By Beryl Wajsman
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Remembrance Day 2006 had a special resonation. Canada lost more of its bravest and boldest than it has in many years. So as we remember, and pay tribute to, those who made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom, we need to reflect on what that sacrifice was for. When Sir Wilfrid Laurier said that "This nation answers to a higher destiny," that destiny – and our maturity – was not forged from the compromises of public trust bred behind the closed doors of government committees and corporate boardrooms. Nor by the prejudices of social orthodoxy that dominate polls and focus groups that seek to dictate the common weal.
This nation, conceived in economic enterprise by European monarchs of centuries past, came to maturity, and kept its rendezvous with destiny, overwhelming the bloody trenches of Vimy Ridge; scaling the harrowing cliffs of Dieppe; conquering the sands of Normandy; commanding the stormy seas of the atlantic; suffering the bitter winters of Korea; and surviving the scorching sun of the Sinai. and too, demonstrating our courage and conscience in the corpse filled jungles of Rwanda and on the muddied fields of the Balkans.
Our best progress as a people has always been realized when we shouldered our fair share of the burden in mankind's continuing quests to realize its transcendent yearnings for redemptive change. It has always been a struggle, tempered by service and sacrifice, to assure the survival and success of liberty. Our proudest boast was that we were ready to meet the challenges of the open sea and were not content to rest smugly at harbor. If we fail to recognize those challenges from abroad today we will inevitably face the consequences of that failure at home.
On Remembrance Day, and every other day, we must pledge to keep faith with those who now lay "…row on row where poppies grow…" and never allow their proud legacy of victory over tyranny, symbolized in this days of drums, to be compromised by the abandonment of national will so cavalierly and so often rationalized in our public discourse today by the low limitations of moral relativism and political equivalency.
Edmund Burke's admonition that "all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing," is as true today as when he wrote these immortal words so long ago. It has been said that as each new day dawns we always have two choices. We can live from fear or we can live from courage. Therefore, choose courage. For our courage can truly change the world, and redeem our lives.
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