It’s early November, so in Canada that means Remembrance Day assemblies, WW 1 and 2 television programming on CBC and the History Channel, and of course, the annual Red Poppy campaign. I’m pretty sure I have donated thousands of dollars to the Legion over the last 40 years because the little suckers are always falling off and I’m always replacing them. They aren’t perfect, but they are still relevant.
Some people have declared their intentions to wear a white poppy instead of a red one, claiming they are for peace rather than war. I can’t really argue with the sentiment, though the tactic might be a bit sensationalist. A writer whose work I respect and who always makes me think, Anne Therieult, eloquently outlines her reasons for wearing a white poppy in The Huffington Post. I agree with her on several points, and she and everyone else certainly have the right to choose how they commemorate Remembrance Day, if at all.
I choose to commemorate it by wearing a red poppy because for me it symbolizes freedom of choice well enough.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Remembrance Day. In Grade 6, I proudly took on the role of the old lady imploring young people to wear their poppies as we reenacted Don Crawford’s poem, “Why Wear a Poppy.” I dressed in head-to-toe black and wore my glasses far down my nose, with my hair in a bun. Basically, though I’m pretty sure I was supposed to play an Anglo-Saxon, I dressed like my widowed Greek grandmother did, cross hanging outside my dress and all, which was ok, because Greece and Canada were allies anyway, so the poem could apply to both my homelands.
I still remember every line of John McCrae’s poem, “In Flander’s Field.” That and the Jesus prayer are equally ingrained in my memory.
When my daughter was one of the emcees for her school’s Remembrance Day assembly last year, I saw it as a kind of passing of the torch. She’s been on stage plenty of times, but that particular gig was even more special to me.
I was the first to volunteer for the field trip to the Military Museum, and the first to bawl during the film presentation.
I always bawl during those YouTube videos depicting soldiers’ returns to their loved ones, even if – especially if – I don’t agree with the war they’re fighting.
I always bawl during movie scenes when the military rep has to inform the parents/spouse/kids their loved one has died.
And by bawl I mean hot-tears-and-snot-running-down-my-face, ugly-cry bawl. The kids so have my number that any time something looks remotely like it’s going to mean a soldier’s return they anxiously call me to the TV and stare at me, waiting for the leaky faucet to start running.
Why does a middle-aged white woman who has had no direct experience with war have this particular emotional trigger? I mean, I’ve never seen my child or husband or parent off to fight for anything they may not come back from.
And I hope I never have to, which is part of the reason I feel compelled to stand with all those mothers and fathers and wives and husbands who have. Who do.
Not all of them have “chosen” this life. Not really. The majority of military recruits have traditionally been white, rural males – men who perhaps don’t have access to as many opportunities as their urban counterparts in terms of education and economic privilege. Historically, conscription made it impossible for anyone but the most well-connected to avoid the military without long-term employability consequences or prison time. Not much choice there.
You can disagree with military culture and with war and fighting and guns and violence and specific conflicts still happening and your country’s decision to send troops to other countries and still honour all those people who got and get pulled into that system. You can be aware of the economic and political machinations of a country’s foreign and domestic policies that support the vested interests of the chosen few and still stand in solidarity with the many who are forced for myriad reasons to execute those interests with little gain for themselves and do so as honorably as they can.
You can think critically and still end up making an informed decision to commemorate Remembrance Day, red poppy on your lapel.
So, for me the red poppy in part symbolizes a shared aspiration of creating a society where everyone has access to opportunities thereby increasing their choices. It symbolizes a shared aspiration of creating a society in which war and violence are ultimately unnecessary – on both macro and micro levels – and where people’s freedoms are not the exception but the rule, all over the world.
As I wrote in my previous blog post, October 28 is a national holiday in Greece memorializing the day the Greek PM refused to allow Axis forces to occupy the country, thereby committing the country to war. Metaxas could have said yes, but he chose to say no, and his fellow countrymen then had no choice but to fight. The German occupation of Greece resulted in hundreds of thousands of Greeks dying of starvation and Nazi reprisals. Over 80% of the Jewish population that had thrived and was an integral part of Greek society was wiped out, altering Greece’s cultural landscape forever. Though the Greeks successfully resisted, the resulting fraying of their society resulted in a brutal civil war that further tore apart the country and decimated the economy. I still remember the suspicion and hostility among villagers in my mom’s town when I’d visit in the 80s and 90s. Like so many towns, the civil war had turned neighbours against one another and the damage was irreparable even decades later.
One of the most moving experiences I’ve had travelling Greece is when I went to the village of Kalavryta. After the deportation of our Hellenic Jews, Kalavryta is the site of the single-biggest Nazi war crime in Greece. Followingthe execution of 78 German soldiers by the Greek resistance, the Nazis retaliated by rounding up the women and children of the town and locking them in the school, then setting it and the entire village on fire. They took every male over the age of 12 to a hill overlooking the town and shot them. Only 13 males survived. The women and children escaped after a lone German soldier took pity on them and unlocked the school doors. The school has been turned into a museum and on the hillside, now known as the Place of Sacrifice, a giant white cross overlooks a small church filled with gold incense burners – one for every male killed. Over 700 of them. Not to mention the 28 surrounding towns, villages and monasteries that were also destroyed.
When I first went to Kalavryta in 1997, almost every woman over the age of 30 was still wearing black for one of their family members, looking not unlike I did in that Grade 6 presentation. I wear a red poppy for those town-members, male and female, young and old, who had no choice.
I wear a red poppy for that lone German soldier who made a difficult choice, probably at great cost to himself, and to remember that humanity and mercy can be found even in members of the other side. He was someone’s loved one as well. Perhaps he had no choice about being where he was either.
I wear a red poppy for my grandfather who fought in World War 2, for my other grandfather who was exiled during the civil war, and for my father who had to dodge guerilla fighters in fox traps built for the children as he walked to school during the civil war . I wear a red poppy for my grandmothers who often went hungry themselves to feed their children with their limited rations, who sent them to school unsure of whether they’d make it back. None of them had much of a choice.
I wear a red poppy for all those currently resisting tyranny in their countries. They are not soldiers, but they, too, are veterans of war, their blood the life source of hope. They are fighting for their right to choose.
I wear a red poppy for the women who came before me in this country whose own uprisings against inequality have entrenched my right to make choices – about my body, my civic engagement, and my access to education and employment opportunities.
I wear a red poppy to remember that there was a time same-sex couples had no legal rights, and to express my pride that Canada was among the first countries to legalize same-sex marriage again securing access to opportunities and choices.
I wear a red poppy for the veterans of my country, any war, who have come back to Canada damaged and broken, who were sold a dream and are now paying the price. I wear a red poppy to demonstrate my support for their access to healthcare, employment, and respect.
I wear a red poppy to honour all those that have died in recent years as a result of terror and as a result of the War on Terror. I wear a red poppy to stand in solidarity with those who live with terror every day.
I wear a red poppy to remember not war, but my privilege in never having experienced a war on my soil. I wear a red poppy not to glorify the military, but to glorify the martyrs of power and tyranny, in all their insidious forms.
I wear a red poppy to pass on these values to my children as they don their own red poppies. They, too, are privileged. So far. I wear a red poppy to show them that with privilege comes responsibility, and that privilege always comes with a cost to someone.
I don my red poppy proudly, thoughtfully, reverently. It’s a symbol of much more than its detractors are giving it credit for.
