Commemorative Events

Memory, Identities, Conflict

Warwick Frost, Jennifer Laing

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136691157
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

Commemorative Events emphasise remembering. They are held on the anniversaries of significant past events, either annually or after significant time periods. Commemorative events provide fascinating insight into how societies see themselves, their heritage and their identity. These events however carry high propensity for controversy as memory and identity are highly subjective and other stakeholders hold different views of what should be commemorated and why.

This is the first book to provide an in - depth critical examination of commemorative events, particularly what they mean to societies and how they are used by governments as well as impacts on other stakeholders. The book fully explores these issues by reviewing all the major types of commemorative events including, nationhood or independence, wars, battles, famous people and cultural milestones from varying geographical regions and stakeholder perspectives. By doing so the book furthers understanding of these types of events in society as well as furthering knowledge of social and political uses and impacts of events.

This thought provoking volume will be valuable reading for students, researchers and academics interested in events.

1 Understanding commemorative events

To the Dolphin, where he and I and Captain Cocke sat late and drank much, seeing the boys in the streets flying their crackers, this day being kept all the day very strictly in the City.

(Diary of Samuel Pepys, 5 November 1661, www.pepysdiary.com)

Some events are specifically staged so that society may remember and reflect upon past occurrences and their relationship to today. These commemorative events are held on anniversary dates, either annually, or after significant time periods, such as 50 or 100. In form and organisation, they usually share similarities with a wide range of other types of planned events and festivals. However, it is this focus on remembering which distinguishes commemorative events.

It is important from the beginning to understand that remembering is a process. There is a subtle difference between the related concepts of memory and remembering. A memory is something that we have (or have lost or never had). Our memories may be individual or shared amongst communities, groups, even nations. Remembering is a process which includes the construction and retention of that memory. The process may incorporate solemn reflection, or celebration, or both. It may invoke sadness, happiness, pride, humility, anger or compassion. It may be an individual and solitary process, or one that is shared with others.

Commemorative events are typically planned with intentions of affirming and reinforcing memories that provide a sense of heritage and identity. Heritage is what we value and wish to preserve for future generations. The related concept of identity refers to what we perceive as defining and distinguishing us, including what makes us similar to some, but also distinct from others. Accordingly, the objectives of organisers and stakeholders for commemorative events tend to be couched in terms of the positives that will be achieved in helping society to remember and better understand its heritage and have a greater sense of its identity. However, not all stakeholders will agree on what heritage and identity is important, appropriate, or worthy of commemoration. The meanings of events are often contested and for commemorative events the level of contestation may be very high and difficult to resolve. This is one of our key themes throughout this book.

The process of remembering benefits from having a focal point, a symbol that draws attention and triggers the desire for ritual and ceremony. For commemorative events, a date provides that centrepiece (Connerton 1989); arguably a talisman imbued with special transforming power. For annual commemorations that date is often widely known, for example 4 July is Independence Day in the USA. It commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but is far more than just remembering that single historical incident. For Americans, it is a date and a commemorative event that they see as defining themselves and their national spirit.

For anniversary commemorative events, the date provides a form of authenticity and justifies the organisation of the event. Focussing on the date in these cases makes a strong statement that it is a special day when something important happened in the past and is worthy of being remembered in the present.

Emphasising a key date and a significant number of years fits well with the way popular media are constructed. It provides an easily digested news event, a minute or two in the nightly news or a good photo in a newspaper. This suitability makes it easier to gain important media coverage. The media may even initiate or be co-opted into the commemorative event. For example, in 1936 the French writer Jean Cocteau commemorated the centenary of the birth of Jules Verne by re-enacting the journey which is the subject of Verne’s most famous novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. Cocteau secured funding from the Paris newspaper Paris Soir for this event. In return, he provided regular articles on his progress (Cocteau, 1936). In this case, his re-enactment could have been done at any time, but the media interest and funding was only forthcoming as it was tied to the special (one-hundredth) anniversary of Verne. Some organisations view commemorative events and the attendant media publicity as the best opportunity for fund-raising appeals. For example, the Talyllyn Heritage Railway in Wales was established in 1951 and is argued to be the oldest volunteer-run steam train in the world. It used its fiftieth (in 2001) and sixtieth (in 2011) anniversaries to successfully run appeals for major capital works.

Generally, more attention is given to anniversaries of certain key numbers. For example, a hundredth anniversary is more important than a ninetieth or ninety-ninth. Years in groups of tens and hundreds capture our imagination, a practice that dates back to the Romans and the ways they organised numbers (Feeney, 2008). Shorter anniversaries, for example a twentieth, have significance if they are of events that are widely remembered and valued. Such commemorative events typically involve the still living participants of the original incident. Accordingly, they are expressions of personal memory. In contrast, centenaries and longer commemorations cannot utilise the actual memories of participants. Instead, they draw on the construction or imagination of collective or social memories to determine their importance and meanings (Anderson 1983; Lane Fox 2009).

In most cases, we count off anniversaries in blocks of continuous years – 50, 100, 200 and so on. There are exceptions. The Tour de France, for example, was first held in 1903 and its hundredth anniversary was celebrated in 2003. However, this sporting event has not taken place every year. There have been breaks for both world wars. As a result, the 2013 Tour de France will be commemorated as the hundredth instance of its staging.

In summary, commemorative events combine two key features: remembering something important and a special date. It is the combination of these two features which distinguishes them from other types of events. This combination is well illustrated by the case of Guy Fawkes Night, held annually in England.

