Tower of London poppies: the English language does not have the words to describe som

Original post by Muulka

I edited my post after re-reading it. If you're going to reply, could you please read the new version.

Not really. I couldn't care less about what kind of childish government conspiracy you believe in. Boil it down to the simplest level. Some people came to try and kill us and they in turn got killed for their cause.

Oh dear, what a pity, what a shame.

Reply 22

Original post by Clip

Not really. I couldn't care less about what kind of childish government conspiracy you believe in. Boil it down to the simplest level. Some people came to try and kill us and they in turn got killed for their cause.

Oh dear, what a pity, what a shame.

Government conspiracy? When did I mention that? You're the one who thinks solely in us and them.

By the way, in pretty much all of those wars you mentioned the British soldiers went over to try to kill the other people...

You're the one who has the puerile worldview. There's nothing childish about recognising that soldiers aren't the people who start wars. There's everything childish about refusing to actually listen to the points being raised by the person you're talking to.

Go away off and worship your flag. Living in Northern Ireland has really showed me how little it actually means. Nationalism causes only harm.

Reply 23

Drewski

Original post by Muulka

I edited my post after re-reading it. If you're going to reply, could you please read the new version.

Remembrance is a personal thing.

Why are you trying to tell people that they're doing it wrong? What does their thought process matter to you? Does someone else not thinking about something mean you're unable to think about something?

Would you go to a funeral and tell someone they're doing it wrong?

Reply 24

Original post by Drewski

Remembrance is a personal thing.

Why are you trying to tell people that they're doing it wrong? What does their thought process matter to you? Does someone else not thinking about something mean you're unable to think about something?

Would you go to a funeral and tell someone they're doing it wrong?

War remembrance is anything but private. Just watch the annual festival of ritualised glorification which I believe is going on at this very minute just across the road from where I'm sitting.

It's not my place to tell people what to remember in their heart of hearts. That's not something I can do or would want to do if I could. But I can speak all I want about the public campaigns which are so ubiquitous at this time of year.

My thoughts at this time are far-removed from this hero-worship of the 'nameless names' that Sassoon wrote about. But there are still thoughts. It shouldn't be forgotten- I just wish that it was remembered in a different way.

Reply 25

Drewski

Original post by Muulka

It's not my place to tell people what to remember in their heart of hearts.

Yet that's exactly what you've been trying to do with your posts here.

It's nothing more than proselytizing. It's an "I'm more moral than you because I'm doing it right and you're doing it wrong". It comes across as bitter, as mean spirited and unbearingly arrogant.

Reply 26

Skip_Snip

3

Original post by DepthCharge

Profiteering out of a war 100 years after it is over, pretty grim I agree. The lack of morals people have today kind of makes you wonder whether all those poor souls dying was worth it does it not?

Technically it began 100 years ago :tongue:

Reply 27

DepthCharge

Original post by Skip_Snip

Technically it began 100 years ago :tongue:

Oh yes, my mistake, thank you for correcting me.

Reply 28

Original post by Drewski

Yet that's exactly what you've been trying to do with your posts here.

It's nothing more than proselytizing. It's an "I'm more moral than you because I'm doing it right and you're doing it wrong". It comes across as bitter, as mean spirited and unbearingly arrogant.

If that's how I've come across, then I have miscalculated my words.

At a basic level, I'm philosophising. I'm trying to make you see my point, yes, but am I demanding that you follow it? Not in a million years.

I'm perfectly entitled to express my personal attitude towards remembrance, and that's all that I intended to do here.

As to you claiming that I'm saying that I'm 'right', there fundamentally is no right or wrong, particularly in a case like this. 'More moral' is, for me, a phrase without meaning.

I'll fully admit that there's some bitterness in me on this issue. As I mentioned before, I'm Northern Irish, and the conflict at home has brought me to the conclusion that I personally reject utterly all nationalism. So there is some frustration that nationalistic and populist movements like UKIP are on the rise.

It's a social Le Chatelier's rule- when society lurches away from me, my views harden involuntarily.

