Reflect on wars past, present lest we forget about future
Remembrance Day should also be a pledge to bring an end to war, writes
IT’S the eve of Remembrance Sunday and I have been thinking about its purpose and those who have been lost to war. As I do so I think of all the members of our extended family who have served on battlefields, generation after generation.
Great grandfather Coleman served as an ambulance driver in the Crimean war and reached Baku on the edge of the Black Sea. My paternal grandfather volunteered to serve in the Anglo-Boer war as a saddler and groom to the cavalry.
My great uncle Frank died on the Somme, serving as an infantryman.
In World War 2 our families heeded the call to serve. My maternal grandfather served as an engineer in India. My own father and fatherin-law both served in North Africa and Italy, one as a signal man, the other as a driver. Great Uncle Joe escaped on the last boat out of Poland and served in the Free Polish Army. Great Uncle Jack survived a Japanese prisoner of war camp and Uncle Freek Vlag was active in the Dutch underground and helped many Jews to escape the death camps in Germany.
My husband saw action in the Rhodesian Bush War as a police reservist.
My brother did his two years national service and served in the townships.
My sister-in-law, who was born in the death camps just after World War 2, served in the Israeli army as a Sabra. A son-in-law served with Umkhonto weSizwe and spent years on Robben Island. Two nephews have recently served in Iraq and Afghanistan, another in Germany with the British Armed Forces.
Most of them were just ordinary soldiers, no rank, no medals or honours other than the ones handed out to all servicemen.
We were lucky, as all but one survived the conflicts they served in. We are even more lucky that our current generation of sons and grandsons have not had to go to war.
But there are millions of people around the world who have lost loved ones and never saw them marry, have children, grow older.
There are others who have survivors who are physically, emotionally and mentally maimed. The cost of war is enormous in human potential. We glorify it, romanticise it and mislead the next generation into thinking it is honourable. It fascinates us and horrifies us.
We allow religious leaders, politicians and generals to fool us into thinking that these are necessary sacrifices. We waste billions of rands, dollars, pounds and other currencies fighting wars.
We use our brilliant minds to develop ever more deadly weapons that can destroy thousands at a distance. We talk of “collateral damage” and “friendly fire” when what we should say is wholesale murder.
To make it bearable, we make the enemy evil and satanic, somehow non-human or less than human.
They can’t be like us or we should have to face the truth – that they are in fact, just like us.
They have families they love, they have dreams and hopes for the future, just as we do. The colour of their skin, the way they speak and dress, the religion they believe in, all of these are markers of their otherness, their non-humanness.
We listen to stories that “prove” how bad these people are. We tend our stereotypes as if they were essential to survival. We give them derogatory names that emphasis how alien they are to us.
We believe the lies that are spread around, failing to think it can’t possibly be true that everyone from that country can be like that.
Ten countries in Africa are currently involved in wars and last year the lives of 37 752 people were lost in South Sudan, Sudan, Libya, Central African Republic and Nigeria among other places.
Hundreds of thousands of others have become refugees fleeing to other African countries not at war that are flooded with thousands of desperate families with nowhere to go and have to allocate critical resources to provide refugee aid, thus fuelling xenophobia among their own struggling populations.
Europe is dealing with the biggest humanitarian refugee crisis since World War 2 as Syria reels from more than 76 000 deaths last year.
“An estimated 1.5 billion people worldwide live in conflict-affected countries where repeated cycles of political and organised violence hinder development, reduce human security, and result in massive humanitarian suffering (World Bank, 2011) ” – from The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
Another organisation states: “The body count from the top 20 deadliest wars last year was more that 28% higher than in the previous year. Almost every major war last year saw a significant increase in casualties.”
On Remembrance Day we should take time to consider not only those who have died in wars in the past, but those who are dying every day in wars in the present.
The services are an act of remembrance but also a pledge to guard the honour of war dead.
We could wish that the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, instead of being just a day of memorial, could become an opportunity for ordinary people (like those who have fought in wars) to make a vow to work towards bringing an end to war. As John Lennon famously sang: Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace . . . You may say I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will be as one.