Giving back the poppy

I won't be wearing a poppy this year. It is not that I am unsympathetic to the sacrifices of our soldiers. Its not that I don't understand, that the freedom I express in writing this, has been bought with their blood. It is not that I am not grateful. But symbols are very precious things, their meaning is never fixed; it is nuanced, balanced and delicate. The poppy above all symbols is a fragile representation of what they gave, of the place and fields in which they fought, of the blood that they shed, the numbers in which they fell and finally and hopefully, in the flowers and blossom of their rebirth and growth.

Its not because of them that I shall not wear a poppy this year, it is because of us and what we are letting it  become. Somehow the meaning of the poppy is shifting. It is no longer simply a symbol of what they gave in the name of freedom . Its hard to define but you can see it in the change in the culture of the poppy and they way in which it is being used. There is the debate around whether or not the England football team could wear a poppy in a friendly match against Spain. It became a matter for parliament, a struggle against the intransigence of FIFA. When in truth, FIFA's policy on the wearing of symbols and icons has been instrumental in depoliticising football. What do FIFA do now when the Serbians and the Croats want to remember their war dead the next time they play?

Then there is the sartorial fascism of the BBC and other major media outlets who have effectively made it compulsory for people to wear poppy's if they are taking part in interviews. This might seem trivial, but when used  in this way, the poppy is not an icon of freedom, it is a badge of conformity and coercion. There is something in that sense of compulsion and obligation that reminds me of the people who used to go around handing out feathers to young men who hadn't volunteered. It reminds me of the difference between the soldier and the jingoist, the people who pay the price for war and the culture and politics that sends them there. The people of Britain have always been mobilised in the name of freedom and most of the time freedom expresses itself in the little things we do and the choices we make in the context of our everyday lives, such as what we might choose to wear.

But perhaps the greatest threat to the delicate symbolism of the poppy comes from our government and its institutions. The announcement yesterday that the government was banning 'Muslims against Crusades' might seem to be a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Their, 'Hell for Heroes' campaign is offensive and their plan to burn poppies on Armistice Day equally so. Yet should burning poppies and challenging the justification of western military intervention in other parts of the world necessarily make them a proscribed organisation? Perhaps and perhaps not, but by announcing their decision on November 10th and by linking the proscription to the burning of poppies, the government made it almost impossible for human rights groups to challenge the decision. The symbolic power of the poppy as the preferred icon of the jingoist made the decision untouchable. And today the appropriation of the poppy seems all the more complete when we read the following tweet from the Metropolitan Police:

 ' Individuals seeking to disrupt the 2 minute silence will be dealt with robustly '

Somehow you can't help but feel that its time to remember what they fought for and give the poppy back

'...Poppies whose roots are in man's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping,
But mine in my ear is safe---
Just a little white with the dust.'
Isaac Rosenberg