Wednesday 2 November 2016

Poppy patriotism


This morning I failed to sign a petition, sent by Email, calling on FIFA to permit the England and Scotland football teams to wear poppies on their shirts when they play each other on Friday 11th November.  I also note with some irritation that all presenters on BBC television, interviewees and MPs when televised from parliament, are already sporting poppies and that in recent years we have moved to have not one Remembrance Day but two, one on the 11th November and another on the nearest Sunday.

It seems to me that our "remembrance" is taking a wrong turning and, rather than being an occasion for expressing pity and regret for the slaughter and pain caused by the failure of politics in the past, plus a reolve to avoid such tragedies in the future, we are veering towards using the anniversary to  "falsely glorify war" ( a phrase used in the first comment on and article on a Labour Party site which supports the petition), and even as an excuse for jingoism..  The Royal British Legion refer to their pre-Remembrance Sunday display as a "Festival," a misnomer if ever there was one.

In my view Remembrance Day should be on the 11th itself, non-essential businesses and other activities, including sports, should cease, theatres and cinemas, other than those substituting programmes of genuine remembrance, should close, and "normal" television and radio programmes be abandoned in favour special ones devoted to the horror and pity of war.

Unfortunately this  is unlikely.   France does "close down " on the 11th November, but I was sad to note that young people, and indeed most people I asked, regarded the day as "just another holiday."

What is practically possible, I believe, is that we should have just one Remembrance Day, either the 11th or the nearest Sunday,  cut out the marching , bugles, medals  and military music designed to sanitise war, wear white poppies  along with or instead of  red ones, observe the silence at 11am, and properly fund through the state the treatment and rehabilitation of soldiers damaged physical or mentally in recent conflicts, and their families.

I wonder if the protesters who are so anxious that footballers should display their concern on their shirts would vote for this?

Post script (added 4th November)  I see that the footballers are to wear their poppies anyway, in defiance of the FIFA rule. This is yet another example of our growing immaturity.  FIFA is an international body and presumably we have representatives on it. Presumably we have put our case and been over-ruled.  A mature response is to accept the ruling and carry on.  Defiance is akin to an adolescent tantrum,


4 comments:

  1. in recent years we have moved to have not one Remembrance Day but two, one on the 11th November and another on the nearest Sunday.

    That's not recent. Armistice Day, marking specifically the end of the First World War, has been marked on the 11th of November since 1919. Remembrance Day, the second Sunday in November, is a separate day set aside to remember and honour the dead of all wars, and started in 1947 — hardly 'recent'.

    See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/z229kqt

    rather than being an occasion for expressing pity and regret for the slaughter and pain caused by the failure of politics in the past

    That would be difficult as not all wars are to be regretted: the second world war being the obvious example. We do not 'regret' having fought against the Nazis even as we honour those who fell in order that they could be defeated. To say we 'regret' that would be to say we would rather the Nazis had conquered Europe, and that I cannot say.

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    1. Re the two Remembrance Days, technically you are correct, but until recently the 11th was pretty well ignored and all attention concentrated on Remembrance Sunday. However, for the past few years (five?) the Royal British Legion has been urging that the silence be observed on the 11th as well as on the Sunday. My view is that we should choose one or the other (I'd prefer the 11th) and observe it in a non-militaristic fashion as described in the original post.

      The Second World War was the result of a failure of politics, in particular the totally unrealistic Versailles Treaty. It was also prolonged by the demand for Germany's unconditional surrender, and caused devastating slaughter and misery, particularly for the Russians. Regretting these does not preclude honouring those who fell on all sides.

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  2. It was also prolonged by the demand for Germany's unconditional surrender

    Really? At what point was Germany ready to negotiate a surrender?

    I mean, we know that at various points Hitler was ready to make peace with the British Empire provided he was allowed to keep his captured territory in Europe, but that would not have been a surrender of any kind, conditional or otherwise, and I assume you agree that that would have been unacceptable (as would allowing him to remain in power even just in Germany, frankly).

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    1. The argument is that, had there been the possibility of a deal, the generals would have ganged up on Hitler and got rid of him. Since the allies were adamant that surrender should be unconditional the generals had nothing to gain so had no option but to fight to the finish.

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