On the 11th hour of the 11th  day of the 11th  month, McGill University marked the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War through its Remembrance Day ceremony.However, the ceremonial moment of silence was a little less quiet as the actions of Demilitarize McGill protesters provided a different kind of noise. Standing on the steps of the Redpath Museum, these protestors hid their faces with posters that listed statistics about civilian casualties, defence industry profits, and sexual assault in the military. I write not to dispute these facts, but instead the manner of their use. This protest was entirely permissible, but nonetheless, deplorable. I will defend Demilitarize McGill’s right to protest that day’s Remembrance Day ceremonies just as much as I can expect them to defend my right to say that their actions were disrespectful, dishonorable, and disgusting.

Protesting Remembrance Day is an attempt to politicize an event where we set aside our partisan beliefs and remember all those who fought and suffered at the hands of war. The words, “lest we forget” serve not only to mark the solemnity of the occasion but also, to warn us of the horrors of war that impacted everyone. This includes the poor, the marginalized, and the disadvantaged who Demilitarize McGill claims are done such a disservice by these ceremonies. By remembering the suffering of others in war, we hope that history will not repeat itself at our hands.

Remembrance on Nov. 11 invokes memories of pain, sacrifice, and suffering–not glory.

It seems odd that this group would protest an event promoting peace. It is now even more clear that protest organizers did not treat Remembrance Day with the gravity that so many of us do. Demilitarize McGill’s actions were ill-received: Its Facebook page was littered with denunciations and verbal abuse. It is questionable how this organization expected to successfully spread its message by protesting our grandparents, community members, and the many others who suffered or gave their lives for Demilitarize McGill’s right to engage in that very protest. Perhaps it was done out of preference for the radical, anti-establishment option. However, doing so at the expense of spreading one’s message only seems self-indulgent in the idea of identifying as a radical.

Demilitarize McGill easily could have chosen any of the days leading up to or after Remembrance Day to promote its message and to prevent the erasure of marginalized persons and the glorification of war on this day (though I dispute that these claims are true). Instead, they chose to disrespectfully entrench themselves against this ceremony for want of an institution–or better yet, a straw man–that they could use to indulge in their radical tastes. The reactions to Demilitarize McGill’s protest should serve as a wake-up call to the realization that they are attempting to promote peace only through conflict and controversy. For members of Demilitarize McGill, deep soul-searching is required if this group is to have any future in campus political life.