AIBU for thinking that people shouldn't yak away on mobile phones during the two minute silence?

[BoffinMum]

So picture the scene, there I was in Tesco this morning buying a packet of rice, and they announce the two minute Remembrance Day silence over the tannoy. The whole shop stops respectfully and stands quietly with heads bowed. All that is except one silly mum yakking away loudly on her mobile phone and laughing her head off while we were all trying to concentrate on war and Afghanistan-related issues and sadnesses in general.

I got fed up, leaned around the next aisle to where she was making all the racket, and told her to shush, which she eventually did, but I am still very sad and cross she was so blooming inconsiderate in relation to something so serious and important.

What would other MNetters have done? Would this have made you cross as well? Would you have shushed her too?

'most people under 40 wearing a poppy haven't thought through exactly what they're subscribing to IMO'

Um... isn't this a little patronising!

and why 40? Is this when you qualify to have an opinion about whether to wear a poppy?

Maybe she had already visited the graves of her relatives who perished in the war and had been to visit her elderly mum who had lost her husband and she had been to a ceremony on Sunday!

We all have relatives who lived, suffered and died in wars all over the world and if it is such a big issue to you, make sure you are somewhere like a service for the war veterans on 11am 11/11 maybe.

Patronising it may be, but it's an opinion, which you're free to disagree with. 40 being a rough generation cut-off IMO. I think you're splitting hairs just a little now.

LOL! It was you who got age-specific about it... I don't think that's 'splitting hairs'. I just thought the comment was patronising and the age was a bit odd....

P.S. I'm 31 and wear my poppy with pride..... or maybe I 'haven't thought through exactly what I'm subscribing to'

Mabanana - 2 posters out of 47 messages mention 'old dears' not respecting the silence - I hardly think that is 'quite a few'

and Greeny I dont like the '....most people under 40...' thing - how on earth would you know that. OK, so YOU dont agree with it, but you can hardly generalise to 'most'.

From the Royal British Legion Website, with my bold:

On 11 November 1918 the Armistice was signed between the Allied and German armies, ending the First World War ? a global war that lasted four years with the total human cost to Britain and the Empire of 3,049,972 casualties, including 658,705 dead.

Of all the millions of men who joined up to serve and defend the country, 90 years later the ranks have thinned dramatically. Now, there are just three stalwarts of the battlefields living in the UK. Harry Patch, Bill Stone and Henry Allingham are the only survivors to bear witness to those dark days. When they are no longer with us, the Great War will pass from living human memory finally to history.

Henry Allingham has said: "These hellish memories of war are ones I'd rather forget. But never my comrades. Never the men who gave their everything." During a visit to a war cemetery in France, he was quoted as saying, "All of us must remember them, always."

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we shall remember them.

You know I suspect the author of this poem would find the ostentatious grandstanding about remembrance and brave sacrifices and 'giving their lives for a better world' rather sickening.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

My mum's dad was killed in WW2. Last year she got to visit his grave in Italy for the first time in her life. But i suppose that could only move me if I was 6 years and 17 days older.

I think I can, as long as I'm presenting it as my opinion and not as fact. Historians/sociologists/etc have to make certain informed generalisations in order to comment on or understand aggregate behaviour - it's not ideal, but it's not totally without validity either. IMO.

Oh... now you're second guessing the views of Wilfred Owen as well as the views as all under-40s!!

mabanana - it's certainly not modern - when the silence was first held just after the first world war everything stopped - my Dad was 9 when the first silence was observed - he's now 98 & still remembers the quiet - in fact, they even shut down the heavy machinery in his father's works, even though it took a long time to stop & start it safely.

Did I say 'people under 40 aren't moved emotionally by the deaths of servicemen?' I don't think I did No, I said the direct opposite. Phew.

well said mabana

I think he makes his views about glorifying war and the grotesque pointlessness of WW1 completely obvious in his own words, actually.
I find it amazing that people talk about WW1 as something that made for a better world. That really indicates to me that all this reflecting isn't really working.

mabanana

But in the 50s, 60s and 70s, nobody stood silent for two minutes or were hissed at or told to 'fuck off'. I'm not sure we've really grown, morally, on this issue.

