Michael Higgins: The woke takeover of Remembrance Day

Left to our virtue-signalling elites, our hapless leaders and our ignorant educators, Canada would have forsworn its solemn duty to remember the dead and honour those who served.

Thankfully, ordinary Canadians are less susceptible to the vagaries of woke culture and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies, and understand that bravery, duty and sacrifice are virtues that require us occasionally to pause, reflect and honour those who served.

But what can we say to the likes of Aaron Hobbs, the principal of Ottawa’s Sir Robert Borden High School, whose characterization of Remembrance Day was that it was usually about “a white guy who has done something related to the military”?

Hobbs’ insult to every Canadian who has served and serves still was made in defence of allowing an Arabic-language Palestinian protest song to be played during a Remembrance Day assembly at the school. Only after righteous anger ensued did Hobbs issue a pro forma apology.

Remembrance Day should have been about honouring those “who have sacrificed their lives for the freedoms we hold dear,” he said in a statement. The inclusion of the song was not in line with the schools “values of respect and unity.”

Whatever values Hobbs seeks to instill in his young students, virtue is not one of them.

Meanwhile, in the lead-up to Remembrance Day, Sackville Heights Elementary in Nova Scotia asked military personnel attending its ceremony not to wear their uniforms in order to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”

That the school’s leaders thought it would be better to be “welcoming” to all than to have children be proud of those in uniform is a testament to their twisted values. If they want to keep children safe, they should introduce them to the people who are willing to die for that very reason.

Principal Rachael Webster later apologized for the harm the request caused. She added that pupils who didn’t feel safe seeing uniformed military personnel would be accommodated.

There is a certain irony in giving trigger warnings about soldiers.

Hobbs and Webster are examples of people who have lost sight of what is important in order to embrace what is woke. It is unfortunate that they will pass that corrupted sense of value onto a younger generation.

Meanwhile, at the City of Toronto’s official Remembrance Day ceremony, veterans and the public had to sit through an almost two-minute-long presentation that included Indigenous land acknowledgments and touched on treaties, settlers, migrants and the transatlantic slave trade.

One of the hallmarks of the new woke is to showcase Canada as a terrible partner in the slave trade, for which we must feel guilty. This is simply a lie, but truth hardly matters to people who haven’t the decency to honour our veterans without an unnecessary preamble.

Rick Hillier, former chief of the defence staff, expressed his outrage on X. “We are nothing but ‘sheep’ to put up with this condescending lecture at any time, but especially today. A day devoted to those who served and sacrificed to build a country that doesn’t have that. Shame,” he wrote.

With leaders such as ours, it is no wonder that brainwashed pro-Palestinian protesters thought it was appropriate to show up to a Remembrance Day ceremony in Kingston, Ont., with a flag proclaiming, “To Remember Is To End All War. Free Palestine.”

But “Lest we forget” isn’t about ending the tragedy and futility of war — and the protesters know this. They know Remembrance Day is about honouring those who served. Which is why hijacking the event is such an unforgivable insult.

But since schools don’t teach virtue anymore — just ask Hobbs and Webster — some people have no idea how to behave virtuously.

If the City of Toronto wants a real history lesson, and Hobbs and Webster want to know how to craft a statement with real meaning, I would refer them to Pericles’ oration over the Athenian dead. Pericles understood the choice men faced when confronted with death.

“And when the moment came they were minded to resist and suffer, rather than to fly and save their lives; they ran away from the word of dishonour, but on the battlefield their feet stood fast, and in an instant, at the height of their fortune, they passed away from the scene, not of their fear, but of their glory,’ he said.

And Athens, just as Canada, was greater for their sacrifice.

“I would have you day by day fix your eyes upon the greatness of Athens, until you become filled with the love of her; and when you are impressed by the spectacle of her glory, reflect that this empire has been acquired by men who knew their duty and had the courage to do it,” he continued.

It is left to ordinary Canadians to honour the dead, to remember the cost and to reflect on the courage of those who died and served. Those who love Canada will remember that she was built on the sacrifices of such men. And those who don’t remember will probably become high school principals.

National Post