200 words: Monuments

Following personal traumas and unhappy periods in our lives, as individuals we are usually encouraged - perhaps after a period of therapy or counselling - to move on with our lives. Coming to terms with tragedy and bereavement is seen as a healthy outcome, as opposed to surrounding ourselves with reminders and triggers. 

Contrast this with our communal existence. We are told that remembering is a moral duty: we owe a debt to the victims of war and atrocity, and must prevent forgetfulness from killing the victim twice. But the world doesn’t have memories, nor do nations, nor do groups. Only individuals can remember. 

In the early C21st collective memory is often conflated with individual memory, and even, it is implied, outranks it. Monuments, as physical representations of a past event are held up as a measure of a society’s coherence rather than what they too often are: sites of inflammation, provocation and ultimately contagion. And war breeds monuments as fast as maggots in rotting flesh. 

Isn’t a decent measure of communal forgetting the sine qua non of a peaceful and decent society? After all, it’s not as though ‘Lest we Forget’ has achieved anything more than pomp and Brexit.