Societies are defined, in part, by their celebrations.
Two of these expose the cultural battlefield in which we currently stand.
In one corner, sporting the red of the Poppy, we have the withered, dignified but dying Remembrance Day; in the opposite corner, we have the Rainbow coloured indecorous Pride month.
To the first is dedicated a single minute of silence, its centre piece; to the other, officially, the whole month of June.
Unofficially, though, it’s every day of every year.
The theological gap between the two is infinite.
The former celebrates humility, the other, as its name implies, hubris.
Remembrance Day commemorates the making of our country and the costs involved in its survival.
It pays tribute to the acts of selfless sacrifice made by millions of men and boys that fashioned the country, in the crucible of conflicts, large and small, for the defence of the realm, her religion and her people.
Their duty, they felt, was to fight and to die, if need be, to enable their unchosen, and therefore priceless, inheritance to be passed on to future generations whole, unblemished and unsullied by the humiliation of defeat.
Remembrance Day is a reminder that the lion once roared. Now we face state-sponsored amnesia - Alex Story
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