So, of course, I'm going to spend a good chunk of this post talking about its inverse.
At the appropriate hour today in his time zone, a friend of mine in Australia made a fairly simple commemorative post on his personal blog. It consisted simply of the date and time of the Armistice and the word "Remember." I can certainly appreciate the minimalist nature of that kind of comment; it says most of what needs to be said about the date where it really matters. (Myself, I tend to post some form or another of antiwar poetry at whatever online presence I've been loudest at that year.)
What caught my interest, however, was a statement in the discussion comments beneath the post. Someone mentioned that they'd forgotten the date altogether, but seemed to find that alright, because "[w]ar isn't something to be remembered."
My initial reaction to that kind of statement tends to boil down to "the hell it isn't," but that's largely a combination of my inner historian and (as far as I can comfortably carry the concept) pacifist speaking. I'm old-fashioned enough as far as the notion of remembering events goes that I can say I think George Santayana got it right in one without feeling silly. But there's something else in there that warrants thinking about, as there is with all but the most inane statements.
I'm pretty sure everyone reading this - and everyone who isn't - has a few files parked in their brains' storage that they'd like to be able to delete for one reason or another. They might be big things - being on the wrong end of violence (including, yes, war) or a natural disaster, a major personal failure leaving one with a nagging case of the wouldacouldas - or they might not, being simply minor slights or shortcomings which anyone else would consider not a big deal but, to their bearer, ache like an old wound years after the fact. Most people do have a few things that they simply Don't Want To Remember, but we're largely forced to deal with not having that capacity outside of damaging levels of repression. (That is beginning to change, no doubt raising temptation and concern in equal measure in quite a few heads.)
That's forgetting on a very personal and individual level, of course, and I'm (generally) libertarian enough to think that people should think or do as they will in that regard - if we own anything at all, we certainly own our own minds. With statements like "war isn't something to be remembered," however, a larger issue comes up. It implies the recommendation that there are experiences and memories which are best excised not just from individuals' minds, but from the collective memory of entire cultures.
Cultures - families, towns, nations - deal with that issue of things they'd rather not have experienced on a level which may be somewhat more diffuse than you or I do, but the notion is still there. They handle it in different ways, some good and some bad. Witness Japan, still struggling with its role and experiences in the Second World War; witness Rwanda, taking very much the opposite route; witness Canada, which has integrated its current status as a (largely) tolerant and open multicultural society to the point where few people in my generation have the least clue that we have our own moments of shame. Different reactions for each one; Japan is simultaneously trying to remember and forget; Rwanda is drawing its memories out as much as possible to face and address them; Canada has largely successfully forgotten some of its own black marks.
I'm torn on this kind of thing. On a personal level I despise the idea of excising events from the community's memory. I don't like denial, and the idea that [insert concept here] should not be remembered or thought about is something I generally find deeply appalling. Of course, I'm one person; other historians may not have as much of a problem with this, and historians as a community don't exactly have very strong control over the community's memory at large. I'm not hubristic enough to see myself as The Gatekeeper Of Historical Memory. Simply put, the question of what to remember and what to forget just isn't my decision beyond an immediate level: my own mind, those of people I teach or speak to or write to. If a society at large decides that something is to be forgotten, I must admit that while I may have some influence over that decision, in practice I'm relatively powerless.
So here I am, left wondering precisely how to react to the attitude and the concept. I'd prefer not to vanish wailing over the precipice of despair. I believe historical memory is pretty important - especially when we're talking about it in the context of the current holiday, where we mainly remember a series of intertwined conflicts (I was going to say "from this century," but I reminded myself it's been "the previous century" for some time now) where over a hundred million lost their lives in the name of purest good, blackest evil and everything in between. "Really" remembering those events - having those who had been through them in person around to remind us in a more visceral way than a textbook ever could - is only going to become more difficult in the next decade or so as the survivors of that time pass on. What do we do
Obviously we have it in us to continue to present material others would prefer not to think about. That's one of the fun things about the field, after all. (There's a running gag in political science that if you don't anger someone now and then, you're doing it wrong; I believe that applies to history as well, or possibly moreso.) Of course, on the public history side of things, there's going to be situations where that's not an option. We're likely to be told now and then that we must put such-and-such a face on things, emphasising one set of memories while pushing another set, which may be every bit as relevant and important and interesting, aside. We're going to be told now and then that we should whitewash, distort, forget or refuse to mention and discuss something, as the War Museum and Smithsonian (among other places) have discovered in recent years.
This issue's here, it likely has always been, and it likely always will be. So what do we do about it? Do we muddle through like we always have been or ignore the people who advocate such ignore-ance (to borrow Michael Frish's term), in effect forgetting them? Do we engage, or possibly confront them? How should we respond to having to choose between a representation (or misrepresentation) of history which mandates that we forget something we consider important on the one hand, and our careers on the other?
I have no particular clue at the moment. But then again, it's no longer the eleventh; it's 12:30 on the twelfth, and is starting to feel it. So I'll waive my personal responsibility to answer my own rhetorical questions even as I shout 'em into the darkness, and claim retroactively that it was merely my point all along to stick those questions into your head, allowing them to fester in a multiplicity of minds rather than just one. I meant for that to be the case. Really.
At least, I'd prefer you remember it that way.
And it's overdue, but I mentioned it as a tradition of mine at the start of the post. As it is still Remembrance Day in my head, I invite you all to have some Wilfred Gibson poetry.
I also invite you to think for awhile of that "long war" that consumed most of three decades of the twentieth century (for the Great War was not an isolated one); not just its courses and the numbers, but the reasons, the ideas, the dreams, and most importantly, the people it affected. History is a human thing, comprised of humans' stories and experiences; it cannot exist without us and is diminished when we are. That bloody century we're still staggering out of robbed us of far too many stories and storytellers both; if we at least hope that we do a better job with this century, then we've at least got a better start on this one.
They ask me where I've been,
And what I've done and seen.
But what can I reply
Who know it wasn't I,
But someone just like me,
Who went across the sea
And with my head and hands
Killed men in foreign lands...
Though I must bear the blame,
Because he bore my name.
- Wilfred Gibson (1878-1962), "Back"
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