To discourage my friend from getting a 'Manchester Bee' tattoo

[CircleofWillis]

My friend is from Manchester but moved to London 25 years ago. She wants to get a bee tattoo to show her support for the people affected by the awful tragedy and to give financial support to the appeal. She doesn't have any tattoos and has previously stated she doesn't like them. AIBU to want to talk her out of it as she may regret such a permanent statement in the future. Instead I want to suggest she think about just donating the money. I know it is her body and her choice but I feel she is being swept up in the emotion as some of her friends from home have posted their tattoos on FB. I don't have any tattoos myself but not because I have any dislike of them but I would hesitate myself before having a permanent reminder of such a sad event on my body.

Well done for taking a comment out of context. Would you like a round of applause?

I meant you were being picky for correcting her. It is her belief that some victims don't like people getting tattoos....you don't know if this is true or not, do you cannot say it is a fact that she is wrong.

Yes I emphatically, definitely, without question can.

There are bereaved families who have said they support this and at least one who have got it done. That means her saying that it's offensive to the victims, not some victims, is wrong. If she had said it was offensive to some victims, she'd have been right. She didn't.

Your failure to understand this is, if I'm being charitable, you haven't realised why she was wrong. But wrong she most certainly was.

And you can put a sock in that pious, passive aggressive, calm down children headteacher act. You have waded in and defended the person who's attacked most on this thread, the person who kicked it all off, so you're not fooling anyone. I repeat, there is something emphatically wrong with the understanding of anyone who aims their love and peace routine at the people responding to hilda rather than hilda herself.

Miss..you weren't just responding though we're you, you were responding constantly, which felt like attacking. I didn't want to have a go at Hilda, you and others had already done that, repeatedly. I did want to comment on your need to keep fighting...which you are still doing now. You really aren't coming across well here. Yes, Hilda missed out the word "some". I agree. End of.

Well somebody isn't coming across well, certainly, but it isn't MissS

Indeed shapely.

Thought you were off anyway mumzy? But while you're clearly still reading, there's a reason so many people think you're being pathetic. For all that hilda has been a cunt, which she has, she's at least had the balls to say what she thinks instead of self appointed, pretend neutrality. I'm left actually hoping you're a sockpuppet. Because the alternative, that you genuinely don't realise hilda was saying something entirely different to what you're now claiming she meant, is possibly even more worrying.

Miss, shapely and pain.....you clearly didn't like me stating the obvious in that you were all acting inappropriately in the way you turned this thread into a "let's hound Hilda thread". I really don't care what Hilda did or didn't say, ( I did actually say that I didn't agree with all of what she said) but I do care about people being hounded. And that is what you are all doing. Hilda has ducked out if this thread, so you now hound me instead. none of you are looking good here.

For someone who doesn't care what hilda did or didn't say, you've made a lot of posts arguing about it, misquoting it and inventing reasons for it mumzy.

And once again, arguing with people who continue to say things that are wrong and obnoxious is not hounding. If you do not wish to be disagreed with, nobody is forcing you to post. Just as nobody was forcing you to wade in and tell people what to do in the first place. The martyr act is unbecoming.

I'm not being, nor have I been, inappropriate. Nor have I hounded. I suggest you look over all of my previous comments before making sweeping statements. You're making yourself look a bit silly.

Mumzy I suggest if you want to see who is being a goady fucker you use the advance search button

When I was 20, one of my closest friends died suddenly. It was an awful time, but our friendship group and her sisters all bonded together, and spent the time remembering her, being sad and supporting each other.

However, it did feel like a kick in the teeth when someone we all went to school with and didnt really like (her and friend who died had blocked each other on facebook!) turned up at the funeral, claiming she had been so affected by it, and got a tattoo in remembrance.

She made tried to make our friends tragedy all about her with her dramatics, and social media remembrance posts , it was all very attention seeking and had very little actually to do with my friend (the tattoo in question was ugly as fuck, and a picture of something friend had been kind of into age 15, but not at all relevant anymore).

