Today in Britain we honour soldiers who have fought on our behalf. Emphasis is given to the fallen, those whose hopes and fears came to an abrupt end in trenches or on battlefields. But the actual funds from the Poppy Appeal go to support those soldiers who did return from war, injured and shellshocked, finding it nearly impossible to re-adjust to civilian life.
Every soldier makes a sacrifice when they sign up to fight. They know that they are severely increasing their chances of dying in the near future, but they also know that their lives will be drastically different if they do return. Yet still they fight; and all our lives would be worse if they did not.
I don't think buying and wearing a poppy constitutes a celebration of war, because I honestly don't believe anyone has seen war as glorious since 1914. Remember that the poppy symbol comes from the end of war, from the first signs of life which returned to Flanders fields after the eleventh of the eleventh. By wearing a poppy you are not saying war is awesome. You are saying, "I like being relatively safe and free, I like being able to speak my mind and live under a democracy, and I recognise that many people had to die and suffer for this to be so".
We take so much for granted in the West, because imagining a life different from yours is always difficult, and because our immense wealth is so mind-blowing when you stop to think about it that it convinces you that stopping to think about things is overrated. But this is one day when we can pause to pay attention to what has been sacrificed for our improbably free and luxurious today, and honour those who suffered so that people they never met could vote and bitch about politicians and write blog posts and make friends with black and gay people.
Above all, what the poppy says is "thank you". And if every human being wore a poppy all year round for the duration of their lives, that might be half of the thanks those who went to war deserve.
Every soldier makes a sacrifice when they sign up to fight. They know that they are severely increasing their chances of dying in the near future, but they also know that their lives will be drastically different if they do return. Yet still they fight; and all our lives would be worse if they did not.
I don't think buying and wearing a poppy constitutes a celebration of war, because I honestly don't believe anyone has seen war as glorious since 1914. Remember that the poppy symbol comes from the end of war, from the first signs of life which returned to Flanders fields after the eleventh of the eleventh. By wearing a poppy you are not saying war is awesome. You are saying, "I like being relatively safe and free, I like being able to speak my mind and live under a democracy, and I recognise that many people had to die and suffer for this to be so".
We take so much for granted in the West, because imagining a life different from yours is always difficult, and because our immense wealth is so mind-blowing when you stop to think about it that it convinces you that stopping to think about things is overrated. But this is one day when we can pause to pay attention to what has been sacrificed for our improbably free and luxurious today, and honour those who suffered so that people they never met could vote and bitch about politicians and write blog posts and make friends with black and gay people.
Above all, what the poppy says is "thank you". And if every human being wore a poppy all year round for the duration of their lives, that might be half of the thanks those who went to war deserve.
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