Rememberance Sunday

[bonj2]

According to my grandfather, who was a train driver in France during the first world war, and attended the first Armistice day service in Barrow in Furness, originally the first minute was for remembering the fallen, the second minute was to give thanks for coming through alive.

well if it's silent and I presume people don't clockwatch, then how does anybody know when the first minute ends and the second starts?

 

[Night Train]

Sorry Louise but I don't think the Japanese were in Italy.

The Japanese were in China, and other places in the far east, killing my Grandparents.

 

[Mr Pig]

What I find surprising about the two minutes silence is that it seems to be getting more popular these days as the wars get further away.

What's wrong with that?

 

[gavintc]

What I find surprising about the two minutes silence is that it seems to be getting more popular these days as the wars get further away. After years of the silence only being observed at ceremonies we now have it even in supermarkets and workplaces. It seems that every organisation is desperate to show how respectful it is.

The interest in remembrance is increased because it is current - our politicians are killing our soldiers today not because is it some forgotten war of 60 / 80 years ago.

 

[simoncc]

The interest in remembrance is increased because it is current - our politicians are killing our soldiers today not because is it some forgotten war of 60 / 80 years ago.

I don't think so - not enough soldiers are being killed these days for any kind of outbreak of national mourning on such a scale. I remember WW1 on TV documentaries years ago describing how the country ground to a halt for two minutes for the silence in the years immediately following the war and it seems odd we should be returning to such a thing now. All these footballers with poppies on their shirts and silences in schools, supermarkets and offices seems just a bit manufactured to me these days, an attempt by government to create some kind of national spirit and to counter the routine anti-military stance of certain sections of scoiety.

 

[Andy in Sig]

The interest in remembrance is increased because it is current - our politicians are killing our soldiers today not because is it some forgotten war of 60 / 80 years ago.

I suspect that is not the case. You might have a point if there were ongoing anti-war demonstrations but apart from a dozen blokes in tents in Parliament Sq, there doesn't seem to be much of a head of steam.

OTH WW2 is the most popular subject in history in schools and I suspect that that has sparked a renewed awareness of losses and sacrifices made in both world wars. It's also worth remembering that the whole thing is run by the British Legion albeit with government approval and in that sense it is above politics and is there for the whole nation.

 

[jack the lad]

Oh Simon, how cynical you are. I think you are probably also wrong.

This grows in spite of the government, In the judgement of many people, including in the armed forces, the wars they are fighting are wrong. But there is, as far as I can tell, a genuine growing recognition, even amongst those who think they are misguided, that people serving in the armed forces give a high level of commitment, up to and including giving their lives, in what they honestly and genuinely believe is service to the British public. This is what we give our respect to and hopefully we also reflect on the victims of war whichever 'side' they were on and on the stupidity of warmongers.

 

[simoncc]

Oh Simon, how cynical you are. I think you are probably also wrong.

This grows in spite of the government, In the judgement of many people, including in the armed forces, the wars they are fighting are wrong. But there is, as far as I can tell, a genuine growing recognition, even amongst those who think they are misguided, that people serving in the armed forces give a high level of commitment, up to and including giving their lives, in what they honestly and genuinely believe is service to the British public. This is what we give our respect to and hopefully we also reflect on the victims of war whichever 'side' they were on and on the stupidity of warmongers.

In everyday life I just don't see this increased repect for the soldiers of this country. There is just the usual disdain for the military among a section of the 'liberals' and an indifference from most others. There was certainly no popular call for the restarting of the full 2 minutes silence.

There's a sort of 'respect' bandwagon going on with Rememberance Day, led by the government. The nation's broadcasters have caught the mood and sends soap stars to France to grieve for relatives they'd hardly previously heard of, and we are shown suspiciously too many young adults and children who tell us how they are still deeply grateful to the war dead. Rememberance Day was very gradually fading away a few years ago and it should have been allowed to continue along that path. It's mainly a thing for the few remaining veterans and the relatives who can remember a lost loved one, not for the majority of us.

 

[Andy in Sig]

Remembrance was fading as during the sixties ideas like patriotism and service had become deeply unfashionable. They seem to have been rediscovered to an extent and it would appear that most people do not agree with you that the fading process should have been allowed to continue. In addition, it is one of the very few events which seems to be able to unite the British as a nation, probably precisely because most of the British want it that way.

 

[rich p]

The BBC 10 o' clock news last night showed a 14 year old boy who confessed to knowing little or nothing about poppy day, WW1 even the dates, but if someone in 1968, when I was 14, had asked me what I new about a war that had ended in 1878 I suspect it would have been very little.

 

[Kirstie]

I'm just dropping in right on the end of this thread not having read it all, but rememberence day makes me cry buckets every year. It's v poignant for me and I always mark it...

 

[Andy in Sig]

The BBC 10 o' clock news last night showed a 14 year old boy who confessed to knowing little or nothing about poppy day, WW1 even the dates, but if someone in 1968, when I was 14, had asked me what I new about a war that had ended in 1878 I suspect it would have been very little.

It's not the dates though is it? The point in the case of the two world wars is the historical and cultural significance and the fact that they effected nearly every family in the land.

 

[rich p]

It's not the dates though is it? The point in the case of the two world wars is the historical and cultural significance and the fact that they effected nearly every family in the land.

As I said, it wasn't only the dates. He knew nothing about the WW1 at all, not even the significance of Poppy Day. I'm not saying it's a reprehensible or good thing, just that for 14 year olds the relevance of distant history lessens for each generation.

 

[User482]

Not sure where you are coming from-

Frightened - well I would be.
Boys or Men - they each were given the job of shooting men and being shot at. The bullets showed no favour.
Conscriped - makes it worse not better.
Not possibly have any prior knowlege of - well yes in that the horror would be and still is unimagenable to anyone who had not been there even with the benefit of the pictures we have nowadays that I think were largely not released at the time to keep morale up. but certainly no in that on the way to the front the fresh troops would see the broken troops returning from the front if they were lucky and the men digging the mass graves ready for them.

However it may be put you cannot blunt "gave their lives for us". For f*** sake they died. How they got there and the reason does not matter in any war. It just is men doing what they are ordered and dying in doing it in our name.

You've rather missed the point. Remembrance Sunday should be exactly that - remembering those who have died in wars. Unfortunately, it is bound up in politics - the word "sacrifice" for example could not be described as a neutral term. If such a claim is to be made, then it is entirely appropriate to examine what exactly this "sacrifice" was for. They were carrying out the orders of the government of the day, so you simply cannot claim that they were doing it in our name. As I said, they were doing it because they had to. To claim that the reason doesn't matter is false - as is often said, to ignore history is to be condemned to repeating its mistakes.

Now, somebody else on this thread asked for the political discussion to be done elsewhere, so this will be my last contribution on the subject. In any case, I agree entirely: Remembrance day solely for people who have died in wars, and keep the reflected glory and political capital out of it.

 

[Stan]

......Now, somebody else on this thread asked for the political discussion to be done elsewhere, so this will be my last contribution on the subject. In any case, I agree entirely: Remembrance day solely for people who have died in wars, and keep the reflected glory and political capital out of it.

+1. I have just found an entry for a member of my family, who fought and died in WW1, on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. I was not aware that I had any relatives who died in the wars but have always respected this day. This date has now become more poignant for me.