Those who refuse to fight in wars are the heroes.

Remembrance Day approaches and with an ongoing and relentless genocide against Palestinians by us and Israel, this year's commemoration is perhaps the most cynical use of remembrance in the history of November 11th. My dad wrote three essays about Remembrance Day and what it should be about, if it were to have any meaning. This essay is about those who refuse to go to war for reasons of conscience. Considering the times we live in have been manufacturing consent for war with Russia, China and Iran, it is a timely read.

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As an RAF veteran of the Second World War, I know that November is a cruel month for both remembering and forgetting the cost of armed conflict.

During these past few days, when the light grows dim, I have stumbled around London and remembered a time when, as a young man, I witnessed our capital face death from swarms of Nazi bomber planes.

In this day and age, we like to impose uniformity on our past conflicts. We see them through a nostalgic lens of wartime propaganda films in which the hero gladly sacrifices his life for a green and pleasant land. But the past is not as simple or as clear-cut as our TV presenters like to suggest during Remembrance Sunday services. For every act of unique heroism, we remember, we often forget or ignore all those who, because of post-traumatic stress disorder or moral or religious objections, were unwilling to put their lives on the line for king and country.

Today, we forget too easily that our resolve during the first two years of battle with Hitler wasn’t as great as popular history likes to imagine. In fact, Lord Halifax, who was a member of Neville Chamberlain’s cabinet, wanted to broker a peace deal between Britain and the Nazis, as did many other aristocrats and business leaders. Moreover, many working-class citizens hit by austerity during the Great Depression didn’t feel particularly patriotic about Britain in either peace or war.

Before I joined the RAF my employer begged me to become a conscientious objector. His issues against the war were more about lost commerce than moral outrage at the shedding of blood. Yet despite his promises of promotion and material reward, I didn’t take his advice because, although I had grave concerns over the inequalities of 1930s Britain, I still believed my place during a national emergency was in uniform. Many, however, didn’t feel as strongly as I and my friends who volunteered, because during the Second World War, 60k men registered as conscientious objectors. Moreover, there were more than 100k men in uniform, including my brother-in-law, who, during the conflict against Nazism, deserted their posts or failed to return from leave.

Too many in this present age look upon these men as cowards whose objections to battle are best forgotten. But I believe it is important we remember those who dissent in a time of war, even if we think our struggle to be true and just. How a nation treats those who oppose its war aims is the true measure of its enlightenment.

Present-day Britain has a lot to learn from our Second World War history because, despite popular myth, conscientious objectors weren’t always shunned by society but compelled to contribute to the war effort through ambulance and paramedic work or rebuilding neighbourhoods that had suffered extensive bomb damage. Even the treatment of deserters was more humane in the Second World War than the First, when many were shot out of hand. Still, there is no question that deserters and their families were treated harshly by both the police and government authorities during the Second World War. Fortunately, many did get on with their lives in postwar Britain with no lasting stigma.

This is but one of the reasons I refuse to wear a poppy. It portrays courage only as physical rather than the courage it takes to dissent and disagree with a war on moral grounds.

When I recently visited the display of ceramic poppies surrounding the Tower of London like a turgid lake of blood, I recalled not only lives lost in battles from ancient and modern wars but also those that were changed irrevocably by the consequences of having an individual conscience during a time of collective insecurity. We must find a way to remember them too.

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Take care, John