Remembrance Sunday was created on November 7 1919 by King George V as a way for people to remember the sacrifices made by the Allied soldiers of the First World War. It is observed today (on the Sunday closest to November 11) to remember the fallen of other conflcits too.
The plastic poppy has its origins in the poppies made and advocated by Moina Michelle (1918)and Madame Anne Guerin (1920) - its symbolism stems from the poem "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae. Poppies grew across the battlefields. The red is the blood spilt.
Cue Peter Snow, a newsreader, who refused to wear a poppy the other day and calls the whole tradition "poppy fascism." He has a point as kids are being forced to wear them and viewers' wrote a storm of complaints because he didn't have one on. (An aside - there is also the campaign for a white poppy, to symbolise peace and remembrance, rather than the red poppy.)
The socialist take on this lays in objection to that seemingly harmless word "sacrifices" from the first sentence of this post. The ruling class, the pulpits and the media argue that working class men and women have fought and died in wars in order to let us all enjoy what we have today. Presumably, that "sacrifice" was death for capitalist democracy. The Socialist Party argues that wars are not fought to protect democracy. Further, we argue the cause of wars is the capitalist system itself.
Remembrance of wars is not a pointless exercise. We need to remember why the horror started in the first place and that it is possible to banish the murder, misery and destruction of wars forever.
Erratum -- the newsreader in question is of course Jon Snow!
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