war memorials

[anneg001]

Quelques inscriptions qu’on peut trouver sur les monuments pacifistes :

Si tu veux la paix prépare la paix

Maudite soit la guerre et ses auteurs

Guerre à la guerre – Fraternité entre les peuples

La guerre est un crime

Fraternité humaine

Contre la guerre et ses victimes,la fraternité des peuples

La guerre est le massacre de gens qui ne se connaissent pas au profit de gens qui eux se connaissent mais ne se massacrent pas( citation de Paul Valéry)

here are two anti-war memorials I know about

http://www.planetenonviolence.org/index.ph...ticle&numero=60

http://raforum.apinc.org/article.php3?id_article=955

Do you know of other anti-war memorials

or anti-war words in the official memorials?

[Petroc]

Could I possibly venture the slightly oblique response that, in a sense, all memorials of conflict are anti-war? They can display a multiplicity of functions, from providing a local focus of grief and commemoration for families deprived of actual graves, can celebrate victory and/or peace, can give a degree of justification and purpose for veterans in the face of a bewildered and questioning civil population, etc....but if one accepts that the interpretation is down to the individual then a potent anti-war message can be found in many. Sometimes this may be found, if not in words, then in imagery; Jagger's recumbent artilleryman at Hyde Park Corner may be an example of this?

[anneg001]

Sure, but I meant openly calling for peace.

For exemple,

The Messines Ridge is the only location during the war when soldiers from the 6th Ulster Division from Northern Ireland and the 16th Irish Division from the south fought side by side in a battle in June, 1917...

The memorial is the initiative of a cross-border body "A Journey of Reconciliation Trust" led by former Irish MP Paddy Harte and former Northern Ireland Unionist politician Glen Barr...

The Messine tower has been built by young trainees from north and south of the border. Two of them from the Republic, Andrew Burns of Bandon and Sharon O'Malley of Ballina, found the graves of their great-uncles nearby. No members of their families had ever visited the graves.

The peace tower is in a traditional Celtic design and the building materials were brought from Ireland.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dccfarr/ipt.htm

I looked on the internet, but I did not find a reference to the text on stones next to the tower. Perhaps someone knows this monument and knows how to find that info.

[Desmond7]

Certainly from our modern day perspective all war memorials could be viewed as 'anti-war' but in the context of the times when they were erected they were a matter of civic/community pride.

People will say they represent an outpouring of grief.

I say no ... the memorials erected in the aftermath of WW1 were driven by a deep desire to honour the concept of men who fell in what (then) most people believed had been a 'just war'.

Grief was a personal issue. These stones/statues were 'corporate' statements of pride.

My tuppence worth.

I have to say I've never seen an inscription on any local war memorial which could be interpreted as 'anti-war'.

Des

As for the Messines 'Peace Park' ... give us another few years to get our act together!

[anneg001]

an interesting tid bit

The tower  has been built so that the sun only illuminates the interior on the 11th of the 11th day of the 11th month - the anniversary of the armistice which ended the war.

[anneg001]

There is also this monument in peronne by paul auban

http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/inventa...18/peronne.html

It is the first on this page. Double clicking on the picture gets a larger picture of this woman

a fist out, a soldier at her feet. tradition has it that it is "la picardie maudissant la guerre"

the Case of strasbourg is interesting

http://www.nithart.com/images/monumstr/monumor4.jpg

the two dead, french and german are holding hands!