To feel annoyed the school commemorated September 11th but not 7th July?

[MamaPain]

I don't know if I'm being unreasonable as it obviously isn't a competition but as a school in London I would have thought something should certainly be done for the latter regardless. Seems even more bizarre to remember one and not the other more closely related incident.

It's an event that I, like most Londoners, (and maybe people around the country) have deep personal emotions about and as 52 Londoner's died I think they deserve some recognition.

I know they held something last year.

Did your schools do anything?

Exactly Quangle, I was in the Manchester bombing in the late 90s. I don't remember when it was.

Giant I too lost a sister that day, I hope you and your family have not found it too hard today.

FWIW on the original thread topic, I have never felt much one way or another about public memorials of any sort. It has always been a private matter for our family. However the quiet thoughts of support from kind strangers like some PP are really touching. Thank you.

7th July was a much more local act of terrorism, the same as the Manchester or omagh bombing? These atrocities are not remembered nationally the same as 9/11?

Sorry but this comment REALLY pisses me off.

No its not a competition about which is worse. Far from it. However, given this thread about remembrance, I do expect people who post on it, to at least know something like that and have event knowledge. Therefore to put Omagh and 7/7 in that post in that context on a par with the Manchester bombing I find pretty offensive as it shows up a dire lack of knowledge. The whole point of remembrance is to acknowledge a certain amount of understanding of the events as well as marking the dead. Its about stopping and thinking about how we can stop it from ever happening again. And to do that you need to know what happened in the first place.

Everyone remembers the Manchester bomb, but no one remembers that there was not one fatality in Manchester, yet there is a persistent fallacy that there was. A lot of people were injured, the damage was huge and the intention was horrific, but it was so fortunate that the police were able to evacuate the area and able to prevent this from happening. This is why we should give thanks for it, but remembrance is an inappropriate description, and thats why we wouldn't remember it nationally - not because it was 'just a local act of terrorism'.

Omagh is rarely talked about nationally, partly because to be blunt about it, it happened in Northern Ireland. It was also, despite the death toll, politically not as significant as other bombings, as it was post-Good Friday agreement, and was carried out by a splinter group. It sealed the nail in the coffin for support for violent means and instead helped the peace process but it didn't alter the direction the process was already headed in.

We also don't nationally mark the Anglo/Irish troubles, because the peace process is still raw and to do so would probably inflame divisions rather than heal wounds. (We are still dealing with Bloody Sunday for example)

Equally if you look at 9/11, you are looking at an event that was the start of troubles, that are on going. To me this is why a school might choose to talk about 9/11 instead of 7/7, because it changed the course of history and has had a significant impact on political events that happened subsequently. Afghanistan and Iraq came before 7/7. Whilst 7/7 was incredibly tragic and horrific, and caused much more tightening of security and a realisation that it could happen here as much as in the States, our 'innocence' had already been taken four years earlier. It reinforced fears and prejudices rather than creating entirely new ones. It put our country on edge and suspicious of the motives of those around us, but didn't drastically change the direction we were headed already - it just speeded it up. I don't think that saying that 7/7 was our 9/11. Merely that it brought what was already happening to our doorsteps (in the same way that the now much overlooked Warrington bomb brought the Irish troubles to the mainland and forced us to acknowledge political violence in a way we hadn't taken so seriously as previously).

National (or international) remembrance is, in my mind, much more about events that were the start of something awful that continued for years after OR marked a clear and definite end to those event. The horrific events that happened in the period afterward and were part of the same struggle or conflict should be remembered at the same time as the seminal tipping point.

Look at things we do celebrate nationally; for example this year it will be the D-Day anniversary, the start of WWI (which will be about the whole war, but marked ceremonially on the anniversary of the declaration in particular) and the Armistice (which in particular is representative for ALL wars). In many ways they are less about individual events even if they are held on anniversaries.

Its therefore probably valid to say that collectively remembering 7/7 on 9/11 is therefore as valid as remembering it on 7/7 itself unless you were directly affected by it in some way (which includes supporting others who were there even if you personally weren't).

It would be impossible to mark the anniversary of every atrocity in modern history. Remembrance is hugely important, but its not essential on a particular day. Far more important to the wider public is understanding, debating and knowing the background and politics of these events rather than focusing on individuals.

