IF YOU LOST, CELEBRATE PEACE

Ian Buruma examines the way in

which different governments exploit memories of the second world war

IS THERE anything meaningful to be gained from gazing at the pebbly Nor- mandy beaches where the Allies landed in 1944, other than the satisfaction of more or less morbid curiosity? Can one imagine history any more clearly by seeing its famous or notorious sites? Are there great lessons to be learned by visiting Dachau, Hiroshima or Omaha Beach?

Being curious — perhaps morbidly so — I have been to all these places. But I can- not pretend to have learned more than I had done already from books or films or photographs. Indeed, being on the spot can make it harder to imagine what hap- pened. The real site can block the imagina- tion: all you see are pebbles, or office blocks, or (sometimes carefully recon- structed) barracks.

There are other reasons, however, besides curiosity, why people who have no direct memories of historical events visit the places where they occurred. On a recent trip to Normandy, I noticed that most of my fellow tourists at Arromanches, Omaha Beach and other D-Day landmarks were either British or North American. Belgian and Dutch sightseers outnum- bered the French. There were virtually no Germans.

It is true that Normandy, close by and cheap to get to, is a popular destination for British tourists. And some British and North Americans come to remember loved ones in the large, well-kept cemeteries. But there are German cemeteries, too. Some German memorials, like the small dignified wooden cross overlooking Omaha Beach, were recently put up. But there is something else: it feels good to be British on the D-Day beaches. Even a schoolboy can feel that his country was fit for heroes. It feels less good being a Ger- man.

This is presumably why there are so many British school parties winding their way down the dunes to Arromanches after taking in the scenes of English defeat on the Bayeux tapestry. John Major's govern- ment is rather desperate for people to feel good the days. His attempts to use D- Day for good feelings — Dame Vera Lynn, spam fritters, Miss 1944 and all that — was a clear case of scoundrels seeking a last refuge in patriotism. Since the Prime Minister, like the majority of people living in Britain today, cannot have clear memories or indeed any memories of the war, it is easy for him to treat history as an advertising gimmick. Warm beer, village cricket, Spitfires and D-Day: they are all part of the same thing, reassuring, feel-good images that would do nicely in a campaign film. The Government was accused by most commentators of 'misjudging the public mood'. Perhaps it did. But the particular way in which John Major's Heritage Department officials tried to milk D-Day for good cheer was all too typical, not just of John Major's supposedly classless, pop patriotism, but also of the cheap theme- park approach to history that has become the norm in our tacky age.

It is perfectly understandable that veter- ans who were actually there resent it when the noise of feel-good parties threatens to drown out their painful memories of fear, dirt and death. They cannot forget that 36,000 men died in the first two days of the Normandy landings. But, when history turns into mythology or political symbol- ism, the actual participants become embarrassing bit-players in a show that is no longer theirs. Their real memories of blood and gore don't feel good, don't make any of us feel good. Which is pre- sumably why the present Government finds it easier to deal with the Lowe Bell public relations firm than with the Royal British Legion.

When Labour Party politicians accused the Government of trivialising history for political purposes they were right. But the hue and cry about the D-Day 'celebrations' obscures a deeper division between a tradi- tional Tory approach to national history and the approach favoured by the liberal Left. This is evident in debates about the national curriculum, too. To put it crudely, Conservatives tend to see history, particu- larly military history, as a way to foster national identity and pride. The liberal Left, on the other hand, stresses interna- tionalism and 'multiculturalism': history as social studies (and in some cases peace studies), rather than as a lesson in patrio- tism.

As far as the war is concerned, the party of Winston Churchill has an advantage. To many people in Britain, unlike the people of any other country, except perhaps the old Soviet Union, the second world war is the greatest source of pride: Britain stand- ing alone, and so on. It is but one short step from basking in the idea of Britain's heroic isolation against Hitler to contem- porary Europhobia. In a recent television programme about British visitors to the D- Day beaches, a schoolboy proudly announced that Britain had fought the French and the Germans there. (French schoolchildren, on the other hand, proba- bly get a rather exaggerated idea of Gener- al Leclerc's gallant contribution to the Allied assault.) Like most war memorials of pre-second- world-war vintage, old-fashioned history education everywhere was meant to instil a sense of patriotism. Growing up in Hol- land, I was taught at school that the Span- ish Armada was beaten by the Dutch navy, with a little help from the British. So the idea that national history, as well as national celebrations and commemora- tions, should serve to strengthen a sense of nationhood was common in most coun- tries, and to a large extent it still is. Israeli schoolchildren are taken in groups to Auschwitz, where the Star of David flag is raised to strengthen their national resolve. In this sense, John Major's plans for the D-Day jamboree may have been crass, but they are part of a particular — but not par- ticularly English — tradition.

