Poppy

Mookie Blaylock · 08-11-2018 4:56pm

I have gotten poppies for both my daughter and myself and she will be in aice liom, domhnach / Sunday when we attend the grave of her great grand uncle who gave his life trying to save Jewish families in Belgium in 1944.

At dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis

zapitastas · 08-11-2018 5:54pm

Spook_ie wrote: »

None of those who DIED in WW1 returned, those are the ones that REMEMBERANCE is about.

This is quite easy. Most of the British soldiers that carried out attroticies here had cut their teeth in WWW1. The poppy is used in rememberance of those same soldiers. It is an unacceptable symbol of British colonialism. There are other symbols available that don't carry the same connotations

Spook_ie · 08-11-2018 7:43pm

That is as you think, however, please remember that there are people who had relatives die in the trenches and at sea etc. it would be nice if just for a few minutes of Sunday you could put your animosity to one side and allow them to remember the sacrifices made so that people can express their views, even yours, without fear of punishment.

johnp001 · 08-11-2018 7:50pm

This is the best thing I have read on the subject...

I don’t wear poppies, and this image perfectly encapsulates why

The Royal British Legion tweeted this image of a fundraising event. Look at it.

In the image, four children aged around twelve stand, holding gigantic plastic poppies. Three of the children wear t-shirts saying “Future Soldier”.

The poppy was once a symbol to remind us of the senseless massacre of millions upon millions of people in muddy fields far away from home. The poppy was supposed to say never again to the horrors of a spat between politicians murdering a generation. What it is now is a symbol of militarism, and standard used to recruit children to don a uniform and go off and get themselves killed. It means the opposite of what it is supposed to.

I admit I’d stopped wearing the red poppy about six or seven years ago. I am not sure if it was because my eyes opened to what it symbolises these days, or whether it was because the poppy itself had become twisted into a mark of jingoism. The trend certainly seems to have grown stronger in recent years.

Policing of wearing the poppy has grown absurd: public figures face attacks, all the way up to death threats, for not wearing one. There are ****ing poppies all over everything, from buses, to a big ****off wearable poppy costume. GCHQ are taking a break from peeking at our internets and turning themselves into a humongous poppy, and looking a lot like budget Doctor Who villains in the process.

Meanwhile, opinion pieces glorifying the deaths in the First World War seem to be on the rise, with pundits and politicians alike acting as though it was anything other than a meaningless mass killing that ****ed up the world for generations.

And now it all becomes clearer than ever. They want us to forget what happened and pretend–as they did a hundred years ago–as though wars are nothing more than a jolly good lark. They brainwash children: not to mourn, but to strive to emulate. I cannot stop looking at that picture. It makes my gorge rise. These are children, and yet in a few years’ time, if they follow the naive dream they are being steered towards, we could be seeing them shipped back in coffins.

Instead of the symbols, the reminders, we should focus on actually remembering. On remembering, one sees the brutal senselessness of this slaughter. With a symbol, it is all too easy to simply radicalise children into militarism.

I don’t really know how to finish them, so we’ll end with Wilfred Owen, who saw this coming almost a century ago.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

If there’s an afterlife, I imagine Owen is very, very angry right now.
More...

Spanish Eyes · 08-11-2018 7:51pm

For those who might be in any way interested, and I am just putting it out there, no connections at all...

The Quakers are having a White Poppy ceremony on Armistice Day where anyone can help place white poppies in Merrion Square in honour of those who died.

Given the Quakers pacifist credentials, it sounds like a good event to me, and I will be there.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/white-poppy-ceremony-at-dublin-s-merrion-square-to-mark-armistice-day-1.3686968

ohnonotgmail · 08-11-2018 7:54pm

murpho999 wrote: »

So as I said the poppy is only used by Commonwealth countries so there is no reason for people to wear it at all.

The Poppy is a British and Commonwealth symbol.

and my relatives died fighting as british soldiers so i do have a reason. get used to it.

Spleerbun · 08-11-2018 8:01pm

This will probably come across as a bit disrespectful to some, but how many generations do ye think we are away from people not caring about this ****? Every year the same back and forth on and on

Spanish Eyes · 08-11-2018 8:31pm

Spleerbun wrote: »

This will probably come across as a bit disrespectful to some, but how many generations do ye think we are away from people not caring about this ****? Every year the same back and forth on and on

Bit like the famine here I suppose, will always crop up but with no specific date.

