Why I will not wear a poppy
This an an excellent article by Ian Bell, and one I wholeheartedly agree with.
When they marched the soldiers of France to the front after the slaughter at Verdun, country boys managed a country joke.
A slaughter beyond anything in Britain’s history had just taken place. Young men, rank upon rank, had been put to a wall of cauterising defensive fire, like so much daub stuck to a fracture in a theory.
And one young poilu, dragging his blue coat and his cheap boots through the sucking mud, said this: “Baaa!” Then all the yokels, with all their instinctual back-country meadow loyalty, began to say it, just for a last laugh. “Baaa!” they sang. Thousands then joined in, up and down the lines. The French troops knew, knew precisely, what their sacrifice really meant on the chopping board of policy and patriotism. Peasants are like that.
Remembrance Day started after the carnage and slaughter of World War One. The best way to honour the dead – including those dying today in Afghanistan – is to end wars and bring soldiers home.
The current poppy appeal fetishises martyrdom.
If you want to remember the dead, wear a white poppy.
in reference to: Why I will not wear a poppy – Herald Scotland | Comment | Ian Bell (view on Google Sidewiki)
