One hundred years ago, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the armistice that brought the First World War to a close came into effect. The guns ceased. The damage that the Great War had wrought, however, would have a long term effect – and the consequences undoubtedly spilt into the 1920s and 1930s, with the lead up to the Second World War. (And, in many ways, are still with us today).

Millions laid their lives, fighting on both sides of the conflict. Millions more died as a direct or indirect consequence. We have a duty to remember them. Living in Britain for various years, I’ve seen too many memorials of war dead, in every town, village, church and chapel: many dead in World War II, many more in World War I. An entire generation wiped out.

We will remember them. But we should also remember the causes that lead to war, the pathetic nationalist rivalries, the warped warmongering forms of patriotism that see the other only as some blot to be wiped out. The many who fan the flames for their own self-interests, but then see the bloodbath that ensues from a safe distance.

We will remember them. And to remember them, we need to make sure that we work to build a world were no one is excluded, where no one is dehumanised, a world that seek to be more free, peaceful and just for everyone. Where there is no more “us” and “them”. Each in our own responsibility, as individuals, as citizens of our nations and of the world.

Otherwise, the wreaths we lay and the Last Posts are empty signs, pathetic memorials to assuage our guilt.

Seems appropriate therefore to remember the war dead through the words of one of them — the British poet Wilfred Owen, killed in action one week before Armistice Day. I share here his final draft for Anthem for Doomed Youth (image above), and the same poem read by Sean Bean.