What should merit a minute or two silence?

[Bubbles]

We seem to be getting a lot of them nowadays

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/03/what-merits-minutes-silence-remembrance

The first and second world wars.
9/11
Tunisia

What should we hold them for? and how many years should we keep it up ?

Are we getting too many?

Should it only be for wars? Or killings? What about people killed on planes/disasters?

How do you feel about it?

I feel the qualification for it has widened now to include different things, I usually notice them if I happen to be working.

For me, it's starting to get too much, not that I want to be disrepectful

[floo]

How sad it would be if we can't spare 2 minutes silence each year to remember those killed in  WW1, WW2 and all the conflicts since then! I make a point of honouring the silence each year as it is particularly poignant to me.  My home island was invaded by the Germans during WW2. Our home had 13 Germans in residence for the duration of the war. When I was born in 1950 the signs of their occupancy were very clear, there were gun racks all over the house walls. Ammunition had been stored in the attics, and I found a grenade when I was 10, and not knowing what it was kicked it around like a foot ball. Thank goodness I didn't pull out the pin or I would have gone skywards! Throughout my childhood mines would be exploded on the beaches from time to time.

One of the German soldiers in our home was a talented artist and had drawn cartoons of the people in charge of our island during the war. These were framed and displayed on our back landing until the house was eventually sold in 1984. When my parents died my siblings and I decided that although they were worth a considerable amount of money, we should not profit from their sale and donated them to one of museums of which our father had been president.

On Remembrance Sunday an island gun would sound the silence and all would be expected to stop what they were doing and observe it. Cars would be expected to stop until the second gun sounded.

WE SHALL REMEMBER THEM, hopefully for the next 100 years or more.

[BashfulAnthony]

How sad it would be if we can't spare 2 minutes silence each year to remember those killed in  WW1, WW2 and all the conflicts since then! I make a point of honouring the silence each year as it is particularly poignant to me.  My home island was invaded by the Germans during WW2. Our home had 13 Germans in residence for the duration of the war. When I was born in 1950 the signs of their occupancy were very clear, there were gun racks all over the house walls. Ammunition had been stored in the attics, and I found a grenade when I was 10, and not knowing what it was kicked it around like a foot ball. Thank goodness I didn't pull out the pin or I would have gone skywards! Throughout my childhood mines would be exploded on the beaches from time to time.

One of the German soldiers in our home was a talented artist and had drawn cartoons of the people in charge of our island during the war. These were framed and displayed on our back landing until the house was eventually sold in 1984. When my parents died my siblings and I decided that although they were worth a considerable amount of money, we should not profit from their sale and donated them to one of museums of which our father had been president.

On Remembrance Sunday an island gun would sound the silence and all would be expected to stop what they were doing and observe it. Cars would be expected to stop until the second gun sounded.

WE SHALL REMEMBER THEM, hopefully for the next 100 years or more.

For once, Floo is quite right.

[ippy]

How sad it would be if we can't spare 2 minutes silence each year to remember those killed in  WW1, WW2 and all the conflicts since then! I make a point of honouring the silence each year as it is particularly poignant to me.  My home island was invaded by the Germans during WW2. Our home had 13 Germans in residence for the duration of the war. When I was born in 1950 the signs of their occupancy were very clear, there were gun racks all over the house walls. Ammunition had been stored in the attics, and I found a grenade when I was 10, and not knowing what it was kicked it around like a foot ball. Thank goodness I didn't pull out the pin or I would have gone skywards! Throughout my childhood mines would be exploded on the beaches from time to time.

One of the German soldiers in our home was a talented artist and had drawn cartoons of the people in charge of our island during the war. These were framed and displayed on our back landing until the house was eventually sold in 1984. When my parents died my siblings and I decided that although they were worth a considerable amount of money, we should not profit from their sale and donated them to one of museums of which our father had been president.

On Remembrance Sunday an island gun would sound the silence and all would be expected to stop what they were doing and observe it. Cars would be expected to stop until the second gun sounded.

WE SHALL REMEMBER THEM, hopefully for the next 100 years or more.

