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?

Rememberence day really hit home this year, as some of my husbands ex-colleagues (and people he liked, respected) died in the Nimrod Crash.

That 2 minute silence was spent reflecting they will never grow old, see their children grow up, cuddle their grandchildren.

I feel if you can't even give up 2 minutes of your life to reflect on war dead, that is up to them, but I do pity them for their selfishness.

Oh, and today we observed the 2 minute silence in the clinic I work in. Everyone joined in.

The Royal British Legion do great work for injured and disabled servicemen and their dependants. Money from the poppies goes to this charity. Disabled people are employed to make the poppies.

How does this appeal glorify war? IT is picking up the pieces of war

The silence is part of this, remembering the men and women who died. Again, how does that glorify war?

Armistice Day celebrates the END of the 1st world war, again not pro war

Mousemat...that is good to know....must admit, when living in Germany I was never ever aware of it....it is only thorugh dh (who has been in the army until recently) and since living in the UK that I have become aware of it.

Greensleeves....all wars are sad and they should not "NEED" to happen....sadly....they do, and whilst not all, or maybe even most, are for the right reasons, some seem to be unavoidable.
I suppose it all boils down to human nature.....of course, I think all politicians should just go out in a ring and have it out amongst themselves....but I suppose that would not really achieve anything neither.....

Blimey, I've really unleashed something here. I just wanted to have a bitch about a silly woman in Tesco's! But I must admit it has been very interesting reading all the posts.

Greeny, that's totally cool. I wouldnt look down on someone who did not want to take part - only if they we actively trying to sabotage it. See, to me, despite the fact we disagree with each other, I think you are still showing respect to the fallen - which to me is what it is all about.

If I saw someone wearing a white poppy all I would wish was that they were wearing a red one alongside.

I believe (though am not 100% so would appreciate your counsel) that the White Poppy is used as a Symbol of Peace rather than anti-war??? The red poppy does not glorify war or anything like that, it is a symbol of Remembrance. It is also a very important fundraiser for the RBL who spend millions each year supporting Servicemen, Ex Servicemen and their Families, many of whom have been badly let down by the Government. This could be anything from converting a home for someone recently disabled to paying for a holiday for a child who has lost a father or even paying the TV Licence for a pensioner who cant afford it.

You can still be a pacifist and wear a red poppy you know . In fact I know a couple of Ex Servicemen that would proudly call themselved pacifists - but were still at the Cenotaph on Sunday.

That's your view, not a gospel truth. Obviously I don't think the cause of pacifism is such an obvious nonstarter

to fair lady, not mousemate

hm...but if you look at "less" civilised cultures (and I use that term very loosely here) , war and fighting eachother seems kind of "build in"....is inheritant the correct term for that....

BUt that doesn't make war and fighting and violance right....

When i was serving we spent one Nov 11th alongside a German ship and paid our respects together.

I understand people have their own views on this and respect them all, i'm in the wear a poppy with pride and donate in all the boxes i see camp, i go to a parade and do all the silences.

The British Legion do a fantastic job and need all the donations they can get, we are in three theaters, they need the money!

I work in a call centre and we were told today we are observing the 2 min silence but we are not doing it offically

This means the phones stayed on but we were told if we wanted to observe it to turn our idividual phone off and if we werent we were not to disrupt others who were.

really odd....meant some people were taking calls and some werent

I tend to think each to their own but in a place of work it should be observed completey or not .. those who dont want to participate can go have a coffee and a natter in a staff room

I think if people talking through the silence bothers you then you should avoid coffee shops supermarkets for that 2 mins of the day

Its odd I used to be a firm believer in participating .. but since I lost my little boy I find myself thinking.. no-one stops for 2 mins to remember my little boy every year.

I usually buy one or two poppies a year - I don't observe the Armistice Day silence as such but would only make an issue of it if (as Greeny suggested) was 'ordered outside to line up and be quiet' - in which case I would decline and go and do something else.
It is the least witless and annoying of the Silences, I'll say that for it. NOwadays you're likely to get ordered to be silent for 15 minutes because Cheryl COle broke a fucking fingernail or soemthing.
But what I do think is that people can choose to observe whatever rituals they like but in a public place like a supermarket or a bar they have no right to insist that others conform and obey rituals that they are not interested in or object to.

I'd planned to observe the silence today. Then my phone rang at 10.58. It was the police, who you'd think would be clued up about the time and date. By the time he'd got off the phone it was 10 past. My colleague wasn't amused and left the room.

op i would have done the same as you.

on sunday at the rememberance day parade,ds1 was with the beavers,dd with brownies.afterwards i said to them about it and ds1 wanted to know why everyone went silent'for ages'.i explained and he said 'well i whispered to my friend the whole way through because i didnt know'.i said that that was ok as he didnt know but that next time he needs to be silent-if not to remember or think then to respect the feelings of others.he said 'actually i dont think i want to go again'

When I was out this evening I realised why I find all this 'Well I do this in Tesco so I am morally superior and I can boss other people about from my superior position' talk is that it reminds me of the people who dished out white feathers to boys in the street and goaded them to their deaths. You don't have the right to abuse or shhh people who are just going about their lives and don't want to join in your rituals. Even the idea of a ritual in Tesco makes my lip curl quite instinctively. If you feel so strongly, find a war memorial and lay a wreath.
And all the time I was growing up in the 60s/70s/80s this was never so compulsory. Shops didn't do it, and neither did workplaces - none that I worked in. My dh, slightly older, agrees.

