169. REMEMBRANCE - Why Never Forgetting Keeps Us Forgetting
If philosophy is good for anything, it is good for looking at norms and asking if they are really doing the thing they say they are doing. Are we confused in our thinking?
Marking the end of the First World War with symbolic services of remembrance is on such norm, and it has been five years since I wrote this Philosophy Unleashed piece about why I am either found wearing no poppy at all, or a white one in protest, on Remembrance Day. My opinion hasn’t changed since then. I still believe Remembrance Day is nothing more than “a dangerous propaganda tool for glorifying war and perpetuating false ideas of heroism used to absolve states of wilfully putting their citizens unnecessarily in harm’s way, rather than a meaningful memorial to those - soldiers and civilians - who have lost their lives to war.” I still believe that “as long as we have had Remembrance Day and worn our red poppies, we have continued to have wars” and that “if we truly want to honour those whose lives were lost saving the lives of others we ought to put every effort we can into ensuring the sorts of wars which cost them their lives are never fought again. We should not be solemnising their sacrifice by encouraging others to look up to these victims of war, but rather we should be mourning the futility and loss of life which all wars bring.” And I still believe that “a better Remembrance Day would be a day of national reflection instead of a minute of silence. A day where we look at what we have done in the last twelve months to bring the world closer to peace and assess our national culpability in making the world a better or worse place” where “on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, a solemn list is read out of all the current threats in the world that might lead to conflict followed by a list of all the things which are being done by us to ensure these threats do not lead us to war.”
This year, however, the ridiculousness of Remembrance Day has been made all the more stark by the rhetoric of the UK Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, calling the ongoing protests across the UK in support of Palestinians currently being murdered in Gaza by the disproportionate and globally-criticised Israeli response to last October’s attacks by Hamas “hate marches”. Braverman (in the same week that she described being unhoused a “lifestyle choice”) not only sought to get a planned London protest on Armistice Day banned, but when it was deemed lawful by both the Met police and the Prime Minister, doubled down on her opposition to the march taking place so close to the Cenotaph in a controversial opinion piece for the Times which, as of the time of writing this piece, seems like it might just cost her her job.
That her assertion was ever taken seriously at all, however - that a march asking for a cease-fire in Gaza could be considered offensive if it takes place on Armistice Day, so close to the Cenotaph monument - tells you all you need to know about the emptiness of Remembrance Day. Asking for a cease-fire and ending a bloody conflict is the very definition of honouring those who died in the futility of war. Seeking peace instead of violence is the only worthwhile message of “never forget” when we remember those who needlessly lost their lives in wars or else we are forgetting. We are forgetting that these deaths we remember could all have been prevented had we taken other routes to conflict resolution than the barrel of a gun. That it is in our power today to stop anyone else ever having to similarly die in vain.
When I take stock of the last twelve months and think about whether our leaders have brought us closer to peace, or to war, having a Home Secretary like Suella Braverman, constantly spewing divisive “culture wars” us vs them rhetoric, and a Prime Minister like Rishi Sunak who participates in, and often amplifies, that rhetoric, leave me in no doubt that we are failing in our only meaningful task of Remembrance. That every week the norms of public discourse continue to be ones of fanning flames of manufactured hatred rather than putting out the fires of hostility, is a week which takes us closer, not further away, to the brink of bloody conflict.
Those protestors demanding a cease-fire in Gaza on Armistice Day will be doing far more to bring about a world without war than the politicians laying down wreaths in a photo opportunity at the Cenotaph, only to continue arming the aggressors responsible for killing over 10,000 Palestinians since the murder of 1,400 people in Israel on October 7th the minute they return to their desks. Flying a Palestinian flag and demanding an end to current military atrocities being committed by Israeli forces seems like a far more honourable way of remembering the horrors and sacrifices of wars-gone-by than wearing a superficial poppy.
Five years on and nothing has changed. The world has gotten more dangerous. Ukraine, Gaza…the world is at war. My point has been proven that our Remembrance Day is not fit for purpose, and I have never felt more depressed about being right.
Author: DaN McKee (he/him)
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