Hundreds gathered in George's Square yesterday, pandemic notwithstanding, to pay their respects and honour the memories of those who fought for peace and freedom. How do we preserve the inheritance they gave us for future generations.
"To you from failing hands the torch we throw," goes John Macrae's poem, "be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow, in Flanders' Fields."
So that future generations could live in peace and freedom, the men and women of the democracies have risked and sacrificed their lives in wars, or perhaps better said, in battles aimed at ending wars: wars which would have imposed tyranny on us, their descendants.
How do we repay that debt? How do we assume the responsibilities that come with the privileges we inherited from them? What does it mean not to break faith with those upon whose shoulders we stand? Or is it just a poem whose meaning we do not really take the time to consider, a mere ritual, an empty tradition?
There may not be imminent violent threats to the freedoms and democracy, government by consent of the governed, that have increased every generation since Magna Carta in 1215, and were so clearly and presently threatened in the conflicts they prevailed in.
Today's threats are different. They include the technological threat to privacy and human agency that Artificial Intelligence may bring; the breeding ground for demagogues and dictators that increasing inequality prepares; and the instability that man-made climate change promises. All of these are clear and present risks to the very freedoms and democracy those we remember on November 11th risked their lives for.
We have enjoyed the world they left us. Millions died so that we could. Will we be worthy of their sacrifice as we confront the challenges that are our perhaps less evident but in no way less important war to wage? Or will we, as the poem asks, "break faith" with those who died?
