I didn’t buy a poppy this year, largely because I didn’t pass any for sale, but at the same time I didn’t hunt one out, and it didn’t crucify me with guilt that I wasn’t wearing one, though given the option I probably would have been. At the risk of sounding cantankerous, wearing a poppy is not what it was.
Partly this attitude is attributable to my own leanings. I make a feeble nationalist, failing to understand exactly what makes our lump of land so special in comparison to everyone else’s lump of land, and, despite being a serious football fan, having a good chuckle to myself whenever the national team underperform. However I consider nationalism and its associated noise to be part of the problem with our approach to remembrance, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
The attitude taken to poppy wearing in recent years has become incredibly gung ho, and seems to be coupled with a wider rise in nationalism. The reasons for this are endlessly debatable, but it certainly exists. Everyone saw the news regarding poppies on the England team's shirts when they played Spain on 12th November. Remember the commotion when England played on the same date in 2005 or in 2001? Exactly. It appears to be particularly strong amongst my own generation. The amount of pictures of poppies that appeared on my Facebook on Armistice Day, accompanied by endless xenophobic slogans and statuses was staggering. This display was far too often a celebration of nationhood, as opposed to a genuine act of remembrance. However this celebratory approach, admittedly with fewer profanities, is carried on throughout our society. In adverts for Remembrance Sunday on the BBC we had Helen Mirren telling us that the troops were the ‘stars’. Now I do not doubt the bravery of those who have gone into the theatre of conflict, and I could not stress more how my heart goes out to anyone connected to a loss of life in such circumstances, but when the Iraq war alone saw over 130,000 civilians lose their lives, is ‘star’ with its various connotations of fame and joyful triumph, really the right word to use? We seem to be in a place where not wearing a poppy is politically incorrect; paradoxically a position promoted by many of the tabloids.
This renewed vigour associated with remembrance and the wearing of a poppy has perhaps inevitably been coupled with a shiny commercial face. You may well have seen the Andy Murray adverts asking us to ‘remember those who don’t return’; a celebrity endorsed pun, really? It’s understandable that some, whatever their role in society, may choose to jump on what appears to be an attempt to boost the national self esteem. Is it unforeseeable that in years to come, we will see various poppy paraphernalia becoming available from mid-October? Such as shiny and inflatable poppies, and (God forbid) ones that play the last post when squeezed?
Of course money does have to be raised, and I could never fault the cause behind the poppy. However surely this responsibility should lie more squarely with the government? It’s often their doing that the mess has occurred in the first place, and money would be raised without the risk of using mollifying gimmicks that could hide the true nature of the cause.
I’m by no means saying that poppies should be ditched, but they’re being flaunted in a way that detracts from their true meaning. They’re far too often a symbol that says ‘we won’, whereas they
should be a stark reminder of the futility of war. The idea of wearing ‘your poppy with pride’ should really be something more remembrance based, as we risk losing the true meaning of the day. Of course in a perfect world there would be no need for the armed forces anyway.
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I also am becoming increasingly cynical about the whole poppy-wearing thing. My cynicism saddens me because I know the charity benefiting from the fundraising does good and necessary work. I heard that TV broadcasters make sure there are bowls of poppies available for anyone and everyone about to be filmed to pin on a fresh one before facing the camera... it was just a little bit strange to see varied-nation-originating EU officials talking about the euro crisis while wearing poppies. The bottom line is that the whole poppy-wearing phenomenon just tends to cast war in a light too positive for the health of the planet. If we really wish to honour the deserving war dead, let's prove it by being much less hasty to send living soldiers into peril.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but this is complete nonsense - and actually quite offensive. There is nothing 'nationalist' about the poppy. It is an international symbol of remembrance. In fact it was adopted in the USA and France before Britain.
ReplyDelete"They’re far too often a symbol that says ‘we won’, whereas they should be a stark reminder of the futility of war."
I've never seen or heard ANYTHING around poppies and Remembrance Day that relates in any way to 'we won' (partly because it's about much more than any individual conflict). Did we ‘win’ in Suez? Did we ‘win’ in the Balkans? Have we ‘won’ in Afghanistan? To the widows and orphans and grieving parents, does it matter a tinker’s cuss who ‘wins’ or ‘loses’? Please offer some evidence for this outrageous assertion.
Poppies ARE a stark reminder of the futility of war for everyone who wears won and most people who see somebody wearing one. By your own admission you didn't see anywhere selling them (really? you've not been in any shops at all in the past month?) so how can you judge what they do or don't represent?
My son and I were invited to join the veterans and cadets who paraded at Leicester City's poppy match this year. There was a stadium full of people applauding those who were/are prepared to put themselves in dangerous situations for the common good. There was absolutely nothing nationalist or triumphalist about it. I'm afraid you're only demonstrating your own ignorance here, which is sad and shows that, despite all the campaigns, the significance of Remembrance Sunday and the poppy campaign still isn't fully understood, even by educated, intelligent people.
