Has Remembrance Improved ?

[FredPuli43]

I have been impressed in recent years by how seriously Remembrance is now taken, to the extent of shops putting up signs saying that the staff will stand for two minutes' silence at 11. I can remember Remembrance in Cambridge being so poorly observed that when the bugle sounded at 11 about half the people carried on as though nothing at happened.

Old people may remember when everything stopped and police would stop the traffic, lest drivers hadn't noticed the time. We haven't quite got back to that. I suspect that Iraq and Afghanistan have a lot do with younger people taking this more seriously; they might not identify with wars and conflicts killing soldiers many years before they were born, but they can with people of their own generation being maimed or killed.

[naomi24]

Civilians are no longer isolated from the realities of conflict. Via the media, the dangers presented by today’s world, the work our forces are doing to combat that, and the losses they are suffering, confront us all every day, and that is probably instrumental in the upsurge in expressions of patriotism.

[emmie]

it is, perhaps because it is now so immediate, the information coming out of places like Afghanistan, those killed, injured, on the news, radio, internet, and the poppy sellers are now much more in evidence, good...

[ludwig]

// I've removed the markers on my parents' graves. //

Seems a strange thing to do if you're not bothered. That's 'anti-rembrance' rather than just not doing it.

[jake-the-peg]

I hardly think you can compare the isolation that civillians have today with that of WWII

9/11 itself resulted in fewer deaths than we have on the roads in the UK in a year

30,000 civillians were killed in the Blitz



And I'd love to know how it is you think that soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan keep us safe here

And if they are why we're withdrawing them!

[naomi24]

Jake, who are you talking to?

[pixie373]

I deliberately don't remember the anniversary of people's deaths- i don't like to make myself upset one day a year. I remember them anyway. I think Remembrance might get more popular as time goes on. Out of the twelve elderly people i look after, not one of them watched any services ("too depressing") or observed any silence. Maybe they are too close to it.

[jake-the-peg]

I think you were the oone who broght up the 'isolation' of civillians and the ridiculous idea that soldiers in Afghanisran are keeping us safe in the UK

[emmie]

withdrawing them because it's a lost cause. Better security in UK that is what is needed, and catching those who mean us harm from within these shores. Like those who planted the bombs in London, and those but for the security services might have done many more atrocities. Diplomatic missions to Afghanistan might do more to smooth waters, however troops there seem to be on a hiding to nothing.

[jake-the-peg]

Exactly Emmie

I mean does anyone seriously think David Cameron is endangering British civillians by pulling out British troops?

All they're doing is acting as a recruiting aid for terrorist organisations by being there occupying a foriegn country.

The've not exactly been welcomed as liberators have they? Where are the parades with flowers and parties?

And if they're not wanted there by the overwhelming majority then there simply an occupying army that has installed a puppet president

[naomi24]

Jake, I didn’t say “soldiers in Afghanistan are keeping us safe in the UK”. That’s your ridiculous idea – not mine.

[jesmond]

as the daughter of a far east prisoner of war (now deceased) I always observe the 2 minutes silence, when I worked in a shop sometime ago we as shop assistants were doing the 2 minutes silence when someone asked me for a particular item, they were quite taken aback when I informed them that I was observing 2 minutes silence and that I would help them when it was over, they walked out, it was their choice of course to do this but it was also mine, the person was elderly not young so it goes to show that we aren't all the same, we all have different views but the way I look at it is from the viewpoint of my dad and the suffering of him and the ones that don't come home.

[Snafu03]

Think JTP has put forward a good argument which explains the resurgence in the UKs increased support to it armed forces.

In as much as we are acting as a recruitment tool for insurgency, the brutal murder of Lee Rigby has tuned the UK into the fact we have an enemy within.

Even though 7/7 caused more death and devastation on the UK mainland it was nothing that the IRA wouldnt have pulled off in the 70/80s. It was the particular brutality of the act which finally shocked the nation out of its PC slumber.

[Peter Pedant]

same thought struck me Freddie

a) it is more observed that previously - altho when Bliar suggested it was a think of the past, he got short shrift altho it was moved to the nearest Sunday for a few years.

b) and it seems to concentrate on the slaughter of 1914 altho efforts were made to give it current significance.

I thought it might be a return to ancestor worship
Original anglo-saxons were big on this before conversion to christianity
currently 50% of anglos specifically say their dead relatives have spoken to them at some time after death so the belief is there, all we need is the ritual

[Peter Pedant]

Jesmond I am terribly sorry for your FEPOW dad, they were all badly treated in the camps
and their suffering was played down after the war by officialdom.

[Japan was now an ally and a bulwark against the commies ]

[jesmond]

thanx pp thats why I do my bit on remembrance day and it makes my p boil knowing that the ones that survived the terrible times only got compo when it was far too late for most of them but that's another discussion