Poppies

[poliphilo]

Many thanks to my friend ideealisme for drawing my attention to this article on poppies by Robert Fisk.  Like Fisk I didn't buy a poppy this year and like Fisk my feelings on the subject are somewhat blustery and incoherent. I think they're that way because the subject is just too big and too enormous and too distressing. Perhaps the easiest thing would be to tabulate them.

1. The Great War was the stupidest- most monstrous thing- we (meaning us Brits) have ever got mixed up in. Wearing a little red flower doesn't begin to deal with it.

2. Wearing a poppy has become a badge of social conformity- of fitting in- and so very largely meaningless. Fisk gets cross about everyone on TV wearing one- and so do I.

3. The people who sell poppies usually wear berets and I don't feel happy about supporting anything that smacks of militarism. The Great War was a crime of militarism- a failure of that whole way of thinking- and I'd rather our commemoration of it was kept clean of flags, medals, hymns, royal personages, politicians, berets, marching feet and any talk of heroism.

Comments

[splodgenoodles.livejournal.com]

I'm relieved that when I was growing up, the meaning of the poppy was remembrance of the lost. Including remembering the lost hope of no more wars.

Over here our political masters are doing all they can to remilitarise the day. So wrong. It was a pointless tragedy and should be remembered as such.

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

I agree with you totally - i cannot be bothered by the whole shenanigans including wearing a poppy

Re: In Kilkenny.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yeah well, I've always thought cunts were quite good things.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I grew up in a era which really despised militarism. My generation wore uniforms to make fun of them- like the Beatles in their Sergeant Pepper phase. Since them we've seen the drums and the guns and the pride in "our boys" come creeping back.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The whole thing is getting sourer and sourer...

Re: In Kilkenny.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid the two things have become mixed up together. Wearing a poppy has become a test of patriotism- as defined by all the people I can't be doing with- and I'm not prepared to play along.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I'll happily put a tenner in the can (this year the collector I met was a splendid old Sikh WW2 veteran :o) but I won't wear a poppy, for much the reasons being discussed here.

Conformity for the sake of an easy life has never been my strongest suit.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I hate moral blackmail- and that's what it feels like.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Yes, it does and as you can imagine, I have a great deal of personal experience at the sharp end of that dark art.

I don't like the enforcement of silence either. As a Quaker, I know how silence works without being forced to observe it for the sake of conformity once a year.

[aellia.livejournal.com]

I see it was a three day event this year with top names singing at the Albert Hall. Fashion decrees the latest poppy style,fabric,jewel encrusted and even diamond studded I expect.
I saw,on the news,a clip of one of the Poppy Girls being unexpectedly reunited with her father at the Albert Hall when she was still on stage.
I thought it was rather cruel.

Thompson and Morgan sent be an email offering free P&P today as it was the Day of memorial.!!!

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

It's a good piece. I find the whole thing puts me in an impossible position. It seems to me that one might distinguish between supporting a war, and supporting those who have suffered personally in war. But I also feel that any show of support will be assimilated by politicians as support for whatever current conflict may be ongoing.

I come to two conclusions:
1. It's probably a subject where it's reasonable to feel uncomfortable about it.
2. The freedom for which they fought surely includes the freedom to dissent, especially from queasy and quasi-enforced ceremony.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to believe that that father-daughter reunion wasn't staged...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like your conclusions.