Sacred Soil and State-Sanctioned Slaughter.

[alternageek]

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[Marx]

I agree.

 

Millions of men lost their lives in one of the biggest tragedies to befall the modern world. So surely it should be commemorated?

 

That's not glorification.

 

But we can learn from history, and by remembering, avoid the same mistakes. By looking at it anew and with the benefit of hindsight we can reassess what happened and why. Perhaps this is their legacy.

 

Of course we need to acknowledge what happened. My Grandfather was at Ypres. He made it home but was not the same person who left and he died years before I was born. That loss is what we need to remember. How will some Belgian sandbags blessed by a self appointed spokesman of the God that presided over the carnage and ceremonially dumped in a garden help this generation understand the tragedy?

[Andy]

Of course we need to acknowledge what happened. My Grandfather was at Ypres. He made it home but was not the same person who left and he died years before I was born. That loss is what we need to remember. How will some Belgian sandbags blessed by a self appointed spokesman of the God that presided over the carnage and ceremonially dumped in a garden help this generation understand the tragedy?

 

By the same token, you could ask why every town has a war memorial inscribed with the names of the dead, where a service is led usually by a local bishop or minister of the church every November.

 

Memorials are important. When I was at school, the teacher arranged for a WW1 veteran to come and speak to us and that made an impression on me. Now there are none left and we rely on handed down memories, recordings and photographs to understand the horror. It is strange to that WW1 and WW2 have gone from being events in living memory, that everyone's grandparents could remember, to being history remembered by monuments and museums, in the space of my short lifetime.

[999tigger]

Of course we need to acknowledge what happened. My Grandfather was at Ypres. He made it home but was not the same person who left and he died years before I was born. That loss is what we need to remember. How will some Belgian sandbags blessed by a self appointed spokesman of the God that presided over the carnage and ceremonially dumped in a garden help this generation understand the tragedy?

 

Because the 1000 children who helped collect the soil all learned about the war and local history about the battle that was fought nearby as part of the class project. Seems like a really good way of keeping people aware of what happened a way to foster international relations and a sign of respect from the Belgians. The loss is what they are remembering.

[Marx]

By the same token, you could ask why every town has a war memorial inscribed with the names of the dead, where a service is led usually by a local bishop or minister of the church every November.

 

Memorials are important. When I was at school, the teacher arranged for a WW1 veteran to come and speak to us and that made an impression on me. Now there are none left and we rely on handed down memories, recordings and photographs to understand the horror. It is strange to that WW1 and WW2 have gone from being events in living memory, that everyone's grandparents could remember, to being history remembered by monuments and museums, in the space of my short lifetime.

 

Every name represents a person from that community who died. That is a stark reminder of the cost of war. It is hard to comprehend for me too that the living connection has been lost to these events. As for the clergy hijacking the rememberance of our dead and damaged, I wish we could have a secular ceremony which would, by its nature, be inclusive of everyone.

 

---------- Post added 01-12-2013 at 12:34 ----------

 

Because the 1000 children who helped collect the soil all learned about the war and local history about the battle that was fought nearby as part of the class project. Seems like a really good way of keeping people aware of what happened a way to foster international relations and a sign of respect from the Belgians. The loss is what they are remembering.

 

That part of it sounds like a great idea. Why then bring in the army and the church?

[999tigger]

Every name represents a person from that community who died. That is a stark reminder of the cost of war. It is hard to comprehend for me too that the living connection has been lost to these events. As for the clergy hijacking the rememberance of our dead and damaged, I wish we could have a secular ceremony which would, by its nature, be inclusive of everyone.

 

---------- Post added 01-12-2013 at 12:34 ----------

 

 

That part of it sounds like a great idea. Why then bring in the army and the church?

 

Because it was largely soliders who died and the armed forces also wants to show respect and remember fallen comrades. They are the ones we call on to make that sacrifice.

 

Many people still respect the church, even if you dont. I think their role is pretty uncontroversial really.

[retep]

Rupert Brooke

The Soldier

IF I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England's, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.

 

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

[flamingjimmy]

Rupert Brooke

The Soldier

IF I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England's, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.

 

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

 

This is exactly the kind of jingoistic nonsense that the OP was about.

 

There's no glory to be had in world war 1. They died for pretty much nothing.

 

There is no foreign field 'that is forever England' just because hundreds of thousands of english soldiers died there. That's so stupid, and is of course a glorification of war.

[Hots on]

Was WW1 both an exercise in population control and also an excuse to create a league of nations, the forerunner to the united nations?

[LeMaquis]

Was WW1 both an exercise in population control and also an excuse to create a league of nations, the forerunner to the united nations?

 

Not really.