The Remembrance Day thread

[Richard Barrett]

So you're now saying your very own mum was ignorant as well?

My mother left school when she was 14 (amazing that this was even possible) so she is not a highly-educated person by any means, plus she has lived a fairly sheltered life, so, while "ignorant" would be an unkind word I wouldn't wish to use of her, she isn not shall we say particularly well-versed in the ways of the world.

And, oh, you failed to mention the Reds as well

Yes, the Stalinist and Maoist regimes as well, though I mentioned the one I did because it's closest to home in various ways.

One wonders whether both sets of self-styled socialists were really interested in the arts or merely using carefully-chosen examples of the arts for political propaganda purposes?

Some of them were certainly interested in the arts, others were as you say. But don't wonder, do some research - Frederic Spotts' Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics is a good place to begin, since it documents AH's artistic pretensions as a painter and his genuine enthusiasm for Wagner.

[french frank]

I dont know why there's a fuss here about "bad language" or whatever you want to call it. If it's against the forum rules that should really be the end of the matter.

Thank you - that's it in a nutshell. We are, as many suspect, merely a branch of the BBC pretending not to be in order to conceal the fact that my handsome six-figure salary is paid for out of the licence fee. As such the rules are much like the ones the BBC has to adhere to by diktat of Ofcom - witness the censure Radio 1 often gets.

I know there are people who swear so habitually that they can no longer communicate without doing so, but speech is one thing: writing it is a more deliberate act. And as for threads being started 'in good faith', one can accept that in much the way that we accept Jeremy Clarkson's protestations of innocence - because we can't disprove them. We form our private opinions based on our observations.

[Beef Oven!]

Thank you - that's it in a nutshell. We are, as many suspect, merely a branch of the BBC pretending not to be in order to conceal the fact that my handsome six-figure salary is paid for out of the licence fee. As such the rules are much like the ones the BBC has to adhere to by diktat of Ofcom - witness the censure Radio 1 often gets.

I know there are people who swear so habitually that they can no longer communicate without doing so, but speech is one thing: writing it is a more deliberate act. And as for threads being started 'in good faith', one can accept that in much the way that we accept Jeremy Clarkson's protestations of innocence - because we can't disprove them. We form our private opinions based on our observations.

The thread was started in good faith. It's hard to know how else a thread such as 'Remembrance Sunday', on the main board, could have been started in some other way. The OP is straight forward and uncontentious.

I feared that there was a risk that certain posters would try to ruin the thread, but I reasoned that given the seriousness that the occasion is held in by the nation, and that the thread was on the main board, it would not happen. I was wrong.

One poster even referred mockingly to the 70 year old ex-military gentleman that was attacked by a gang of Asian youths on his way to the Remembrance event as a 'fallen hero' in this context, it's a micky-take. Seems that such mocking of ex-military people is acceptable on the main forum. I'm not completely surprised as you have described that poster as the forum's 'moral conscience' or something similar.

Regarding your reference to Jeremy Clarkson's protestations, you don't tell us what they are or what they concern, but you say we can't disprove them (what makes us want to?), so you tell us that we form our private opinions based on observations. People are innocent until proven guilty and our private views should be just that. And why bring up Jeremy Clarkson anyway?

Elsewhere you have said that the thread 'descended into a lot of swearing'. That's simply not true. I said that MrGG's response was an effing cop-out (using the 'F' word). Unless I have overlooked something, the rest of the language used in the thread is no different to that on the main board. Following my use of the 'f' word, I was asked to desist, so I desisted. And as RB says, swearing is against the rules. end of the matter. You agreed with him, (nutshells) then brought the matter up again and added an argument to the effect that you don't believe that I started the thread in good faith.

[Richard Barrett]

The thread was started in good faith. It's hard to know how else a thread such as 'Remembrance Sunday', on the main board, could have been started in some other way. The OP is straight forward and uncontentious.

I didn't see the original thread, but for some people "Remembrance Sunday" is contentious from the start, which being a regular contributor you must surely be aware of.

[Beef Oven!]

I didn't see the original thread, but for some people "Remembrance Sunday" is contentious from the start, which being a regular contributor you must surely be aware of.

Remembrance Sunday is certainly not contentious, what on earth are you on about?

It's one of a number of things in current British life that has consensus and is unbelievably popular. Starting a thread on this subject in a public BBC forum cannot be deemed contentious.

