On Remembrance Day

November 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada, on which we commemorate those who have fallen in war. This year is especially poignant, since it marks one hundred years (to the day) since the end of WWI. I have just a few thoughts to share.

This day is dedicated to remembering. This is a radical act, since it’s not something do easily or naturally. In fact, I’ve come to believe that forgetting is a fundamental part of what it is to be human. This is both good and bad (or neither, if you prefer). It is through (partial) forgetting that we move past sorrow and trauma in our lives. This is natural, and healthy. But at the same time, we often and easily forget things that should not be forgotten. We are quickly distracted by things immediate, pressing, and important. Either way, forgetting is a critical part of the human experience. Thus it is that to remember is an inhuman, even a superhuman, act.

And this is what raises this ordinary day to a holiday—even to a holy day.

Remembering is also what will break us out of the cycle of history. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (attributed to George Santayana). But it’s hard.

There is a saying among the Mennonites of my area: “To remember is to work for peace.” On its face, I agree with them. Peace is better than war, and one of the reasons we remember is to avoid the horrors of the past—horrors like the World Wars. But that is not the only reason we remember. We remember because the dead deserve it, because we owe it to them, because theirs is a glory that will never fade. And this is why I simultaneously dislike this saying of the Mennonites. I resent the implicit denigration of the sacrifices of the dead, the reduction of noble and tragic sacrifice to sorrow alone, and the co-optation of the campaign to remember for the pacifist agenda. When something is already “rare and pure and perfect,” it should be left as it is. There aren’t enough of those in the world.

Two poems I recommend for contemplation and commemoration are the famous “In Flander’s Fields,” by John McCrae, and “For the Fallen,” by Laurence Binyon.

There is a line, though I cannot remember where I read it: “May this death be always in my memory.” Originally applied to the death of Christ, and I think also to one’s own death (memento mori), I think it may well be adopted without disrespect for Remembrance Day.

Lest we forget.