Remembrance Day is different for me this year.

When I was a child, I didn’t understand anything about war.  A friend had lost two older brothers in WW II, and I was curious about their photos on her family’s piano, but it all seemed remote; nothing to do with me. In my own extended family, I was aware of no one who’d been to war. 

In high school, we stood, while the principal intoned a list of names of those from our school who’d been killed in the two world wars. I think back now, and realize that many of those men were killed very close to the time I was born.

I did have a vague notion of my father fighting in the Spanish Civil War, but that didn’t seem to count. He never said anything about it around Remembrance Day.

In my adult years, I understood the terrible toll of war, and if I wasn’t at a cenotaph, I was in tears while listening to CBC’s Remembrance Day programming.

A few months ago, my youngest sister, Susan, told me that Dad used to take her to the Peterborough Cenotaph for Remembrance Day. She knew he’d been in a war, so she couldn’t understand why he was watching, not marching, with the other soldiers. 

Now we both know why. Jim Higgins and the 1700 or so other Mac-Paps broke Canada’s foreign enlistment law, and to this day, their actions are controversial, especially to the establishment and those on the right. This was in line with other western democracies who signed a Non-Intervention Agreement concerning the Spanish Civil War.

The foreign enlistment law was hastily enacted in spring 1937 to prevent Canadians volunteering to fight in support of the democratically elected government of Spain, against General Franco’s military coup.

It didn’t seem to matter that Franco had the support of Hitler and Mussolini. The government was left-leaning and enacting reforms. It’s a scenario that’s been played out many times since.

So, yes, they broke the law. Some volunteers had connections to the Communist Party of Canada, to this day, a legal entity that participates in our democracy, but all could see what Hitler and Mussolini were up to in their support of Spain.

The question is, was it a flawed law. Is it time for Canada and other western democracies which took similar non-interventionist stances, to give some honour to these volunteers who did the right thing in recognizing the threat of fascism, by putting their lives on the line in defense of democracy. 

Ironically, some Mac-Paps are remembered during Remembrance Day ceremonies.  They are the ones who were accepted for service in the Second World War, willing to go back to the battlefields to fight for the same cause they’d been fighting for in Spain. Others, like my father, tried to volunteer, but were turned down because they were considered security risks.

This year, I’ll be thinking about my father standing unrecognized at those Remembrance Day ceremonies, but grateful that, in 1978, forty years after Dad saved his life in Corbera, Manuel Alvarez was finally able to find and thank him. Manuel remembered, just as the Spanish people have remembered.

My gratitude was brought into sharp focus when, this morning, I woke up to this Global News article about the Mac-Paps, which includes a clip of my father and Manuel being interviewed in 1980.

My father’s frailty is evident. At this time, he really wanted to be refining his memoir, knowing it needed more work, but the best he could do was read it onto tape, making ad libs which, decades later, helped me with filling some of the gaps.

“We will never forget you.”  It was La Pasionaria’s promise to the internationals when they were leaving Spain in 1938. The memories lay buried during the dictatorship of Franco, but after his death in 1975, a new democracy arose, and the Spanish government made the surviving brigaders honorary citizens of Spain. 

And now, with the new generation’s insistence on uncovering and understanding their buried past, the brigaders continue to be embraced for the heroes they were.

In a sense, Jim Higgins was lucky. Most other Mac-Paps died without thanks, though, in recent decades, several memorials have been installed across Canada because of citizen action and the support of NDP governments. Also, one in Ottawa, which had the support of then Governor-General, Adrienne Clarkson.

For the most part, though, the Mac-Pap vets were spurned by the Legion, hounded by the RCMP, and passed over on Remembrance Day; even though they were warriors with ideals, and braver than most of us ever knew. 

They, and the Spanish republicans, fought and died in defense of democracy. Now, as we face the rise of fascism in our times, they stand as role models.

I’m proud of you, Dad. Today, Remembrance Day 2018, I’m remembering you.

© Janette Higgins

NOW PUBLISHED: Fighting for Democracy: The True Story of Jim Higgins (1907-1982), A Canadian Activist in Spain’s Civil War (2020) is available worldwide from Independent Bookstores, Chapters-Indigo, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. Kindle version on Amazon. Orders of three or more: Friesen Press.

I encourage you to obtain it from your local Indie bookseller or library. And if you can leave a review or “star” it somewhere, like Amazon or Goodreads, that would be much appreciated!

Fighting for Democracy by Jim Higgins is the latest book about the Mac-Paps, Canadians in the Mackenzie Papineau Battalion, which was part of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Other books about Canadians in the Spanish Civil War include Not For King or Country by Tyler Wentzell , Mac-Pap by Ronald Liversedge with David Yorke and Renegades by Michael Petrou.