I listened to the live coverage of Remembrance Day on Radio 4 this morning and it struck me as simple, humble, sincere, moving but not affected, which was surprising. I wondered if it was due to a difference in national character, or changes in myself, or because there is currently a conflict going on.

The BBC then answered my question again with the program "Roots of Remembrance Day," which I highly recommend if you get a chance to listen to it. (For some reason, there is a partial transcript here.) Part of what's interesting in the story is that the man given the job of creating a ceremony at the end of WWI, (first of all, I thought how interesting it was that that could be a job and that someone could be as well-suited for it as this guy was) Curzon* "to his great credit put aside his preference for pomp and aristocracy, aiming instead for “poignant simplicity rather than high-ranking grandeur” and that “widows and ex-servicemen should be given priority”. That's still how it comes across; there's music, but not a lot of speechmaking. The heads of government lay wreaths at the cenotaph, there's a brief ceremony led by the Bishop of London, and then the veterans and their families come forward and lay their own wreaths. That's it. It's neither melodramatic nor pompous.

*no Trill jokes, please

Listening to the Bishop of London, it occurred to me that even though the cenotaph and ceremony are supposedly for the lost servicemen, or that he asked god to watch over them--really there's nothing we can do for them at this point. They're gone. The cenotaph is for the survivors and their grief; and for us so we can remember.

My understanding at this point is that all we can do as a society is to support veterans, service-men and -women and their families, and do what we can to minimize the future need for the type of sacrifices they have made.

There is an argument to be made that we can also honor their memories by preserving the health of civil society, but I think I am ill-equipped to discuss that idea at any length.

And, as individuals, there's this argument to be made:

A Brief for the Defense

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come. 

-Jack Gilbert
- posted by k @ 4:13 AM