A call to remembrance

Anybody who has ever seen The History Boys, whether on stage or on screen, will remember the moment when Irwin, that world-wise and world-weary teacher, turns round to his pupils observing a monument to fallen soldiers and says: “All this mourning has veiled the truth. Because you should realise... there’s no better way of forgetting something than by commemorating it.” But whilst I’m a huge fan of Alan Bennett’s play otherwise, I couldn’t disagree more with this statement. Moreover, it saddens me that so many people choose neither to mourn, nor commemorate, on what I see as one of the most important dates in our calendar: Remembrance Day.

And it’s almost funny, how whilst I’m certain my 10 year old brother (who has only thoughts of FIFA 12 on his mind) will be standing at 11 o’clock in the middle of some school yard, surrounded by three or four hundred other boys and girls (who for sure do not have anything more profound than FIFA 12 on

Let’s be honest here, if I don’t do as well as I’d hoped inmy end of year exams (or God forbid, fail them outright), it won’t be because 8 months before that a Professor stopped what he was saying

their minds), all sniffling and knocking their knees together in the bitter cold whilst some pompous red-nosed headmaster calls them to attention, sounds the bugle and bullies them into a minute’s worth of silence, my 11am on 11/11/12 will be as unremarkable as the 11am of the day before, or the day before that. No one shall force me to pause my day for 60 seconds. No one will take to a brass instrument to squawk out some pitiful notes. No one will recite ‘They shall grow not old, as we that are left...’ and place a wreath.

No. My lecturer will do none of those things. “And WHY NOT?!” I want to ask. Let’s be honest here, if I don’t do as well as I’d hoped inmy end of year exams (or God forbid, fail them outright), it won’t be because 8 months before that a Professor stopped what he was saying, lowered his glasses and looked up at the room to say: “Boys and girls, I want us to take a minute to think, to REALLY think about the incredible sacrifice some people not so unlike you or me gave some tens of years ago so that you can be here now, recovering from last night’s hangover in this stuffy lecture theatre, safe in the knowledge that outside of it is a free country. That your lives are free from fear. That you won’t be persecuted for being the ‘wrong’ race or religion, nor come home to find a relative missing because they said the ‘wrong’ thing out loud. That you won’t, in your majority, ever experience the horrors of war.”

Granted, Remembrance Day this year falls on a Sunday, so if I’m sitting in a lecture theatre then, I really will question whether I live in a free country. But last year and the year before that it didn’t, and no one interrupted a snoozing room then to announce that it was in fact, the 11th hour of the 11th day, etc etc.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m one of themost politically obtuse people I know. I don’t religiously watch Question Time every Thursday evening (or in fact, at all), and whilst I was distressed by the proposed rise in tuition fees, mine was not a face that you could have found at the street protests. But I do fiercely ‘mind’ that with each passing year, it seems that fewer and fewer people care about paying homage and respect to (or even just reflecting on) the vast number of men and women who suffered unspeakable brutalities, ultimately for our sakes. We can argue for hours over whether commemorating with all those wreaths and all those poppies actually does anything, but it’s unquestionable that in making no effort whatsoever to commemorate the deaths of those who gave up their lives for our freedoms, we are in effect trivialising their sacrifice.

Which is why I want to appeal to you. To you, the reader of this piece who has made it this far down the page. To you who also thinks that the significance of Remembrance Day shouldn’t dissolve in our minds. To you who realises that just because you may never have met somebody, it doesn’t mean that their actions and their bravery are worth forgetting about.

Please, buy a poppy to show that you care. Wear it with pride and tell someone else about why you’re doing it. Or just take a minute out of your busy day to think and to Remember: it’s the very least you can do.