Ultimately grief is a private thing, and I do feel that sometime these public grieving sessions, don't respect that so marking something annually when you've had no part in it, can be somewhat intrusive.

i disagree with a lot of what has been said here. I was brought up in London during the seventies and eighties when bombing by the ira, Palestinians, hostage taking by Iranians?, the red brigades/baader meinhof group happened practically EVERY year. we don't commemorate any of those murderous incidents. there were bomb scares at school, Saturday jobs, the shops, transport etc etc for years and years. I still complain if someone leaves their back unattended in a shop or station. the concern/fear does not go away.

the only place it was worse in the uk was in northern island where people lived literally next to the bombers.

the warrington bombing, the Manchester bombing did not bring political violence to the notice of Britain. we lived it every day in London.

9/11 is noticed because it was a huge outrageous attack and concentrated the minds of the americans who allowed their citizens to fund bombing here without thinking that it would ever happen to them.

the reason to note 9/11 is because of where it allowed tony blair to lead us and where we are now with regard to Iraq/Afghanistan.

"This was the biggest loss of lives since the Second World War and it has almost been forgotten by the government"

So Lockerbie never happened then. Must have been a figment of my imagination.

I'd complain to the school if they marked either 9/11 or 7/7 with a moment of silence TBH. How many moments of silence?

I've said previously that I don't see it a a competition but that has the 7/7 attacks happened 2 miles away I think they should be of relevance.

I remember the IRA attacks from the eighties onwards, am a bit young for the early seventies events. My dad was often caught up in them due to his work. I remember the park bombings, Harrods bomb, . Also have vivid memories of Israel related attacks, the Lockerbie bombing and the nail bombs.

I don't expect recognition of every event, but for me 7/7 was an attack with one of the largest impacts, not just because of the numbers who died (which was far greater than any of the other London bombings) but because of how it effected so many people that day, because of when it happened, and because it did signal a new terrorism in London and involved a generation who hadn't experienced previous attacks.

Brilliant post RedToothBrush

It's odd.

creighton, it wasn't only London.

My family are from Liverpool, abandoning your shopping in the basket/trolley and waiting for the all clear before going back into the shop and carrying was a regular occurrence all through my childhood, and on into the 80s and 90s.

Most towns and cities I have lived in (we moved a lot) had/have the public bins removed, less now than say 15 years ago. But it still happens every now and then.

I think anyone over the age of about 40, who lived in a city may have experienced bomb scares. I grew quite blase about them, I think you have to or it would drive you mad.

But 7/7 was different as there was an explosion and DH was out of contact for so long. He wasn't best please to have been left locked on a rooftop by the security guard who was evacuated by police, the police weren't impressed either!

But, as I said upthread, we don't commemorate it. 'They' took up too much of our lives as it was. I refuse to be shaped by 'them'. Was it Churchill who said something like, the best way to defeat your enemy is to live as thought they don't exist - or did I paraphrase that from a lot of other stuff ?

the warrington bombing, the Manchester bombing did not bring political violence to the notice of Britain. we lived it every day in London.

The difference between Warrington and the London attack was that a) the warning was deliberately vague to prevent evacuation b) the date of the attack was the saturday before mother's day so many children were around c) Warrington was not generally seen as a target as it had a high Irish and Catholic population and most importantly of all d)two children died.

I am not saying that the mainland had not had attacks. Many of these targeted the city in London or targeted the transport networks. The stated aim of the IRA had been "to harm the economy and cause disruption, which would put pressure on the British Government to withdraw from Northern Ireland" so whilst the public might be caught up in it, they were regarded as 'bystanders' rather than primary target.

The attack in Warrington did not fit that aim in any shape or form and clearly were about killing innocent people. Several attacks in London at the end of 1992, beginning of 1993 were of a very similar nature but didn't result in death. Overall it seemed to mark a significant change in tactic by the IRA which was more indiscriminate and much more deadly and callous.

The death of two boys therefore provided the tipping point, and appealed to the public and media in a way that the other previous tragic events hadn't as a result. Suddenly it was clear everyone was at risk and could relate to it, rather than think about it as 'something that happened to other people' or had any pretence of having a 'legitimate target'. It was now about how children out shopping for a mothers day present on a busy Saturday were now regarded as fair game. It sparked an outrage both on the mainland and in Ireland and NI - including with IRA sympathisers - which hadn't been seen before. And ultimately put pressure on the government.

Thats why I say it brought the conflict to the notice of the mainland.

None of the London attacks proved to be quite the turning point that Warrington was for this reason (and this has been acknowledged publicly by political leaders of the time that it did provide a catalyst due to the reaction it received).

The Warrington bombing isn't remembered by anyone outside the town these days. Not that it ever really was.

I often wonder whether 9/11 is such a huge thing in memory because it was the first such incident to get real-time media coverage?

There were others before it, but none which fell into the 24-hour-a-day, phone-video copy on youtube internet era. It made it 'personal' to a lot of people, in a way which nothing had been before since WWII.

