Why it’s good to remember bad events

March has a reputation as a month for significant events, going back centuries. And there have been some grim disasters at this stage of the year in recent times. A flood of significant anniversaries in the past week has brought back difficult memories.

In New Zealand, March 15 will always be the day of the Christchurch mosque terror attack which took 51 lives in 2019.

On Saturday, a national remembrance service was held in the city with a theme of unity and paying tribute. Last week marked 10 years since the start of protests that spawned Syria’s civil war that has killed nearly half a million and displaced millions more.

It is a decade since the triple disaster of an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant meltdown struck Fukushima on March 11, 2011, killing thousands. On Friday — March 11 local time — US President Joe Biden signed his US$1.9 trillion recovery bill into law and then marked the year since the pandemic began in a first address to the nation. Exactly a year earlier, the World Health Organisation had officially declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.

The first known case of the 1918 “Spanish Flu” pandemic in the US also occurred in March.

March 11 appears to be a particularly eventful date in recent years; the Madrid train bombings of 2004 occurred then, killing 191. The month is named after Mars, the Roman god of war, and today is the “Ides of March”.

Julius Caesar was betrayed and murdered by Brutus in 44BC on March 15. In Shakespeare’s words, Caesar is told to “beware the Ides of March”. Although recalling dark anniversaries makes us think about things we would rather not, there’s good reasons to do so.

Milestones give us a chance to assess whether any progress has occurred and lessons learnt. Some past events serve as a warning of future disasters.

With Syria, aside from its own story, there are echoes of the conflicts in Yemen, Libya and Myanmar. The Myanmar junta’s brutal approach can probably be traced to the fact they previously got away with slaughtering Rohingya Muslims. An Italian tribute to coronavirus victims in the town of Vo carries the inscription: “A man never dies if there is someone who remembers him”.

Remembering can highlight people’s resilience in overcoming adversity. And it can remind us of the good we are capable of — to feel empathy and support others.