But since the second world war a differ- ent tradition has emerged, particularly on the political Left, and most especially in countries where war memories are more likely to inspire shame than pride. You see this new tradition in Germany, in Japan, and even in France, whose war record was, to put it politely, rather mixed. This tradi- tion is anti-heroic, and often pacifist. The message in such places as the Hiroshima Peace Museum, or the Gestapo Museum in Berlin, or the Memorial in Caen is not that we should feel proud of our nation (and by extension ourselves), but that war should never happen again, and, if it does, then ohne Uns, 'without us'.

The centre of the cult is without doubt Hiroshima. Hiroshima Peace Park, the site of a once busy urban district that lay directly below the explosion of the A- bomb, is like a religious centre. A booklet on sale at the Peace Museum refers to Hiroshima as the Mecca of Peace. That there should be no heroics in the museum of a catastrophe is only logical. And that visitors are made to reflect on human suf- fering on a vast scale is also apt. But there is, none the less, something disturbing about the Peace Bells, the Peace Shrines, the Peace Memorials, the Peace Park and the Peace Museum of Hiroshima. What disturbs is that the terrible event has been, as it were, lifted out of the context of his- tory. If one is curious to find out what led to the bombing, one will leave the Hiroshi- ma Peace Museum none the wiser. What you see are wax models of hideously dis- figured victims, or bits of iron and glass bent grotesquely out of shape by the blast. What you don't see is why the bomb was dropped.

I once asked the curator of the Hiroshi- ma Peace Museum about this lack of explanation. He answered that it had not really been intended to be a museum at all. It had been built by survivors of the bomb, he said, for they 'wanted a place to pray for the victims and for world peace'. Mankind, he explained, had to build a bet- ter world. That was why Hiroshima was so important: 'We must think of human soli- darity and world peace. Otherwise we just end up arguing about history.'

Needless to say, arguing about the histo- ry of the second world war can only be a painful exercise in Japan. Praying for peace is easier. The same is true in Germany, but also in France, where the President not only feels obliged to commemorate Jean Moulin, the great hero of the Resistance, but also, until very recently, to send a wreath for Marshall Petain's tomb. Even as the Allies, including French troops, were landing on the Normandy beaches, le Marechal was going round bombed French towns, using the destruction to foment anti- British and American feelings.

Unlike the Hiroshima Peace Museum, the Memorial war museum in Caen, a town that was almost entirely destroyed during the battle of Normandy, does not duck painful memories. Petainism, and pro-Nazi French collaboration, are on display, as well as pictures and documents of other aspects of the second world war. The muse- um is gimmicky, but not dishonest. It is a perfect example, however, of the theme- park approach to history. One could describe it as a New Age designer museum: collages of sound, special lighting effects and various architectural tricks are designed, not so much to instruct or to show the exhibits most effectively, but to give the visitor 'a total experience'. As the guide to the Memorial puts it, the special effects 'combine to create an atmosphere of recall, with emotional shocks for the memory'.

But what is the point of all this? It is, the guide explains, 'to defend the cause of Peace . . Unique as a museum, the Memorial invites visitors to reflect on the scourge of War . . . ' The museum, the guide goes on, is 'like a huge lighthouse on the cliff where the Memorial is built, to remind us that the Memorial's mission is to share in enlightening the world with the idea of Peace'. This mission is expressed most succinctly in a film, entitled Hope for the Future, which is really a collage featur- ing clips of Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Desmond Tutu and others. The efforts of the UN are lauded as the best way towards progress and peace.

Well, unique this certainly is not. I remember visiting a war museum in Osaka, called the Osaka International Peace Center. This museum was built, with the help of the socialist local government, as an antidote to conservative politicians who wanted to make Japanese history edu- cation more patriotic: a curriculum, that is, with less attention paid to Japanese war atrocities and more to Japanese heroes. The Center's logo is a green dot in a pur- ple band. The curator, a thoughtful man called Professor Katsube, told me that the green dot was Osaka, spreading the mes- sage of peace to the rest of the world, rep- resented by the purple band.

There is nothing wrong with the inten- tions expressed in the Memorial, or the Osaka International Peace Center or indeed by CND activists, but they are poli- tics wrapped in prayers. Efforts of the UN are not — as we are seeing so vividly in Bosnia — necessarily the best way to restore or maintain peace, let alone Peace with a capital P. Nor is disarmament, which is what Professor Katsube advo- cates. Chauvinism makes us belligerent, but too much of the peace cult makes us defenceless. Yet both pacifism and chau- vinism are basically sentimental. Both treat history as a source of illusions. Both seek to extract messages from the dead.

So what is the best way for us to remem- ber the war? It would help, for a start, to separate religion from history. Prayers for the dead, or for Peace, belong in places of worship. Places of learning, including museums, should be reserved for history, for finding out what actually happened, and why. Politicians, let alone public rela- tions men, have no right to interfere in the content of our prayers or our history books. Once we get these priorities right, national identities will take care of them- selves. And if we insist on visiting the sites of death, curiosity, morbid or otherwise, is not the worst reason for doing so.

Ian Buruma's The Wages of Guilt is to be published by Jonathan Cape in June.