Why I find it so irritating is what I meant to put.

Why the vitriol? It's a respectful thoughtful, thing we are all doing ina busy, noisy world. Why can't we be left to get on with it? Why interrupt us?

I think you're being quite rude now actually, Mabanana, and missing the point of the largely pacifist and respectful sentiments that so many of us are trying to express here.

You're entitled to your views, but the reason you have that entitlement is because of millions of people died fighting for it.
I would say that if you can't be reasonably nice to the rest of us whilst being assertive then please lurk don't post.

BOffinmum: Mabanana is as entitled to express her views as you and everyone else.
And no one is acutally obligated to dead people, particularly dead people they never met. It doesn;t make any difference to the dead what the living do, after all.

I just thought she went about it too rudely in the last post.

I'm going to bed now but just wanted to say, I work with veterans, of both world wars and I have not met a single one who doesn't think that today is extremely important, and that to stand for a couple of minutes is not too much to ask. Regardless of your feelings towards war, it is a mark of respect. And we work our arses off to ensure that every child who comes through our doors leaves with as full an understanding of what the wars meant as we can possibly give them in the short time we spend with them. The old dears that I encountered today were in the minority, which is why I was surprised.

It may not make a difference to the dead, but it reminds us all that we don't want war on the same scale to happen again.

I don't think that having the silence or the ceremonies is militaristic. I know lots of servicemen, and they would all claim to be pacifist. None of them want to go and die; they have families and homes just like the civvy community does. Remembrance Day and Armistice day is however a chance for them to remember their oppos who have died, and for all of us to think about those who died in WW1 and WW2 for our benefit.

Having been to the trenches, and seen the memorials at Menin Gate, Thiepval and several of the cemeteries around Passchendaele and Ypres, I think about what WW1 cost and how such a conflict could be stopped from reoccurring. I am also the daughter, daughter in law, wife and sister of past and present serving Officers, and each Remembrance day I use the two minutes to thank my lucky stars that all of them so far have come home from deployment each time safe and sound.

As my dh puts it; you may not agree with his job, but he will defend to his death your right to disagree with him. That's what many of us are choosing to remember; those who were and are willing to do that.

mabanana hasn't been 'rude' at all, how dare you ask her not to post? Shocking arrogance

And the "died fighting for your freedom of expression" point is extremely shaky. It would be nice to think that those championing the poppy appeal/two minutes silence had a slightly better grasp of the mechanics of international politics than that

Maybe my grasp of international politics is shaky too, but I am pretty sure that, had the Allied Forces not fought in WW2, Hitler would have invaded Britain and taken over.

We could have had death camps in the UK - wiping out the Jewish population as he attempted to do in Germany, and would no doubt have carried on doing there too, had he not been stopped.

I doubt people would have had freedom of expression under Hitler in Britain either - he's never struck me as a particularly libertarian chap, and as an invaded and subjugated people, we would have had even fewer rights and freedoms. Dissent and protest would have been suppressed, brutally if necessary - a conquering force has to stamp its mark on the people it's conquered, in order to make sure they stay conquered.

How would Hitler have been stopped without military action? He'd assembled a huge military machine and was intent on invading other countries and increasing the power and reach of the German Reich. I don't think he'd have been amenable to negotiation.

Hitler was stopped because the Allied forces stopped him, fought him to the point where he had to capitulate. Many Allied soldiers, sailors and airmen lost their lives in a war that defended the freedom of Britain and hence of the peoples who live there, as well as the freedom of the other countries that Hilter invaded - France and Austria would not be the countries they are now, had Hitler remained in power there.

Thank you sunnygirl, and can I add that if ancient Rome is anything to go by (which Hitler appeared to be emulating) many of us would probably currently be employed as cheap agricultural labour so Berlin could feast on the profits, like modern day serfs. And bearing many more children than we wanted to, living like peasants.

Arbeit macht nicht frei.

personally i wouldn't have talked on a mobile out of respect even though remembrance day isn't part of my traditions (irish) but you can't dictate to people what they show respect for and what they don't.
fair enough if they are at a public event or at a place connected with the event (church,grave yasrd,service) but not in a supermarket when they are doing their shopping.
i'd think them selfish, but they genuinely just might not give a shit. and for better or worse the people you are honouring died for their right to not give a shit and the freedom to be as disrespectful to their memory as they want to be.