I have often wondered why those who died in WW2 do not have a specific remembrance date like 11.11

And yet their comrades liberated the concentrations camps and so on. And so much more too.

weldoninhio · 08-11-2018 11:16pm

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

and my relatives died fighting as british soldiers so i do have a reason. get used to it.

Fighting as British soldiers to help Britain keep its empire. Not worth remembering as Irish. Ireland was one of the countries that Britain were occupying!! There was no big evil in WW1, like Hitler in WW2.

Folkstonian · 08-11-2018 11:20pm

weldoninhio wrote: »

Fighting as British soldiers to help Britain keep its empire. Not worth remembering as Irish. Ireland was one of the countries that Britain were occupying!! There was no big evil in WW1, like Hitler in WW2.

Who the hell are you to be telling other people what is and isn’t worth remembering to them? Such breathtaking arrogance.

ohnonotgmail · 08-11-2018 11:22pm

weldoninhio wrote: »

Fighting as British soldiers to help Britain keep its empire. Not worth remembering as . was one of the countries that Britain were occupying!! There was no big evil in WW1, like Hitler in WW2.

I refer you to my last reply to you

[Deleted User] · 08-11-2018 11:23pm

If you agree with the aims of the British Empire for which those Irish-born British soldiers died, commemorate to your heart's content. There's at least an integrity of sorts in that consistency.

However, trying to claim you're not honouring them for their role in that imperialist project, while wearing the poppy symbols of the British Empire/Commonwealth/Legion and accepting the entire "We saved the world" "We fought for the rights of small nations" "We civilised the world" propaganda that justifies these opportunists is either very naive of you, or reflects a very poor perception of our gullibility.

It's a genuinely "personal commemoration" when you do it privately away from all the British symbols and politics. If I had, say, a great uncle who died in the service of the British Empire and I felt the need to commemorate this person whom I never knew (How much time do these commemorators have?), I certainly wouldn't be falling into having his death contextualised within the symbolic trappings of British imperialism/modern British nationalism. There wouldn't be a Union Jack, the flag that symbolises the British subjugation of the Irish people since 1800, in sight of any personal commemoration I might choose to make for that Irish-born British soldier whom I never knew. No "Royal" anything, none of the very royalist cult which kept my people faoi chois century after century. Commemorate their British heroes, at the expense of ignoring the far, far greater number of Irish victims of the British? Even for the most rabid British jingoist, that expectation is something else. There's a reason why the contribution of Irish volunteers to WWI is far, far less than the British contribution: even in 1914 enough of us remained conscious of our own tradition, our own nationhood, our own history. "We serve neither king nor kaiser but Ireland."

Claiming you're making a "personal" commemoration when all the explicitly and implicitly political myths and symbols of the British imperialist version of history abound at the commemoration is really risible stuff. You're part of the cult for as long as you go along with it and all its denials about the victims of British colonial subjugation from Bengal to Belfast, Kenya to Killarney. It's an extraordinary degree of doublethink to claim you're being "apolitical" when you're just trying to make excuses for people who contributed to the thuggery of the British across the planet, simply because those people are related to you. (and, let's face it, unless you support the aims of British colonialism you're probably an attention-seeking volatile person if you're commemorating somebody who fought for it that you never, ever knew)

ohnonotgmail · 08-11-2018 11:27pm

Deleted User wrote: »

If you agree with the aims of the British Empire for which those -born British soldiers died, commemorate to your heart's content. There's at least an integrity of sorts in that consistency.

However, trying to claim you're not honouring them for their role in that imperialist project, while wearing the poppy symbols of the British Empire/Commonwealth/Legion and accepting the entire "We saved the world" "We fought for the rights of small nations" "We civilised the world" propaganda that justifies these opportunists is either very naive of you, or reflects a very poor perception of our gullibility.

