![Moment of silence](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Moment_of_silence.jpg)
A moment of silence (also referred to as a minute's silence or a one-minute silence) is a period of
silent contemplation
In a religious context, the practice of contemplation seeks a direct awareness of the divine which transcends the intellect, often in accordance with prayer or meditation.
Etymology
The word ''contemplation'' is derived from the Latin word ' ...
, prayer, reflection, or
meditation
Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm ...
. Similar to flying a flag at
half-mast
Half-mast or half-staff (American English) refers to a flag flying below the summit of a ship mast, a pole on land, or a pole on a building. In many countries this is seen as a symbol of respect, mourning, distress, or, in some cases, a salut ...
, a moment of silence is often a gesture of
respect, particularly in mourning for those who have died recently, or as part of a tragic historical event, such as
Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day owing to the tradition of wearing a remembrance poppy) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth member states since the end of the First World War to honour armed forces members who have died in t ...
.
A minute, or 60 seconds, is a common length of time for the
memorialization
Memorialization generally refers to the process of preserving memories of people or events. It can be a form of address or petition, or a ceremony of remembrance or commemoration.
Memorialization as a human right
Memorialization is a universal nee ...
, though organizers may choose other periods of time, normally connected in some way with the event being commemorated (there might be a minute given for every death commemorated, for example). During a moment of silence, its participants may typically bow their heads, remove their hats, and refrain from speaking, or moving, for the duration of it.
Origins
The first recorded instance of an official moment of silence dedicated to a dead person took place in Portugal on February 13, 1912. The Portuguese Senate dedicated 10 minutes of silence to
José Maria da Silva Paranhos Júnior, baron of
Rio Branco, Brazil, and Minister of the Exterior of the Brazilian government, who'd died three days earlier on February 10. This moment of silence was registered in the Senate's records of that day. In the same year, large parts of the United States kept a ceremonial silence to honour the dead of the ''
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...
'' and the ''
Titanic
RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, Unit ...
''.
The first person to publicly suggest a moment's silence as a vessel to hold the sorrow and loss of war was either by South African author and politician
James Percy FitzPatrick
Sir James Percy FitzPatrick, (24 July 1862 – 24 January 1931), known as Percy FitzPatrick, was a South African author, politician, mining financier and pioneer of the fruit industry. He authored the classic children's book, ''Jock of the Bus ...
or by Australian journalist
Edward George Honey
Edward George Honey (18 September 1885 – 25 August 1922) was an Australian journalist who suggested the idea of Moment of silence, five minutes of silence in a letter to a London newspaper in May 1919, about 6 months before the first observanc ...
, himself a World War I veteran. While the Australian government claims Honey was the originator of the idea as it pertained to war remembrance, there are no primary sources to conclusively confirm a date in which Honey's proposal predated FitzPatrick's. Nevertheless, each person's idea was conceived less than a year from each other, so it's possible the shared idea was a matter of
parallel thinking.
Eric Harding's booklet written in support of the monument to Honey erected in 1965 acknowledges that other silences had been held before (upon the death of King Edward, the silences in South Africa "when the war was going badly for the Allies", ceremonies in Australia for lost miners, in the US when the Maine was sunk, amongst others), but in his words "the originality of Honey's suggestion is based on the fact that this was the first time in history that a victory had been celebrated as a tribute to those who sacrificed their lives and their health to make the victory possible". Harding also acknowledges that, despite extensive research, no evidence of Honey's attendance at any rehearsal at Buckingham Palace, nor any record of an official communication mentioning Honey's letter having played a part in the adoption of the remembrance tradition, could be found, and that the only "proof" was that the letter preceded the formal approach to the King by several months. However he also writes that "Sir Percy's right to recognition for bringing the matter to official notice does not detract in any way from Honey's right to recognition as the first to make the suggestion."
According to an
Australian War Memorial article, Honey attended a trial of the event with the
Grenadier guards
"Shamed be whoever thinks ill of it."
, colors =
, colors_label =
, march = Slow: " Scipio"
, mascot =
, equipment =
, equipment ...
at
Buckingham Palace, as did Fitzpatrick (although it was not known whether they ever actually met or discussed their ideas). However, Honey's wife (whom he called "Millie"), as reported by her friend M.F. Orford's 1961 article, states that he "never went out into the streets near the crowds at any time during the observance of the Silence...”, and they only heard about the observance of the first Two Minutes' Silence when the order was announced by Buckingham Palace.
