mtbc | Wearing remembrance poppies

In the UK this year we have Armistice Day immediately followed by Remembrance Sunday so we had two periods of silence this weekend. This morning we have BBC One showing the service at the Cenotaph in Whitehall and BBC Two showing from Australia the rugby league match between England and France, creating what for me is a typical conflict because what I feel I should do and what I actually want to do. At least my nearer family members, both military and civilian, survived their conflicts but even my civilian family members still suffered much loss through war.

The wearing of the remembrance poppies has become politicized enough to confuse me. I do not see that the red poppies are necessarily positively encouraging of war, quite the opposite, though the term glory is flexible enough that I can see how those who want to see things like that can do so. Despite my reluctance to indulge semantic change, perhaps what a remembrance poppy effectively symbolizes may be what people now take it to symbolize, whatever the wearer intends. My appearances in society are mostly work-related and I feel bound to keep politics out of the workplace.

Jesus warns us that your almsgiving must be secret and when you pray, go to your private room, shut yourself in and part of me wonders if such acts of remembrance should be similar: that it is good to remember but ostentation does not quite fit. I can imagine that some may find comfort in seeing that their remembrance is shared but I doubt that anybody who is likely to see me will be much comforted by my poppy-wearing. One may donate to the Royal British Legion without requiring a poppy in return but, without the poppies, people may not think to.