I've already said that I'd realised that there was a risk that a very small minority of posters would attempt to ruin it - as a regular contributor, to use your term, I was aware of that. This by no means, means that Remembrance Sunday, "is contentious from the start", as you claim.

[Richard Barrett]

It's one of a number of things in current British life that has consensus and is unbelievably popular.

Nevertheless there's a sizeable number of people who object to its glorification of war, who might be of the opinion that war is the most atrocious and barbaric of human creations, not something to be ritually commemorated. As I say I haven't seen the thread so I don't know if that's the kind of opinion which according to you "ruined" it.

[P. G. Tipps]

I didn't see the original thread, but for some people "Remembrance Sunday" is contentious from the start, which being a regular contributor you must surely be aware of.

Only a tiny minority (comprising those purely politically-motivated or sincerely and mistakenly considering the event simply 'glorifies war') could possibly describe it as 'contentious'. People who died in these horrible wars were of all races, political viewpoints and religions (or none). That's what it's supposed to be all about and how it is viewed by most people I've ever come across.

Oh, I know, I know, I've only ever come across right-wing loonies and Daily Mail readers, I suppose ...

[ahinton]

Remembrance Sunday is certainly not contentious, what on earth are you on about?

It's one of a number of things in current British life that has consensus and is unbelievably popular. Starting a thread on this subject in a public BBC forum cannot be deemed contentious.

I've already said that I'd realised that there was a risk that a very small minority of posters would attempt to ruin it - as a regular contributor, to use your term, I was aware of that. This by no means, means that Remembrance Sunday, "is contentious from the start", as you claim.

Whilst "contentious" isn't quite the first word that springs to my mind here, there are aspects of "Remembrance Sunday" that might be argued to be far from all-embracing.

First of all, there's the term "Festival of Remembrance" often associated with it that might be read as suggesting a celebration, which is about as inappropriate as it could get in the circumstances.

Then there's the fact that Armistice as it is widely understood (but see below) was famously on "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918, so why mark it in subsequent years on a Sunday, which is the eleventh day of november only every now and then?

The fact of it being marked on a Sunday is too suggestive of it being an item on the Christian calendar, which is less than reasonable since those who lost their lives in WWI and those left by them were by no means all Christians and WWI was not in any case a war predicated upon Christianity.

While 11.11.1918 may offically mark the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, they continued elsewhere for some time, especially in parts of the former Russian and Ottoman Empires, so one might question the extent to which 11.11.1918 marks the close of what has, after all, for most of the 96 years since then, been widely described as "the First World War".

Wiki tells us (at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_Day)
"In Britain, beginning in 1939, the two-minute silence was moved to the Sunday nearest to 11 November in order not to interfere with wartime production should 11 November fall on a weekday. After the end of World War II, most Armistice Day events were moved to the nearest Sunday and began to commemorate both World Wars."
It provides no reason or explanation for this and it is far from clear what is supposedly meant by "interference with wartime (i.e. WWII) production"; in any case, "should" 11 November fall on a weekday is surely daft, since it almost always does!

On top of all of these, "Remembrance Sunday" has continued to be marked annually in Britain throughout our present century despite Britain's involvement in various wars ever since that century began - so much, then, for WWI as "the war to end all wars"; one would have hoped the very fact of such commemoration to give off warning signals to discourage such continued military activity lest it be undermined by that ongoing activity, but not a bit of it - it could therefore be argued by some to appear to be two-faced, given that the lessons of WWI seem not to have been learned at all.

So, for all that all this might add up to something short of "contentiousness", it does nevertheless appear to add up to something that is by no means unquestionable.

[ahinton]

Only a tiny minority (comprising those purely politically-motivated or sincerely and mistakenly considering the event simply 'glorifies war') could possibly describe it as 'contentious'. People who died in these horrible wars were of all races, political viewpoints and religions (or none). That's what it's supposed to be all about and how it is viewed by most people I've ever come across.

Again, whilst I would not personally use the word "contentious" and, of course, you are quite correct to point out that those "who died in these horrible wars were of all races, political viewpoints and religions (or none)", but I can well understand why some people regard "Remembrance Sunday" as "glorifying war" when phrases like "our heroes" are widely bandied about and these annual commemorations continue to take place during and despite Britain's continued involvement in wars; doesn't that strike even you as at the very least dubious, if not actually "contentious"?

