Perils of a Metonymic Identity

The historical significance of World War I has greatly impacted the identity of the inhabitants of Ypres. I appreciate the continual recognition of the War's effects on the country of Belgium. The preservation and maintenance of the various sites of remembrance including the trenches, the cemetery, the In Flanders Field Museum, the Last Past Memorial Concert at Menin Gate, all of these sites show how history is embedded in the everyday of Ypres.

I particularly appreciated the tour through the cemetery. Here, I was able to see names and religions of soldiers who served and died during the war. This made the experience much more personal. The soldiers were not just statistics, numbers to be recorded. They were humans of flesh and blood, mortal and fearful. This perspective is one I do not often take. I too am guilty of separating myself from the war and its horror due in large to the era gap. I believe the first step, and the most harmful act, in distancing oneself from horror is dehumanizing the victims. I believe this process is subconscious, an innate defense mechanism to protect the mind. When thinking about war in terms of its victims, its more bearable to think about numbers rather than individuals.

Trenches in Ypres

This understanding of this process is not a new one. As we learned in the In Flanders Fields Museum, the soldiers found it easier to kill when their opposition was unseen. This explains the appeal of the use of grenades and gas. From afar, the soldiers could avoid seeing the death of their victims. From afar, it was easier to maintain the illusion that war and murder were mutually exclusive.

Identity thus took on a different meaning for me today. Instead of thinking in terms of a national or ethnic identity, I thought more about individual identity as it pertains to the human race as a whole, and the dangers of not recognizing it as such. After seeing the headstones of these individual soldiers, I see the war differently. I see the war in terms of the individuals rather than the countries involved, something I have not really done until this program. When we study the two great wars, we tend to think about them metonymically, country fighting country rather than men fighting men. Now, I see the two wars as they were, and this helps to see war for what it is in general.

 

 

Sophia