So this Remembrance thing's come up again, as it does precisely once a year. That'll change next year, and I think it's the 2014 centenary of the beginning of the First World War that's got some people particularly worried about the meaning of the poppy and of remembrance in general. But for now, it's November, it's coming up on the 95th anniversary of the 1918 Armistice, and the famous poppy is under fire.
As with all wordless symbols, the poppy's meaning is open to considerable interpretation. This year, Robert Fisk, writing for the Independent, has decided that it's time to take a stand against what he sees as the glorification of the war. Poppy-wearers "mock the war dead", he claims, in the screaming header of an article which combines legitimate personal remembrance with slew of trivial protests in the finest Grumpy Old Man cast - that the poppy's manufacture has changed, that its design is different, that members of the BBC now wear it.
He focuses, with palpable holier-than-thou disdain, on his own contempt for the symbol itself. He admits to taking part in Remembrance services, so it's not like his protest is against war memorials in general - he just refuses to partake in any symbolic gestures involving poppies. He calls the poppy a "fashion appendage", and laments the poem that started it all, despite its gut-punching power. In that respect, if he wants to change attitudes towards remembering the dead, he's selected exactly the wrong target.
The argument brings to mind The History Boys, in which a character describes "lest we remember": the idea that institutionalised remembrance is a device to emotionally distance ourselves from the reality of war, and in doing so, to forget how it felt to be in it. Fisk really wants our remembrance of World War I to be emotional, and seems to think that the poppy detracts from that.
But it is a fundamental fact of human nature that children don't appreciate their parents' sacrifices, even when they're grown-up themselves. After half a century of relative peace for the United Kingdom, it's not surprising that our society is slowly losing its memory of the horror of war. This is not a difficult idea. There's no ceremony for the dead of the Crimea. There's no remembrance for the Boer Wars. The War of 1812 is a historical footnote, and the less said about the Americans' attitude towards their own continental wars, the better. The list of British wars is longer than you realise. Much, much longer.
I'm sure there are people who wear the poppy as a fashion article. They haven't thought about its meaning, in the same way that people don't put much thought into the history and meanings of lots of simple annual rituals. But people need to put their faith, their trust and their attention into symbols, because all too often they don't have the time or the creative impulse to come up with their own personal ways of remembering historical events. Especially those which relate to emotionally exhausting subjects like war and death.
The very act of remembrance itself is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, ritualising the sorrow we feel for the war dead allows society to agree on how best to remember, and helps the truly stricken to compartmentalise their sorrow and get on with their lives. On the other hand, it encourages people to get on with their lives. And the longer they can do that, the more distant the war becomes.
I'm not sure that what's happening with the poppy - if anything's really changed about its meaning and significance at all in the 20 years since Fisk's late father died, which I'm not sure about - is anything more than the passage of time. And bitching about the symbol isn't going to help people remember. If anything, it's going to bury the significance of the date and the ceremony beneath a weight of - largely pointless - debate. Debate which won't reach those who wear the symbol as a "fashion article", because they're precisely the people who aren't paying attention. That's the point.
One day, I don't know how far away, people will stop wearing the poppy. And that won't be because everyone's too busy remembering the dead in their own personal way. It'll just be because they've forgotten entirely.
As with all wordless symbols, the poppy's meaning is open to considerable interpretation. This year, Robert Fisk, writing for the Independent, has decided that it's time to take a stand against what he sees as the glorification of the war. Poppy-wearers "mock the war dead", he claims, in the screaming header of an article which combines legitimate personal remembrance with slew of trivial protests in the finest Grumpy Old Man cast - that the poppy's manufacture has changed, that its design is different, that members of the BBC now wear it.
He focuses, with palpable holier-than-thou disdain, on his own contempt for the symbol itself. He admits to taking part in Remembrance services, so it's not like his protest is against war memorials in general - he just refuses to partake in any symbolic gestures involving poppies. He calls the poppy a "fashion appendage", and laments the poem that started it all, despite its gut-punching power. In that respect, if he wants to change attitudes towards remembering the dead, he's selected exactly the wrong target.
The argument brings to mind The History Boys, in which a character describes "lest we remember": the idea that institutionalised remembrance is a device to emotionally distance ourselves from the reality of war, and in doing so, to forget how it felt to be in it. Fisk really wants our remembrance of World War I to be emotional, and seems to think that the poppy detracts from that.
But it is a fundamental fact of human nature that children don't appreciate their parents' sacrifices, even when they're grown-up themselves. After half a century of relative peace for the United Kingdom, it's not surprising that our society is slowly losing its memory of the horror of war. This is not a difficult idea. There's no ceremony for the dead of the Crimea. There's no remembrance for the Boer Wars. The War of 1812 is a historical footnote, and the less said about the Americans' attitude towards their own continental wars, the better. The list of British wars is longer than you realise. Much, much longer.
I'm sure there are people who wear the poppy as a fashion article. They haven't thought about its meaning, in the same way that people don't put much thought into the history and meanings of lots of simple annual rituals. But people need to put their faith, their trust and their attention into symbols, because all too often they don't have the time or the creative impulse to come up with their own personal ways of remembering historical events. Especially those which relate to emotionally exhausting subjects like war and death.
The very act of remembrance itself is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, ritualising the sorrow we feel for the war dead allows society to agree on how best to remember, and helps the truly stricken to compartmentalise their sorrow and get on with their lives. On the other hand, it encourages people to get on with their lives. And the longer they can do that, the more distant the war becomes.
I'm not sure that what's happening with the poppy - if anything's really changed about its meaning and significance at all in the 20 years since Fisk's late father died, which I'm not sure about - is anything more than the passage of time. And bitching about the symbol isn't going to help people remember. If anything, it's going to bury the significance of the date and the ceremony beneath a weight of - largely pointless - debate. Debate which won't reach those who wear the symbol as a "fashion article", because they're precisely the people who aren't paying attention. That's the point.
One day, I don't know how far away, people will stop wearing the poppy. And that won't be because everyone's too busy remembering the dead in their own personal way. It'll just be because they've forgotten entirely.
No comments:
Post a Comment