I agree with you Floo.

Did you know non-religious representatives are banned from the remembrance day ceremony at the cenotaph in whitehall, there's plenty of prats in dresses there.

Edinburgh invites a non-religious rep, has done for some years now.

ippy

[floo]

How sad it would be if we can't spare 2 minutes silence each year to remember those killed in  WW1, WW2 and all the conflicts since then! I make a point of honouring the silence each year as it is particularly poignant to me.  My home island was invaded by the Germans during WW2. Our home had 13 Germans in residence for the duration of the war. When I was born in 1950 the signs of their occupancy were very clear, there were gun racks all over the house walls. Ammunition had been stored in the attics, and I found a grenade when I was 10, and not knowing what it was kicked it around like a foot ball. Thank goodness I didn't pull out the pin or I would have gone skywards! Throughout my childhood mines would be exploded on the beaches from time to time.

One of the German soldiers in our home was a talented artist and had drawn cartoons of the people in charge of our island during the war. These were framed and displayed on our back landing until the house was eventually sold in 1984. When my parents died my siblings and I decided that although they were worth a considerable amount of money, we should not profit from their sale and donated them to one of museums of which our father had been president.

On Remembrance Sunday an island gun would sound the silence and all would be expected to stop what they were doing and observe it. Cars would be expected to stop until the second gun sounded.

WE SHALL REMEMBER THEM, hopefully for the next 100 years or more.

I agree with you Floo.

Did you know non-religious representatives are banned from the remembrance day ceremony at the cenotaph in whitehall, there's plenty of prats in dresses there.

Edinburgh invites a non-religious rep, has done for some years now.

ippy

I didn't know non-religious reps were banned from the Cenotaph, is Jeremy Corbyn religious?

[Shaker]

Jeremy Corbyn is an atheist but he's not a representative of an explicitly non-religious organisation (BHA, NSS, etc.), who are excluded.

[Rhiannon]

And it's insanity that they aren't included.

[ProfessorDavey]

We seem to be getting a lot of them nowadays

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/03/what-merits-minutes-silence-remembrance

The first and second world wars.
9/11
Tunisia

What should we hold them for? and how many years should we keep it up ?

Are we getting too many?

Should it only be for wars? Or killings? What about people killed on planes/disasters?

How do you feel about it?

I feel the qualification for it has widened now to include different things, I usually notice them if I happen to be working.

For me, it's starting to get too much, not that I want to be disrepectful

I think it should very rare, and certainly so for a kind of national event.

So we often see 'local' one minute silences, e.g. at a football ground for a player who has died. I don't see an issue with this are there clearly isn't any attention to take it beyond the footballing community and is a 'one off' event for that particular person, although there may be another for another player at some future time. Increasingly (for various reasons), particularly where the player who has died lived to a good age, there is one minutes applause rather than silence and I rather like this.

So this leaves the kind of regular national events, and I think this really should be restricted only to those commemorations that are so major they dwarf others. So I can really only think of 2 - commemoration of the dead in the two world wars and in the holocaust (which links anyhow).

I am actually not comfortable with the gradual evolution of remembrance Sunday/day to be less about the world wars and more about our 'current' boys (i.e. service personnel). I think this is wrong on many grounds, but here are three.

First the shear magnitude - in the 14 years of British involvement in Afghanistan there have been about 430 deaths of service personnel. In just the first day of the battle of the Somme there were about 20,000 british deaths and probably similar numbers of French and German. There is no comparison, and there shouldn't be.

Second point - well some people might say that the number of deaths is irrelevant, each one is just as important whether there are 400 or 20,000. And to an extent I understand, but commemoration and remembrance is about personalising those deaths and it is easy to do it with 400 today than 20,000 from 100 years ago. So there are plenty of ways in which the deaths of those 400 have been and continue to be marked that are (and have never been) possible for the industrial scale deaths in the world wars. So just about every one of the Afghan deaths would have individually received new publicity and you can see details here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10629358

Every one has a link for the 'full story'. They are remembered individually, because there are so few and because of the power of media today. Collective commemoration/remembrance isn't necessary in the way the WW deaths are, in my opinion.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, today's soldiers are all professional, career military men and women. They have chosen that career in full knowledge that the most important aspect of that role is to put your life on the line in conflict - that's what military personnel do (or at least front line ones do). That is entirely different from the conscripts of the world wars, who did not chose this, had no choice and without choosing to be in the military ended up fighting and dying. How we considerate deaths in a conscripted army has to be different to that in a fully professional army.