Examples
Many people in the
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the ...
observe the
two-minute silence
In the United Kingdom and other countries within the Commonwealth, a two-minute silence is observed as part of Remembrance Day to remember those who lost their lives in conflict. Held each year at 11:00 am on 11 November, the silence coinc ...
at 11:00am on November 11 each year (
Armistice Day
Armistice Day, later known as Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the United States, is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, Fran ...
) to remember sacrifices of members of the armed forces and of civilians in times of war. In addition, a two minutes of silence is also observed in the United Kingdom on the second Sunday of November which is more recently known as
Remembrance Sunday
Remembrance Sunday is held in the United Kingdom as a day to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts. It is held on the second Sunday in Nov ...
and is televised with a close up image of the
Big Ben clock chiming 11 and the buglers sounding the Last Post at 11:02am.
In Australia and New Zealand, the ceremony was quickly adopted for commemorations held at dawn on
ANZAC Day, 25 April. This moment of silence is held to remember the service men and women who died in WWI and subsequent conflicts.
In Israel, moments of silence are held in memory of the victims of
the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
on
Yom HaShoah
Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG'vurah ( he, יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה, , lit=Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day), known colloquially in Israel and abroad as Yom HaShoah (יום השואה) and in English as Holocaust Rem ...
and in memory of fallen soldiers and of terrorist victims on
the day before Israel's independence day.
In Japan, a minute of silence is observed (and televised nationally) at ceremonies every August in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki cities at the same time as the atomic bombings.
Moments of silence are often observed prior to other events including gatherings such as sports matches, with reasons for silences ranging from national and international
tragedies
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...
or to the death of individuals connected to a group.
In recent years, in the United Kingdom and Israel, at sports events like
association football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
, the minute's silence has been replaced by a minute
applause
Applause (Latin ''applaudere,'' to strike upon, clap) is primarily a form of ovation or praise expressed by the act of clapping, or striking the palms of the hands together, in order to create noise. Audiences usually applaud after a performanc ...
.
Silent prayer
Quakers
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
have practiced silent worship for more than 300 years, believing that all people have the light of God within and that no priestly intercession is needed for the divine to speak. Silent worship in Quaker meetings is seldom entirely silent, and individuals speak as they are moved to by the spirit.
The larger society perhaps adopted the practice of silent prayer in public gatherings because silence contains no statements or assumptions concerning beliefs. Since it requires no understanding of language to interpret, it is more easily accepted and used than a spoken prayer or observance when persons of different religious and cultural backgrounds participate together. Today, the moment of silence is used to avoid offending people with religious pontification and to empower individuals to interpret the moment as they wish.
In the US colonial period,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
Quakers did not worship together with non-Quakers, except those who might become converts. They were separatists and did not pray in ecumenical gatherings or in service to institutions.
In recent times the co-opting of Quaker-style silence for non-sectarian and non-controversial public observances has led to its almost universal use in the
English-speaking world
Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the '' Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest langua ...
as well as in other plural societies. This is also the case within many secular institutions where diverse groups are expected to participate but not necessarily share beliefs - such as in government, schools, commercial companies and the military.
The use of a moment of silence to memorialize fallen soldiers or to allow private reflection in public schools, for example, was not introduced by Quakers themselves.
In United States schools
![White House silence return Tucson 2011](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/White_House_silence_return_Tucson_2011.jpg)
The
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
ruled in 1962 that official organization, sponsorship, or endorsement of
school prayer in public schools is forbidden by the
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of religion, or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the ...
. Teachers and school officials may not lead classes in prayer, but prayer is permitted at voluntary religious clubs, and students are not prohibited from praying themselves. Other rulings have forbidden public, organized prayer at school assemblies, sporting events, and similar school-sponsored activities.
Public moments of silence in the United States both arise from and contribute to this debate over prayer and the
separation of church and state
The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular sta ...
. A moment of silence lacks any specific religious formulation, and therefore it has been presented as a way of creating reflection and respect without endorsing any particular religion.
President
Ronald Reagan was a supporter of a moment of silence in American schools. In 1981, Reagan formally
proposed a constitutional amendment permitting organized prayer in public schools. In his 1984 state of the union address, Reagan asked Congress, who begin their day with an invocation: "If you can begin your day with a member of the clergy standing right here leading you in prayer, then why can't freedom to acknowledge God be enjoyed again by children in every schoolroom across this land?"
