by kinsey » Sat Nov 10, 2018 9:34 pm
In some ways, I have sympathy for James McClean.
His personal view is no more or less important than mine or yours. Or Nemanja Matic's. Nor is it at odds with the Royal British Legion. It is not mandatory to wear the poppy. Indeed, many argue that the poppy commerates those who laid down their lives to protect personal freedom... which includes you know, the freedom whether or not to wear a poppy!
Perhaps I have this wrong - but it sometimes feels to me that those who abuse him at this time of year besmirch the poppy and what it stands for, more than McClean does by not wearing it.
I wear a poppy.
When I was at school (80s), i was taught that the poppy was a memorial, not just to the men who gave their lives, but to the many more who had their lives taken from them by the actions of madmen, big business and blundering politicians. That it was a reminder not just of the terrible sacrifice that so many people paid for the world we live in today, but of the terrible horror that was visited on a whole generation. Not just soldiers, but wives, mothers, daughters. That our best way of thanking them was to say never again to war and to live peacefully and respectfully with each other.
With that in mind, I have no problem with someone because they choose not to wear the poppy. They are free to make that choice and I am grateful for that.
However, those politicians who commerate Poppy Sunday at one turn and then send out young lads to die in dubious wars at the other (at the behest of big business and under the guise of toppling mad men)... well that's another story!
