Centrepiece

The constituency of the dead

Colin Welch

Do, you remember when 11 November was truly Remembrance Day? How, at the muffled thunder of a gun, our whole nation would, even on a working day, halt and stand for two minutes in total silence, recalling with sorrow and gratitude the 'fallen'? If you experienced it you will never forget it nor what it said to you. Of course it was inconvenient and disruptive, to busy people in a hurry vexatious. It was meant to be. It was an aide-rnemoire addressed not only to those who wished to remember but to those who wished or were inclined to forget. It was designed to remind them that there are things more important than every- day life, things worth dying for as well as living for. This reminder it delivered by rudely interrupting everyday life, as wars do, though infinitely more so.

The idiots who moved it to the nearest Sunday were guilty of a crime like that of a brain surgeon who, in order to serve the convenience, comfort, happiness or 'mental health' of his patient, removes or deadens (as I fancy is now possible) that part of his brain in which memory resides. They must have done it deliberately. They must actual- ly have thought everyday life more impor- tant than memory, and acted accordingly. They cannot themselves have regarded, as we should regard, all memory as sacred, all forgetfulness sinful.

Already dishonoured by being displaced, this year's Remembrance Day is further besmirched by the unseemly struggles of some politicians to get into the Cenotaph 'ace (as perhaps they see it) and of others to keep them out. Heartily do I agree with Bernard Levin that Mrs Thatcher should not have excluded Dr Owen, and that all concerned appear in a bad light. Yet much else with which he in the Times supported and embellished his characteristically sound judgment seemed to me sadly unworthy of one whose head and heart normally com- mand warm affection and respect.

He declared, for instance, that 'the ap- pearance at the Cenotaph of party leaders has nothing to do with the dead but plenty to do with the living, most particularly the political living'. Surely in fact it has plenty to do with both. Certainly politicians may derive political advantage from their presence there. But why so? Is it not because it is thought seemly for important politicians (who after all bear the respon- sibility for war and peace) to abjure for a moment all sectional strife and humbly to honour those who died that they might be there, and Mr Levin free to write about them? Is it possible, let alone desirable, to uncouple doing the right thing from whatever advantage may be derived from It? And since when has the right thing

become the wrong thing just because ad- vantage might flow therefrom? If the Cenotaph can still, so to speak, sway votes and exert influence, can honour some and shame others, how could it decently be otherwise when you think of that great con- stituency of the dead which it represents?

For Mr Levin it is perhaps 'time to wonder whether the official ceremony, with its bands and its guns and its royalty — and its politicians — should be put away forever and those who wish to remember their, and others', dead should do so in the peace and dignity of the country's local churches, or even the country's homes'. 'The whole business,' he writes, 'is as lifeless as an ob- ject in a museum . . . This is inevitable, for the living cannot indefinitely be looking over their shoulders at the dead; if the force has gone out of Remembrance Day, it is because people do not feel that force . . and nothing will make them do so.'

In these sentences, don't certain words and phrases jar a bit? Those who 'wish' to remember the dead, for instance: as if it were just a personal whim. And again, 'even in the country's homes'. Can Mr Levin's home contain nothing to distract him, no little chores, no unpaid bills, no beckoning books, no telephone? Is his memory so perfect as to need no jog? Would he always remember unaided to set aside the due minute or two for meditation? Do we not all need external reminders, forms, dates and ceremonies, to keep us up to the mttrk? What if I were impiously to suggest that Bayreuth 'should be put away forever' and that those who love Wagner should listen at home? And again the phrase 'lifeless as an object in a museum'.

'Ken Livingstone is filling in for Andropov' Who has not contemplated some object in a museum and discerned in it, with a sudden pang of insight, a small, poignant but still surviving and quietly whispering part of the life of those who created it, used or thought it beautiful? I bet the sensitive Mr Levin has for one.

And 'the living cannot indefinitely be looking over their shoulders at the dead'.

To be sure they can't always be doing this.

As the dead knew well, the future has its claims as well as the past; and one of its most pressing claims is to have memories of the past lovingly preserved for it and hand- ed on as fresh and clear and alive as lies in our power. In order to perform this noble task we do have to look back, not always but sometimes and — yes — indefinitely, at the dead.

And 'if the force has gone out of Remem- brance Day, it is because people do not feel this force . . . and nothing will make them do so, not even,' Mr Levin continues, and to again I agree with him, 'the sight of every member of the House of Commons, their ranks swelled by every defeated candidate, lined up around the Cenotaph listening, more probably not listening, to the Last Post.' Well, it must be a stony heart indeed which, hearing the Last Post, does not listen to it, is not moved by it, needs no fur- tive handkerchief. Perhaps there are such hearts, and I suppose there must be people for whom the 'force' has gone out of Remembrance Day. And if there are, why has the 'force' gone? Well, it must be partly because of the ignoble and shabby date switch, to which I have referred. But also there must have been an almost treasonable negligence or failure on the part of those writers, poets, orators, thinkers, historians, churchmen and — yes — politicians, on the part of those whom Coleridge (I think) call- ed the clerisy and Benda les clercs, whose duty it is to guard and refresh the nation's memory and to preserve forever the full force' of whatever, like Remembrance Day, should rightfully have it.

To find Mr Levin even for a moment among these negligent clercs is a great sadness. Never to his honour does he forget the Russian dead, for instance, com- munism's victims, their sufferings before they died, the grief of those who mourned them. How then can he even for a moment wonder whether it be proper to forget (for this is in effect what he is wondering) our own? I know how much he venerates Nadezhda Mandelstam. Let her speak for me: 'What can we expect to happen in a country with a disordered memory? What is a man worth who has lost his memory?' Can a nation which has lost its memory hope long to preserve anything else?

'At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.'

Binyon's lines were not just a prediction but a promise, a sacred compact which our forefathers made with the dead. To dishonour it would show us unworthy of all of them.