YORKTON – Remembrance Day is once again in the rear view mirror for another year.
However, as one attended the recent service in Yorkton it somehow seemed more important than ever that we remember not just the lives of soldiers, but why they did what they did.
A recent political cartoon arrived at Yorkton This Week which perhaps captured the why we need to focus on remembering the reasons more.
The cartoon by LaMontagne had a beaver holding a poppy wreath, and is saying ‘We remember who, where and when, but have we forgotten why?’
That seems a rather poignant question at this time.
It doesn’t take long in today’s world to find people frightened that fascism seems to be having a resurgence.
And, it gets worst as there are far too many people suddenly wearing swastikas and other signs of Nazism.
We as a society should know better.
Too many of our fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers, uncles and neighbours died thwarting the threat of Hitler’s Nazi regime spreading its deep-seated brand of racism and hatred.
It is one thing to die as a soldier in war, but another when people are carted off to concentration camps, starved, made slaves, and ultimately taken to chambers and gased.
That history should have ended the idea of Nazism and its symbols never being seen on our streets again.
And yet they are in too many cities in too many countries.
It’s disturbing, and it is unacceptable.
We as world citizens have to be better.
In the year 2025 with history at our fingertips, we have the ability to easily study our past.
We have times such as Remembrance Day to focus our attention on the hard fought lessons of the past.
So why are some dredging up the symbols of a hateful past?
How does one go down that road if they spend even a modicum of time reading the history of Hitler, the deaths of thousands, and the sacrifices of so many Canadians to end the tyranny?
It is obvious somehow those hard fought lessons have waned as the years have passed, and that should not be the case.
That is why Remembrance Day remains one of the most important on the calendar. We can remember the fallen and revisit the stark lessons of the past so that we are better as world citizens today.
