I want to focus on four Rs in this article.
As I type, we are preparing for that great act of Remembrance. We will gather at monuments and markers to pay our respects and remember. Dignity will be the predominant theme. We will reflect upon the countless ultimate sacrifices that have been made since the end of the Great War, which it is always wise to remember was billed as the ‘war to end all wars’! Every time we MPs enter the Chamber we do so via an archway – damaged in the Blitz and never repaired, left to stand, as it does, as a stark reminder of how close we came to see the flame of democracy extinguished. We also do well to recall that sacrifice is not just about the giving of one’s life in defence of either the Realm or our values but of the sacrifices of physical and mental health that so many survivors continue to endure. We are right to pray the prayer “we will remember them”; but, oh how I wish we, as a species, could learn how not to repeat the errors of the past today and, doubtless, tomorrow so that those we remember become a fixed quantum rather than an ever-increasing stream. Hope springs eternal I suppose?
My second R is rights. We all have rights which have been hard fought for and vigorously defended. Most of those who remember from war died defending those rights and the values that underpin them. But, rights are not an absolute, they need to be exercised with my further Rs – responsibility and respect. I defend, in robust terms the rights of the people of our country to gather and to demonstrate. It is an unalienable right. It distinguishes democracies from dictatorships. However, as the old phrase goes ‘there is a time and a place for everything’ or to mis-borrow from Ecclesiasticus ‘there is a time and a place to protest and a time and a place to not’. In short exercise one’s rights responsibly but also with respect. While I defend the right of people to protest in support or opposition to Israel and the Palestinians I see not contradiction in also supporting the Government in saying that the full weight of the law will be deployed against anyone who seeks to disrupt or distract from services of Remembrance be that at the national monument of the Cenotaph or the smallest town or village memorial. All of our memorials to the Glorious Dead have, at some point, been blessed. They are therefore holy or sacred. Important in the national conscience as a place of reflection and respect. And respect is my final R. A democracy, underpinned by the freedoms of speech and association, can only work if respect is a foundation stone. To recognise the differences between competing world views is important. To understand the importance attached to a place or an event is part of that; to comprehend that there are certain times and certain places which require a self-enforced curtailment of one’s freedoms.
So, I pray that we will come together as a nation this Remembrance period and set it aside as a special time spent at special places. It is right that we ‘remember them’.
My final thought is that it is worrying that what I have written above needs to be written at all. That, I am sure is a worry shared by many readers.
