I was struck by the fact that two local war memorials in villages I visited in Italy bore the word, “Presente” above the list of names of those who died. This is how Italian soldiers respond during roll call. It is so different from the characteristic British, “We will remember them”, and important for two reasons. First of all, what happens when we are no longer here to remember them? In Italy, it is affirmed that they are “present” whether or not we are mindful of them. Then, I experience the Italian approach as a gigantic refusal of time, in place of the British subordination to time. Absolutely the fallen cannot be consigned to the past. They continue to make demands upon us in our present. It is not up to us to remember to remember (or to forget). They are essentially present. I find that very moving.
The French anthropologist Clause Levi-Strauss used to write about myths as “machines for the suppression of time”. I think that a radical refusal of time is at the heart of all properly religious thought. Our war memorials are, in fact, merely secular objects, whereas Italian ones are essentially religious (though not necessarily sectarian).