As I watched the Remembrance Day ceremony from Ottawa this morning, and Governor General Jean arrives and the veterans have front row seats, and the Prime Minister greets her and she smiles and I think that how wonderful is it that she is from Haiti, and yet here she is representing Queen Elizabeth to us? Then the band and choir play O Canada, and I am moved and feel pride in the comfort of my living room, the choir is little kids, the camera pans the crowd, many veterans, many young children, the veterans are all older than me, wearing medals, military caps, trench coats, looking very much like men whom I would disagree with on almost every issue. Yet they are there and for today and maybe for always, they are heroes, and then I am struck, all of my life at these ceremonies the veterans have always been older than me, this will no longer be the case.
For them, and for the young children, and for us all Prime Minister Harper, honour our military by allowing them to act honourably, support our troops by assigning them supportable tasks.
Please let our new heroes engage in acts of heroism, let's export understanding, peace and right,
not division, war and a fanatical Christian right.
A prayer for this Remembrance Day, Lest we forget.
I remember, I will not forget.
4 comments:
I admire that you are still able to keep a positive view on the subject, despite the mitigating factors that would prevent you from doing so.
I do not observe Remembrance Day, and although there are many reasons why, Harper's stance on Afghanistan was the clincher.
I'm not sure how admirable this is, but thank you.
I don't think that it is fair to only blame Harper, as attractive an idea as this might be. Paul Martin is actually the guy who committed troops, albeit only after getting assurances that this would in no way inferfere with a deployment of 'peace keeping' troops to Darfur. Well that was a lie. Thanks.
At a recent peace demonstration (yes they still have those), people were selling white poppies, a symbol of hope and prayer for a peaceful future, it was suggested to me that one could wear both the white and red. I regret that I didn't.
I believe that acts of remembrance are positive and in some ways hopeful, I honestly think that if one can survey the political landscape and not have reason to hope, then you might as well stop looking. I'm not ready to close my eyes yet. Interested to know why you have come to the determination that you have.
Here's a short spiel I said on the subject last week:
So every year, around October 28th, until November 11th, many individuals in Canada will be seen sporting a crimson poppy on their left lapel. For those of us who don't have clothing that sport lapels, we usually wear it on our jackets, shirts, bags, hats, or wherever is in clear sight.
I am not one of them.
Unlike most of those around me, I have chosen not to observe Remembrance Day. It is not of laziness, nor is it of ignorance. It is a principled, informed, and conscious decision of mine.
My decision to not observe Remembrance day rests in two factors: first, I don't believe that we are being completely honest with ourselves in observing the day, and second, I can't support anything that opposes my personal beliefs.
We observe Remembrance Day with a parade, militaristic ceremonies at the cenotaph, or religious service. The first two seem to be more celebratory of the entire event, and the third seems to violate secularism.
We say 'lest we forget', or 'never again', every year around this time. If we say it, we should mean it. Canada has been involved in at least four wars since the War to end all Wars, and the world itself has seen over eighty conflicts between more than one nation since 1918. It seems that we have forgotten, and obviously broken our pledge.
The second sentiment with Remembrance Day was that "they did it for Canada". Sorry, they didn't. Afghanistan - U.S., Iraq in 1991 - U.S., Korea - the red scare, World War II - Great Britain, World War I - Great Britain. If we really have to go back to the last time Canadians fought for Canadians in an international conflict, we'd have to go to long before we were granted sovereignty, to 1812. Yep, with the exception of a few dozen U-boats in World War II, 1812 was the last time an invading force even tread along Canadian soils. Sure, the acts of our ancestors to protect other nations is noble, but don't think that we did it for our own nation.
How should we observe Remembrance Day? I don't know, but we're doing it wrong, and it's better to not do something, than to do it improperly.
The second reason I do not observe Remembrance Day lies in my foreign policy beliefs and pacifism.
Although I cannot support the actions of an aggressor nation, a nation joining another nation is equally an aggressor. If Canada was to the defense of Europe in World War II, why did we take part in and build planes for areal strikes on German civilians? Sorry, but we're just as bad.
We say that we came to Europe's aid in World War II, a war that could easily been avoided had it not been for the punitive Treaty of Versailles. We say that we came to Europe's aid in World War I, a war that could have easily been avoided had it not been for aggressive colonialism and an arms race.
The hypocrisy of all this in 2007 is that we're taking part in a war that started thanks to another nation's fifty years of aggressive foreign policy. A war that our government seems adamant to continue to participate in. How we can be so jaded at this point is beyond me.
We shouldn't have a military (we shouldn't have the state either, but that discussion is for another day). In saying that we shouldn't have a military, I can't support the actions of members of the military, be they volunteers or conscripts.
Am I being disrespectful? No. Respect is earned, not freely given. Taking part in murderous actions (whether sanctioned by the state or not), does not earn my respect. You cannot be disrespectful towards someone who hasn't earned your respect.
Am I being ignorant? No. I keep remembrance in my own way. I am not forgetting the actions and atrocities of war, I'm just not recalling them in the same way that you do. Ignorance is blind faith, and I'm sure many public school students will display that faith in their school ceremonies on Monday (or last Friday).
Am I being lazy? No. I wouldn't be spending an hour of my Sunday explaining why I don't observe Remembrance Day if I were.
These are my beliefs, you have your own. In keeping yours, let me keep mine.
Addendum: The word 'hero' is used to liberally around this time. I'm sorry, taking part in a war does not make you a hero. Preventing one does.
tired..
in point of fact I agree with almost everything you say, and my
observance of Remembrance Day was not arrived at easily. I too consider myself a pacifist, I attend anti-war demonstrations, and have since Vietnam, I abhor our participation in Afghanistan, I wish that Canada's role in the world was solely one of peace broker, and an example as to how different people can live in peace.
I'm not going to argue about the virtue of the First World War, clearly it was a clash of Imperialist self interest, we became involved solely as a result of a lingering colonial duty. Neither side had much moral high ground to cling to.
As to your points about the Second World War, If I understand you correctly, you feel that Nazism arose as a result of onerous limitations placed on Germany after the First World War, this could well be true. If so the results were horrific, and should have been avoided, however events followed that couldn't be ignored, and however caused really needed to be stopped. A madman was at the helm of what was quickly becoming the strongest military nation on earth, a man with ambitions to control the world, at any cost, to the world our his own humanity. Sorry, though they posed no threat to us in the short term, the long term outlook for a society like the one we occupy now was bleak.
The boys who took it upon themselves to stop that insanity even though it was around the world, with no chance of touching them, just because it was the right thing to do, they to me are heroes. As heroic as Gandhi? no, as Martin Luther King Jr.? no, as Thomas D'arcy McGee? no. But every bit as heroic as the guys who burned down the White House during the War of 1812.
Thanks for taking the time to share this with me.
I'm sure that on somethings agreement will not arise, I do repect your opinion.
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