Marc Hooghe on the remembrance of World War I

Ninety years ago today an armistice in Belgium ended World War I. Historian Marc Hooghe calls on the Flemish and Walloons to abandon their nationalistic disputes, arguing that those who fell should be remembered with dignity. "Every society develops rituals for keeping the dead partially alive. One of the passages of the Iliad which arouses the most indignation is the mistreatment of Hector's corpse. Yet with our nationalist political conflicts we show just as little respect for those who fell in the Great War. This is all the more scandalous because the German attack on neutral Belgium in August 1914 set off a wave of international solidarity. It was outrage over the German war crimes on Belgian soil, including in Aarschot, Löwen and Dinant, that caused thousands of British to volunteer. Many of them died. Caught up in our own nationalist conflicts, we have shown little thanks for this international solidarity. ... But true respect means commemorating the victims of both world wars for what they were: normal people who perhaps became involved in these murderous conflicts against their will. And seen from that perspective it is entirely irrelevant whether they spoke French or Flemmish."

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