It was also the event which touch-started a decade of war and changed the political landscape of the world.

It's difficult to judge, and I'm wary of just offering cold-blooded opinions on why one is deemed more 'important' knowing there are people on the thread who lost family in the attack, but I do think that London, four years later, just didn't have the same 'global' impact.

It wasn't nearly so 'sensationalist' an attack in 'style', if you'll forgive the phrasing, and was very much, I think, downplayed, with the story shifting very, very quickly to 'Good Old London soldiering on', probably to prevent inner city chaos. A parallel might be the outcry and action against Libya, but the relative equivalent disinterest in Syria, despite it being the bigger humanitarian issue. Libya had nothing but the advantage - if it can be called that - of coming 'first' in the perceptions of the general global populace.

It doesn't make the London bombings unimportant in a personal sense, and I do wonder at a London school 'commemorating' 9/11 and not 7/7, particularly where children at the school could have been involved or may well have relatives who were.

In terms of 'teaching' though, 9/11 will one-day form a part of the national curriculum and will need to be something which children are routinely taught about. 7/7, most likely, will not, alongside Manchester, Omagh, Warrington, any number of other attacks in the 70's/80's, the first WTC attack, the UN bombing etc etc.

Could that be why the school touched on 9/11 and not 7/7?

GiantIsopod and mrsmalcolmreynolds - I just want to say how sorry I am for your losses.

I sometimes wonder whether people seem to talk more about 9/11, is because it was so public, so they connect with it more.

Obviously the TV cameras on 7/7 were there in the aftermath, but thankfully no-one watching the news on TV had to witness the atrocities firsthand.

9/11 was different in that respect. People were watching their TVs when the second plane hit. Millions of people, around the world, were watching when the towers fell. Phone calls/answer phone messages were relayed on the news. The precious final moments of the lives of thousands ended up as public viewing. And now, when I think back, I actually find that really uncomfortable. Particularly because a relative of mom's (her cousin) died in the WTC North Tower.

I am in no way playing down 7/7, of course not, I'm just comparing how the two events unfolded in real time.

I know from having spoken to the family of my mom's cousin, that they wish the commemorations for 9/11 weren't so public, his daughter (who I've grown close to) says it's private grief played out on a public stage.

I don't need public commemoration to remember 7/7, I think about it every year, I take some time to think about the people who lost their lives and their families. I think about those who were injured and are still living with the effects today. I think about the survivors, many of whom I'm sure, suffer from survivor's guilt. I think this is probably a very "British way" of thinking.

Omagh cemented the peace process. It should be taught about, because it was important for multiple reasons - indeed, without Omagh, we would have a much shakier situation with regards to the Troubles today. It is not even vaguely comparable to Manchester or the Canary Wharf bombings.

Neither was 7/7. 9/11 was a game changer, 7/7 wasn't. Omagh was a game changer, City bombings weren't. Assuming we want to teach our children history and politics rather than sentiment, we ought to focus on things which were actually important, rather than things which are really really sad.

I'm not sure kids who live in London would be appreciated of being reminded of a terrorist attack on the public transport they probably use everyday.

I thought I'd share my perspective - I was in the next carriage on one of the trains, luckily wasn't badly injured but it was a massive ordeal and I suffered with anxiety for ages afterwards. Took me a year to get back on the tube, and doing so was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But I took the view if you're going to live in London you just have to put it behind you and get on with it. And I have. All for having it taught in schools but for me I just wish we could stop commemorating it publicly each year. It makes it much harder for me on that day - makes me feel like a victim again - and makes me angry that the bombers are still being rewarded with attention. I'm desperately sorry for the families of those who died and the other victims too, but how does it help having a public reminder? Just my point of view....

It doesn't surprise me at all, schools seem to make a far bigger deal of July 4th than they do St Georges Day. It's wrong IMO.

Nightmonkey quite a few of the families actively want some sort of public event still which is why I think they happen. Would it help to think of it in those terms rather than the bombers receiving attention?

I have only ever been to one public event which was a low-key event at the tube station, on the first anniversary. That was really touching because the station manager from the day itself spoke and it was very much from the heart.

All the rest, including the Hyde Park memorial just doesn't feel like anything to do with me or our family. I don't mind it exactly, but certainly seeing news reports etc is a but like having a really sore bruise poked. I think it is an unfortunate side effect of suffering trauma in very public circumstances.

Thanks mrsmalcolmreynolds that is helpful actually, does make it all feel less just about gratuitous press coverage and actually about something still relevant.Thanks for responding, appreciate that.
I understand what you mean about not really relating to the Hyde park etc stuff. Can't imagine how the reminders make you feel if they trouble me.