Lest We Forget

Tomorrow, 11 November, is probably the most important secular holiday on my calendar. And I say this as someone who generally identifies as a pacifist. And a pacifist who insists upon wearing a blood red poppy.

Some may find it odd that I feel more patriotic on Remembrance Day than I do on Canada Day, but I'm not sure how odd that sounds to a Canadian. In fact, I see far more poppies leading up to Remembrance Day than I ever see Canadian flags around Canada day. For me, this is a day when we remember the horrors of war, and that is something that a white poppy can never represent to me. It's a day when we remember all those who died, all the blood that flooded the fields and valleys of Europe, because of war. This is not an argument against the notion of a just war, but it does recall the price of all war, be it just or not. And while no war since the First and Second World Wars has seen so many killed, both military and civilian, every war is a type of those wars. Every war sees unnecessary death, sorrow, and tragedy.

And it is in memory of those who have died, necessarily or unnecessarily, that I wear a red poppy. Because I remember the price of war. And it is for them that I stand in silent memory at 11am on 11 November.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

--John McCrae, 1915