It's a genuinely "personal commemoration" when you do it privately away from all the British symbols and politics. If I had, say, a great uncle who died in the service of the British Empire and I felt the need to commemorate this person whom I never knew (How much time do these commemorators have?), I certainly wouldn't be falling into having his death contextualised within the symbolic trappings of British imperialism/modern British nationalism. There wouldn't be a Union Jack, the flag that symbolises the British subjugation of the people since 1800, in sight of any personal commemoration I might choose to make for that -born British soldier whom I never knew. No "Royal" anything, none of the very royalist cult which kept my people faoi chois century after century. Commemorate their British heroes, at the expense of ignoring the far, far greater number of victims of the British? Even for the most rabid British jingoist, that expectation is something else. There's a reason why the contribution of volunteers to WWI is far, far less than the British contribution: even in 1914 enough of us remained conscious of our own tradition, our own nationhood, our own history. "We serve neither king nor kaiser but ."

Claiming you're making a "personal" commemoration when all the explicitly and implicitly political myths and symbols of the British imperialist version of history abound at the commemoration is really risible stuff. You're part of the cult for as long as you go along with it and all its denials about the victims of British colonial subjugation from Bengal to Belfast, Kenya to Killarney. It's an extraordinary degree of doublethink to claim you're being "apolitical" when you're just trying to make excuses for people who contributed to the thuggery of the British across the planet, simply because those people are related to you. (and, let's face it, unless you support the aims of British colonialism you're probably an attention-seeking volatile person if you're commemorating somebody who fought for it that you never, ever knew)

Beats honoring car bombers i suppose.

[Deleted User] · 08-11-2018 11:27pm

weldoninhio wrote: »

Fighting as British soldiers to help Britain keep its empire. Not worth remembering as Irish. Ireland was one of the countries that Britain were occupying!! There was no big evil in WW1, like Hitler in WW2.

Remember Ireland was part of the United Kingdom at the time of the First World War. So Irish fighting under the British were fighting under the ruler at the time.

[Deleted User] · 08-11-2018 11:29pm

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

Beats honoring car bombers i suppose.

That's about the intellectual level I'd expect from an apologist for the thugs of the British Empire.

Spanish Eyes · 08-11-2018 11:29pm

Kevin Myers brought all this to the surface. He made it known that Irish men fought in WW1 and they should be remembered for that.

We should also remember that those Irish who fought in WW1 were actually British at that time. And they probably saw joining the Army as a way to send some money home. But most of them died in battle anyway.

ohnonotgmail · 08-11-2018 11:31pm

Deleted User wrote: »

That's about the intellectual level I'd expect from an apologist for the thugs of the British Empire.

It is certainly about the intellectual level of reply that your post deserved. You have no interest in an intelligent discussion. You just want to soapbox.

[Deleted User] · 08-11-2018 11:33pm

Folkstonian wrote: »

Who the hell are you to be telling other people what is and isn’t worth remembering to them? Such breathtaking arrogance.

Which is hilariously ironic when all the "poppy fascists" (really poppy imperialists but "fascism" gets a harder press in your country because, well, it was done by other countries in contrast to the "good" imperialists) who are ensuring that everybody on British television, and even soccer players, must wear the poppy symbol of British warmongering?

I look forward to you all commemorating the victims of your British Empire with as much gusto next year. Pigs will fly.

RandomName2 · 08-11-2018 11:33pm

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I'm sorry Britain, you didn't have a "glorious empire" - you raped and plundered half the world. Your history isn't anything to be proud of, quite the opposite in fact. The world doesn't look up to you with awe and respect - you are in fact a right shower of cúnts!

Britain raped and pillaged France and Belgium in 1914? Right, okay, that's a low blow, it's not like we were talking about WW1 or anything.

But if we are talking about WW1, do the Irish who fought and died in France deserve to be remembered? WW1. France. Just want to focus your attention here.

[Deleted User] · 08-11-2018 11:37pm

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

It is certainly about the intellectual level of reply that your post deserved. You have no interest in an intelligent discussion. You just want to soapbox.

That's rich coming from a guy who is repeatedly unable to rationally defend commemorating somebody who fought for the British Empire, and indeed is willing to commemorate them even though he has never met them. Bizarre. Nothing rational there at all, unless you agree with the cause of British imperialism that they fought to defend.

ohnonotgmail · 08-11-2018 11:39pm

Deleted User wrote: »

That's rich coming from a guy who is repeatedly unable to rationally defend commemorating somebody who fought for the British Empire, and indeed is willing to commemorate them even though he has never met them. Bizarre. Nothing rational there at all, unless you agree with the cause of British imperialism that they fought to defend.

there you go inventing narratives and soapboxing again.

