Mark Steel: Why should I be pressured into wearing a poppy?
The plan must be to honour the dead of past wars by starting new ones
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Independent Minds
It's Poppy Week, which means if you don't wear a poppy all week you're a filthy, dirty, low-life, scummy traitor. Yesterday, there was outrage in newspapers because a library in Derbyshire would not sell poppies, and a headline in the sports section of the Daily Mail complained: "Why are only 12 Premier League clubs wearing their poppies?"
Everyone on television has to wear a giant, beaming poppy, so there could be a documentary about the tribes of Africa and someone would complain that none of the Masai warriors were wearing poppies. The popular press will demand an apology from the swimming federation because none of the finalists in the 200m butterfly on Eurosport were wearing poppies on the backs of their trunks (with instructions to swim with their arses just above the water so as to keep their poppies visible and thereby pay suitable respects to our war heroes).
And letters in The Daily Telegraph will begin "Sir: while watching Night Nurse Knocking on the Adult Channel on the evening of 7 November, I was shocked to see that none of the nurses in question were adorned with poppies, as might be deemed appropriate in this week of solemn remembrance. My father fought at El Alamein, and one can only be grateful that he is no longer around to bear this fearsome insult."
Because the poppy means you care. So a Conservative defence spokesman will declare that he is so patriotic he wears TWO poppies, Peter Mandelson will announce that he is having a poppy tattooed on his face, and Nick Clegg will convert his house into a giant poppy with an opium den in the loft.
Yet the institutions that scream the most that we must respect our fallen soldiers through poppies and Remembrance Day are the same ones that are most keen to have a new bunch of wars to create a new generation of dead soldiers to remember. This must be the plan; to remind us about the dead of previous wars by keeping a flow of dead coming in from new wars.
Maybe that's why the First World War happened in the first place – the Kaiser, Lloyd George and the Tsar of Russia met in 1914 and said, "We could sort this out peacefully, but then we'd have no way of remembering the dead, which would be deeply insulting to those who would have died, so off we go."
So the poppy wasn't chosen as a symbol of the horror and pointlessness of that war, but as a celebration. The poem on which it was founded was supposed to be a cry from a dead soldier in Belgium that went, "Take up our quarrel with the foe/ We shall not sleep though poppies grow."
The Royal British Legion that sells the poppies often has a slogan at its stalls that reads "1914: The Glorious War". It is possible they are being ironic, but in that case they are too subtle, and might be better with "1914: oh very glorious, with hardly any casualties and only the tiniest hint of shell-shock, and fought to end all wars which worked a treat I suppose".
The sense of war and glory may derive from the founder of the poppy tradition, Earl Haig, the General in charge of British troops in northern Europe, 350,000 of which were wiped out at Passchendaele. Haig was derided as an idiot by almost all observers at the time, including most servicemen, but said: "I know quite well I am a tool of divine power."
I suppose if God hadn't been guiding him there would have been 350,001 casualties. He then had a furious row with Lloyd George because he wanted to be in the front coach at the victory parade, and the surviving soldiers must have wished he'd displayed a similar eagerness to be at the front while he was in the Somme.
So Haig was as responsible as almost anyone for the slaughter, then set up the foundation to remember those who were killed during it. You might as well have let Harold Shipman set up a foundation to remember old women who died after seeing a doctor.
Most people who sell or buy poppies are probably not doing so in honour of Earl Haig, but are remembering the casualties in their own way and contributing to the charity for injured soldiers. But that raises the question of why these soldiers are dependent on charity in the first place.
It seems the Government that has devised a series of tricks for reducing compensation payments then makes the poor sods beg with a poppy. The next move will be to make returning wounded servicemen dance for pennies in libraries.
But maybe this is why the Government is so keen on the current war – it is convenient to have another one in a place full of poppies, as we have already got the remembrance stuff ready without having to change the flower.
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Comments
Mark's point is surely that wearing a poppy should be a personal choice. There's a dogmatic insistence that not wearing a poppy is unpatriotic, which usually comes from those armchair generals who cheerfully send troops into battle at no risk to themselves and perpetuate the nonsense of a glorious death in battle. There may be honour, and sacrifice, but there's no glory.