There is no arrogance in me. Only frustration and disappointment.

I apologise for not properly explaining my perspective. It's also pretty difficult to remain completely civil when certain people (not you) are really quite rude to you...

Reply 29

The_Internet

Original post by Skip_Snip

I hope I get a chance to go down to that London to see it :smile:

We live in the UK, why shouldn't we mourn the British deaths only?

Maybe because quite a LOT of countries have helped Britain in the past (voluntarily) I like how we're not so arrogant to think that the world revolves around us (Looking at you USA), aside from a select few

I also really like how nationalism isn't really a "thing" in Europe any more - I mean I see more people proud of NOT being patriotic, so maybe that's also why we look at the deaths of other people, because there's no need to be arrogant. Definitely not with people who put their lives down.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 30

The_Internet

Original post by Muulka

War remembrance is anything but private.

I disagree mainly cos of this:

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?p=51355217&postcount=18

I chose to "remember" the atrocities of war, without having to SHOW that Im "remembering"

Reply 31

Original post by de_monies

I disagree mainly cos of this:

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?p=51355217&postcount=18

I chose to "remember" the atrocities of war, without having to SHOW that Im "remembering"

That's what I try to do. But it's far from the norm nowadays. That is what I'm uncomfortable with. The modern-day remembrance-without-remembering.

What do these poppies have to say about the horrendous swamp that both sides had to try to endure in the War? Nothing- absolutely nothing. The real place to remember is the battlefields in Flanders. Standing on top of one of the hills which they blew up was a pretty soul-crushing experience.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 32

The Epicurean

17

Original post by Clip

The Germans and the Japanese tried to take over the world by killing and conquering everyone around them like it was Medieval times. We had to fight them and in the end they were beaten.

Why should I commemorate their dead who were trying to kill ours? Given their cause, they would have destroyed us. I'm not that interested in them. They were on the wrong side. Sucks to be them.

Are we talking about the innocent young men who were conscripted into the army? Surely the German conscript who had little to no choice over joining the war is just as innocent as the Allied conscript? Most young men whether German or otherwise were merely just pawns.

The real tragedy is that young innocent men were conscripted to kill other young innocent men.

Reply 33

Clip

Original post by The Epicurean

Are we talking about the innocent young men who were conscripted into the army? Surely the German conscript who had little to no choice over joining the war is just as innocent as the Allied conscript? Most young men whether German or otherwise were merely just pawns.

The real tragedy is that young innocent men were conscripted to kill other young innocent men.

That's true. They had little or no choice - but they still came over the hill and tried to kill our people. A great many of them also committed unspeakable acts, conscripts or not.

I'm not saying they had a choice. I'm not saying it was right that they were put into a war. I'm not saying that a war isn't a terrible thing.

What I'm saying is that I only really care about our people, and not the ones who tried to kill us.

Reply 34

Original post by Clip

That's true. They had little or no choice - but they still came over the hill and tried to kill our people. A great many of them also committed unspeakable acts, conscripts or not.

I'm not saying they had a choice. I'm not saying it was right that they were put into a war. I'm not saying that a war isn't a terrible thing.

What I'm saying is that I only really care about our people, and not the ones who tried to kill us.

And 'our' people didn't do horrible things? Go over the hill and try to kill 'their' people?

Have a little perspective, please!

Reply 35

scrotgrot

16

Original post by Muulka

And what of the German, French, Belgian, Ottoman, Austrian, Hungarian or whatever else dead?
The Commonwealth soldiers whose bodies have been found each have individual headstones in Flanders. The Germans get a mass grave of 25,000.

I'll start supporting British WWI memorials when they start thinking about everyone who died in the most wasteful endeavour in human history. Unlike the Second War, you can't even say that they were fighting for a good cause- the First World War was a war without cause, without purpose except the furtherment of imperialsism and without any results except the mindless slaughter of a generation of young men.

This monument does nothing to commemorate the Great War. All it does is suppress the truth of the war.

