IJzerbedevaart: The Pilgrimage to the IJzer

Abstract

As noted in prior chapters, the IJzer Pilgrimage began as a simple commemoration ritual to the sites of the ten primary IJzer martyrs. Since it was difficult to prioritize one over the other, the IJzertoren was built to commemorate not only these ten, but all of the fallen sons of Flanders. But once built, some five years after the idea was broached, the IJzertoren became a symbol for the conflict over which Flemish memory to commemorate: the heroic behavior of the Flemish soldiers of World War I, the martyrdom of those same soldiers, amnesty for the Activists of the Great War, and then, after destruction and reconstruction, amnesty for the Flemish/Nazi collaborators of World War II, or the history of the Flemish people and the primacy of the Dutch language within Flanders. Paul Connerton provides a useful context with which to understand the specific memory perpetuated by the IJzer pilgrimage. For Connerton, social memory is an element of political control and regulation over a society’s memory and is usually a consequence of the hierarchy of power.¹ Social memory images of the past commonly legitimize a present social order.² Participants in any social order must accept a shared memory and he argues that images of the past and recollected knowledge of the past are conveyed and sustained by ritual performance. If there is such a thing as social memory, then Connerton finds its origins in commemorative, ritualistic ceremonies.