Most people who sell or buy poppies are probably not doing so in honour of Earl Haig, but are remembering the casualties in their own way and contributing to the charity for injured soldiers. But that raises the question of why these soldiers are dependent on charity in the first place.
As Mark is saying the problem with the season of Remembrance is the way politicians and the media adapt our collective memory of past wars to justify current conflicts. Who knows what all those dead tommies would make of operations in Afghanistan, and who cares? So long as the apparent worth of their sacrifice shrouds the dubious things our army is doing today in a form of unimpeachable glory. What it says is army is army and whatever the government orders them to do is right.
The poppy commemorates millions who fought against the Nazi and fascist dictatorships as well as in other conflicts.
No matter what one thinks of the current illegal wars, the troops on the ground deserve better than being spat on in the streets by rioting immigrants or sneered at by this washed up ageing Trot.
After the flat footed, embarrassing performance on 'Have I Got News For You' last week it's fairly clear that Steel's standup career is finished (he was never more than a third rate socialist sneerer, fir for student union gigs) and now it would seem that his 'career' as a columnist has hit a new personal low.
Best thing Steel can do is to grow up and get a proper job.
Erm... I must've missed something. When on earth did that happen?! Oh wait... it didn't.
If people wish to fight ror queen and corporation, go ahead, but do not come winging back to me.
I always used to buy a poppy in rememberance of WW1 & WW2, but now these veterans are no more, I do not.
And when was the last time you heard soldiers whinging about the wrongs of sending them out to fight?
I think you're just a tight-arse. Nothing wrong with that but please don't use spurious reasoning to disguise your meanness.
Though Mark may be overstating some of his points, many of them are still valid. We are never going to be in a position to not need armed forces and I guess that means there will always be armed conflict. And we shouldn't need to support or armed forces through acts of charity, but the government are quite happy to let the public bail them out. I wear a poppy purely because I choose to do so - not to show that we beat the Nazis (that'd be WWII and I think the poppy tradition dates from WWI) - but because if we ever stop thinking about the stupidity behind the wars (including the latest crop) the situations that birth them will come about more often.
I choose to believe that the poppy makes people think, and talk, about why we need them. So if Mark's article gets a few of you stirred up - good - it's better to think for yourself than simply to agree and go along with something just because everyone else does the same.
I seem to recall that there has been the odd Sun column identifying people not wearing poppies so, yes, there is pressure.
I have had people who know something of my politics ask me why I am wearing a poppy, which is a good occasion to remind them that good people die on both sides. When they ask me why I am not wearing a poppy I remind them that it is still only October an I prefer to mark remembrance week. Personally, I think that not wearing a poppy because you think the government should do more is a bit of a cop out. Buy your poppy, think about who it is for and then do something about it. No pressure.
I'm sorry you don't subscribe to this, but it's your right not to do so. Just don't bleat on about how pressured you feel just in order to fill a column.
I reckon ironspiderzero's comments are very sensible,and thanks Mark for raising the subject.
This is one such. For it to appear on the morning when five British soldiers have been killed in one incident demonstrates that it was always a hostage to fortune.
And of course your last sentence was not in the least bit infantile. It was extremely mature and erudite of you to make (yet another) illogical link between Mr Steel's facial appearance and faulty televisions. Well done you infantile....infant.
The poppy is about respect for the fallen, nothing to do with politicians.
Sad that they have to rely on charity, they shouldn't have to. But whilst they do then we are all beholden to them for our freedom. Without the fallen of especially WW2, who knows what sort of country we would be living in today.
Maybe a trip to the war cemetries in France and Belgium will help you visualise the sacrifice made by countless young men.
Grow up, Mr Steel, this article is not worthy of you.
No one pressurised YOU to wear a poppy Mark but writing your column and getting paid for it, that may well be a kind of pressure you are under. The sentiment of your piece is about as self serving and shallow as it gets. And oddly, so childish.
