In my strongly-pacifist days, I always felt very uneasy about Remembrance Sunday. Its still something I can't really feel any great affinity with - just too militaristic for me.
That aside, I wonder how the day will change should those who remember WW2 finally die. I don't think that those of us who cannot remember can give the day anything like the same sort of dignity.
Moreover, as a way of remembering conflict, can the politicised and divisive wars of the post war era bring people together in anything like the same way? The Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan have all been anything but uniting.....
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Here in the US we have a beautiful WWII Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. Joe and I went up there and saw it, and both of us completely broke down and wept.
Both of our grandfathers served in WWII, but they did not live to see our nation build that memorial to commemorate them. My grandfather died in 1986, and the memorial didn't go up until 2004.
We both think the memorial is very fitting, and that our veteran grandfathers would quite like it.
Trying hard here to mind my wording. I just find it very difficult to reconcile the good intentions of many people around remberance events with the reality that most, if not virtually all, of them are forms of respect to military valour.
I would prefer forms of respect that are wholly civilian, actively preach and promote peace and concentrate on the loss, cost, moral disreptitude and human squaler, environmental damage and the aftermath of military activity.
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