Timing is everything. 

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced that the government will fund a national war memorial to those Muslim soldiers who fought on our side during the two world wars and in subsequent conflicts. We have also been reminded that other religions have similar memorials.

And that is true. But is there anything more that this particular commemoration might represent? To try and parse that, it is worth first considering the other memorials that do indeed exist. 

I remember my surprise when I was in Brighton, having been invited to a World War I memorial service, to discover a memorial to the Sikh soldiers who, as part of the British Empire, fought in that war and died. The memorial is situated just a few miles north of Patcham on the South Downs.