Thankfully, poppy wearing isn't about you Mark. Its about a much more poignant subject. Remembering the war dead.
By his reasoning I should never watch the programme again because of the bias of the producers in putting his unfunny unpleasant persona on the show.
But I will, of course (as long as he's not on it).
Mark isn't attacking the wearing of poppies or insulting dead or injured current or ex soldiers. The article is a comment on the way politicians and generals send people off to die and kill. It's anti war not anti poppy or anti soldier.
I would have thought this paragraph made this absolutely clear - "Most people who sell or buy poppies are probably not doing so in honour of Earl Haig, but are remembering the casualties in their own way and contributing to the charity for injured soldiers. But that raises the question of why these soldiers are dependent on charity in the first place."
Me thinks some people never read past the first few paragraphs; a fatal mistake.
If you wish to wear a poppy then do so, & if not that's also fair enough as far as I am concerned.
The real scandal, as pointed out in the article, is that the Government seem to treat those they send away to die so shabbily if they survive & make it home.
Of course if they die they are a hero & their grieving parents are given a medal, wow, now that's generous!
There have been two unnecessary wars in this Government's tenure, in the past eight years in fact.
The current poppy-wearing mania is surely all about Afghanistan, which is an unnecessary and pointless war where people are dying for no good reason.
It is all very well to blindly wear a poppy, but perhaps those that wear one should be directing their discontent at the British Government for being responsible for the deaths of those soldiers; for sending them there in the first place. The casualties are strangely seen as being inevitable, by those politically-apathetic poppy-wearers.
I notice that Jon Snow on Channel Four News never wears a poppy which I commend him for.
We should be treating them respectfully.
No way should a secretary with RSI get more compensation than a soldier.
The MoD is like a child in an (arms) bazaar.
And if I agreed with everything Mark Steel said, I would worry for my sanity, not his.
Opinions on Haig are going to vary; that's the beauty of history.
And the way that the government has started referring to soldiers who took part in the invasion of Iraq as 'veterans' - as if the invasion was, like WW2, a fight against fascism rather than for it - has made sure that I'll never buy a poppy again.
self righteous Daily Mail reading community round table martinets, the petty administrators, the right wing schoolteachers, the failed army recruits turned pervy Scoutmaster, the nightclub bouncers who couldnt get into the police, the war film officionados who read one too many Warlord comics as a kid and think that war is kind of cool and manly, the silly cows who love a man in uniform (except when hes only got one leg, 80% burns and a serious case of PTSD )etc etc will come crawling out the woodwork and deride you as a traitor for daring to suggest that war sucks. .
All the while the vets with horrendous physical and mental injuries are left to rot on the breadline, well they have outlived their usefulness.
And we donate to those who were and are maimed during their service - have you no heart Mark Steel?
shame on you.
For the rest of the time (that's nearly all of the time) they're doing a paid job for politicians and (by extension) corporations. (There are exceptions, such as most peacekeeping work.)
So, I will not be bullied by the social pressure that very must exists to celebrate soldiers' work and well said Mark for bringing up what's nearly unsayable.
And before ye' bother, don't give me any shite about charities. They shouldn't need charity, and if they do there's ways of giving to it that don't involve a political statement of support for war.
I disagree with the current wars that the UK are fighting - every one of them - but it doesn't stop REMEMBERING those who put their lives at risk as soldiers for this country. With hindsight we can all look at the WW1 and realise what a stupid futile waste that particular conflict was. But showing respect in their memory is the least we can all do. So buy a poppy for them and show some form of decency to your forefathers.
Well said Mr Steel. I contribute to the Earl Haig Fund every year - My next-door neighbour is the street organiser. And it's folding money I give, not a miserly £1 or a measly 50p. But I always decline the proffered poppy, as I've never been easy with the militaristic connotations which I associate it with. All this 'Our Great & Glorious Dead' stuff, leaves me cold. I sympathise with all those familes who've lost loved ones in our never ending 'campaigns' and feel that all military personnel should be far better cared for once they become 'hors de combat'.
I enjoy Marks rants but I feel he should he read and reread his work before posting.