Abstract
This essay focuses attention on the efforts to include Muslims from the past and present in a series of initiatives during the UK 2014 Centenary Commemorations, including the memorialisation of Muslim soldiers from WWI and the creation of the Poppy Hijab. For the armed forces, the revival of the historical legacy of a multicultural military serves to legitimise the military's image and their contemporary efforts in the War on Terror. On the other hand, the initiatives polarised opinion amongst supportive British Muslims and opponents of the Poppy Hijab. The essay situates these events in critical literature on militarisation and memorialisation.
Highlights
This article focuses attention on the efforts by army officials, peers, politicians, academics, religious leaders and supportive British Muslims to include Muslims from the past and present in the UK 2014 Centenary Commemorations
This article has argued that the 2014 Centenary Commemorations in Britain represent complex, multi-layered forms of militarisation that garner support for war and reveal the shifting boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in the national community
This article focused on the efforts by army officials, peers, politicians, academics, religious leaders and supportive British Muslims to include Muslims from the past and present in these events
Summary
As Krebs (2006: 16) affirms, throughout history military institutions have been ‘shapers of nations’ This connection between national identity and militarism becomes most visible in times of war when the military and public support is mobilised behind the state. Quotidian celebrations of military institutions and values make militarism ‘more than merely an elite ideology, or a set of beliefs with which state institutions indoctrinate the less powerful sectors of society’ (Bernazzoli & Flint, 2009, 398) This includes the intrusion and acceptance of military symbols in popular culture. Vron Ware has noted how ‘the figure of the solider is ubiquitous throughout the [British] media, constantly visible in news, military bulletins, films, digital games, forums, art and photography’ (Ware, 2012b, 11) This diffuseness of militarism helps to normalise the military’s presence, presenting militarism and war ‘as necessary and natural extensions of nation states’ civil society’ (Kelly, 2012, 723). Their rejection of military symbols illuminates how militarism is a form of power that is multilayered, contested and constantly evolving
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