to get DD a white poppy to wear at a remembrance service?

[GallumDrawnAndQuartered]

She is 14 and has been selected by the school to represent her house at their service.

DD is vehemently pacifist and anti-war.

Rather than her get in trouble for refusing to go (which is what she is planning on doing) would it be unreasonable for her to go but to wear a white poppy instead of a red one?

Unlike today's 14yo i was 14 20 years ago when my grandparents and other war veterans were in their 60s and early 70s. So i got to hear everything 'first hand' off them. Even those who were conscripted saw the newsreels of the blitzkreig and knew what the price of failure could be.
I could say much more but can't be bothered so just one thing: i will be wearing the red poppy with pride to remember the people who died so i could be born. (I am part-jewish). It's that simple.

Savoy - I think if my son was dead I wouldn't be that arsed about someone wearing a white poppy.

War is controversial and rightly so. This idea that we should support the troops and stay silent about why the conflicts they are in are wrong is very creepy and the antithesis of freedom.

"War is controversial and rightly so. This idea that we should support the troops and stay silent about why the conflicts they are in are wrong is very creepy and the antithesis of freedom." - I think you are missing the point. There is a time and place for freedom and expression which is what many people died to protect. A service of Remembrance, that many attend to remember loved ones is not it.

A White poppy would only be disrespectful if its purpose was to say that we should no honour or remember or grieve for the dead.

But that is not what it says. It says honour, remember and grieve - and work towards a future when no one will have to suffer the way soldiers, their families and civilians suffer in war.

My dd made a poster with white and red poppies on it last year - it said "Look back in remembrance - look forward in hope"

Anyone care to add her to their list of c**ts?

Looking through this post i think it is very disrespectful of your daughter not to wear a red poppy and at her age it is a good time to learn that sometimes we do things we may not agree with as it is 'the right thing to do, which in this case is wear a red poppy

I think that sums it up perfectly, GiddyPickle and that is the thing to tell DD.

Savoy - if my 19 year old son had been killed in conflict I would see a child wearing a white poppy (message - "peace") as a sign that when his/her generation are running the country then maybe the govt will think twice before sending boys like mine off to die. It's a message of hope.

Statements like this: "You strike me as being rather unworthy of the freedoms that people died for." just make me feel queasy. If people died to preserve freedom of expression (and no doubt many did) then speaking freely is not an insult to their memory. Not a single person has denigrated the efforts and the memory of the soldiers of the last century or previous ones for that matter.

The red poppy strikes a hollow note when its message is "never again". It is happening again - there are conflicts everywhere. In 1995 my school celebrated "50 years of peace in Europe", well there hasn't been.

I keep looking but I have never seen anyone wear a white poppy and I have never seen any for sale.
The arguments for and against are something for DD to really study, but the main point is that the Rememberance Service isn't an appropriate place for her to make a protest. Either take part or step down.
I can feel for her-as a teenager I saw things in 'black and white' -it is only as an adult that I realised that there are many shades of grey.

Am I the only one who thinks Wingdad's post is really rude??

He starts by saying that he hasn't had the courtesy to read everyone else's response, because he assumes they'll be wrong. Why, exactly?

But then deigns to provide us with his opinion, because unlike the rest of ours, his is apparently worth something...

And of course says what the vast majority of people have been saying since the very first page. Which he'd know if he'd bothered to read the thread, and didn't just assume that a bunch of women wouldn't know what it was all about.

Let's try to explain this again as some people are either stupid or deliberately missing the point.

Wearing a white poppy to a remembrance service is no different to waving a CND placard about. Completely inappropriate, massively disrespectful and guaranteed to hugely offend.

Both the white poppy and CND campaign are in themselves admirable causes (depending on your outlook) but are most definitely political ones.

Now you may claim that you're not making a political statement or that you're not looking to offend by wearing a white poppy to a service or that you won't be disrespecting the service but you absolutely will and if you're prepared to do so in full knowledge of what you're about to "achieve" - well, then that makes you a cunt.

