To remind you all of this BEFORE the Poppy becomes a divisive symbol

Even before the second world war there were concerns it was linked to a glorification of war. It’s not about where the money is going, it’s about war been seen as a noble thing. This is why the white poppy was brought out. I’m not sure this is a suitable day to be having this conversation. I finding raising it to today disrespectful.

There are still many ex service personnel now who don’t like the way the poppy symbol is used for a whole host of reason including for showing war as positive way to die and honouring it and for the lip service of politican while providing limited support to veteran throughout the year.

Depending on how long ago that was he either wasn't old enough to have fought in WW2 are barely old enough when it ended.

It’s divisive because ex-service personnel aren’t necessarily ‘heroes’. As I seem to keep saying in these threads, Soldier F is ‘ex-service personnel’, and he and his colleagues in the Parachute Regiment shot and killed civilians they knew were unarmed, and were allowed to get away with it for more than fifty years by the British establishment in a series of whitewashing tribunals, until it was simply too late to get a prosecution, though it is now acknowledged that there is ‘no doubt’ that ‘Soldier F’ shot three victims, including one in the back of the head as he helped another victim. The same regiment implicated in the Ballymurphy massacre.

Excuse me for thinking the situation is considerably more complex than ‘Help for Heroes’.

Surely most people know that people of all nationalities served during the war. As it was a, World War it involved many different races - grateful for them all.

How? It hasn't. The Poppy appeal goes to ex service personnel as it always has. How is that divisive. I will always wear a poppy to remember the fallen including members of my family.

Are you going to address the point of what the poppy has gone on to represent - a general support for armed forces even when we have been the aggressor and a symbol of military endorsement?

Ridiculous posts like this make the poppy divisive. Who ever said that the poppy represents white soldiers? No one Iknow . It is just a way of remembering ALL those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

After seeing some of the absolutely outrageous comments on social media this week I think this year will be my last year wearing one. I will always remember them but I don’t want to be associated with that sort of person.

The poppy was choosen as the symbol of remeberance as it was the first thing to grow again on the battlefields of World War 1. It was a World War; by definition it involved and affected peoples from around the world. It commemorates in order that we never forget the horrors of war and aim not to allow it to happen again. Which is of course divisive only if you are a warmongerer.

I wear one to remember my grandfather who fought, and survived, WW1. The horror he must have seen as a teenager and young man, I can't comprehend. Even harder to comprehend is how he went on to lead a good, honest and happy life.

Trying to make the poppy divisive is a miserable reflection on those who attempt to stir up outrage for a symbol that is intended to be a reminder of how precious peace is. Lest we forget.

I think many people don't know this OP. I'm well aware because my father was a medic in the war and worked alongside Sikhs, Muslims and people from the Caribbean. Each year I attend a memorial service for different nationalities that fought and died in the war. On Tuesday I will be attending a Sikh service that I have graciously been invited to.

Do you have evidence of these events OP or it is just hearsay?

@BreadandCircus a fair point, albeit a tad one-sided 😉

Its well known in forces circles that many charities like to take in money far more than they like dishing it out 😉

There was no shortage of British military atrocities in Ireland, so many Irish people wouldn't wear one. Their own relatives may have been in the war (as were mine), but the poppy doesn't distinguish between them.

Certainly. Let me point out that this is not the ‘Gotcha’ you clearly think it is.

In the case of the surviving two of my four great uncles who fought in WWI (two died on the Somme), two had the pleasure of watching their home city centre burned to the ground and looted by British army forces, many of whom were WWI veterans, only two years after the armistice.

In the case of my great uncle John, who lived to be a very old man, he also lived to see a British army regiment firing on unarmed civilians as they were running away, on a civil rights march in Derry on Bloody Sunday. It is probably fortunate he didn’t live long enough to see that they got away with it, despite the justice system (eventually) concluding that they did not believe themselves under threat, and that they knew their targets were unarmed.

He would have thought an Irish person wearing a poppy was deluded.

I do not think the poppy is a symbol of war at all. It is a symbol of respect and honour for those who served their country. I am ethnically Indian. I had one uncle who died serving in the British army and a great grandfather executed by the Japanese for feeding the British on their retreat in Malaya. I am proud to have volunteered for poppy collections in the past and will do again when I have time.

You are remembering the dead and why/ how they died. We are in danger of giving the corporate sector the right to define everything when it is just the vehicle for things - I know it boils down to money on one level but that’s not the only level we live on. We do it for the people in society who have lost others, too so they don’t feel it was in vain. Might seem sentimental or disingenuous to some but to others it really is important- if you are Irish you have the months mind which serves a similar purpose doesn’t it? To remember someone once they are gone? Of course, it’s a personal thing but as the soldiers died collectively for the country it’s commemorated collectively with the poppy.

Unlikely to want to support present-day British Army personnel though, which is what you are doing when you purchase a poppy.
ETA if you could do the remembrance part without the supporting the British forces part, there wouldn’t be any issue.

Yes indeed.

Google 'Royal British Legion Cash reserves'

then google 'homeless UK veterans'

something's not right, for sure

You do realise that Irish people also fought in the wars, do you not?

Freedom not to wear a poppy...I think not

www.dailymail.co.uk/tv/article-15256493/itv-backlash-gmb-poppy-kevin-mcguire-charlene-white.html

Not really. The number of MNers I’ve seen over the years showing their ignorance of things like the Holocaust and blaming that on what they did or didn’t learn at school. That’s just unacceptable ignorance in an adult. Libraries are free for all. Plenty of documentaries on TV. Facts and figures at your fingertips on the phone being used right now.

Ignorance is a choice for the majority.