Why Remember?

Every month I write a small piece for Navy Region Singapore's newsletter The Merlion Star. As I prepared for this month I couldn't help but remember an amazing speech given by the then Australian High Commissioner at the 2016 ANZAC Day Remembrance Service. It highlighted a different, and I think correct way of remembering loss as a nation. So on this Memorial Day, I offer it here in this space as well.

Greetings,

At last year’s ANZAC Day ceremony here in Singapore Philip Green, the then Australian High Commissioner, spoke about why Australia and New Zealand annually remember a day of defeat in Gallipoli. He said it was a day in which Australia and New Zealand “gained a sense of nationhood and identity with a new self-consciousness that arose from a moment of national crisis.” He also discussed the importance isn’t just what a society remembers but also how society remembers events. For Aussies and Kiwis, the rituals of ANZAC day helps them “reflect on [their] shared history and learn from it. These rituals provide an atmosphere for reflection, a way of reimaging our past and its connection to our present.”

He highlighted that ANZAC day is an “active and changing way in which we configure the past, understand the present, and imagine our future. How we do it matters to our collective sense of self, and the collective sense of our futures.” There is also a tradition of welcoming more people into the remembrance and into the story of ANZAC so that other societies can learn from a shared remembrance. Those of us who have attended an ANZAC Day can attest to the power of such a shared remembrance.

This month, Americans take time to pause and reflect on those we have lost in our wars over the last 200 years. Unfortunately, commemoration of that day in America has become associated more with the beginning of summer and the end of the school year rather than a time of reflection and remembrance. As we make plans to spend the long weekend on holiday in various countries throughout Southeast Asia, let us spend time remembering not just those whom we have lost in our wars, but also on the nature of war and ways in which each of us can work to lessen the need for war.

How we remember those who have sacrificed for us matters a great deal. If we remember through travel and commercial spending, then society defines the sacrifice in those terms. If we remember with honest and sober reflection, followed by large gatherings of our community, then we can shape the communal nature of remembrance and honor sacrifice through thoughtful reflection and participation in the very freedoms people have sacrificed their lives to defend.

Blessings,

Chaps