In the summer of 2016, my mother lay dying in a North London hospital. Her long life had begun in Weimar Germany in the aftermath of the Great War. The rise of the Nazis from 1933 cast an increasingly dark shadow over her teenage years. It became clear that like every other Jewish family, hers was now gravely under threat. In 1937, her parents got her out of Germany and she came to England as a refugee. They meanwhile fled to the Netherlands for safety. When the Germans invaded, they were hidden underground by two evangelical sisters who believed it was their vocation to shelter Jews. My mother's hospitalisation happened during the Referendum campaign. She was not much given to political debate, but the idea that Britain might leave the European Union exercised her deeply. "This country wouldn't do anything so stupid, would they?" she asked me more than once. I tried to reassure her, believing at the time that despite episodes of irrationality, the British people were on the whole pragmatic with an instinct for common sense, and that this flirtation with Brexit would pass. Then came the vote on 23 June. Afterwards, she simply commented, "What a terrible terrible shame". A month later, to the day, she died.
He's right in his last point of course. The Armistice is not the property of this or that faction, or even this or that nation. It is part of our common European history, indeed, of our history as a human race. Its solemn commemoration this weekend should unite us, just as it should unite us with both our allies and our former enemies. I'm heartened that this centenary has so engaged people across our nation and continent. Last night's news carried reports from schools where children have written poems and imaginary letters in honour of the war dead. To them, a centenary must seem incredibly remote. Yet they have caught the theme of "war and the pity of war" (as Wilfred Owen called it) with real imagination. One nine-year old said that the thought of leaving his family at home to go to the front and possibly be killed was unbearable. How could they do it? he asked.
But I bridled at the allegation that I was "playing politics". I replied that far from indulging in political games, I was entirely serious. If we don't learn to allow history to shine a light on our present predicaments and future destinies, I argued, we are just not learning from the past. And when we don't do this, as has been said so many times, we condemn ourselves to repeating its mistakes. Wars are not inevitable. They happen for reasons that need to be understood against the context of the time. History doesn't repeat itself. Every generation has to learn for itself how to navigate the events of its own day. But the twentieth century's two world wars with their shocking waste of life are a stark warning to all of us. We can sleep-walk into catastrophe because we are not interpreting the signs of the times. Remembrance Sunday is an annual reminder to do precisely this: remember, reflect, pay attention, resolve that never again - if humanly possible - will precious human lives be sacrificed on the altar of conflict and war.
For my mother, brought up in the shadow of one world war and living through another, the peace in Europe we have enjoyed for seventy years was, if not a miracle, a very great achievement. This was why she cherished our membership of the European Union. For underlying everything else it aspired to was a project that began with the need to find reconciliation and build a lasting peace in Europe. To her in the last weeks of her life, it seemed inconceivable that progress, so hard-won across the continent since the last war, could be sacrificed in such a casual way. Why throw it all away? she asked. Why indeed?
We heard far too little about this during the Referendum campaign. Since the vote, politicians on all sides of the debate have obsessed about the economy, trade deals and the financial implications of any Brexit deal that might be negotiated. I'm not going to say these things aren't important. But they may not be what matters most. To my mind, our place in the world and our relationship with our own continent are even more significant because they have so much to do with the flourishing of human life across the planet, social justice, the welfare of the most needy in our societies and our care of the environment. Our sights should be set so much higher than simply our own national wellbeing.
On Remembrance Sunday we recall how Britain entered both world wars to support nations that were threatened by aggressors. Not turning away from others in need was a powerful motivator. We are right to remember, with pride and gratitude, how our country responded so honourably when our continent was at risk. We presented our best selves to the world. The challenge now is, how to present our best selves to the world in this postwar era where we are beset by threats to world peace and stability beyond the imaginings of our parents and grandparents. What kind of world did the glorious dead lay down their lives for? Is it playing politics to conjecture that for them, a kinder, more compassionate world, more sensitised to human suffering and need was somewhere in their minds? Should we not go on aspiring to build this kind of world as we keep the Armistice centenary? And shouldn't we honour all the global, continental and national institutions, however flawed, whose purposes include friendship, stability and peace? The EU is not perfect - far from it. But it has played an important role in contributing to the peace of Europe for the lifetimes of most of us. I've heard veterans of the last war speak with dismay about Brexit as a kind of betrayal of so much that they fought for. That makes sense to me, born as many years after the end of the war in 1945 as my parents were after the Armistice of 1918.
Not to walk away from our friends is a lesson I draw from the Armistice. We didn't in 1914 and 1939. We shouldn't now. That's not playing politics. It's trying to learn from the events we commemorate this weekend. It's asking how, a hundred years later, we go on building on the hopes and dreams of those we remember who laid down their lives for the sake of a better world, and for whose sacrifice we remain for ever thankful.
This image says it all. It was taken yesterday at Compiègne where the Armistice was signed in 1918. It has added poignancy because it was here in 1940 that Adolph Hitler insisted on receiving the surrender of France out of revenge for the Treaty of Versailles. Here's what someone who had seen it posted on Twitter last night. I'm from the Middle East. This picture moves me nearly to tears - curiously, more than I find it moves young Europeans. Do young Europeans even realize what has been achieved? It's nothing less than sacred, because peace is sacred, because human life is sacred.
There is nothing left to say. Except to be thankful.
Christian greetings. I enjoyed your recent contribution to Premier.
ReplyDeleteIt is natural to think of how to stop "it" happening again, approaching Remembrance Sunday. In fact, I find it hard to relate to those who don't stop to think, at this time of year, and whenever they think of the wars in history, of how it might be possible to stop "it" happening.
In today's context, "it" refers to pan-European war or even worldwide war, perhaps with Germany pitted against the UK again. But "it" also refers to our pet hates as to what we imagine a German imperialist government would have imposed upon Europe (including the UK) if Germany had won either of the 20th century's world wars.
Naturally at this time our minds always turn to political ideas as to how to stop both its, both war itself, and what we'd fear enough perhaps to use war again to it happening, or happening again, if we fail to prevent it by politics and diplomacy.
I offer you my own 2012 poem, in which I played politics myself with the theme of Remembrance Day:
Burning the poppy
https://johnallmanuk.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/for-our-tomorrow/
I voted Leave for the good reason you had yourself for (I guess) voting Remain. To make Europe a better continent for all its peoples. I believed that Britain's relationship with the other nations of Europe could become better than ever, if we demanded to have our cake and eat it, so to speak, by seeking to leave the EU, whilst retraining as many as possible of the perceived benefits of membership of the EU, because I thought that's what every EU member state ought eventually to be doing. I believed this might be achievable because I saw no a priori reason why we had to put up with the EU in its present form, merely in order to have the benefits which many see as benefits of the EU itself, but which I don't. I see the EU as somebody who is trying to sell us, as its intellectual property, something that is ours already, paid for in the blood of two world wars, and in the hard work of peacemakers.
I imagined that the EU would try to make leaving as difficult and as painful as possible for the UK, but that that would only prove the main point, to even the most emotional Remainer, that was upmost in the minds of those who wanted to try to leave the EU before that became almost impossible, for any member state. If the UK managed to have its cake and eat it, other member states, starting with the last to join the EU, would be inspired to seek the same, I thought. Eventually, even the die-hards, the original six EEC members, would want to move on, where Britain had led, I hoped.
The EU was a useful scaffold, for the contruction work of building a better Europe. Now we've got that better Europe, the last thing we need is a scaffold that has for a long time been thinking, talking and acting as though it was the building.
The UK still has important work to do inside the EU
https://johnallmanuk.wordpress.com/2017/01/13/article50/