 | | | Subject: NaJoPoMo 2011 - 11th (Agapanthus remembers)
Posted Nov 11, 2011 by  Agapanthus
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 | | I spent the two-minute silence (it is Armistice Day here in Blighty) lurking in the stacks, out of sight, so I could stand and bow my head in peace.
One year I made the huge mistake of stopping what I was doing and attempting the two-minute silence in the middle of the main floor of the Library of Glum, and two people came up to ask me if I could just help them find this book... I pointed at the poppy pinned to my shirt each time, and one scuttled off sheepishly, blushing, and the other just asked again, louder. So I gave her a LÒÓK.
It's a tad ridiculous that I should have to HIDE to perform a public act of remembrance, nu?
As I was commuting, I noticed that I, and all the other poppy-wearers, were very much in the minority. So I counted. We poppy-wearers were standing at about 1 in 10 in the small slice of central Nodnol I trotted through this morning and evening.
Is this a Britain-wide thing? Or just a Busy Nodnol thing? Because it distresses me. I am not your 'typical' poppy-wearer (if there is such a thing as a typical poppy-wearer, WHICH I SERIOUSLY DOUBT). I am a socialist. I am an ardent pacifist. I think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were entered into for opportunistic, cynical, and greedy reasons, and whatever good we might be doing out there is massively outweighed by the damage.
But, the soldiers? I unequivocally support them. They and their families are making sacrifices the like of which I wouldn't DREAM of making. They are risking death, mutilation, bereavement, psychological damage, every day. Our government, I feel, is betraying them by making them go fight in unworthy, ugly wars. They deserve better. They deserve my respect, yes, even the respect of a socialist bleeding-heart pacifist like me, and they totally have it. Because the poppy is not a glorification of war, it is not a celebration of thanatos, or machismo, or colonialism, or war-mongering or anything else I heartily disapprove of. No, it's a gesture of memory, of respect, of sorrow, of compassion, of thanks. It's important not to forget that people, real people, get killed in wars. It's when we forget this that that governments start glorifying the slaughter and going in gung-ho guns blazing, banging their chests and lying to the rest of us about the real reasons they're there in the first place. If we've forgotten that real people get killed, why should we care if politicians are bending the truth into fascinating balloon-animals to get us out there, spending taxes on the damn' war in the first place?
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| | | Subject: NaJoPoMo 2011 - 11th (Agapanthus remembers)
Posted Nov 13, 2011 by Universal Granny
This is a reply to this Posting
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 | | Our local infants school observed the silence during their assembly (specially timed to coincide with 11 o'clock), and not one of them moved or spoke during the whole time.
It was heartbreaking, though, to see two brothers in tears, because their oldest brother is in Afghanistan at the moment. They seem to be very aware that there is a possibility he may not come home. You just feel you want to hug them, but in this PC world we are not allowed to do that, so we had to be content with letting them hug each other.
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