Poppies

Art affects how we remember. This is why it is sometimes deeply disturbing. Part of the reason why art is at times surprisingly provocative, and therefore disturbing, lies in the fact that art will speak its own truth. That is what makes it art. There is a sense in which neither the artist in the moment of making, or the viewer or participant in the moment of receiving really knows what to ask or expect of art in the final moment of ‘judgment’. The poppy installation around the walls of the Tower of London is art waiting to be judged. To my knowledge no one has yet disputed the fact that it is art. Rather, the contention seems to lie in its apparent sentimentality, that it evades the brutal reality of the War which it evokes. (‘The poppies muffle truth’ The Guardian, Saturday, 1^st November, 2014 and response, ‘Interview’, The Observer, Sunday, 2^nd November, 2014)

 It was ‘set’ by a theatre designer around the walls of the Tower of London, a powerful place of remembrance of events pertaining to those aspects of our earlier history which shame us even today. Good theatre designers do not work to satisfy the limited expectations of either aesthetics or sentiment. They work to allow truth into the light, into the forefront of the audience’s imagination, so that the audience can contemplate that truth and perhaps learn from it. Contemplation involves looking through what we see before us, or sensing a deep and abiding truth behind what we read. Art exists to help us see through, or see deeper into, reality. The best art is, paradoxically, almost always an understatement.

This is why the poppies around the Tower are, for some, offensive. They seem to be a gross understatement of the hideous reality of war, because they do not try to represent it in any one of the many stark realities of which we read and hear in accounts of what is also known as the ‘Great’ War. These are realities which we continue to witness in the conflicts of today. There is a risk that we could even become inured to such horrors because we seldom are given the chance to pause and contemplate the truth about them. They do not seem to be teaching us anything.

But good art does teach because it triggers associations. Sometimes these are personal memories, but in the case of the poppies, they are less immediate, less personal for most of us because we were not alive at the time of the Great War. And yet the poppies speak of  memories which refuse to die, memories which also belong to previous centuries, hideous memories which remain imprisoned in the Tower and in the depth of our collective psyche. The poppies serve as a reminder of these as well, but they do not exonerate. Instead, they invite contemplation and remorse. Remorse is more than regret. It is a profound acknowledgment of  our complicity with sin, especially with the sins of war and the actions or non-actions which cause war.

Wars are too often the result of non-actions, ill considered decisions, or badly thought through reactive responses to a perceived threat. Take, for example, the decision which this government has reached on the treatment of migrants, specifically those crossing treacherous waters in flimsy overcrowded boats.  These migrants are the victims of war. They are also destitute. The government has decided to effectively discontinue being part of a search and rescue operation outside the bounds of Italian waters. The now more limited operation will be thought of in terms of border security, rather than as a humanitarian exercise. As a result, many more of these desperate people will die.

The idea of border security implies exclusion, in other words legitimising the wilful ignoring of the desperate and the dying. Few of us have known what it is to be desperate, which is perhaps why we do not understand the full implication of this decision which is that it dehumanises us. There is no justification for ceasing to be human in regard to the suffering of other human beings. This should give us cause for remorse, the kind of remorse experienced by the rich man, Dives in relation to the destitute Lazarus on his doorstep. (Luke 16:20-30)

There is a gulf of ‘not understanding’ between us and these desperate people, just as there was a ‘chasm’ or ‘abyss’ between Dives and Lazarus in the story told by Jesus to his disciples. Dives could have done something to alleviate the suffering of the man on his doorstep, perhaps if he had taken the time and the trouble to coordinate with others, but he chose the more expedient path of thinking only of his own short term interests. Perhaps he feared the electoral or commercial consequences which rescuing Lazarus would bring on him. Later, with the benefit of hindsight he regrets his decision. He experiences remorse. Despite all this, he is not an altogether bad man. He is ordinary and perhaps not very imaginative, like so many of us. As he languishes in Hades, he asks that his brothers be warned of the long term consequences of selfish short term thinking.

Wars are the end result of not acting in the right way for the right reason in relation to the suffering of others, often because we lack the vision and courage needed at the time. Acting with vision and courage involves risk but, as the parable about Dives and Lazarus suggests, not acting, or choosing to ignore suffering, leads to much greater and more long term risks. Somewhere there is a just balance to be found, between doing the right thing or ignoring it. Where we fail to get the balance right, we get conflict, as we shall soon see with regard to other potential peace threatening situations, such as climate change.

All of these thoughts return us to the poppies around the Tower and to the kind of remorse which they invite. Remorse involves accepting that we have made short term, unimaginative and selfish decisions throughout our history and that these have ultimately led to the most brutal conflicts and to the loss of millions of innocent lives.

Our decisions to alleviate the suffering which leads to war are made by our governments, but we get the governments we deserve even if at times this seems hard to believe. Governments are accountable to us, in the freedom of the democracy which we enjoy, for all their decisions, and we are accountable with them before God. With freedom comes responsibility and with responsibility comes accountability. We are accountable before God for the extent to which we, as a free nation, have either helped to alleviate suffering, or caused it, and in causing it, or doing nothing to alleviate it, set the stage for future wars. The poppies around the Tower of London invite us to feel remorse for the wars which may yet happen, as well as those of the past.