I wanted to base today's blog (today is Remembrance Day) on art with an anti war theme. I recall writing something a bit inflammatory last year about how I was uncomfortable with the feeling of nationalism that I got during an observation at around this time.
This morning I was watching a television program on some ceremonies held in some small town, where various families and their experiences with the different wars were featured. One family featured a man who was Canadian, but his father had been German and had been captured by the Russian army, and who had spent more than two years trying to escape. When asked what he was thinking about his father, the man choked up with tears and was unable to answer.
I think it is important to think about not only the Canadians that died but the soldiers who they fought against.
Disclaimer: I did not create these images. They were supplied by Google after a short search of "anti war art"
3 comments:
Very thought-provoking blog Keith. I admire your anti-war stance. I thought you might like to hear about my travels to many of the cemetaries in France for various countries who participated in the World Wars. It was nationalism and its finest. The main American ceremony was absolutely spectacular with bright shining white crosses, immaculate lawns, and two large gift shops. The Canadian cemetary was quite modest (imagine that) and the German one was in fact a series of mass graves with a large mound in the middle and a series of low black crosses around the mound - one for every 10 soldiers killed. These experiences were both illuminating and sickening.
If it helps you, when I was young (and so much younger that today---John Lennon, Paul McCartney) we called it Armistice Day, not Remembrance Day. Armistice means the cessation of hostilties so that peace can be negotiated. So Armistice Day is really the ultimate anti-war day because it means the opposite of war and hostilities. I think Remembrance Day came into fashion because Armistice sounds too foreign and because the day became a homage to veterans, and not just a day to recall the end of the war to end all wars (an aspiration that, unfortunately, it did not live up to).
I think I do prefer Armistice Day
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