Final point (perhaps there are four points) - this is about the poppy appeal and money raised for injured personnel and for the families of those who died. In our current professional army, with relatively few deaths and injuries, surely the state should do this and they are capable of doing it. They are the 'employer' - they should take care of the injured and provide compensation for the families of those that died in the course of duty to a suitable degree, not rely on charity. In the world war situation the numbers were overwhelming and there simply wasn't the scope for government to support all the injured and families of the dead - hence the need for charity. That isn't the case now, or rather it shouldn't be.

[Shaker]

I agree that there seems to be a slow but unmistakable trend towards a two minutes' silence for more and more things, which debases the currency as far as I'm concerned. Given the amount of awful things that happen, it's neither desirable nor practical to keep racking up these silences. The two minutes for the victims of two world wars is a well established national tradition by now: leave it at that. As Prof. D has said, short-lived, local silences such as at a football ground are a different matter entirely - those are one-offs.

[Rhiannon]

It's actually something that football does well - there are often a minute's applauses held too, such as those for Stan Petrov on the 19th minute of home matches at Villa Park.

[ProfessorDavey]

It's actually something that football does well - there are often a minute's applauses held too, such as those for Stan Petrov on the 19th minute of home matches at Villa Park.

I think the minute's applause was brought in to counter the issue of half a dozen idiots in a ground of 30,000 ruining a minute's silence.

But actually I rather like the minute's applause, particular in cases where the death hasn't been tragically early. Somehow making a noise seems more appropriate in honour as thats what football crowds naturally do.

I suspect there may be some one minute applauses (or silences) in grounds next week (this weekend is international break) for Marton Fulop who died at only 32.

[Rhiannon]

It's actually something that football does well - there are often a minute's applauses held too, such as those for Stan Petrov on the 19th minute of home matches at Villa Park.

I think the minute's applause was brought in to counter the issue of half a dozen idiots in a ground of 30,000 ruining a minute's silence.

But actually I rather like the minute's applause, particular in cases where the death hasn't been tragically early. Somehow making a noise seems more appropriate in honour as thats what football crowds naturally do.

I suspect there may be some one minute applauses (or silences) in grounds next week (this weekend is international break) for Marton Fulop who died at only 32.

I expect so, he had a few clubs and was well-liked.

Yes, the applause definitely deals with the handful of idiots, but it's also being used to show support and solidarity for the living, as it was for Petrov.

[floo]

I think the silence should reserved for remembering the war dead and for no other reason.

[Shaker]

As a national observance nobody's disagreeing with that.

[ProfessorDavey]

I think the silence should reserved for remembering the war dead and for no other reason.

Sure I don't think there is any disagreement on that for any national level commemoration.

My concern is actually that the time leading up to and including remembrance day/Sunday is increasingly turning into a kind of 'Armed forces day' type thing - increasingly focusing on current troops and with a bitter taste of jingoism and militarism stirred in, rather than as a very sombre commemoration of the dead of world wars, which I think (for reasons stated earlier) should be the focus.

And I'm not really convinced by the arguments that there are very few WWII veterans left and of course no WWI - the focus should always be on those who gave their lives, and in many cases they have been dead for 100 years, and that's the point.

[Rhiannon]

There's been a concerted push for a focus on troops killed in contemporary warfare from within the military and also the relatives of those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I think the intent behind treating them in the same way as we do the fallen from WW1 and WW2 is to help us to feel less guilty and uncomfortable about our activities in the Middle East, as though the sacrifice of individuals somehow justifies what we have done.

[Shaker]

Is your middle name cynical? 