Its not 'Lest We Forget'- It's 'Lest We Remember'

I don't think it's terribly damaging to only make it about the British dead. When I think back to various Remembrance Days when I was younger, being told to think about the soldiers, I never thought about them as British soldiers in particular fighting for the British people, and I expect the same is true of most people of everything forward of our grandparents' generation, who are generally much more international and less jingoistic in outlook.

We have to remember that war commemorations come about very soon after the war, when there is, to say the least, not that much sympathy towards people on the other side, probably a heightened suspicion of foreigners in general, and a heightened sense of nationalism due to war propaganda.

And I think the focus long ago shifted away from jingoism for most people. I don't think what we were taught in primary school about the remembrance was in any way focused on British sacrifice. The problem is that the Establishment are essentially the people who sent us to our deaths, and they have a strong identification with and interest in the integrity of the British state, for which ideal they sent these men to war. Making it about Britain justified their actions in their own minds. An exhibition in the moat of the Tower is about as Establishment as it gets, and so it is designed according to their worldview.

And still, I'm not sure (barring the fact that the Cenotaph honours British soldiers only) that any of the elements of the actual commemoration are particularly about Britain above all other sacrifice. The famous poem omits several verses from the original, including two which mention England - and I think a poem which mentioned the country a lot would have been a non-starter even in 1919 or whenever the first memorial was.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 36

MagicNMedicine

Original post by MatureStudent36

Allied bombing may have killed ten times as any German civilians that the blitz did.

But to quite Bomber Harris. '

The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put that rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now, they are going to reap the whirlwind.

Sounds like the type of thing jihadists say today on their terror videos

"the West sowed the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind"

Reply 37

MatureStudent36

5

Original post by MagicNMedicine

Sounds like the type of thing jihadists say today on their terror videos

"the West sowed the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind"

Except the west didn't.

Reply 38

MagicNMedicine

Original post by MatureStudent36

Except the west didn't.

Well the West has gone to war with them and civilians have got killed so they want to hit us double hard and kill more of our civilians than we killed of theirs.

They won't be able to do that because they don't have the conventional firepower to do it, they rely on killing themselves in suicide bombs and we have a sophisticated security network to shut down most of it, although regrettably they might get through every now and then.

But I can understand their mentality, there are two sides in a war, they see us as the enemy so they hate us. Jihadists won't bat an eyelid at British civilians being killed any more than the more hard-line of us don't care for Germany/Japanese civilians in the war, and even the less hard-line will say if civilian deaths are what it takes to win the war then it's a regrettable sacrifice. Collateral damage.

I'm not coming at this from an anti-war perspective, I was more pro Blair's foreign interventions than most on here but you have to understand how the other side will think. I think its bizarre that people are shocked at the way the jihadists think about us.

We have actually moved to a more morally sophisticated position now, compared to where we were in the two wars, in that civilian casualities are never seen as something we would inflict deliberately to try and win a war, it just wouldn't be acceptable. The extra accountability that our leaders and military are under these days, whilst frustrating for them at times, has improved that. Similarly, raping and looting, things that used to be seen as par for the course in war, are no longer acceptable. That's why even in foreign countries where we have invaded like Afghanistan and Iraq, the local civilians are more under threat from our enemies than from us, and its us that is providing for their security.

This to me, is a good thing and it shows our moral position has moved in the right direction. I think it also shows that we have responded to our experience in the two World Wars by saying, never again will this happen.

Basically the free world, where we have democracy and human rights, has increased those rights and the standard of living of its citizens. It has also all come together rather than fighting each other, we all joined NATO to guarantee our security, Europe has come together, we have brought half the old Communist bloc in to our group as well, we are never going to fight each other again because we all respect freedom and human rights, and we don't see killing civilians as a justifiable tactic of war.

The only groups that are ever going to fight us are the groups that have the opposite ideology, they hate freedom, don't respect human rights and they don't care about killing civilians.

Yes it would be better if all war had stopped but I think this is a positive development and I would rather have our mentality, even if some people on the right these days think we're a soft touch and should take some of theirs.

Reply 39

Clip