Seeing the tweet below recently resonated with thoughts I’ve been having over Africa and its remembrance of World War 1.
Remembrance on the continent seems to be rather divided between peoples with European/Caucasian heritage and experience knowing about the conflict and feeling all should remember and those who don’t. This is a broad-brush divide as even within these two groups there will be people with differing opinions.
This division was further brought home by a ‘twitterstorian’ a few days later asking what three books historians would recommend to introduce students to the Great War. The few responses I saw were all British/Western Front related. Is there any one book which provides a truly global view of the war? It’s also been rather interesting reading the comments on the film 1917 in terms of how people perceive the past and its study. As a student of WW1 in Africa, I see huge value for understanding many of the issues we face today in terms of historical context. It helps remind me that we’re only here temporarily as part of a continuum but one who can actively change things for better (or worse). But this is not the case for all. Others live in the now and see the past through a narrow window coloured by simplification and inuendo or even ignore it. So, is it right to insist that others remember past events we think are important? and if so, how much should they align? And, where does ‘progress’ and ‘development’ come into it?
I’m a keen one for preserving aspects of our past irrespective of how uncomfortable they make us feel. Removing statues because our values today differ to those of the time when the statue was commissioned doesn’t change the past. In fact removing these icons leads to forgetfulness and stops us reflecting on why change is important. On the other hand, if we were to keep everything from the past, there wouldn’t be space for the new and as our tweet below shows, nature plays its part too. Life is transient and ever changing, resulting in a diversity which is further enhanced through our mingling of different and individual experiences.
Is it therefore right that because I feel it’s important to remember WW1 in Africa that others should too? How do I reconcile my views on remembrance with peoples who have different traditions of remembering and who don’t see the same events in the way I do? (the Mendi is my favourite example) In Africa, as I’m sure there are examples elsewhere, the situation is complex. Generally, the people doing the remembering today of events 100 years ago are now the minority – in terms of local political power and policy determination. Those who don’t (yet) see or recognise the war as significant for their identity have other events they regard as important and see the events of 100 years before as a time of suppression and hardship, something they were part of but not involved or engaged in. Should they be forced or encouraged to adopt what is perceived in certain circles to be the dominant thinking or ideology? Should we be forcing/encouraging ways to remember on a peoples who haven’t engaged and won’t unless there’s political or economic mileage in doing so? It goes both ways . . . how accommodating would we be to others telling us we should remember/put up a reminder to them of a time gone by in our environment? How do we align our cultures which are distinct yet integrated?
These are questions which challenge me as an historian and as a citizen of this world. It prompts a need to engage with diverse groups on an equal footing to gain insight and understanding. Yet, I’m not sure we’ll ever get to a satisfactory answer for all. Irrespective, I strongly feel that we should record and preserve our past – as truthfully and objectively as possible – in some form or other so that we and future generations can look back and understand how we got to where we have and hopefully learn from the mistakes of our forebears.
Anne Samson - Historian 
I believe that your comments are timely. Recently in the UK we have seen a community rejecting a street-name of a World War 2 Victoria Cross (VC) winner as “not being relevant to today’s inhabitants”, and last November a leading Guardian commentator called for the cessation of outdated and irrelevant Remembrance functions.
But the community could have put forward the name of a VC winner from its own ethnic grouping – if it had known of any, and if it had identified with the 2,500,000 volunteers that came from that region and fought against the horrors perpetrated by Fascist Belligerents in World War 2.
The problem that I have found is that too many former colonial countries start their historical educational programmes on their Independence Day, and so their is either a very hazy knowledge of pre-Independence history or an outright rejection of its validity and relevance.
We need educational initiatives to explain that pride can be taken in the heroic activities of all Commonwealth and Allied servicemen and women in both World Wars, and we need to back this up with finding suitable donors to help erect Memorials relevant to all our communities – as has happened recently in London.
As for the cessation of outdated and irrelevant Remembrance functions – that may appeal to city Guardian commentators desperate to earn a few more pounds, but that sentiment will never resonate amongst the smaller urban communities who supplied the bulk of the British servicemen and women in both World Wars – they are attached to their War Memorials because so many of their family names are recorded there.