[ProfessorDavey]

There's been a concerted push for a focus on troops killed in contemporary warfare from within the military and also the relatives of those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I think the intent behind treating them in the same way as we do the fallen from WW1 and WW2 is to help us to feel less guilty and uncomfortable about our activities in the Middle East, as though the sacrifice of individuals somehow justifies what we have done.

Yes I know and I'm not comfortable with it.

There also seems to be a kind of acceptance than once all WWI and WWII veterans are dead that somehow commemoration of those wars somehow becomes less important. To my mind, if anything it becomes more so, as we won't have the living to remind us of it first hand. It would be too easy for us to forget the significance and to become almost romantic about WWI and II. Veterans won't let that happen and once they are gone we need the commemorations to remain focussed on the world wars, front and centre. That isn't belittling those who have died in other conflicts but I have given my reasons why I think the commemoration events must remain primarily about the world wars.

[ProfessorDavey]

Maybe this links makes the point about why the world war are different to everything else most clearly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_casualties_of_war

Just look at the numbers:

WWI - nearly 900,000 british military dead
WWII - over 300,000 british military dead

And of course most of those would have been conscripted into the forces rather than professional soldiers by choice.

The next biggest at approx 20,000 are the Crimean and Boer wars and if you look for the next largest since 1914 you end up with Korea and Northern Ireland at between 800-1,000 each - with Northern Ireland ahead if you count civilians too. Strange how neither of those get much of a look in, compared to Iraq and Afghanistan!

[Rhiannon]

Is your middle name cynical? 

Not especially.

My cousin is in the Forces and the modern sacrifices are very real, on the part of personnel and families alike. I'm not comfortable with that being used to legitimise our part in conflict that is a source of unease to say the least.

[Rhiannon]

Maybe this links makes the point about why the world war are different to everything else most clearly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_casualties_of_war

Just look at the numbers:

WWI - nearly 900,000 british military dead
WWII - over 300,000 british military dead

And of course most of those would have been conscripted into the forces rather than professional soldiers by choice.

The next biggest at approx 20,000 are the Crimean and Boer wars and if you look for the next largest since 1914 you end up with Korea and Northern Ireland at between 800-1,000 each - with Northern Ireland ahead if you count civilians too. Strange how neither of those get much of a look in, compared to Iraq and Afghanistan!

I don't think you can simply look at figures.

[ProfessorDavey]

Maybe this links makes the point about why the world war are different to everything else most clearly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_casualties_of_war

Just look at the numbers:

WWI - nearly 900,000 british military dead
WWII - over 300,000 british military dead

And of course most of those would have been conscripted into the forces rather than professional soldiers by choice.

The next biggest at approx 20,000 are the Crimean and Boer wars and if you look for the next largest since 1914 you end up with Korea and Northern Ireland at between 800-1,000 each - with Northern Ireland ahead if you count civilians too. Strange how neither of those get much of a look in, compared to Iraq and Afghanistan!

I don't think you can simply look at figures.

I'm not saying you can, but it is a big factor.

Firstly the shear scale of WWI was the motivation for the commemorations in the first place with a clear view that this 'must never happen again' - how wrong.

But also the shear numbers make it impossible to have more personal remembrance which is, of course possible, then there are much smaller numbers. The whole tenor of the original commemoration and remembrance was about the shear scale and the impossibility to do things on a personal basis with so many - hence to an extent also the whole notion of the unknown warrior.

[Rhiannon]

That the relatives and forces want recognition is something I support. What I don't like is when that is used by politicians as a PR exercise. 

[ProfessorDavey]

That the relatives and forces want recognition is something I support. What I don't like is when that is used by politicians as a PR exercise.

Sure but remembrance day has always been more than recognition of the death of service personnel. It is also about it 'never happening again'. Now I know that hasn't been achieved, but it is always important to ensure this message remains a key part of the commemorations.

[Rhiannon]

Is your middle name cynical? 

Ok, I see why you said that now. I was posting on my phone and originally I hadn't made clear the distinction between the need to commemorate the fallen from the families and Forces and the way that has been manipulated by the givernment and the media.