remembrance of what exactly? sunday

COMMENT

It is just past the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. In solemn ceremonies up and down the country its war dead are honoured, as indeed they should be. To give one's life in service of the state is a noble, if sometimes misguided act.

I have to inform you that I have not worn a poppy this year, despite the intense (if subtle) peer pressure one comes under to comply. But for many years I have had reservations about what I see as buying into a militaristic culture. And I have to say I find it extremely worrying when I see every single MP across the political divide in the days and indeed weeks preceding the 11th sporting their poppies "with pride". When the state comes together in complete unity like this, I feel it somehow represents a loss of freedom, of diversity of thought. And that's never a good thing. The same thing applies to each and every news presenter, regardless of which channel they serve, leading the eminent journalist Jon Snow to divulge that he had been put under some pressure to fall in line, labelling this sort of manipulation "poppy fascism". I have had a lot of time for Snow ever since he turned down a highly prestigious OBE on the grounds that as a member of the 4th estate he had no business aligning himself with the state itself.

Don't misunderstand me: I am no pacifist, and I am well aware that sometimes there is no option other than military force. In World War 2, for example, the Nazis and Japanese militarists had to be crushed, almost by whatever means necessary. And I salute those men and women who were killed and injured carrying out that grim duty. But in recent years I have not approved of the military campaigns with which the UK has embroiled itself. And I worry about the civilians caught up in war. WW2 was the first war in history where more civilians were killed than soldiers, and it's been getting worse ever since. In Iraq many more civilians were killed than combatants (although the US in particular has worked hard to conceal the figures) and the situation is no better in Afghanistan. Where is the remembrance day for them?