Before I begin, please note that I’m not discussing people who simply forget to wear poppies or can’t be bothered. That’s another issue, one I don’t have a real problem with. By all means, exercise your right to choose whether or not to wear a poppy.
However, I’ve noticed a growing trend towards a sort of protest of the poppy. Until this year, I wasn’t even aware that there were people who purposefully didn’t wear poppies. The impression I’ve gotten so far is that this idea of not wearing a poppy is based on a misconception.
This misconception is that the poppy – and Remembrance Day, by extension – represents a glorification of war. It does not. The poppy is a symbol of remembrance – a remembrance of all of the dead who suffered immensely in the defence of our country and of others. Whether you support the wars or not, they happened, and those people died – and they mostly died for you.
The Royal Canadian Legion website gives us the history of the poppy. As we all know, the tradition of the poppy was based on “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae. What many might not know – what I did not know until recently – is that poppies began their career in 1922, made by crippled veterans of the First World War who were unable to work other jobs due to their injuries.
So the symbol is renewed. Many who did not lose their lives in the wars lost their livelihoods. And they make the poppies not so we could rejoice in what victory they may have ultimately made, but so we can be reminded each year of what they lost.
To this effect, the poppy to me seems to be its own symbol of the horror of war. We wear it to remember those we lost to such a terrible thing. When I go down to my local cenotaph each year, I am not struck by pride for our victories. Instead, I listen to the lone trumpet that plays “Last Post” and “Reveille” and to the sombre two minutes of silence, and am made speechless by the tragedy and humanity of war.
And so my point is this. The poppy is not a symbol of victory, but of defeat – the defeat of ourselves. We wear it to remember the weight we bear from the tragedies of our past and present. The poppy serves to humble us to keep away the arrogance that sparks the wars one would protest.
So feel free to protest the glorification of war, and feel free to choose whether or not you will wear a poppy. But do not confuse the two. Not wearing a poppy is not an objection to the cruelty and horror of war. Instead, it means you are willing to forget those who know the aforementioned all too well. And it’s easy enough to do so as it is, sitting comfortably in our homes, relatively unthreatened.