Remembrance (Sunday)

 I am conflicted about Remembrance in the way we accept it currently. It is "to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts". (Commemorate - honour - keep alive).

1914-18 did not just butcher a generation on the fields of Flanders, those events became synonymous with mud and murder. On the plus side World War One was also central to the enfranchisement of women, the extension of democracy, the origins of the welfare state, the cleaning and rebuilding of decayed Victorian towns, the acceptance of pacifism as legitimate politics of protest, improved social mobility and increased social unrest, and to the ultimate end of Empire.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24610481

All wars involve far more people than just the armed forces fighting battles for causes they believed were just & right. Support for the armed forces, which is high, doesn't preclude our doubts about the wars in which they are engaged, for which we blame not them but politicians & generals. Everyone is involved in one way or another. Everyone risks death, some just risk it more than others. Many people play heroic roles & are prepared to sacrifice everything. 

Jeremy Corbyn denounced "spending shedloads of money to mark the 100th anniversary celebrations of the First World War.  (Celebrate - rejoice, have special festivities). How can you celebrate the "mass slaughter of millions of young men on the Western Front and all other places"?

I think the time has come to re-evaluate what we do and how we do it. We need a real discussion about whether the current status quo should continue indefinitely or whether we should find a better way forward rather than an arguably fairly pointless, ceremonial, harking back.

We do need to remember & learn from our history. We just don't seem to be very good at the latter. We repeat the mistakes over and over. Just look at the conflicts in the world today. Now we have euphemisms for the slaughter - (Collateral damage - unintentional deaths, injuries, or other damage inflicted incidentally). The danger is that it de-humanises the cost & we accept it. TV news is a video game as is drone warfare.