Guy Fawkes Night

This event, also known as Bonfire Night, commemorates the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot. On 5 November 1605 a group of conspirators tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London. They hoped the explosion would kill King James I and his government, paving the way for the restoration of a Catholic monarch. Guy Fawkes had the job of lighting the fuse and is popularly identified as the hapless ringleader. The plot was discovered and all concerned tried and executed.

Introduced as an official holiday, Guy Fawkes Night reinforced the legitimacy of a Protestant regime while simultaneously denigrating the alternative of a return to Catholicism. As has happened before and since, the ruling authorities absorbed and changed the meanings of traditional events to suit their purposes:

An unequivocally Protestant celebration on 5 November therefore provided a handy replacement for what was now regarded as a redundant Catholic holy day, and also filled All Saints’ Day’s role as a festival marking the onset of winter, with celebratory bonfires defying the November darkness just as the holy candles had done. In modern parlance, Bonfire Night had replaced Hallowe’een.

(Sharpe 2005: 85)

Guy Fawkes Night has been commemorated annually for over 400 years. It is characterised by the lighting of bonfires and fireworks. This is a good example of what Falassi (1987) termed ritual inversion, re-creating the explosion and destruction which the attendees are celebrating did not occur. Furthermore, it is curiously named after the villain of the piece. It is a traditional grassroots event, with activities organised by local bonfire societies (see Figure 1.1) in towns and villages, rather than the national government. Even today, it remains very popular. In 2011, for example, we attended a Guy Fawkes Night at Hastings in south-east England, which attracted over 20,000 people (see Figure 1.2. and Chapter 7).

Part of the ritual of Guy Fawkes Night is the communal recital of the traditional rhyme:

Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November

Gunpowder Treason and Plot

I Know of No Reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should Ever be Forgot

Figure 1.1 Bonfire Society banner, Hastings. Photo by J. Laing.

This chanting of this simple rhyme emphasises the key elements of all commemorative events. It is an exhortation for the community to remember and this is reinforced through the shared community recital of a rhyme. It begins with the instruction to remember and ends with the reminder that the community must never forget. Coming straight after the instruction to remember, is the exact date to commemorate. That November rhymes with remember reinforces this. Repeated twice is what is being remembered – the Gunpowder Plot is treason – and this is reinforced with the rhyme with reason.

Guy Fawkes Night also illustrates three common features of commemorative events. First, beyond the spectacle of bonfires and fireworks, its underlying message is sectarian and divisive. It is a Protestant event, commemorating the defeat of an attempt to overthrow not just the government but the state religion. It reinforces an identity which values loyalty to the state and one’s religion. That identity is also defined in terms of anti-Catholicism and adherents of that faith are both excluded and denigrated. This religious hatred was made especially tangible in the seventeenth through to nineteenth centuries, with the effigy of the Pope being burnt and local variants on chanted rhymes identifying Catholics as treasonous (Sharpe 2005). Commemorative events are often distinguished by such conflict or dissonance between stakeholders and we examine this in depth in Chapters 2 and 3.

Second, Guy Fawkes Night follows a strong ritual pattern based on tradition and repetition. The bonfire, the fireworks, the burning of an effigy of Guy Fawkes and the communal chanting are all integral to the event. The pattern of ceremonies is repeated year after year. Falassi (1987) argues that most events follow a similar ritual structure and this is very apparent in commemorative events. The ritual of inversion is particularly apparent at Guy Fawkes Night.

Figure 1.2 Bonfire Night, 2011 in Hastings. Photo by J. Laing.

Third, while the rituals are firmly in place, their social meanings may change over time. In England, Guy Fawkes Night has remained popular, though religious intolerance has decreased markedly. Instead, it is embraced as a signifier of local identity and traditions. Even though the emphasis is now on spectacle rather than its original meaning, there are relics of popular protest. The Guy burnt in effigy is often modelled on contemporary politicians, rather than the Pope. At the 2011 Hastings Guy Fawkes Night, ‘Hoodies’ were symbolically burnt, representing community anger at those held responsible earlier that year for riots and the looting of shops.

Outside England, Guy Fawkes Night is celebrated in former colonies. In Australia during the 1950s and 1960s, Guy Fawkes Night was particularly popular, reflecting religious divisions within society. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was celebrated less, partly as it was too sectarian for modern societies and partly due to the limitations on the sale of fireworks. In the 1990s, it was revived somewhat, catering for baby-boomer nostalgia. However, nowadays it seems to have disappeared again, replaced by the increasingly popular Halloween. In North America, it survives in various towns along the Atlantic coast, such as Brigus in Newfoundland (Schwoeffermann 1994).

Most strangely, in recent years Guy Fawkes has been embraced by Generations Y and Z. He features strongly as a meme in computer chat rooms and other social media. He has starred as the avenging hero in graphic novels, movies (V for Vendetta) and computer games (Fallout 3). At a wide range of recent protest events, the Guy Fawkes mask is now the costume of choice for many young activists. Nor is the new use of Guy Fawkes confined to England. The masked protesters have featured in media reports of demonstrations in the USA, Germany, France, Greece and Russia. This new cyber Guy Fawkes is stripped of his sectarian and religious meanings. He is now reimagined as a lone voice of justice, acting against oppressive authority, akin to the fictional Zorro or Batman. Perhaps surprisingly, part of his new appeal is that historically he was a failure. Hi...