Poppies are everywhere this year, but some prefer a different colour
By B.C. | LONDON
THIS year the poppies bloomed early and more abundantly than ever. Since late last month, the red flowers (made of paper, plastic, metal or fabric) which commemorate the war dead of Britain and the Commonwealth seem ubiquitous, especially in London. More prominently than ever, they have been sold on the streets, and pinned to the lapels of television news readers, politicians and other celebrities. This year's commemorations have particular poignancy because a century has passed since the first world war—and also because Britain has just wound up a military campaign, in Afghanistan, in which 453 troops died. In a remarkable new art installation, the moat at the Tower of London has been covered with nearly 900,000 ceramic poppies, representing those who fell in the service of the Crown in 1914-1918.
All this serves as a kind of build-up to the Remembrance Sunday ceremonies, on November 9th this year, when the nation's political, military and spiritual leaders will lay wreaths at the Cenotaph monument in Whitehall and all other business in part of central London will come, at least briefly, to a respectful standstill. Senior Anglican clergy, as well as leaders of the Catholic, Reformed and Orthodox churches, along with leaders of many other faiths, lend their dignity to the occasion.
The poppy collection enables the Royal British Legion, a revered charity, to raise about £40m each year to help old soldiers and their families—and assist with the rehabilitation of those wounded in recent wars. This year the Legion has used the campaign slogan "Live On"—as a way of expressing its commitment "to the memory of the fallen and the future of the living."
But not everybody approves. Since 1933, there has been an alternative symbol of commemoration, the white poppy. It was devised by the Women's Co-operative Guild as a way of asserting that war commemorations should honour civilian victims as well as soldiers, and should somehow be combined with a pledge to avoid such terrible bloodshed in future. The cause was soon taken up by the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), a pacifist group that for a time attracted many secular leftists and anti-war Christians. It was founded by Dick Sheppard, the canon of Saint Paul's Cathedral. But the PPU and its activities were seen by some on the left as a gift to the rising forces of fascism and Nazism.
Even now, challenging the red poppy's hallowed status is seen as going against the grain, almost letting the side the side down. Jon Snow, a well-known news-reader, caused a ruckus when he said, a few years ago, that he would not give in to a mood of "poppy fascism" which compelled people to display the symbol.
Caroline Lucas, a member of Parliament for the Green Party, pushed the envelope by appearing this year on a television chat show with both a red poppy and a white one; and Jonathan Bartley, director of the religious think-tank Ekklesia, sported only a white one when he took part in a recent Sunday morning TV discussion. He told me he prefers it to the red variety on at least three grounds. First, the rhetoric of "laying down one's life for one's country" used by the British Legion tended to imply that all the causes in which British soldiers died were just ones—and therefore pre-empts any debate about the causes of war. Second, the red poppy remembered "soldiers on our side"—in contrast with the memorial service in London after the Falklands War which (to Margaret Thatcher's dismay) recalled the Argentine dead as well. Third, the red poppy ignored the fact that with every successive major war of the 20th century, the share of civilians affected (killed, wounded, displaced, blighted by radiation sickness) had been rising.
Not that Mr Bartley has any lack of respect for friends, whether secular or religious, who display the red poppy. But he feels it should be possible to have a "calm discussion" about how best to remember the war dead without people of dissenting views being made to feel heartless or treacherous. That sounds reasonable enough.
