Today, Chris and I joined a friend at the 21-gun salute, in a far corner of the Inner Harbour. To get there, we had to wind our way through the official Remembrance Day Ceremony on the lawn of the legislative building, which was attended by the city's considerable senior population (with so many seniors who had pinned medals to their coats), and by the families with small children and some of the city's tourists. We felt so disrepsectful, pushing our way through the giant crowd as they sang the national anthem, but we were headed to a different, although connected ceremony, and we needed to be there before the guns started firing at 11:11.
Everywhere we went, everyone was wearing poppies.
Down by the docks, we gathered with a smaller and more military group around two canons. We were all instructed to put in our earplugs as the time approached. Among the soldiers around the canon, there was also a civilan woman with a sombre look on her face. I assumed she was the mother of the soldier being commemorated today, a young man from here who was killed in Afghanistan earlier this year. My friend who invited us knew him, and her brother (one of his closest friends) was firing one of the canons. The army flew him here for the occasion.
As we all stood in silence, the smoke from the guns stinging my eyes, we listened to the hymns drifting over the water from the other ceremony. Our firing canons had cued the end of their moment of silence. I watched, and my mind wrestled with ethics. Here I was, a pacifist (wearing a M*A*S*H shirt under my black dress coat), at a military event, remembering a recent death rather than remembering among the elderly veterans. And yet the formality and the emotion of the firing guns appealed to me. I reasoned with myself that I was glad that our day was called "Remembrance Day" rather than "Veterans Day" or even "Armistice Day." Regardless of my principles, today I can remember. I'm a historian; remembering is what I feel called to do.
After the twenty-first shot, our ceremony was over. The singing continued in front of the legislative building and so we took an alternate route, right down by the water, to avoid disturbing the crowds. Down there, we found a large group of the city's street people, displaced from their usual haunts, and many tourists, who wheeled their suitcases through this less-crowded detour. The atmosphere was less sombre here.
We climbed back up to the street, right past the large ceremony with all of its veterans. As we walked towards our car, we passed another gathering nearby: an anti-war protest, gathered around a handmade sign that read "We Must Stop War Now." Here was the city's other major demographic, other than the navy base and the seniors; here, they were more colourful and bohemian. As we passed, Chris and I debated whether the members of this final group saw themselves as taking part in or protesting the holiday.
(The only group that was absent this morning was the city's iPod-wearing youth population, but they were presumably sleeping in on this Saturday morning.)
We belonged, and yet were outsiders, in a city that celebrated this holiday in its usual divided way.
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