Interesting piece from the Times yesterday on building a memorial for Lee Rigby -
Rigby’s killers don’t deserve a memorial to their vile deed
How tempting it is to damn the council jobsworths who snubbed a petition by 12,000 people to erect a memorial to Fusilier Lee Rigby on the spot where he was hacked to death in Woolwich a year ago. And how easy to savage the local MP for opposing the memorial because it “might attract undesirable interest from extremists”. So, too, might mosques, synagogues and churches, but we don’t remove them from the streets. Yet however wrong the reasoning may be, Woolwich would be better off without this memorial. Rigby’s murder was an outrage but it was, after all, just another horrible street crime by killers with a warped view of society. It does not deserve to be granted any wider significance. Rigby’s killers would love it if their deed were made to stand out like a skirmish in a Holy War. We shouldn’t be feeding their poisonous philosophy by building what they would love to think of their Place de la Bastille, the scene of a great triumph. True, the victims of other notorious murders have stones to mark where they were slain. PC Yvonne Fletcher has one in St James’s Square. PC Keith Blakelock has a polished granite stone near the site of his murder at Broadwater Farm. Stephen Lawrence has a stone set into the pavement in Eltham. But it is a practice that risks getting out of hand. There are upwards of 600 murders a year, for each of whom a case could be made for a memorial. Accept one and councils will find themselves under pressure to accept them all. Worse, they are going to be concentrated in areas trying to shake off violent pasts, blighting them for ever. Fancy investing in a street where there are constant reminders that someone was shot in a gangland killing, someone else stabbed for their mobile phone and another person mown down in a road-rage attack? Of course, Lee Rigby will not be forgotten but he should be remembered as he was, not a soldier cut down in battle but a young man murdered while peacefully going about his business. Like the most violent neighbourhoods, Woolwich should be allowed to escape the legacy of street crime. It shouldn’t be turned into an open-air museum of murder sites, still less presented as a battleground in a religious war.
I quite agree your sentiment. As shocking and awful a slaying as it was, I don't think any good would come of a permanent memorial.
I can understand why people would want one. It is a way of saying that we are not bowed by the act, and that we stand behind our armed forces. These are noble reasons for wanting to commemorate the life of Lee Rigby, but he will be remembered every year on the Sunday in November closest to the 11th of the month. This is the time when we remember all our fallen no matter what the manner of their death.
I think Lee Rigby would want to be in that company. He'd settle for that.
Raods are not closed for this walk--unlike the other 2. White Horse at 8PM for the off.
lee`s Mum went to the Lib(2 weeks ago) to say thanks to the staff for their hospitality and help.
Regardless of the plaque issue for Lee Greenwich Council should apologise NOW for the LIE they published(repeated on here) that stated Lee`s family where happy with their idea of having a plaque in a chapel-----this was never the case and the family never agreed to this.
Like AFKA, this still infuriates me every time I think about it. Will never forget being on a train home from work that evening absolutely fuming about what I'd heard.
A bit of me that day lost a lot of faith in what I believed was capable of any human Since then it has happened over and over again just not in the streets in the UK and not in my home town outside of an establishment I am immensely proud of and on a road so close to my first home
The issue with having a memorial to Lee Rigby isn't that it would be a memorial to him, a decent man and human being, but would serve to memorialise the scumbags who killed him. Of course they would not be mentioned by name but the fact that their actions would be remembered as long as the memorial stood would be propaganda gold for the extremists and the damaged souls who aspire to such things. It would be a rallying point for the very people we SHOULD forget - his killers.
The issue with having a memorial to Lee Rigby isn't that it would be a memorial to him, a decent man and human being, but would serve to memorialise the scumbags who killed him. Of course they would not be mentioned by name but the fact that their actions would be remembered as long as the memorial stood would be propaganda gold for the extremists and the damaged souls who aspire to such things. It would be a rallying point for the very people we SHOULD forget - his killers.
Surely that can be said of any memorial to the fallen, anywhere in the world.
Comments
I quite agree your sentiment. As shocking and awful a slaying as it was, I don't think any good would come of a permanent memorial.
I can understand why people would want one. It is a way of saying that we are not bowed by the act, and that we stand behind our armed forces. These are noble reasons for wanting to commemorate the life of Lee Rigby, but he will be remembered every year on the Sunday in November closest to the 11th of the month. This is the time when we remember all our fallen no matter what the manner of their death.
I think Lee Rigby would want to be in that company. He'd settle for that.
Rest in Peace, soldier. The Navy salutes you.
That would be fair justice.
White Horse at 8PM for the off.
lee`s Mum went to the Lib(2 weeks ago) to say thanks to the staff for their hospitality and help.
Regardless of the plaque issue for Lee Greenwich Council should apologise NOW for the LIE they published(repeated on here) that stated Lee`s family where happy with their idea of having a plaque in a chapel-----this was never the case and the family never agreed to this.
RIP Lee
Like AFKA, this still infuriates me every time I think about it. Will never forget being on a train home from work that evening absolutely fuming about what I'd heard.
That was a truly terrible day.
Since then it has happened over and over again just not in the streets in the UK and not in my home town outside of an establishment I am immensely proud of and on a road so close to my first home
Rip Lee never forgotten
Gone but never ever forgotten, a hero's life cut so tragically short
R.I.P Lee
I'm off.