[Deleted User] · 08-11-2018 11:40pm

RandomName2 wrote: »

Britain raped and pillaged France and Belgium in 1914? Right, okay, that's a low blow, it's not like we were talking about WW1 or anything.

But if we are talking about WW1, do the Irish who fought and died in France deserve to be remembered? WW1. France. Just want to focus your attention here.

How about you and the rest of the apologists for the British Empire start commemorating the far, far, far greater number of Irish victims of the British Empire in history, and come back to us with this request to honour some of your footsoldiers?

Eh. Em. Er.

[Deleted User] · 08-11-2018 11:42pm

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

there you go inventing narratives and soapboxing again.

Well, people can look back and see your inability to rationally justify your position.

Spanish Eyes · 08-11-2018 11:42pm

Has anyone visited the Military Cemetery on Blackhorse Avenue in Dublin?

Just wondered. I did and it is very interesting. Look it up, presume you can all google!

A bit hidden away though.

RandomName2 · 08-11-2018 11:42pm

Deleted User wrote: »

That's rich coming from a guy who is repeatedly unable to rationally defend commemorating somebody who fought for the British Empire, and indeed is willing to commemorate them even though he has never met them. Bizarre. Nothing rational there at all, unless you agree with the cause of British imperialism that they fought to defend.

You don't think the Irish people who dies in WW1 deserve to be remembered.. or how was it you dismissively put it.. my 'footsoldiers'.. because you have an obsession with an empire that no longer exists. Not that any of the empires that fought in WW1 still exist. But that's your prerogative. The dead won't hear you, either way.

Folkstonian · 08-11-2018 11:43pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Which is hilariously ironic when all the "poppy fascists" (really poppy imperialists but "fascism" gets a harder press in your country because, well, it was done by other countries in contrast to the "good" imperialists) who are ensuring that everybody on British television, and even soccer players, must wear the poppy symbol of British warmongering?

I look forward to you all commemorating the victims of your British Empire with as much gusto next year. Pigs will fly.

I was replying to another poster, not you. Seethe away to yourself.

ohnonotgmail · 08-11-2018 11:43pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Well, people can look back and see your inability to rationally justify your position.

Who do i have to justify it to? To you? back on your soapbox.

[Deleted User] · 08-11-2018 11:44pm

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Has anyone visited the Military Cemetery on Blackhorse Avenue in Dublin?

Just wondered. I did and it is very interesting. Look it up, presume you can all google!

A bit hidden away though.

It's just down the round from my house in Dublin, people still get buried there.
It's an interesting place.

Spanish Eyes · 08-11-2018 11:48pm

Why all the hissy fits.

I cannot understand those who do not understand that history is history and there is nothing we can do about it now, other than repeating it.

[Deleted User] · 08-11-2018 11:57pm

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Kevin Myers brought all this to the surface. He made it known that Irish men fought in WW1 and they should be remembered for that.

.

Why? Time for a blitz on every bóthairín, sráidbhaile and baile in Ireland to commemorate all the victims of the very same British Empire that Myers glorified ad nauseam (while, in true Jekyll and Hyde form, feigning moral superiority by condemning violence when it was carried out for political aims with which he disagreed, especially by the native Irish forces of resistance in the last remnant of the British Empire in Ireland). We could smother this island in commemorations to the native Irish victims of British imperialism if we started. Why, pray tell, do you think Irish-born people who fought for something as morally reprehensible as imperialism deserve commemoration? Just because it was the British Empire? Bingo.

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

We should also remember that those Irish who fought in WW1 were actually British at that time. And they probably saw joining the Army as a way to send some money home. But most of them died in battle anyway.

Great, so you want Irish people in 2018 to commemorate British people in 1914 who joined the army of the empire occupying Ireland because they needed the money? Can you extend this generous attitude to every other person in history who joined something supremacist/ignoble because they needed money? Or is this a special "understanding" only reserved for people who used violence for the political aims of the British Empire?

Poppy

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