Colin Powell, a longtime advocate, has recommended a simple moment of silence at the start of each school day. Further, he states that students could use this interval to pray, meditate, contemplate or study.
However, critics often view the moment of silence as publicly endorsing prayer "in disguise". This issue has been especially raised by
atheist groups and advocates, who argue that no non-religious purpose is served by designating an official moment of silence. Moments of silence point to the tension in the U.S. Constitution and society between accommodation and endorsement. Accommodation of religion is to ensure an environment where a person or student can practice their religion. A question with "moments of silence" laws is whether accommodation was already achieved by the fact that a student can pray or meditate on his/her own without an official moment of silence. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State said, on a "moment of silence" case, "Students were already allowed to pray, meditate, or reflect under the statute before it was amended. The addition of the word 'pray' where it wasn't needed clearly shows that legislators intended to promote religion, and that's not their job." Courts have stated on these moments of silence cases that a secular purpose is necessary and according to ''Wallace v. Jaffree'', a "statute must be invalidated if it is entirely motivated by a purpose to advance religion."
Although since 1976 the state
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
law permitted school districts to implement 60 seconds of silence at the start of each school day, in 1985, the
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
ruled that an
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County
, LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham
, area_total_km2 = 135,765 ...
"moment of silence or voluntary prayer" law was unconstitutional, in the case ''
Wallace v. Jaffree''. In April 2000, a new law came into being; requiring all Virginian public school students to observe a moment of silence.
Also, in 2005, a law was passed in
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
requiring all public schools to give students a chance to say the
pledge of allegiance
The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States is a patriotic recited verse that promises allegiance to the flag of the United States and the republic of the United States of America. The first version, with a text different from the one used ...
and observe a moment of silence every day. In October 2007, Illinois enacted legislation to require public schools to provide students with a moment of silence at the start of the school day, a statute that is currently being challenged in Illinois state courts. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia also require such moments of quiet in the classroom. In more than 20 other states, teachers are allowed to decide whether they want such a classroom time-out.
In October 2000, the U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton ruled that the "moment of silence" law was constitutional.
Judge Hilton stated, "The court finds that the Commonwealth's daily observance of one minute of silence act is constitutional. The act was enacted for a secular purpose, does not advance or inhibit religion, nor is there excessive entanglement with religion... Students may think as they wish – and this thinking can be purely religious in nature or purely secular in nature. All that is required is that they sit silently." His ruling was upheld in the
4th circuit. Others argued that the law was not enacted for a secular purpose, pointing to statements made by supporters of the legislation. State Senator Charles R. Hawkins (R-Pennsylvania) stated the moment of silence is "a very small measure to address a very large problem." He also said, "Prayer is not a bad word in my vocabulary." Kent Willis, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, stated lawmakers are "at the very least placing Virginia law right on the line of separation of church and state or they are crossing it . . . the state is playing with fire here."
The
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
was opposed to a proposed constitutional amendment by
Newt Gingrich in the early 1990s which would have set aside a voluntary moment of prayer during the school day, which was later independently described by President
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
as a "moment of silence".
See also
*
Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day owing to the tradition of wearing a remembrance poppy) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth member states since the end of the First World War to honour armed forces members who have died in t ...
*
Separation of church and state in the United States
"Separation of church and state" is a metaphor paraphrased from Thomas Jefferson and used by others in discussions regarding the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which reads: ...
*
Silent Minute
*
Two-minute silence
In the United Kingdom and other countries within the Commonwealth, a two-minute silence is observed as part of Remembrance Day to remember those who lost their lives in conflict. Held each year at 11:00 am on 11 November, the silence coinc ...
*
Vow of silence
A vow of silence is a vow to maintain silence. Although it is commonly associated with monasticism, no major monastic order takes a vow of silence. Even the most fervently silent orders such as the Carthusians have time in their schedule for talki ...
Notes
References
External links
{{Commons category
Nothing Really Matters an article about the moment of silence by a
Chabad
Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch (), is an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic dynasty. Chabad is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, particularly for its outreach activities. It is one of the largest Hasidic grou ...
rabbi
Moment of Silence lawsuit in Texas
Website encourages schools in a Moment of Silence
Momentofsilence.info
MOS rebranded as a drug prevention tool
aQuietMoment.org
Silence
Prayer
Meetings
Death customs
Acknowledgements of death