Quote:
Originally Posted by Fan in Exile
Aside from the whole issue with Cherry, one of the reasons I want nothing to do with Remembrance Day is because of false tropes like the one about our soldiers sacrificing their lives to bring Canada to where it is today.
First of all, this is a day commemorating the armistice for World War I. We were dragged into that senseless war as a colony, and largely used as fodder as were other colonies. Read Owen and Sassoon instead of Flanders Field. Let's remember, as Armistice Day was intended to cause to remember, that WWI was meant to be the war to end all wars because it forced us collectively to recognize the senselessness and nihilism of military conflict. So let Remembrance Day be a sombre reflection, not a glorification of the military.
Soldiers did not win our way of life in Canada. We were certainly involved in a just war in WWII but nothing about our way of life, our constitution, our rights or our freedoms were won by soldiers.
While I'm on the topic, let's celebrate public service. All on board. But I am not on board with celebrating and extolling the military and the police above all others. The irony is that those who are so vocal about extolling those forms of service tend to trash other public servants.
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Remembrance Day is not a celebration of war, it is a memorial for those who fell protecting this country's values. Those Canadian soldiers were people like you and I who were living in a different reality, one that you had to fight because if you didn't, you would be subject to another nation's values. Most of these soldiers were terrified of death, of war, of being killed, of not seeing their loved ones ever again. But they had to do it. Appeasement and isolationism does not work if someone wants to invade and take what is yours.
According to you, Hong Kong citizens should just give up their freedoms right now, why should they fight? Just appease the Chinese government and sing their praises. Hong Kongers should stop being such troublemakers.
https://www.cnn.com/specials/asia/ho...tests-intl-hnk
People fight to the death even today for what we so conveniently take for granted as an everyday value. Hong Kong had it, and it's being taken away right now. This could have happened to Canada and can still happen in the future, if not for brave soldiers who fought in Europe against Hitler so that they did not have to do it on Canadian soil. Not that they wanted to, it's that they
had to.
Lest We Forget