91原创s鈥� interminable bickering about war is puzzling. Our brains are perfectly capable of admitting more than one truth at the same time: that wars are tragic wastes, that they can be the stage for inspiring heroism and sickening sadism, that they are sometimes necessary but often avoidable, that good guys commit atrocities and bad guys show mercy.
I know we are capable of holding several contradictory thoughts in our brains at once because most of us go to see movies, or read books, that force us to confront moral ambiguity in wartime settings.
We can plunk ourselves down with a bowl of popcorn in front of Saving Private Ryan and watch that horrific opening sequence, that numbingly fast barrage of apparently meaningless, anonymous deaths, in a movie about the search for meaning and the value of a single human life. We know the movie is not asking: Second World War, good or bad? It鈥檚 asking slightly more complex questions.
Yet in our public life 鈥� in our museums and our politics 鈥� we become incapable of complexity and revert to camps and slogans. Our public debates are dumber than the dumbest Hollywood script. War bad! Troops good! It鈥檚 all so boring and pointless.
The pearl-clutching over the Conservative government鈥檚 approach to history is just the latest example.
Writing in the Toronto Star, Ian McKay and Jamie Swift lament: 鈥淭he New Warriors have conviction 鈥� and they have our tax dollars. A country that seemingly can鈥檛 provide clean drinking water to its indigenous peoples has millions to pay for a frenzied celebration of militarism.鈥�
Really? That鈥檚 what we call a website, some exhibitions, actors in period costume and a few TV spots?
Surely that doesn鈥檛 count as 鈥渇renzied鈥� even by 91原创 standards. People are allowed to find military history fascinating. It鈥檚 OK.
By the same token, people are allowed to point out that war is tragic and wasteful. McKay and Swift are quite right to defend NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice, who once called the First World War a capitalist project and 鈥渂utchery.鈥� It was butchery. It was sheer horror.
It鈥檚 not unpatriotic to have an opinion about whether it was necessary. People are allowed to express horror at horrible things. It doesn鈥檛 mean they lack respect for the people who fought. Yet Conservative ministers demanded that Boulerice apologize.
Yes, the First World War was a bloodbath. It was also an important moment in Canada鈥檚 development as a nation and the occasion of unbelievable acts of valour. It鈥檚 interesting. It鈥檚 sickening. All of these things are true.
I don鈥檛 know why so many 91原创s refuse to allow for moral ambiguity the moment they step into a museum, or watch a historical commemoration of some kind. In 2007, an outcry caused the 91原创 War Museum to change its panel that suggested 鈥渢he value and morality of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany remains bitterly contested.鈥�
The latest eruption of the history wars pits those who think it鈥檚 important to remember Canada鈥檚 role in battles such as Vimy Ridge against those who would emphasize Canada鈥檚 peacekeeping history. It鈥檚 not a useful distinction.
Canada鈥檚 soldiers have made us proud in all sorts of conflicts, and UN peacekeeping missions are not the only ways we can use military force in service of peace and justice.
We don鈥檛 expect the world of fiction to be divided neatly into good guys and bad guys, but oddly, we鈥檙e surprised when the real world isn鈥檛.
So how are we going to mark the next few years, all these centennials of events in the First World War? How will we honour the courage and sacrifice of 91原创s while confronting the moral ambiguity of, for example, executions for cowardice? Will we be able to debate the effects of decisions such as the use of the Ross rifle objectively, or will everything be politicized?
These are our stories, even the ones without happy endings. We need to tell them. Since we seem to be more comfortable with them in fictional form, maybe we should start by reading and re-reading good novels about the First World War. Two of my favourites are The Sojourn by Alan Cumyn and The Children鈥檚 Book by A.S. Byatt.