As you may have guessed, I'm not a fan of the white poppy - I dislike the fact that it looks to politicise an event that is decidedly apolitical, I dislike that it says nothing that the red poppy doesn't already and I dislike that it attempts to use the red poppy iconography to further its own cause. But then it's a free country so if people want to wear them then fair enough.

But they really really shouldn't be worn to a remembrance service - at least without a red alongside it.

"But then deigns to provide us with his opinion, because unlike the rest of ours, his is apparently worth something..."

As Wingdad is a serving member of the armed forces I'd say his opinion is rather more important than everyone else posting on this thread.

Once again, I agree with all of those saying that this is not the right time or place. A lit of people seem to be unable to make the distinction between remembering the dead and agreeing with what they died for.

Remembrance Day i not, and never has been, about celebrating victory or saying that war was right. It is effectively a funeral. I would imagine that one of the reasons behind it was to allow the nation to grieve en masse for a lost generation. Families grieved for the own loved ones, but a lot of people would have wanted the opportunity to mourn all of the dead, not just those they had known personally.

It is a funeral for a lost part of our society.

Doesn't mean he isn't being a tad rude by not reading everyone else's opinions, as well as assuming we'd all get the wrong end of the stick.

5DolalarShake - no I don't find WingDad's comment rude what he actually said he you had read his post properly was

"I haven't read all 17 pages of this thread, purely because I fear there may be some very misguided comments contained there, though I may be wrong."

He has read all of a very very long thread (lots of people don't before jumping in and posting their opinion).

He fears there may be some very misguided comments but he may be wrong about that.

Not that he thinks everyone else is wrong

Perhaps you should take the courtesy of reading his post properly

and note "some" misguided comments - not all misguided

well said Wingdad

Still don't get why a white poppy is disrespectful. It is still honouring the fallen, hoping for future peace.
Automatically labelling those who wear them as disrespectful or self-dramatising or politicising cunts is both ridiculous and offensive. I've seen people in remembrance day parades and services wearing them and no-one getting irate or upset about it.

It is dangerously and unpleasantly dictatorial to say that it has to be the red poppy or nothing, and that those who don't subscribe to the red poppy are being disrespectful/don't care/are being childish and putting their own beliefs above remembrance: no, they're just not presenting their remembrance and thoughts about war in the same way as another bunch of people.

No badge or symbol - red or white poppy - is apolitical either. One does not trump the other in the "real remembrance stakes".

To the OP. I don't believe your dd should go to the Rememberance service. You state in your post that she does not want to go.

Let her give someone else the chance to go. Someone who really wants to remember the people who died fighting wars.

MaMoTTaT I did read it properly, thanks. :)

How can you say he has read all of the thread, when he says he hasn't?

He then says he fears there may be some very misguided comments - I just find this assumption (even though he admits he may be wrong, without bothering to actually find out) inherently rude, especially when you consider that the majority of people had already said what he said.

I totally agree with what he has to say! I fully support the Poppy appeal, my grandfather fought in WWII and ignorance around this topic riles me greatly.

I was just really quite by the rest of his post, though.

No big deal. I AM obviously I only one!

"The White Poppy symbolises the belief that there are better ways to resolve conflicts than killing strangers." (take from the text that is visible on the first link when you search for white poppy on google - from the whitepoppy website itself)

Great - not a problem - but on the ONE day in the year when we are supposed to remembering those who have died in conflicts I think it's disrespectful to those who did die, and for those attending the services who have lost people close to them in conflict.

As someone else says - wear a white poppy on the other 364 in the year not a problem, but to wear something on Remembrance day (to me) smacks of "yeah well sorry they died but you know you could have done things differently so it didn't happen at all"

Remembrance day/servives are not the British Legion's private party. As I said above, the people who died were our people. God knows why everyone is assuming that the OP's daughter hasn't had grandfathers or uncles or sisters caught up or dying in the wars.

You don't need to wear a poppy to attend - that is ridiculous. It's like saying you need to wear a crucifix before you're allowed into church. It's an extra way of showing your support if you want to wear one.

The idea of ranks of people glaring at this girl for wearing a sign of peace, at an event that marks the tragedy of war seems to me nonsensical and sad.