Also:
"Of course money does have to be raised, and I could never fault the cause behind the poppy. However surely this responsibility should lie more squarely with the government? It’s often their doing that the mess has occurred in the first place, and money would be raised without the risk of using mollifying gimmicks that could hide the true nature of the cause."
You obviously don't understand 'the cause behind the poppy', which may be where your misapprehension of its relevance comes from. It is absolutely nothing to do with sorting out any 'mess', it is solely about providing care and comfort to former members of the armed services and their dependents. That's it. I think you’re confusing the Royal British Legion with Help for Heroes: completely different charities with completely different aims.
My grandfather served in the army for 20 years. He was in the Pay Corps so he was never in battle. But in his old age the British Legion Club provided a social venue for him, his wife and others of their generation, and he ended his life well cared for in a British Legion Nursing Home.
That's why we wear poppies: respect for those who served, whether they fought or not, whether they came home or not. Please research better than this when writing on emotive subjects.
Mike - I think, if you re-read the original post, you will see that Ben is not challenging the poppy campaign. He's warning about the dangers of it becoming over-commercialised and attached to xenophobia. They are the two main messages I got from reading it, anyway. And that's exactly what you are complaining about in your post - people who mis-understand the message of the campaign!
ReplyDeleteI, too, have seen the image of the poppy associated too closely with xenophobic and, sometimes, down-right racist sentiments, for example, on public fora such as Facebook and Twitter. And I, too, have seen commercialised nonsense regarding, for example, diamond-encrusted poppies, with celebrities trying to out-do each other with more glamarous adornments. These things are clearly a concern, and cannot be glossed over simply by saying that that is not the original intention of the campaign. Of course it's not, and that's what Ben is warning about.
Thanks for your contribution Mike, and thanks Stu, for explaining the points I was making.
ReplyDeleteI would agree Mike, that for both me and you, and probably plenty of others, the poppy is, and should always be, a symbol of solemn remembrance. Unfortunately the problem with symbols is that they are always open to interpretation, and for some unfortunately the poppy is flashed around at this time of year like some sort of Union Jack, often by people who would be completely unable to tell you anything about Suez or the Balkans.
By using the term ‘we won’ and contrasting it with ‘the futility of war’, I was hoping to show the pigheadedness of anyone who genuinely sees a victory or any glory from war. I appreciate you may not have seen anything linking the poppy to nationalistic pride in war and its consequence, but unfortunately I did, by the bucket load. And often they were accompanied by racist slurs and motifs that I will not repeat on here. Given how you would appear to have a family (you mention your son), I would assume (and I apologise if this assumption is wrong) that perhaps we are exposed to the expressions of different generations with regards their attitudes to Armistice Day? It also the views of some other cultures, that we hold the poppy in some form of extroverted pride of victory, for instance recent years have seen official complaints by the Irish and the Chinese states about their wearing, and so it is not impossible to envisage that some within our own culture may attach the same significance.
I’m glad a good reception was received at the football, and appreciate all who genuinely contribute to the ‘common good’ as you call it, whatever their walk of life. Unfortunately I believe that within this crowd, while the bulk of the applauders, quite properly, will have been thinking ‘never again’, there will have been people applauding with the mindset of ‘bring it on’. I attend football matches almost weekly (I’m a Rotherham United fan), and you can’t tell me people with this attitude to anything THEY link to nationalism, don’t exist.
No Mike, due to research trips and returns to Rotherham, I have not done much shopping within the last 5 weeks, with the exception of trips to my local grocers, cornershop, and butchers, none of which were selling poppies. I will be going to Morrison’s on Monday, which I know has sold poppies in the past. I have seen plenty of poppies in the past, and indeed saw many this year, just not for sale, and as I alluded to in my original blog, I would normally buy one. For me they still represent a solemn gratitude, tinged with regret and a message of warning for the future.
I’m aware that the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes are different charities. I would imagine that at some point the RBL has provided some sort of support for the victims of the consequences of war, be this for soldiers or dependents, physical or emotional, especially as H4H was only set up in 2007. In my opinion, if anyone has been impacted by a war, which they probably did not start, I would consider this, ‘a mess’, especially when multiplied many times over.
Mike I understand that this solemn act of gratitude is why you wear your poppy, as do many others. My concern is that some don’t wear it for quite the same reasons, and this does not bode well for the future, therefore contradicting what I believe the aims of remembrance to be. I feel I have only addressed one part of my concern in my original blog within this reply. I would also say that this is being combined with a shiny commercial front to the appeal, which further obscures the stark message of the cause, and is apparently capitalising upon a wider, though much less extreme, growth in feeling.
I hope I have made myself clearer this time, though I feel I have repeated myself somewhat.