Food for thought on Remembrance Day
There is an anniversary, or a memorial day of a kind, on every day of the calendar somewhere in the world. Some anniversaries are personal and private, others public.
On November 11 we pass the anniversary of the day 100 years ago when World War 1 ended. Given, as we are, to Ptolemaic parochialism, very many South Africans will probably dismiss the last day of the Great War as inconsequential. It was not.
There is a lot to learn from the settlement that was reached and much more from the political and economic consequences of the peace that followed, the least of which was the way the Great Depression of the 1930s introduced “a new era of economic theorising”.
There have been suggestions of a causal relationship between the Keynesian revolution in economics and the Great Depression. This is for another discussion. Let us return to the idea of anniversaries as mnemonic events.
Incidentally, November 11 is also the day, seven years ago, when the first working draft of the National Development Plan (NDP) was presented to the presidency. The performance radicalism that besets the country will conjure reasons to ignore the day or decry the NDP as an exercise in sedition or some elaborate capitalist plot.
Anyway, the end of World War 1 was probably less significant than the years that followed. Consider, analogously, the day Nelson Mandela was released from prison. It was, to be sure, highly significant, but what happened over the almost 30 years that followed may explain a lot more about the state of affairs in SA today than does the single event on February 11 1990.
It would be easy but unwise to dismiss World War 1 and 2 as uniquely European conflicts. There are lessons to be had from (especially) the period between the two wars. By most accounts, it was the settlement at Versailles in 1919 that is considered to have failed.
In The Economic Consequences of the Peace, John Maynard Keynes warned of the pitfalls of an ill-conceived and badly negotiated settlement at Versailles. Keynes was a member of the British government during the negotiations but resigned before the treaty was completed.
Writing in early 1919, and with great foresight, he explained: “Europe, if she is to survive her troubles, will need so much magnanimity from America that she must herself practise it. It is useless for the Allies, hot from stripping Germany and one another, to turn for help to the US to put the states of Europe, including Germany, on to their feet again. If the general election of December 1918 had been fought on lines of prudent generosity instead of imbecile greed, how much better the financial prospect of Europe might now be.”
When World War 1 ground to an end, there was a sigh of relief across the world. But for the next 20 years Europe and its North American allies lurched from one disaster to the next. The full picture is as complex as it is contested. I cannot possibly do it any justice here.
Some of the standout events were hyperinflation in Germany (where, we are reminded, it cost a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread); the agriculture crisis in the US; the stock market crash of 1929; the Great Depression of the 1930s, and then, of course, Europe returning to war in 1939.
Within 20 years of the end of World War 1, the European world was back at war. We should not get ahead of ourselves. SA is not quite at war with itself, but 20 years into our democracy things are not going smoothly. And, much like the way the consequences of the Versailles peace gave rise to fascism and Nazism, populism is on the march in SA.
Very often one person’s memorial day is another person’s day of mourning. Later in November, on the fourth Thursday of the month, families in the US will gather to celebrate Thanksgiving. It’ sa special day for the settler colonists and their offspring, who essentially gather to celebrate the arrival of European Christian pilgrims in North America in 1620.
On the same Thursday every year, at least since 1970, indigenous Americans gather to commemorate what they consider to be a national day of mourning. They remember and reflect on the genocide and mistreatment of millions of indigenous people and recognise the continuing struggles of Native Americans.
All of this, then, is at least worth thinking about during next weekend’s Sunday roast, even if one remains unconvinced by the consequences of peace.
GIVEN, AS WE ARE, TO PTOLEMAIC PAROCHIALISM, VERY MANY SOUTH AFRICANS WILL PROBABLY DISMISS THE LAST DAY OF THE GREAT WAR AS INCONSEQUENTIAL