Remembrance Day: Striking a Balance

In his 1939 work "The Poison Called History", HG Wells argued that teachers, by teaching a hyper-nationalist version of history, have some of the blood of the Great War on their hands.

It seems to me that there is a schism in the way we teach about war, particularly around Remembrance Day.

Every Remembrance Day we try to advocate the idea of "never again". Strangely, we use this poem to promote this message:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

- John McCrae

It wasn't until I was in university that I really came to appreciate the content of the poem. Far from the call for peace and unity that my teachers cast it as, In Flanders Fields is a recruiting call! It asks a new generation to take up the task of the one cut down on the fields, to "take up our quarrel with the foe".

As history teachers we are encouraged to promote awareness of Canadian involvement in the wars. I fear that it is far too easy to fall in to the old trap of glorifying conflict rather than promoting awareness of the horrors of war. Often WWI instruction largely amounts to an effort to make students proud of battlefield achievements rather than a critical analysis of the conflict.

Sometimes teachers don't even know that they are doing it, as illustrated by the disparity between the general message of a typical Remembrance Day ceremony and it's usual centrepiece, a recitation of In Flanders Fields by students.

Don't get me wrong. I am proud of Canada's military heritage, and will promote it in my classroom. I just worry that lines between national pride, patriotism and nationalism may be narrower than we think, and that it is very easy to cross them without even knowing it.