6 Comments
Nov 1Liked by JM Smith

I agree absolutely. It's also been hijacked by the Right as yet another stick to beat the rest of us with. It disgusted my mum, who actually did participate in the Second World War, unlike those Boomers who like to claim that they did.

Expand full comment
Nov 2·edited Nov 2Liked by JM Smith

In my workplace of ~1,000 people, the only ones wearing the poppy are leadership. It has become more a signifier of proximity to power and less an indicator of lessons learned from war.

Canada’s ruling class has clearly forgotten that we should be waging peace at any cost. I wonder what they think about in that minute of silence on Nov 11.

Expand full comment

Has anyone else noticed that since the advent of the Gaza genocide our ruling class no longer frame Canada as a "peacekeeping nation"?

I abandoned wearing the poppy when the glorification of war took hold again in Canada during the Harper years.

Never again feels like a distant memory these days.

Expand full comment

Excellent point. We were supposed to wear poppies to remember the dead and prevent it from happening again. The poppy is meaningless if those that wear it do not support peace.

Expand full comment

I’ve bothered some people by refusing to participate in anything to do with Remembrance day and not wearing a poppy. Some people appear to have decided it’s because I’m part German. It isn’t though. I just find it a ritual we are supposed to indulge in and I have a life long habit of never doing what everyone else does and I’m not going to change now.

Expand full comment

Bullied if you don't wear one. Vilified even. Looked down upon and tutted at. The poppy is just a money making machine, making more expensive bits of merch to sell at exorbitant prices, to profit who? War is a money making scheme with population control thrown in for good measure, but let's wear a poppy to remember how bad war is when parts of the world have been at war for years?

Expand full comment