City Of God 44

Today they will gather at the cenotaphs and in churches because today is Sunday and November 11. There aren't many survivors left, people who saw action during the Second World War. The youngest would be in their nineties. The oldest are already dead. Their children and grandchildren, if they have any, and any who care enough, will be there also, as will others, such as those who were present for the more recent charnel houses in the Balkans and in Afghanistan. I don't think that any of those people love war, nor are the kinds of war mongers that peace activists, such as myself, might be tempted to paint them as. Each carries in their mind and memory their own idea, their unique experience, of what happened. I think they all believed in the rightness of what they were doing. At least while they were in the war. Some might be wondering now, as they have hobbled through the years of following peace scarred in their deepest soul by the trauma and the horror of what they saw, experienced, and, dare I say, of what they did. Not everyone went there willing, nor did every mother willingly give up their sons to those furnaces, and I think that in order to cope, they have had to create a certain myth of war, of valour and heroism. I heard on a radio program the other day just one line, but it was very telling, and I don't know whether it was just following the first or the second war, but a British woman was congratulated by the Queen for sacrificing her five sons who died in combat. The woman, still grieving, retorted, "Ma'am, it was not a sacrifice: I did not give them up willingly." We know very well, the losses, the huge sacrifice of human life in times of war. No one wants to be seen as a killer, as a wanton butcher, and certainly no one wants to see themselves as such. So we focus, not on the millions of innocent victims of war, and certainly not on the deaths of the enemy soldiers, nor the grief and weeping of their widows, mothers, fathers, siblings and children, but only on our losses. It's largely about narrative. I don't think there will be anyone gathered in front of the cenotaph who is going to be pondering how our governments dispatched thousands and thousands of our youth to invade and conquer and occupy foreign countries, while committing such murder and mayhem along the way that the social impact, not to say environmental devastation in those countries still are being calculated and weighed. But that is what happened. Yes it is but one narrative, of many, but no less inaccurate and no more flawed than any of the others. No matter how horrible were the brutal policies of Hitler's Nazis, and yes, they were the first invaders and occupiers and that also must be acknowledged. No one seems to know the truth of what really happened then, nor the truth of the incidents and developments that led up to the war. All we have is myth, and myth is the bread that sustains cultures and nations. At least in the churches there will be a little more pull for peace, or one would hope. Yes, compassion and respect for the fallen soldiers, for what they endured, and if not sacrificed, that they themselves were sacrificed by politicians too unimaginative or too intellectually and morally lazy to seek and employ the ways of peace. But here is where I draw the line. I do not owe to those same soldiers the quality of life I am said to enjoy here in Canada, because even if the myth says that they were fighting and sacrificing for our democratic rights and freedoms, that is in itself just what I said it is. It is a myth. It could be partially true. But the devastation that resulted. The millions, tens of millions of lives wasted and people butchered. If Remembrance Days are to have any future relevance or cred, then we are going to have to start placing new emphasis on the importance of peace, of dialogue, of peace-making and reconciliation, and we are going to have to decide, all of the nations once and for all, that war, military intervention, should never be considered, not even as a final resort. It doesn't matter how much good comes out of war, and we have to really rein in our greed and self-interest here, because some economies go absolute gangbusters during and following major wars, especially for the victors, and also for compliant, conquered nations who are well-treated and rebuild afterwards. Monetary wealth does nothing to heal the scars, the broken hearts, the trauma, nor the environmental devastation, nor the buildings and cities of beauty and antiquity that were bombed into rubble. We have to start letting go of the myths, we have to start facing the truth about war, and we have to start finding and inventing creative ways of moving forward in peace and reconciliation.