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.

Specifically the marking of the armistice, yes. Remembrance Sunday is about remembering all conflicts, but the silence is at 11 on the 11th to mark the moment of the enforcement of the Armistice de Compiègne in 1918.

I am actually shocked that nearly half of Mumsnetters seem to consider it acceptable to not observe the 2 minutes silence if they are out and about.

This isn't just about WW1. It is about all soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. I may not support all of the conflicts our military were involved in, but I'll always support individual soldiers.

I have relatives whose lives were utterly devastated by the loss of their father/brother/husband/nephew in Afghanistan.

It's 2 minutes in a year for goodness sake!

I think it's the messaging around this that gets my back up, like the howling about whether a celebrity or newsreader is wearing a poppy or not, and the performative nature of it.

Maybe it's because of the whole banging pots and clapping the NHS during Covid as well, which there was a stupid amount of social pressure to support.

I don't have a problem with remembrance, it's just the whole lecturing about it and pressure to conform. How about OP stays home or goes to a service if it's that important to her?

Well, ideally zero from my perspective, which incidentally is the number of times you’ve explained it. I mean, you’ve said it a few times, but that isn’t quite the same thing.

It's performance remembrance that became popular in the 90s. Prior to that the 2 minute silence was pretty much the preserve of remembrance services.

The first time I saw it on armistice day was when I worked in retail. A woman who was being served suddenly stopped, went silent and bowed her head. Everything else just carried on around her as nobody had a clue what she was doing. The person behind her in the queue was really annoyed but the rest of us were just confused.

It was started for that purpose, but it's taken on more meaning.

You don't, but you do have to accept you might not be served in a shop for 2 minutes because other people do choose to observe the silence.

Put your money where your mouth is. I actually do care. Which is why I volunteer with veterans for the blind, and donate and fundraise to help for heroes. What has more effect for veterans and service people? Things like that, or standing quietly in the supermarket for 2 minutes?

People can choose not to respect it but don't then complain when people don't respect what is important to you. Mutual respect goes a long way to keeping the peace.

It's a long time since conscription. Everyone fighting a war made an active choice.

Some people in the UK will be from the countries the UK invaded. They're not likely to want to show respect to the UK forces are they.

👏👏👏👏👏👏

Very well said.
It's a sign of how selfish some people really are. It hasn't affected them so it cannot possibly be important. They also think that it's about government policy and don't realise it's about those who were/are willing/forced to sacrifice themselves.

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.

Surely you can do both? I think having a time set aside for remembrance matters. So many people are indifferent politically, don’t understand how privileged we are to have the freedoms we do and have little idea that those freedoms aren’t afforded in many countries. I also think remembering the very high price of war - all wars - is important especially at a time when there is fighting in so many places. Remembrance helps remind people why voting, donating etc matters.

There are very few times now when people are involved in collective acts, we’ve become such an individualistic society, a two minute collective act of remembrance isn’t much to ask of people, either to observe themselves or to respect that others might want to observe it and not disrupt that process.

I'm pretty sure few soldiers gave their lives to defend the freedom to be a twat between 11am and 11.02 on the 11th November each year. Or for the freedom to piss all over other people's celebrations and commemorations.

It's also a long time since the Holocaust - should we stop reflecting on that too?
Even if someone did choose to join the armed forces, they are still willing to risk their lives if needed. Would you?

The ‘/‘ between willing and forced doing quite a lot of work there. You do realise the British army murdered innocent civilians on their own streets for being like me and my children. So when you rightly say that remembrance has taken on more meaning than just WWI, perhaps you can see why some of your fellow citizens want nothing to do with it.

You're funny.
I'll leave it there as you clearly have no desire to hear other opinions.
Off to watch the Remembrance service now.

Meh. If you want to observe it, do so. If others choose not to, that’s their prerogative and I certainly wouldn’t be bothered by it.

OP's suggestion is as awful as the people who try to shame people for not wearing poppies.

The woman bowing her head was not the issue here.

I see the point of ONE two minutes' silence per year, and personally I believe it belongs on Remembrance Sunday, as was tradition after 1945, and not on Armistice Day, which is a recent thing, since 1995. Armistice Day WAS always aboout WWI, and the PP was not wrong to say this.

Once you start having two minutes' silence twice, it does feel like it is becoming performative.

I don't make noise, but I much prefer to be in places that are not observing the Armistice Day silence if at all possible.

The way some people are writing, it seems they don't understand that Remembrance Sunday is a thing.

I don't view joining the armed forces as an honourable thing to do, no.

The exact opposite. If someone wants to observe the silence they should stay home where they can actually make it silent, or go to a remembrance event. If you're at work you just have to take a tea break or do a silence at a different time. You can't make the whole world bend to accommodate your interests and beliefs.

What a stupid thing to post! Of course a silence that is observed for two minutes all over the UK by many people to remember all the dead (some of them members of my family) killed wars is absolutely full of meaning. If you're so dim or insensitive that you don't/ can't understand that, none of us can help you.

Freedom I guess