[RD] Is observance of Remembrance Day (or your nation's equivalent) a civil obligation?

[metatron]

but I acknowledge that you seem to have mistaken it, hence the slightly overblown clarification.

I am terribly sorry, but there's no problem on my end.
You wrote one thing but apparently meant another thing.
I am not a psychic.

I haven't got the faintest what the rest of your post means, sorry.

I'll hand you the bill next april.

(I didn't see your edit to your previous post before replying, but I don't think it changes much)

Yeah, i was way slow.
That's entirely on me. Esprit de l'escalier and all that.

 

[dutchfire]

We remember the dead on the 4th of May and celebrate liberty/liberation/freedom on the 5th of May (The Germans in the Netherlands surrendered on 5/5/45). On the 4th of May, there are two minutes of silence across the country, and I would say that observance of those is a civil obligation (at least: you cannot disturb the ceremony).

There is a perpetual discussion in our Culture Wars about who precisely should be remembered on the fourth of May. Originally, the remembrance was only for Dutch casualties in WWII. This was extended in 1961 to include all Dutch war casualties (civilian and military) since the start of WWII. Every now and then, people suggest explicitly remembering also the German casualties (e.g. putting flowers at German war graves in the Netherlands) or Dutch soldiers who fought in the Wehrmacht, which immediately leads to heated discussions. These discussions have become, by now, as much an integral part of the remembrance events as the actual ceremonies.

 

[Traitorfish]

Isn't the a controversy about this in UK politics where some people wear red flowers instead of white (might have colors reversed) to say that ww1 was entirely stupid?

Red poppies are traditionally worn around 11th November, beginning in the early 1920s. The white poppy was introduced as a pacifist in the 1930s; they receded from public view with the strategic and moral failure of Appeasement, but have reemerged over the last few decades as a counter-point to the increasingly militaristic use of the red poppy. The official meaning is to commemorate civilian as well as military victims of war, but the understood subtext is you're smart enough to recognise creeping fascism when you see it. Naturally, this irritates the fascists, who prefer to creep unremarked.

 

[really]

Today's poppy news:
https://www.standard.co.uk/stayingi...fter-x-factor-fans-shame-her-on-a3677061.html
'
‘Disrespectful’ Nicole Scherzinger quickly pins poppy on dress after X Factor fans shame her on Twitter'

 

[Arakhor]

The newsreader Jon Snow spoke against "poppy fascists" a few years back, but that probably wasn't the best choice of words.

 

[Broken_Erika]

The newsreader Jon Snow spoke against "poppy fascists" a few years back, but that probably wasn't the best choice of words.

Poppy Fascists, are those like purveyors of Swastika Poppys?

 

[Traitorfish]

Today's poppy news:
https://www.standard.co.uk/stayingi...fter-x-factor-fans-shame-her-on-a3677061.html
'
‘Disrespectful’ Nicole Scherzinger quickly pins poppy on dress after X Factor fans shame her on Twitter'

There would have been a time when wearing a poppy a whole week before Remembrance Day would have appeared disrespectful. As if the war-dead were there as a means for to demonstrate your ostentatious patriotism!

Daily Mail readers are stereotypically fond of saying that we need another "real" war- perhaps if we had one, we wouldn't be so eager to make a burlesque out of remembrance.

 

[civvver]

US has veteran's day and memorial day. Memorial day is a national holiday and most people get it off work/kids off school. It's always a monday so it makes a long weekend in the spring, it's basically spring's equivalent to labor day holiday wise though of course it's for a completely different purpose. But my guess is most people don't give it any thought, it's just another long weekend to have off.

Veteran's day is just another day where we go oh yeah remember the troops. Mostly it's when people with families in the armed forces go on facebook and post pictures of flags and stuff.

Some people take both super seriously, they'd be the same people who are turning off the nfl cus of anthem protests. Me? I like the time off, I usually text my brother who's in the airforce, but don't think about it much past that.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

There would have been a time when wearing a poppy a whole week before Remembrance Day would have appeared disrespectful. As if the war-dead were there as a means for to demonstrate your ostentatious patriotism!

Daily Mail readers are stereotypically fond of saying that we need another "real" war- perhaps if we had one, we wouldn't be so eager to make a burlesque out of remembrance.

Poppies start appearing at least two weeks before Remembrance Day here, and it seems to be a longer amount of time since I was a child.

The Legion has a whole list of "poppy protocols" including when they're worn, where they're worn, what to do with them later (they really prefer that people not re-use poppies from previous years). Since one of the protocols is that the poppies are supposed to be taken off after the ceremonies, some people have wondered what to do with them.

