What have we learned?
As we reflect on Sunday’s Remembrance Day events, we can’t stop thinking about how time manipulates us. How easy it’s become to brush away our history with as much as a “that was then” shrug of the shoulders.
“Thank goodness there are no more World Wars!”
But there’s no safety in that. There is so little time that truly separates generations.
Our mothers and fathers remember First World War vets speaking in their schools, and our grandparents are the veterans we cherish today for their roles during the Second World War.
When we speak to our children — the generation we pray finally stops humanity’s cycle of violence — about the First World War, we do our best not to frame that conflict as someone else’s story.
It’s effects are lingering, and it’s more important for us to take responsibility for the killing that ended 100 years ago instead of sweeping it into the footnotes of black and white textbooks.
It seems vital we speak about 20th Century conflicts as if they happened during our watch rather than look at them like some ancient oddity.
The historian Harry Leslie Smith said it best with his book, “Don’t Let My Past be Your Future.”
The 95-year-old British Air Force veteran made headlines a few days ago — on Twitter of all places — when he suggested we replace poppies on our lapels with “our shame because as a human race we’ve learned nothing since 1918.”
It’s a harsh view, but Smith is desperate to remind everyone there doesn’t appear to be any end in sight when you consider the world’s refugee crisis.
Millions continue to search for safety and shelter from wars in Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and more. All wars are our wars. When our kids ask, “Did you know anyone in the war?” we tell them of our grandparents and great aunts and uncles, and realize that it wasn’t so long ago fighting raged across this globe.
Looking into their small faces, it’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking they’ve been saved from the savagery thanks to the sacrifices of their ancestors. But there is still much work to be done.
We’re doing more to view Nov. 11, 1918, not as a history lesson, but as a reminder to end all violence.
If we accept responsibility for past wars, we empower ourselves to stop future ones.
David Trifunov, Kelowna Daily Courier