To not wear a poppy?

227 replies

Notjustmesurely · 31/10/2023 15:27

I just don’t like how it’s expected or assumed you will wear one.
A friend at work bought me a poppy bracelet type thing which was kind of her but I literally wore it for that one shift and haven’t worn it since.
I appreciate its symbolism but don’t appreciate the assumption that everyone is going to be wearing one or HAS
to wear one to appreciate the cause.
If I were to wear one it would be for the conscripts who had no choice in the matter during the world wars. Not for the “modern day” political wars that the UK has involved itself in. Help for heroes and all that. The charity should come from the politicians who vote for it imo?
Newsreaders and celebs slated for not wearing one as well, what’s that all about.
Dunno it just all seems a bit fascist these days.
I always have and always will observe the two minutes silence tho.

OP posts:

Flatulence · 06/11/2023 21:19

PomegranateRose · 05/11/2023 21:26

Exactly this, thank you for this (and your other posts above)!

While the cause of fighting Nazis is obviously good, and while Nazism as a movement is obviously fundamentally and terribly evil, I do feel that portraying the wars as a great battle "between good and evil", with "heroes" and villains, is oversimplifying (and some might say romanticising) somewhat.

While the sacrifices made were undoubtedly heroic in their scale and stakes, there is a narrative around remembrance that does disservice to the nature of the conflict on the ground, the social contexts precipitating and perpetuating enlistment and conscription, and the realities of war and its intrinsic devaluing of human life. I feel that this narrative plays too well into the hands of war-mongering governments for it to be responsible to perpetuate it, personally.

One way that this manifests is in the apparent taboo around questioning or exploring how we remember and discuss wars past and present. Nobody wants to be perceived as disrespecting apparent "heroism". The fact that some people take such affront to the very existence or wearing of white poppies to remember everyone lost through war is an example of this in action - you're either on the same page with this reverent narrative of the armed forces vocally and specifically, or you're (supposedly) inherently disrespectful of the sacrifices that were made to preserve your freedom to have differing opinions/practices (a catch-22 in itself in my opinion). Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone - rather just a dynamic I've seen emerge.

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Sayitaintso33 · 08/11/2023 18:34

Diolchynfawr · 06/11/2023 14:20

I don’t understand why anyone would donate to the British Legion but not wear a poppy?

What exactly do people think poppies stand for?

I wear a poppy because thousands of innocent men, on both sides of conflict were sent to be slaughtered in WW1, and then WW2. Personally, it’s WW1 I think about in particular, because life and death in the trenches was so brutal and senseless. It is to remember them and to remember “never again”

I remember the courageous dead and wounded by donating.

Very sadly the poppy has been hijacked by autocratic, jingoistic nationalists.

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