Wars are a deadly serious business and 11th November (the eleventh hour of the eleventh minute) marks with a silence all those killed and injured. The particular moment is when the guns fell silent in World War One, a war many felt, certainly by that point, should not have been fought.
In the UK the Sunday nearest to 11th November is Rememberance Sunday, with ceremonies at the Cenotaph. The 11 and 12th coincide at a weekend every few years but the claim that this is represents an ‘armistice weekend’ is Tory Culture Wars stuff, designed to try and get a march protesting at a current war in Gaza (and calling for a ceasefire)banned.
The only current reference to Armistice Weekend I can find, aside from chuntering by Tory MPs and right-wing media is a weekend event at the Imperial War Musuem promoting story telling about war, which is fine.
In the latest development in the Tory Culture War, Steve Barclay, a Tory Minister, has claimed on Radio 4’s Today programme that Armistice Day is a ‘very sacred day’ in a point he had just invented on the spot. As above its a day when a silence is held at 11am. It mostly falls during a Monday-Friday working week, when aside from marking the moment, matters continue absolutely as normal. The event to pay respects and remember is Remembrance Sunday. But then why expect a Tory Minister to know anything about Britisn history?
War is too serious and deadly for Tory Culture Wars and the democratic right to protest which at least the Second World War was in part about too precious to be trodden on for hard right political point scoring.
As Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger reminded us inventing traditions is done by both left and right, and is often harmless or mildly positive. Here it is not. Its insulting
Leave a Reply