Journal Entries
On Remembrance Day (NaJoPoMo #12)
Posted Nov 12, 2011
You have certain reservations about Remembrance Day.
This is not because you are anti-war, anti those/these wars or anti Britain particularly, although some of those are somewhat true.
Remembrance Day in the UK is in some ways a historical anachronism, instituted at the end of a war which saw every family in the UK touched but where the outcome was largely inconclusive, devoid of any real sense of victory and without much material benefit for returning soldiers. The result was massive emotional investment in war memorials and the rituals surrounding them as a focus for the grief of the nation, a nation who didn’t have much to cheer about. This set the tone for the way war has been commemorated in the UK ever since, yet it is noticeable that the Second World War, a war which had some fairly obvious winners and losers, and which resulted in things like the welfare state being set up, did not produce a rash of war memorials. Names tended to be tacked on to the old World War One monuments.*
It’s this almost exclusive focus on the dead that you consider, at best, a little hypocritical, and at worst, rather dangerous.
It’s easy to say, isn’t war awful, look what it leads to, those poor dead boys, wasn’t it tragic, let’s wear this symbol, bow our heads, say we are sorry and feel morally cleansed by our acknowledgement of the horror. You worry that by wallowing in one day’s mourning, we, the non combatants, feel that we absolve ourselves of involvement in the issue of war the other 364 days of the year.
Plus, whilst you appreciate that the day is a comfort to those who have lost family or friends in war, and that this is not an inconsiderable point, nevertheless, the dead are dead. Remembrance Day can’t help them now. You consider that the focus on the dead means we lose sight of our responsibilities to living solders. Where, you wondered, is the day to support the troops currently under fire on our behalf, to celebrate the maimed, the traumatised, the returnees from war?
Well, actually, there is a day of sorts. It’s called Armed Forces Day (formerly Veterans Day). Anyone know when that is? No, you thought not.
The thing is, you think that history is repeating itself, in that the longer we engage in a protracted, depressing and inconclusive war, the more focus will be put on Remembrance Day, to the detraction of actually doing anything about it, or about the increasing numbers of young men exposed to the unpleasantness who have to come back and try to get on with their lives.
Not to mention the people who actually have to live in areas of conflict.
So you buy your poppy and you wear it. In fact, this year you bought two pin on poppies, two stick on poppies, a Remembrance Day balloon, a sticker and a pennant, because when you discovered that you only had a five-pound note, rather overwhelmed by your largesse and the Star’s obvious excitement, the Royal British Legion‘s representative kept producing new items as you attempted to stuff your money into his collecting tin. You approve of their work.
But you don’t think November 11th is the best day to do our best thinking about war, our roles and responsibilities.
*You actually wrote a Guide Entry on thos topic once, it bothers you that much: A43406750
Discuss this Journal entry [7]
Latest reply: Nov 12, 2011
On Lewis Carrol (NaJoPoMo #10)
Posted Nov 10, 2011
There will always be a lovely, long, witty, thoughtful and inspiring blog post tomorrow.
But never today.
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Nov 10, 2011
On desparation (NaJoPoMo #9)
Posted Nov 9, 2011
You definitely prefer mountains to the sea. But you are quite fond of lakes and rivers.
Discuss this Journal entry [3]
Latest reply: Nov 9, 2011
On marking time (NaJoPoMo #8)
Posted Nov 8, 2011
You pretty much believe that there is no such thing as too much garlic.
Discuss this Journal entry [15]
Latest reply: Nov 8, 2011
On your new iPhone.
Posted Nov 7, 2011
So this evening you have been too busy noodling around with your new iPhone to actually be bothered to write a proper post.
You took it out for a walk today (your children came too) and spent a very happy half an hour in an autumnal graveyard taking photographs. With your new iPhone. Hey, it was atmospheric. And the squirrels were obligingly plentiful, which meant you could concentrate on your new iPhone without too many distractions from the Star. You would put some of them here, but you haven’t got round to figuring out how to sync your new iPhone to the computer yet.
You had planned to post to Twitter and Facebook and the like from your new iPhone on the way home, just because you now can, but the Star, who normally cannot be dragged away from the place where you can see trains, today decided that two minutes was quite enough of that and he wanted to get on with scootering.
Since then you have been tapping away at your new iPhone’s screen finding out what all the little icons let you do, marvelling at how controlled the scrolling is, swearing every time you need to type an M on the keyboard and hit delete instead and trying to find an app that converts the keyboard into Cyrillic.
You have even made a call using your new iPhone. To Russia, none the less, using Skype. How cool is that?
Oh and you also made dinner, played with the kids a bit, put them to bed and so on.
And yet here you are, not writing this post on your new iPhone. This is because you have developed cramp in your thumbs.
Maybe tomorrow.
Discuss this Journal entry [13]
Latest reply: Nov 7, 2011
Sol
Researcher U138596
Write an Entry
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."