What I'm trying to say is that the reason Remembrance Day is televised is because it is a religious event. When you look at it in the cold light of day it's a bunch of suits putting flowers on a memorial - not exactly an Oscar winner. But it's been televised for generations on the Sunday because of it's religious connotations - watch a bloke drop a wreath, sing a psalm, watch another bloke drop a wreath, etc... Take the choir away and you're left with a couple of dozen pensioners in long coats looking glum. What are you going to play in between? Cracklin' Rosy? Firestarter..?
Remembrance. I get it. But I also get pretty pissed off about the sheer hypocrisy of the whole thing. There are the politicians with all their "This must never be allowed to happen again" and then at the drop of a hat, they send off another load of people to die and get maimed for not very much. WW2 was pretty unavoidable (although, if they'd been a bit cleverer about the Treaty of Versailles, it probably wouldn't have happened). WW1 was completely avoidable: they just thought it would be a good scrap lasting a couple of weeks to see who was top dog. It wiped out a generation in the nearest thing that humankind has ever created to hell on earth. The Soviet threat was inflated (and the Cold War with it). Afghanistan and Iraq? Both totally unnecessary. I wonder how many wars there would be if the people organising them had to be in the front line.
There's an article in one of the bike mags about the Thankful Villages charity run. Basically it revolves around the 50 or so villages in Britain that do not have a memorial to WW1. Back in the day memorials were erected in every town and village that lost men to the war effort - out of 4000 villages only 50 or so do not have memorials. That's a rather sobering way of understanding just how many people were killed and families affected by that game of political chess.
Shadow, I could never infer that "being" dead is glorious. They are the Glorious dead. Glorious was the epithet chosen by the nation after the carnage of the Great War to describe those who were killed. As you probably know the Cenotaph in Whitehall is dedicated to the Glorious dead.
Indeed, and it is and always has been a completely secular monument. There is no religious wording or imagery of any kind on the Cenotaph, which is as decided by Lloyd George's cabinet in 1919. All the religious stuff only crept in later.
Religious "creep" is a problem. In an age which should be increasingly secular (as science continues to enlighten us) it is ironic and sad that there is an increasing focus on religion. The USA didn't used to be such a fundamentalist place - it wasn't meant to be like that at its founding. And the whole Muslim debate is a bit silly. Europe has a whole lot more to fear from the Chinese (in terms of job losses and being held to ransom) than a few bearded idiots skipping about in deserts.
Talk of Muslims is on the rise, for sure, but I think religion is definitely on the back foot in the UK. I don't know any regular churchgoers at all these days, but when I was a nipper half the people in my street used to go to church on a Sunday. The question is, if we're going to wrestle Remembrance Day from the god squad, how are we going to present it? I think all the pomp and ceremony is important, how can we keep that without doffing our hats to the Almighty?
If any Servicemen during their lives showed signs of drawing comfort or even left instructions that they be remembered and honoured in a Religious Ceremony would you choose to take that away from them Pete?
Absolutely correct JR. Grandiose displays of pomp are meaningless. The Americans treat their ex servicemen even worse than we do. As you say, it's the day to day treatment of the injured and retired veterans thats is the gauge by which respect should be measured. Its easy to become involved in the glamorous side, but no so easy when it comes to the mundane....Just as in any relationship, it's the daily slog in the long haul.
Personally, i wouldnt say that the religious aspect add gravitas to the remembrance services, but rather detracts from it. Its the solemnity and sacrifice of the lnjured and fallen that sustains it's status. We could very well keep these aspects and have a secular service, with other poems, songs and readings. I like to the traditional aspect of the services, and for me, remembrance day will always be strongly linked to the two world wars. As time marches on, it will have a greater significance to later generations for more recent conflicts.
I was alluding more to the fact that the service would be less likely to be televised if it lost it's religious aspect. And for me the television service is important as a reminded to people the world over.
Any individual who wants a religious funeral or memorial service should always be able to have one, of course. When the grandmother of a friend of mine died, she was given exactly the religious burial she had wanted, notwithstanding that all of us present were atheists. That has nothing to do with the nature of national public remembrance ceremonies, which is the topic under discussion.
Are you suggesting that the BBC, which always televises the annual ceremony at the Cenotaph, does so only because of the religious content? and would refuse to broadcast it if the religious bits were omitted? I doubt that - but if you are right, that means the BBC has a lot more wrong with it than I thought.
If Remembrance Day were a reality TV show I'm sure they'd show it twice a day, 7 days a week. No, I'm suggesting that as the service is held on a Sunday it ties in nicely with their religious viewing audience, what with the hymns and the cassocks and stuff. Take that away, and where/when do you view it. Certainly not on God's day...
I posed the question because I think it is on topic considering your generalised reference to Religion as 'hocus-pocus' and 'mumbo-jumbo' which seem to imply (to me anyhow) as though it has no place being included in a Remembrance Day event.
The symbolic recognition of important events is a basic human need, whether these be weddings, births, deaths or any other anniversary. It just so happens that in our society, the church elbowed their way in and got a monopoly on these events, instigating their own rituals and customs (churches make a good living from rituals and customs). Subsequent generations have never known any different of course, so a bloke in a dress waving a vase on a chain seems quite normal, when the opposite is true. Most religious services are a la carte which is totally impersonal. There is no logical reason why a secular service cannot have the same gravitas and solemnity as a religious one. Furthermore, a secular service can be extremely personal, tailored to the individuals. There is also no reason why a secular service cannot use religious inspired music, after all, much of it is beautiful, and i for one have shed many a tear of pride when hearing Jerusalem, although it holds no religious connotations for me personally. A secular remembrance service allows all and anyone to project their own feelings of faith onto the blank canvas, rather than the situation that we atheists have to abide, which is to edit out the meaningless bits...for instance, at a funeral when the vicar is whittering on about the deceased loved whom he never met, to tune out his vacuous ramblings and reflect privately about that person until he has shut up.