The fact that many British and other participants in WWI acted courageously and in good faith (which of course is not in doubt) does not of itself make them "heroes"; some may have committed heroic acts but, since the war under whose auspices they did so was anything but "heroic", the term is singularly inappropriate.

[Richard Barrett]

Only a tiny minority (comprising those purely politically-motivated or sincerely and mistakenly considering the event simply 'glorifies war')

Yes it is a small minority. But actually "people... of all races, political viewpoints and religions (or none)" aren't at all what it's "supposed to be about" - the express purpose of the event is (according to the DCMS website) "to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts", which does seem to exclude a lot of people, not only combatants on other sides but also people who lost their lives for no reason apart from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and not least the 16000 heroic people who in 1914-18 went to prison rather than serve in the British army. Hence the charge of "glorification".

[ahinton]

Yes it is a small minority. But actually "people... of all races, political viewpoints and religions (or none)" aren't at all what it's "supposed to be about" - the express purpose of the event is (according to the DCMS website) "to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts", which does seem to exclude a lot of people, not only combatants on other sides but also people who lost their lives for no reason apart from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and not least the 16000 heroic people who in 1914-18 went to prison rather than serve in the British army. Hence the charge of "glorification".

Ah, now we are talking about "heroes"! Those 16,000 undoubtedly acted courageously by deciding to do what they did, under the guidance of their own consciences and regardless of what some of their fellows might have thought about their having done that.

Here are some statistics published at http://www.statisticbrain.com/world-war-i-statistics/ :

Statistic Verification Source: History Learnings, World War Three
Research Date: 3.20.2014

World War I Statistics (Stats are for all countries involved)
Total number of men mobilized to fight in World War I 65m
Percentage of men mobilized in World War I who died 57
Total number killed in World War I 8.5m
Total number of casualities in World War I 37m
Number of missing POW’s from WWI 7.7m
Number of wounded soldiers in WWI 19.7m
Number of years of fighting that took place during WWI 4
Number of allied countris military casualities in WWI 5.7m
Number of allied country civilian casualties from WWI 3.67m
Number of allied countries wounded in WWI 12.8m
Number of WWI Military casualities 9,720,450
Number of Civilian casualties in WWI 8,865,650
Total Cost of WWI $186.3bn

It's a pity that a mere 16,000 chose prison in preference to fighting in the British army; I do not know the figures of those in other participating countries who did likewise but it's pretty obvious that, if you add all such people together, the total will still be vanishingly small compared to any of the various figures above.

"Lest we forget"? No, Brits should not "forget" but, in "remembrance", they should remember what it is that they're supposedly commemorating and absolutely not "glorifying" and, were they to do that, they'd all be hanging their heads in shame given the widespread military actions in which their fellow countrymen and women have participated since 1918; no lessons learned there, then...

$186.3bn is hardly pocket change today, even for senior bankers or charime/CEOs of international corporations; just imagine what it was 96 years ago!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

So I guess the well dressed retired woman sat next to me ...

One for Pedants' Paradise, I suggest.

[Beef Oven!]

Yes it is a small minority. But actually "people... of all races, political viewpoints and religions (or none)" aren't at all what it's "supposed to be about" - the express purpose of the event is (according to the DCMS website) "to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts", which does seem to exclude a lot of people, not only combatants on other sides but also people who lost their lives for no reason apart from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and not least the 16000 heroic people who in 1914-18 went to prison rather than serve in the British army. Hence the charge of "glorification".

You have an idiosyncratic and ultimately erroneous understanding of 'heroic', but anyone who would go to prison for their beliefs (not the ones who thought they'd dodge death), gets my admiration.

The commemoration is for the Commonwealth nations, even though the war included many more nations, but I don't really see why that needs to be a problem, and why this fact leads to 'glorification' is mysterious.

[Beef Oven!]

One for Pedants' Paradise, I suggest.

Now that a sensible, reasoned discussion is being had, could we please avoid needless posts like this? - it only serves to distract.

[amateur51]

Nevertheless there's a sizeable number of people who object to its glorification of war, who might be of the opinion that war is the most atrocious and barbaric of human creations, not something to be ritually commemorated. As I say I haven't seen the thread so I don't know if that's the kind of opinion which according to you "ruined" it.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, rhere are some very good reasons why gay men of a certain age might be hostile to the event, plus of course people who are angry about Britain's current involvement in various parts of the Middle East and non-involvement in others. .