Better active evil than passive good?

Opportunity, and reason, were cause to recently visit Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance.

Entering from the nearby St Kilda Rd a sign alerted me to the reason for my visit, a temporary exhibition entitled “Peace”.

The overall energy of the exhibition warranted curiosity, but particular interest arose from that fact and that included in the display was the print, “Journeys and Destinations” by Melbourne artist Benjamin McKeon and his counterpart, and friend, Nathalia’s Bill Kelly.

Bill and Ben’s collaborative print represented Australia at the 50^th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights International Print Portfolio.

This print, one of about 50 pieces of artwork and photographs, was inspired by the human right: “Everyone has the right to the liberty and security of person” and one of the limited edition prints sits in the collection of the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) library, Switzerland.

Being at the height of the remembrance “season”, the shrine was alive with people from guides and advisors through to a seemingly ceaseless steam of school groups and others obviously eager to see the shrine and experience the sense the wonderment it invoked.

Interestingly, the “war” section of the shrine captured the interest of most, while the “Peace” exhibit languished almost unnoticed in one corner of the main entrance area.

The drama of conflict appeals to, and seems to ignite, human emotions, while peace, the reason for the shrine appears to escape the understanding and interest of most, and so the idea that today we can live peaceably appears well down the hierarchy of importance.

Remembrance is obviously a key reason for the shrine, emphasized by its exquisite placement on high ground just south of the city making it obvious and ensuring the reality of conflicts to which Australia has been a party are constantly considered.

The idea that we acknowledge those who died or suffered to preserve the life we presently enjoy warrants applause, but as we do that, it is important we escape the violent and quarrelsome paradigm promoted by the military/industrial complex.

Just last week a climatologist told an Echuca conference considering an indigenous response to climate change that a world-wide effort to mitigate that unfolding difficulty would cost some $30-40 billion a year, which is considered by most to be too costly.

However, confusingly and in what was a stark contrast, he pointed out, that the world spends about $780 billion each year of military machinations, not including the death or injury to thousands of people, the damage to property or the accumulating injury to the earth’s atmosphere.

Some feel that it is men and their distorted values and reasons who escort nations into war, while it is women with their instinctive caring natures who engender peace. That is an argument many would contest.

However, those who believe it is men and their egoist driven ambitions that cause war should note a painting on the wall opposite, “Journeys and Destinations” – a small painting capturing the moment the World War One peace treaty was signed.

Anyone would in fact find value in hesitating for a moment before an image of the Palace of Versailles bursting with men eager to be a part of history, and so be among those who witnessed the signing of the peace treaty between German and the Allied Powers in June 1919.

The fine piece of art shows the main hall in the palace full of men and not a woman in sight. The treaty those men signed brought only a brief hiatus to war and was so restrictive to Germany, in particular, that it became something of a trigger for World War Two.

Peace is something far deeper, complex and grander than an absence of conflict for it demands the embrace of a positive paradigm; a paradigm in which people say “no” to distractions and entertainment whose essence, and language, is confrontational and violent, as is the foundational philosophies of most modern films and television programs.

As with shrines of remembrance everywhere and for whatever reason they exist, the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance cements in our psyche the reality of conflict and although it is important we remember the event/s, it is equally important that having learned from it, that we move on.

Such things as the Shrine of Remembrance have the power to keep us rooted in the past and while it is true that future success is inextricable linked to an understanding of the past, it is an error to look toward tomorrow through the prism of what was.

Peace was one of the four “pillars” on which the shrine was founded, but it is something that will forever elude us unless we expand our thinking, challenge and change our adversarial and belligerent behaviour, understand mutuality and be cautious with our of vernacular.