I think that's affecting my feelings about this, particularly with regards to the mum of one of the victims getting it as a special tribute to her daughter, then a bunch of people copying something so personal?

fiona I understand and that's really shitty thing for that girl to do, but I do think it's different.

The tattoos aren't a symbol of the attack; they are about the unity and strength of Manchester. And people aren't copying the mum who had one done, she joined in with the fundraising efforts because she herself is a from Manchester herself. People were getting the bee tattoo before she did.

Mrs - but the tattoos were first offered to all to raise money, it wasn't copied from someone who got one as a special tribute, as far as I know

But if someone dies, for example in a car crash, that's a personal tragedy. A terrorist attack is different because the terrorists weren't attacking the victims personally, they were attacking Manchester, attacking the U.K., and attacking what these things represent. The bee tattoos are a symbol of solidarity, that the people of Manchester will hold strong together and won't be defeated. At least that is how I interpret things.

"the people of Manchester will hold strong together"

What does that actually mean?

What do the terrorists want? They want to create fear, they want to create division, they want to foster hate and anger.

People in Manchester need to stand strong together. It's a blended community. If people start turning on each other, if people look at their neighbors with fear and suspicion, if people are harassed and abused for who they are, then the terrorists' goals are on their way to being achieved.

Manchester and the rest of the U.K. needs to unite to fight terrorism together. One community, one voice.

It's the divisions in society that are the problem.

For me, and I don't have a bee tattoo, but that's what I think it represents. Standing together as one to fight hatred, to fight terrorism.

Sorry if this all sounds twee but I live in an area where there was a huge disaster and many, many people died, many lost their homes, many lost their jobs but the sense of community is what holds everyone together. It's what keeps everyone going. I really believe that.

Anyway, hopefully what I'm saying makes sense.

"You can make the point you're making about circles of grief etc and there being a distinction between being bereaved and simply being in the place where the event happened whilst also understanding that if you lived locally, you were experiencing something in person. That basically, there is another circle between the rescuers and people whose only involvement was via media. If you still think those people shouldn't be marking it in any way (and obviously bear in mind that some people getting tattoos fit into your two closest circles) that's ok, but do think about the distinction."

I do appreciate that. I think I should have added a fifth circle, sixth and seventh lot of circles to that plan. Fifth: people who were close by. Sixth - people in or from Manchester. Seventh: the rest of the country. BUT I still think it's true to say that the pain experienced by those bereaved is NOT the pain of those who just happen to come from Manchester. And no, feeling a little bit sad and shocked that something happened at home is NOT the same as watching people get blown apart, or hearing the screams of the dying, or - worst of all - suffering loss yourself.

I think there's a rush to "claim" a personal connection with terrorism that I find distasteful. I fully understand that not everyone agrees, but that's my personal opinion, and personal style. Some of the families of those who tragically died have chosen to grieve publicly, because they find strength in that. Others have stayed well out of the limelight. There is no right way and no wrong way, but people will inevitably have strong opinions. Personally, as someone who came through 7/7, I would think less of someone with a bee tattoo who wasn't in the first three circles.

I can understand why your friend feels the need to show unity with her hometown even after a long time away. I moved away from my home town to a different part of the UK over 20 years ago and it is still my home in a way this part never will be.

Whether or not having a tattoo is sensitive or not is a different matter, but I can understand why your friend feels the need to acknowledge her roots and what has happened.

I wanted one of the tattoos but can't because I'm pregnant. I work for GMP. Today is my first day off since the bombing. A lot of my colleagues have worked 12-15 hour days since the incident, and have their rest days off for the foreseeable. They are knackered and haven't seen their families for days. Some have both parents in the job and have had to ship their kids out to relatives for childcare for a couple of weeks. The only thing that is keeping them going now is the incredible sense of community in Manchester. If you're not from the city and haven't experienced it first hand then you probably don't quite get it. I've never felt a sense of pride in a place and it's people before. A lot of my colleagues have queued up before or after long shifts to get the tattoo - it's not about grief and jumping on a bandwagon. It's about coming together and recognising that we're all part of the bigger picture.

