The past is a foreign country; they do things different there.
L.P Hartley: The Go-Between
Written history is a catalogue of crime
The sordid and the powerful
The architects of time
Sting: History Will Teach Us Nothing
‘[…] a society that has become hooked on grief and likes to wallow in a sense of vicarious victimhood’
Boris Johnson’s comment on the people of Liverpool after the 2 minute silence held for British Serviceman Ken Bigley beheaded in Iraq in 2004 (Spectator 16.10.04)
Every year representatives of all political parties gather at the Cenotaph alongside members of the Armed Forces and the general population to commemorate Armistice Day. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, that moment at which the canons fell silent and the fighting of the previous four years ceased. Ever since that day we have been called upon to ‘Never Forget’.
When Copernicus concluded, through the movement of stars across the canopy of the world, that the Earth was not the centre of the universe around which everything else revolves, but in actual fact that accolade belonged to the sun, he also created an existential crisis for mankind; the idea that we are not at the centre of everything, but are in fact just one of many celestial bodies spread infinitely in all directions at once, at the mercy of an indifferent universe.
And yet here we are, three hundred thousand years into the existence of the human race, living ever more precarious lives on a world ravaged by many wars and with a proliferation of technology that could either help us or destroy us. Waking up to the news each day it feels like we have chosen the path of destruction.
“a modicum of caution is required in every soldier. In most disputes the basic aggressive threat signals are strong enough to put a stop to the dispute without the contestants coming to blows, then everyone uses appeasement signals. You have nothing to worry about.”
“But we’re not using spears anymore, weapons have become highly impersonal and developed to be fired fantastic distances, how the hell is any enemy going to see my appeasement signals?”
“It’s a fair point, you won’t be able to see his either”
Film Dialogue – Source Unknown
[Atheist Viewpoint Trigger Warning – add god according to taste]
It is important that we acknowledge scale when we think about how to respond to situations. The scale of personal affairs, affairs of the community, society, humankind and our relation to that indifferent universe that neither knows nor cares of our existence. When we do not forget, we must not forget why we are not forgetting.
The battle of Holbeck Moor (1936) is one of a number of significant events across Britain in the build up to World War II in which those thinking at a human scale could see the writing on the wall. During this time many establishment figures, aristocracy and organisations, unable to grasp the concept of human scale supported the designs that Adolf Hitler had on wider society and the world. Whether it was Oswald Mosley or the likes of Viscount Rothemere, owner of the Daily Mail who more than once dined with Hitler, the support came from within and it became the province of the working classes at places like Holbeck Moor, Cable Street and others to support a world in which the decency of humankind is acknowledged at a human scale.
Support for far-right tendencies is still high to this day and we must remember the utter devastation wrought upon society as the worlds leaders send the poor out to fight to the death over lines drawn on maps. And the working class have never fared well in these scenarios, here in 2025 the death industry is as big as it ever was with many adverts urging people to join the military. Whilst it may be true that you can learn new skills and make new friends through the army, or so the cinema ads tell me, the risk of death or maiming seems quite a chance to take.
It is true that we cannot avoid the need for armies to defend ourselves, for as long as xenophobia, racism and poverty exist in a world run by rulers who play on the deepest fears of ‘their subjects’ then it will always be a necessity. But, we must consider the difference between defending ourselves against conflict as opposed to starting or exacerbating conflicts. With every day that passes we, as a nation, are sadly well aware of the sacrifice made to ensure that ruthless regimes do not take a hold across the globe. The real need for understanding the nature of true remembrance is within the ranks of the worlds leaders who seemingly make the same mistakes time and time again, which leads to the question ‘are they really mistakes?’
We must not let fear of the other take hold, we must reject xenophobic argument and understand who our allies are, and who the true beneficiaries of our sacrifices are.
[…] a possibility is not a reality means nothing more than that the circumstances in which it is for the moment entangled prevent it from being realised – otherwise it would only be an impossibility. If this possibility is disentangled from its restraints and allowed to develop, a utopia arises.
Robert Musil: The Man Without Qualities.
