The denationalisation of Remembrance

https://defenceindepth.co/…/commemorating-the-centenary-of…/

Heartened by the noble intentions of this symposium by Kings College London's Defence Studies Department, emphasising the commonality and consequential denationalisation of active Remembrance. As Director of seminal World War 1 drama Journey’s End in Ypres, Belgium about British soldiers in a dugout anticipating Armageddon, it is the universality of war (and anti-war) themes MESH Theatre Co seeks to excavate and illuminate: any concept of Britishness is, for the purposes of this very literally "active" event, both incidental and accidental, to be simultaneously acknowledged and, where pertinent, ignored. As Telegraph critic Bill Darlington put it when the play first showed in 1928, breaking a conspiracy of silence ten years after the end this criminally wasteful war, “Here in a few soldiers are all soldiers.” The play's author RC Sherriff, a veteran of Passchendaele, in giving life and voice to his trench mates, anchored his compelling story in the warts-and-all (sometimes very funny) specifics of lived experience - as any skilled dramatist does. History, aided and abetted by this play, has exposed how strategic decisions made by British generals were notably reckless with human life; yet every nation had its generals, strategists and decision-makers who can be shown retrospectively to have blood on their hands. Themes of terror, boredom, camaraderie, endurance and the whole gamut of human emotions associated with trench warfare was of course common across every trench, every regiment, every nation. And, as citizens of the world reflecting on the sobering lessons of a World War, we must remember them - the victims - regardless of that accident of birth which determines nationality and any associated construct of allegiance. I look forward to KCL's reprisal of this exciting platform to mark the end of the 14-18 Centenary and Armistice Day.