If you don’t want to observe two minute silence- don’t be out

[Mokel]

Every Remembrance Sunday and Nov 11th, when I worked at retail, we did a tannoy announcement with 5 min, 2 min before to inform customers that the store will be observing the 2 min silence. Then another to start it.

Every time there were customers who kept talking. Plus one time a woman in her 50s shouted “why can’t anyone serve me some fucking fags?” Everyone just looked at her. Some had the courage to say how disrespectful she was once the silence ended.

If you are unable or refuse to observe the silence at 11am today or tomorrow, please don’t be in a public place.

It just seems so performative to demand it's done in public and that everyone joins in.

I guess it’s done in some public places so that staff in shops etc can take part in a collective act of remembrance. I don’t see it as performative - people don’t need to take part if they don’t want to. Life moves at a pace, and individual reflection of course is important but collective remembrance also has its place.

She's not right.
Those fighting on the front line don't get to decide which wars to fight, they're just willing to make sacrifices I'm not.

YANBU. It's not about personal opinions, it's about respect for others. We do it at school (after walking over to the war memorial) and teach the children that, if they don't want to think about the soldiers who die in wars during that 2 minutes, then they don't have to but they must stay quiet to respect the situation and those who do. If 300 children (certain SEND aside, of course) can do that, then there's no excuse for adults. Not realising while out and about can't be helped, of course. But being deliberately and audibly not observant is not ok.

I observe the silence but doesnt this also work the other way around too- why are you going shopping at that exact time if observing the silence is so important to you?

Why not stay at home, reflect, and then go shopping? Its far easier to control your own actions than the actions of everyone else in the country!

It’s meaningless. There is nobody alive who even served in WW1, much less to care if people in supermarkets are quiet for 2 minutes for the armistice. If you want to make a meaningful contribution to honouring veterans and service people, volunteer, donate, vote so we don’t end up in the shit again.

Nothing is more worthless than an act of service you are forcing people to take part in.

I disagree. This country’s foreign policy, for example, promotes neither and actively works against it in a lot of cases.

People do it because of peer pressure, not because it has meaning for them. This two minutes’ silence was not a thing in the UK except at remembrance services until after the Falklands war.

Disabilities aside, if you can’t manage two mins of silence to show respect for people who had to die for the country that you live in then there really is something wrong with you I think. It’s two minutes. That’s it.

Ridiculous comment 🙄 that's clearly not what she means and you know it.

Maybe lots of people don’t feel the need to set aside a specific 2 minutes every year and can be thankful and reflecting more often than that

You think an entire nation coming together for 2 mins every year should now be an opt out? I think it’s amazing we do this every year. It’s hardly difficult.

as with so many situations: don't be a dick applies here, surely?

Yeah, predominantly of the lives of the people whose countries they’re invading. And not by conscription. You’re free to feel how you want to feel about the British army and demonstrate those feelings how you like but it’s ahistorical not to recognise why others don’t share your position.

You think it's only about WW1?

Yes, there's freedom of expression and then there's GOVERNMENTS ARE BAD ANYWAY, WE HAD A WAR FOR ME TO BE FREE TO ASK WHAT'S HOLDING UP MY ARGOS ORDER AT 11.01 IF I WANT TO SO THERE. Lots of people here are vociferously in favour of the latter. How about 'for one day, maybe just wait and look at the window display or something till 11.03'? Is that such an infringement on our hard fought for personal liberties?

You'd think. Apparently it's an anti-war act of rebellion to treat the shared silence of people around you with contempt by disrupting it for sport.

In your opinion.

I disagree with your statement.
I also think the government foreign policy isn't what we're marking. It's sacrifice.

I do it because it has meaning.
I don't do it because of peer pressure.

I’m not personally endorsing the Argos business (side splitting, btw) but obviously yes, freedom of expression and personal liberty include things you don’t like

Wow.
just fucking wow.

Maybe they didn't realise. I've definitely talked at the start before, not having realised it was happening. Why assume malice when it could be incompetence?

Not sure how many ways you want me to explain that its about sacrifice.

Agree OP. If our older deceased family members hadn't sacrificed so much we wouldn't have our liberty.

Take a minute to consider why people choose not to observe the silence or are unable to.

You're suggesting that people with a variety of disabilities, mental health conditions, beliefs, ethnicities, nationalities etc etc etc should stay home and not be welcomed in public.

No one should intentionally be a dick, but no one is obliged to observe the silence either. I wouldn't observe it but I wouldn't get in others way of doing so. That's fair enough.

Well two of my Grandma's brothers died at Ypres so I don't see the two minute silence as some sort of infringement of my civil liberties.