He was actually concerned with the 'glory' of war in his poem, he wasn't anti-war as such. It was in direct response to poets like Jessie Pope who were glorifying war in newspapers....

But maybe, because I'm under 40, I haven't thought it through properly....... we're terrible for that kind of thing... apparently....

If being silent for, ooooh 2 whole minutes, is 'ostentatious grandstanding' then I am happy to be both.

I suspect however that it is actually having respect for those that gave their lives in WWI and WW2 and all conflicts since - There has only been one year (1968) since the Second World War when a British Service person hasn't been killed on active service. That makes me shudder - there but for the Grace of God.... and all that.

(now for some huge and probably pointless generalisations of my own ) I think the problem with people days is that they are unable to separate Remembrance from Iraq/Afghan. They are against the British involvement in both conflicts, so Remembrance suffers. The RBL is fighting a battle of its own against this, but it is our Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen who will suffer if donations etc go down.

Wilfred Owenn not against war as such? Really?
"I am more and more a Christian. . . Suffer dishonour and disgrace, but never resort to arms. Be bullied, be outraged, be killed: but do not kill." Letter to his mother, May 1917.

The silence isn't remembering the war/s or glorifying them

It is to think about the people that died, they did give themselves, many signed up underage as they believed our country was worth saving, however misguided they were about the reasons behind the war.

Today, many men and women sign up to our army/raf/navy/etc knowing that they are signing up to possible war and possible death.

A small display of 2 mins is just a mark of respect to those before and those to come, it isn't a pro war thing

Did anyone see those 3 men laying their wreaths at the cenotaph today? Just 3 men left. Did you see their faces and their pain? They lived it and I am happy to be quiet once a year for just 2 mins, to show those men some of us care

It's Owen, not Owenn, but anyway...

His attitude to war was complex (which is why I phrased it 'not anti-war as such' as opposed to 'not anti-war').

Anyway, without splitting hairs, that poem is about whether it's glorious to die for your country and not just a diatribe about the 'grotesque pointlessness of WW1'.

Anyway, I'm off to bathe my beautiful boy. As much as I'd like to continue this debate.....

"they are unable to separate Remembrance from Iraq/Afghan. They are against the British involvement in both conflicts, so Remembrance suffers"

pmsl, now who's being patronising and simplistic?

Actually the (sizeable) body of opinion against the pageantry and symbolism of the "Remembrance" ritual is quite solidly grounded in peple's views on WWI, the politics of that war and of wars subsequent and previous, and differing notions of what constitutes respect and the appropriate expression of respect. It's disingenuous to claim that people who don't want to observe these rituals are muddle-headed in their understanding of what the rituals commemorate.

"they are unable to separate Remembrance from Iraq/Afghan. They are against the British involvement in both conflicts, so Remembrance suffers"

pmsl, now who's being patronising and simplistic?

Actually the (sizeable) body of opinion against the pageantry and symbolism of the "Remembrance" ritual is quite solidly grounded in people's views on WWI, the politics of that war and of wars subsequent and previous, and differing notions of what constitutes respect and the appropriate expression of respect. It's disingenuous to claim that people who don't want to observe these rituals are muddle-headed in their understanding of what the rituals commemorate.

Greeny - I did say I was going to generalise - before I did it.

I have heard too many people say (when asked to buy a poppy) that they wouldn't because they didnt agree with Iraq/Afghan. It has made me believe that a lot of younger people see the poppy as 'supporting war' rather than 'remembering the dead'. I do my best to explain, and oftentimes they then go on to buy one. That's where I get my (rather sweeping general) view.

So hang on, are you saying that young people haven't thought these issues through properly? I would never say something like that, that would be terrible

Greeny, Touche

No matter what though. I still think it is very disrespectful of someone NOT to honour the 2 mins silence.

Whatever our personal beliefs, how hard is it to be quiet for 2 minutes, once a year? Rightly or wrongly, the British Forces have lost one Hell of a lot of men and women over the last 90 years and beyond. Men and women who were proud to serve their country and do their duty. I want to honour them, and the decision they made to serve. If you are a British subject surely you can respect them - You dont need to agree with war / reasons for going to war / politics etc etc to recognise that men and women have died and all we ask is that once a year you think about that, just for 2 mins....