves apart from the comfort to be derived from any ritual gathering where the same traditions take place each year. So is it time to rethink Remembrance Day and reshape into something more meaningful? For me it is the right time to do this and I offer three ways in which it can be done.

First, we can change the traditional format of politicians and royalty holding centre stage. Instead it should be ordinary people  who should lay the first wreaths. They would be drawn from, and represent, different age groups, perhaps the under 10s, late teens, 20s and 30s, up to the over 90s. Each person would have been affected in some way by war. There should also be wreaths laid by members of the armed forces who have been injured in combat or have seen a fellow service man killed in action. After these wreaths have been laid the prime minister and the king can lay theirs.

Another way in which we can make Remembrance Day more meaningful is for all us, on the day itself, to set aside some time for reflection or discussion about the horrors of war and the unbelievable suffering it brings to humanity. We should reflect on why we have wars, and trace back the origin of warfare in human history. We should ponder as to why we human beings are intelligent in so many aspects of our lives and so foolish in others. When we have done our thinking we must make our voices heard by our so-called leaders who play the dangerous games of geo-politics- never more so than today when we have seen the unimaginably horrific consequences of war in Ukraine and Gaza almost daily on our screens for nearly five years.

The third, and most important, way to reshape Remembrance Day, is to look inwards on ourselves. We must strive, and I must strive, to put all thoughts of conflict entirely out of our thoughts whenever we feel aggrieved with an individual or group of people, and whenever we feel threatened by the statements or actions of another country’s leader. That does not mean we accept what may be happening. On the contrary we have a duty to do and say what we believe to be right and to stand against what we believe to be wrong.

But it does mean we put kindness before conflict in our personal as well as our civic lives. Not easy to do but essential if we are to make Remembrance Day truly meaningful.

So let us wear our poppies with pride, and lay wreaths at war memorials, to honour and always remember those who sacrificed their lives for us. And let us also remember these well-known words:

 

                                                            LET THERE BE PEACE ON EARTH AND LET IT BEGIN WITH ME