This is partially what may have led to a spontaneous gesture at a Parliament Hill ceremony years ago, but has now become a tradition. After the dignitaries, ambassadors, other diplomatic officials and service organizations have placed their wreaths and left to view the march past the viewing stand, the public is allowed access to the War Memorial. One year someone spontaneously removed his poppy and placed it on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and someone else thought that was a nice gesture and did the same thing.

Within minutes, the Tomb was covered in poppies. It's the public's way of getting to lay a wreath, and some might also include a small flag or photo of a loved one who died in service. This will probably never become anything official and I've never heard that it happens anywhere but on Parliament Hill, but it's become a tradition that I think will persevere now, for as long as we hold these ceremonies.

 

[Arwon]

Red poppies are traditionally worn around 11th November, beginning in the early 1920s. The white poppy was introduced as a pacifist in the 1930s; they receded from public view with the strategic and moral failure of Appeasement, but have reemerged over the last few decades as a counter-point to the increasingly militaristic use of the red poppy. The official meaning is to commemorate civilian as well as military victims of war, but the understood subtext is you're smart enough to recognise creeping fascism when you see it. Naturally, this irritates the fascists, who prefer to creep unremarked.

I am baffled as to why our own tory culture warriors, usually such cargo cult imitators of trends abroad, haven't adopted the deranged poppy spotting of their UK brethren.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Here's an appropriate Remembrance Day comic: For Better Or For Worse

 

[Thorgalaeg]

November 2 is and has always been All Souls' Day, so a day for remembrance of ANY christian who have died not only the ones fallen in combat. It seems that in the Anglosphere war is the new religion.

 

[Arakhor]

I knew that All Saints was 1st Nov, but I hadn't heard of All Saints. You can blame my non-Anglican upbringing for that.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Here's an appropriate Remembrance Day comic: For Better Or For Worse

I just had another visit to that page, and there are over 75 comments there!

(admittedly, a few are mine, but I had to respond to the twit who made Canada's Remembrance Day all about the football players supposedly disrespecting the flag - an issue that has nothing at all to do with Canada or Remembrance Day)

 

[Arakhor]

Internet comments are often the electronic version of cancer.

 

[really]

Speaking of football and poppies:
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal.../david-squires-on-football-and-poppygate-2017
(Football comic from the guardian)

 

[Broken_Erika]

Internet comments are often the electronic version of cancer.

I prefer the term "Digital Diarrhea"

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Internet comments are often the electronic version of cancer.

Well, some of the comments are rather inappropriate, but there are over 90 now, and that's more than I've seen for that strip for awhile. The thing is, a lot of Canadians grew up with the Patterson family in this strip, and while the kids are young now (the little girl in the strip is Elizabeth, and the strip ends when she gets married when she's in her 20s), we're aware of what's coming in the future (some good, some hilarious, some of it's really heartbreaking). Comments will be off the charts for some events, since they were so long ago and so memorable that we didn't have the internet to comment on them the first time around.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

To an ostensibly Canadian thread, may I submit a Canadian poem:

What do they matter, our headlong hates, when we take the toll of our Dead?
Think ye our glory and gain will pay for the torrent of blood we have shed?
By the cheers of our Victory will the heart of the mother be comforted?

If by the Victory all we mean is a broken and brooding foe;
Is the pomp and power of a glitt'ring hour, and a truce for an age or so:
By the clay-cold hand on the broken blade we have smitten a bootless blow!

If by the Triumph we only prove that the sword we sheathe is bright;
That justice and truth and love endure; that freedom's throned on the height;
That the feebler folks shall be unafraid; that Might shall never be Right;

If this be all: by the blood-drenched plains, by the havoc of fire and fear,
By the rending roar of the War of Wars, by the Dead so doubly dear. . . .
Then our Victory is a vast defeat, and it mocks us as we cheer.

Victory! there can be but one, hallowed in every land:
When by the graves of our common dead we who were foemen stand;
And in the hush of our common grief hand is tendered to hand.

Triumph! Yes, when out of the dust in the splendour of their release
The spirits of those who fell go forth and they hallow our hearts to peace,
And, brothers in pain, with world-wide voice,
we clamour that War shall cease.

Glory! Ay, when from blackest loss shall be born most radiant gain;
When over the gory fields shall rise a star that never shall wane:
Then, and then only, our Dead shall know that they have not fall'n in vain.

When our children's children shall talk of War as a madness that may not be;
When we thank our God for our grief to-day, and blazon from sea to sea
In the name of the Dead the banner of Peace . . . THAT WILL BE VICTORY.​

—"The Song of the Pacifist", Robert W. Service, 1916

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Thank you, Thorvald.