Poppies

[rhythmaning]

I am generally ambivalent about buying poppies for Rememberance Sunday. Whilst I know that it is rememberance of people who died to protect the country and others, and thus it expresses solidarity with those who suffered; but I can't help but believe that somehow it glorifies war. Usually I give some money and don't wear a poppy.

But this morning on 5Live, they were debating the current hoo-hah of "poppy fascism" - the need to be seen wearing a poppy.

Some caller came on the line saying that he didn't wear a poppy because he didn't believe in the wars. We shouldn't have fought in WW2, because it wasn't our war - we should have kept out of it. And when the presenter said "What about the holocaust?", this *rsehole said that was absolutely nothing to do with Britain at all.

So I am now the proud possessor of a poppy; and I gave them more money than I would otherwise have done. In rememberance of that c*nt's ignorance.

Comments

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

In Afghan fields the poppies blow...

[white_hart]

I've worn a poppy every year since I was 17 and went on a week-long trip with the rest of the A-Level Modern History students from my sixth form to the battlefields. The Somme, even 75 years on, was moving enough to shut even the cockiest of the lads up - Verdun, on the other hand, is so overdone as to be embarrassing, all son et lumiere and the Glory of France - but most of the Somme has just been left, bleak, battered, punctuated by row upon row of crosses. And the memorial to the missing, which is about the size of Marble Arch and covered with names, and not in huge letters either.

Sometimes (2001 was a notable example) I make an effort to seek out a white poppy, although I'll still give my money to the Haig Fund. Most years, I just wear the poppy. I don't see it as glorifying war; remembering the war is remembering the horror that you can still glimpse 90 years later. No glory, just mud and shells and barbed wire.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to comprehend the waste of life - I think I would just be overcome with sadness.

[white_hart]

At 17 I was still secure enough in my world to deal with it. I don't think I could go back now.

Too many people pay lip-service to remembrance while not seeing any reason why it shouldn't all happen over and over again, but that's no reason not to remember.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I think remembering is very important.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

I really really can't stand poppy fascism. I never buy one, because my feelings about it are rather similar to yours. I have plenty of empathy for the horrors (and survivors) of war, but I'll entertain those feelings in my own time, thank you.

[unblinkered.livejournal.com]

When I lived in Glasgow, someone had a go at me for not wearing a poppy (can't remember the context, but he had a pretty good go). Somehow, he didn't think that being a pacifist German/Irish person was a good enough reason to not show my solidarity with British victims of war...

I'm all for bringing the horrors of war to the public conciousness, but I'd prefer it if it were a day of rememberance for those killed in all conflicts, on all sides because people like my grandfather's first wife who got blown to smithereens when the hospital train she was on was targeted deserve to be remembered just as much as the guy in the plane that did the blowing up.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

There is a long sequence in the book I have just finished reading about the bombing of Dresden. Enough to make anyone a pacifist.

I also feel that if we remember in our own way, that is sufficient; just so long as we don't forget.