I stopped there in the article, as he obviously had an agenda that is completely at odds with reality.
Such a shame the Guardian didn't even do basic editorial checking on the article.
Largely, not entirely.
And this isn't a question of blunt fact which can be rebutted by pointing at the presence of the various Commonwealth High Commissioners during the ceremony itself, but a question of meaning and salience.
What they mean is things like this exchange which I immediately thought of: https://twitter.com/AGlasgowGirl/status/897719075182456833 (followed later by https://twitter.com/bbcstories/status/1061199619412189184 )
There definitely is a faction of people who tie remembrance to militarism to ethnic whiteness, and as part of that they will whitewash the role of non-white people in the wars.
I'm pro-Remain but it still disturbs me that it never gives any kind of an airing to a pro-Brexit voice.
The article is well worth reading in its entirety.
That's just nonsense. The involvement and sacrifice of Commonwealth troops has always been a significant part of the history and memorial of WW1. In fact, there's a strong argument that WW1 gave some Commonwealth countries a casting role on the world stage that they lacked prior to the war.
What isn't often acknowledged is that WW1 was a racist endeavour as this article is stating. And that's primarily because it's a ridiculous assertion. Race had nothing to do with it.
In the second paragraph of Wikipedia's article on the Gallipoli campaign, it says:
> The campaign is often considered to be the beginning of Australian and New Zealand national consciousness; 25 April, the anniversary of the landings, is known as "ANZAC Day", the most significant commemoration of military casualties and veterans in the two countries, surpassing Remembrance Day (Armistice Day).
It's impossible to talk about the Mesopotamian campaign without referring to the Indian troops; it's impossible to talk about Gallipoli without reference to ANZAC. It is possible to omit the Canadians' role in the Western Front, however, but that's because their role is minor in relative terms to the American, British, French, and German components, so a short summary could omit them.
Take France (since i'm french), one of the big users of overseas and colonial troops, the article lists 500k colonial conscripts. Except we had 8 millions conscripts, and 1 million and a half dead soldiers. While their sacrifice mattered and was not honored enough, it's hard to focus on their specific plights, in the end, they represented ~6% of soldiers, and ~6% of casualties. I'm not even talking about the destruction wrecked in northern france.
As always, people feel more about things closer to them, especially when they experienced directly it.
And 0% of the stakes. Germany wasn't attacking their home, and the Treaty of Versailles often made their position worse. And I'm not even talking about the destruction wrecked on their homes by whatever imperialist mean they became a colony.
There was some fighting in Africa, since Germany had colonies there.
A large part of the ceremony is given over to the laying of commonwealth wreathes, which is straight after the last post.
It's a basic fact which he seems to claim doesn't happen, how much more of his writing is given over to this bias?
This is a lie.
[Colonial subjects] also go largely uncommemorated by the hallowed rituals of Remembrance Day.
Here is the BBC recording, the first hour or so is preamble before the ceremony.
The last post finished at about 1:04:00 and the commonwealth countries start laying their wreathes at 1:11:10, straight after the Royal family and the UK political party heads:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0brgkgt/remembrance-s...
It's a recorded fact they were included significantly in the Remembrance Day rituals. You can go and see all the previous years too.
David Dimbleby even says "And now the high commissioners of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and India who played such a huge part in both world wars. 3 million soldiers and laborers from across the empire and the commonwealth served in the first world war, in the 2nd world war 5 million men and women.". It then carries on with the wreath laying of all the other commonwealth countries, all of which are named.
"It's a basic fact which he seems to claim doesn't happen"
Even your quote doesn't back up what you say in the slightest:
"[Colonial subjects] also go largely uncommemorated by the hallowed rituals of Remembrance Day."
The articles does not say it does not happen. The article says that it does not happen enough. Saying otherwise is a lie.