A lot of people seem to be forgetting the injured - there are so many people in hospital now with life changing injuries, lost limbs, horrific burns, internal injuries. This isn't about looking back, this is about looking forward and trying to keep a shellshocked community together.

I do appreciate that. I think I should have added a fifth circle, sixth and seventh lot of circles to that plan. Fifth: people who were close by. Sixth - people in or from Manchester. Seventh: the rest of the country. BUT I still think it's true to say that the pain experienced by those bereaved is NOT the pain of those who just happen to come from Manchester.

Yes absolutely, that's what I said myself. Having had the experiences Mancunians have had over the past few days, perhaps hearing the blast, having to work or send loved ones to work again in the city centre and other potential target spots while the network was still at large, dealing with things like raids in our neighbourhoods, evacuations of shopping centres, people being removed from the buses we use at gunpoint etc, is clearly not the same as what's happened to the bereaved. It's also not the same as experiencing by media. I agree with your six or seven circles.

It's also significant that, when you talk about rushing to claim connections, in some ways Manchester is a bit of a village. To a surprisingly high degree for a conurbation that houses a couple of million. Lots of people have connections, organically, with people who were in your first couple of circles. There are fewer degrees of separation, hard to explain but it's just sort of more normal to be aware of what your connections might be with any randomly chosen individual. This is something that may not be immediately obvious to people who don't know the city well, but do be aware of the impact it is having.

The points about holding strong together are also key. The terrorists came from us. We could have and still can turn on each other. Obviously this is the precise thing that Daesh/ISIS want (I prefer Daesh as it is pejorative and Syrian democrats want people to use it, so Daesh it is). It's important we channel these feelings of togetherness and solidarity so we don't make things even worse than we already are. Most Mancunians get this, from what I can see.

I agree with you, Iannouvelleheloise and, if the posters here are not trying to put on the mantle of someone else's genuine grief then there's no reason for them to feel pricked about this because it's not about them.

There certainly are people for whom the Manchester Bee meant absolutely nothing until the attacks and it didn't mean anything until the media sparked off a frenzy of 'me too' tattoos. If people want one then they are free to have one but it's disingenuous to pretend that they aren't scrabbling around for 'connections' that they desperately need to gain validation for their actions. They're free to take those actions anyway.

Nobody speaks for Manchester, they can only speak for themselves and perhaps the people they know. Everything else is hyperbole driven by the media. What happens when the cameras focus somewhere else? When the attention is elsewhere? Are those bereaved families still going to feel the warmth of the cloying public around them at the moment? Unlikely.

I feel desperately sad everytime I hear about somebody losing anybody and these attacks are frightening but MissFiona makes valid points in her post and I personally find public displays of 'grief' gratuitous and distasteful. That's just my opinion. I don't look down my nose a people who do this but I avoid them because it makes me shudder.

Living amongst each other means that you have to accept that people have different beliefs and opinions not necessarily aligned with your own. That's something the terrorists do not understand and it should be our strength and a tribute to the UK that we do accept everybody.

Miss, that's quite a shocking reality, "... the terrorists came from us.". So true and they could be anywhere, in any of our towns, villages, people that we see and speak to every day.

Your statement of that makes me understand the need for 'togetherness' of Manchester. The tattoo could have been anything but it's the standing together that is what really matters.

10Storey, I'm proud to be a UK citizen. For all its faults, it's a remarkable place unlike any other. I'll never get a tattoo, not for anything, but perhaps this is where the division lies; those that will and like them - and those that won't and would never.

It's a false division though, because both 'sides' are united in their disgust of the attacks and their shock and sadness at what has happened - and their support, prayers/good wishes for the victims and their families.

That's what we need to focus on; not where we're different, but where we're actually the same.

Glad to hear it was useful for you lying.