Every November, we get into a discussion, debate, or disagreement with someone about Remembrance Day poppies, and what they represent. This year those debates were handed to us, when Whole Foods announced, then reversed, a ban on their employees wearing poppies within a single day.
I wear a mask and a poppy, because I believe in science, I hate war for how it enforces poverty, but I honour the dead knowing every grave, in every military cemetery around the world, represents someone whose death was devastating to those who loved them. #LestWeForget pic.twitter.com/vdkcaEtzkH
— Abby (@abbythetweet) November 6, 2020
Take it from a leftie who despises war, and doesn’t lean on the narrative that wars were fought for our freedom (because freedom is nothing if you disagree with your government, apparently – but that’s another blog for another day!):
I will always wear a poppy. Not a white poppy, either, though I have no quarrels at all with those who do. I don’t wear a red poppy to adhere strictly to traditional narratives of Remembrance Day. I wear it because men and women died in war, and we can remember them, whether or not their ultimate sacrifice impacted us directly. We can remember them as humans who perished, whose death devastated their loved ones, and we can remember that they died fighting what is, usually, someone’s else’s war.
We can remember civilians caught in the crossfire during wealthy countries’ corporate wars. We can wear a poppy and throw a little support to our local legions – where we all known damn well the beer is cheapest, vibe is dankest, and the darts and conversations are the greatest. (I swear to Christmas, if you comment, I’d rather debate poppies with you than the righteousness of local legions.)
Besides, it’s a little extra Canadian to wear a poppy (though they do it across much of the UK, too), and it’s among the reasons I will always wear mine. The world famous poem, ‘In Flanders Fields,’ was written by Canadian solder John MacCrae in the trenches during World War I. Personally, I love this poem. It’s eerie and beautiful all at once.
History is one of our greatest tools, if we use it correctly, and I’m speaking to my fellow anti-war lefties with this one: If we forget Remembrance Day in some overtly pacifistic ‘down with war’ gesture, we lose a platform through which ‘down with war’ protestations have relevance. And we come across as people doomed to repeat history by sliding too far down the anti-war spectrum, to a place where even the far left feels the only way to encourage mass acceptance of an idea is through force.
Wear a red poppy. Wear a white poppy. Don’t wear any poppy. It doesn’t really matter how you commemorate Remembrance Day. But trying to police how people commemmorate this day by taking away poppies, forcing them to leave this day behind as a relic of two World Wars for which most veterans have since passed – it’s not likely to happen. So find your own meaning in this day, without being a self-righteous dick about how other people choose to remember.
Lest We Forget.
