An interesting piece from Ekklesia's Jonathan Bartley today .... The default politics of Remembrance
On Remembrance Sunday, thousands of services will take place, commemorating - as the Church, state and the British Legion put it with one accord - “those who have given their lives for the peace and freedom we enjoy today”. But the political, and for that matter theological implications of such a perspective, will be quietly ignored. This should be, they say with equal agreement, an impartial event, devoid of political considerations.
But it isn’t. Because this is in reality Remember-In-A-Certain-Way Sunday ....
... if we accept the Remembrance Day rhetoric, that soldiers laid down their lives to give us the liberties we enjoy today, then surely that must include the freedom to choose how we remember the dead, and say what we believe?
Meanwhile, the Yorkshire Evening Post carried a number of letters on the theme, including the following from Martin Schweiger:
On Tuesday the YEP letters page carried three letters making the case for wearing poppies to remind us of the sacrifice made by so many servicemen and women and importantly supporting the Poppy Appeal. The red poppies are an echo of human bloodshed upon the battle fields of the First World War while flowers grew and bloomed nearby.
I suggest that today we should complement the red poppies with white poppies to mark a determination that we should not forget the past but learn from it and strive to build lasting peace between people and between nations.
Simply buying a red poppy and wearing it will not solve all the problems of those whose lives have been damaged by conflict. Simply buying and wearing a white poppy will not bring about an instant end to all conflict. However we have to start somewhere and the poppies, red and white give us a starting point.
Martin Schweiger, Member of Roundhay (Leeds) Quaker Meeting
