Pinned up poppy

Nov. 11 is known throughout the western world as Remembrance Day, a day when from 11 a.m. on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, millions of people around their respective time zones take a minute or two to remember and show their respect for the millions of men who lost their lives in the two world wars.

The emblem most widely associated with Remembrance Day is the red poppy, an iconic symbol that provokes the emotion of so many who wear it emblazoned across their chests.

And, at the same time, the motif offers a sense of empowerment that cannot be found elsewhere, a faith in humankind so often missing from today’s society that we need to look back almost a century to reminisce about the belief that people are willing to put their lives on the line to stand up to injustice and to fight for what they believe in and for the protection of the innocent, the structures of democracy and the eradication of fascism.

The trigger for this wave of emotion is nothing more than a slight, slender red flower that illuminates the former battlefields of France, Belgium and Gallipoli.

The poppy appeal for the Canadian Legion relies on thousands of volunteers to engage in fundraising for thousands of war veterans who are not able to fully support themselves anymore, and former Royal Air Force pilot and British ex-pat James Hunter is one of those volunteers.

He told me, he felt it was his “duty” to get involved with the appeal to “help with exposure” for all veterans.

Yet some people, however small the minority, feel that the poppy appeal does nothing more than to glorify war, the bloodshed that it brings and the evil that it provokes.

Hunter doesn’t agree, saying, “In no way can you glorify war. Our theme is remembrance for those who served in a multitude of wars, but also for the peacekeeping efforts we’ve done.”

Without agreeing with the argument of the glorification of war, you can understand where people with this opinion are coming from.

War is not something to be proud of. It’s not an event where the victor should claim any sort of achievement. Nobody really wins in war. We all lose and we all hurt – it shows the worst of humankind, but it can also show the best.

Christmas Day in 1914 on the Western Front was a day where, unilaterally, Allies and Axis showed humanity in the darkest of times. It was cold and wet, and they were surrounded by nothing but mud and blood, but morality shone through if only for one day. The unofficial ceasefire and resulting soccer match on no-man’s land between the fiercest of foes is an event in history that sparks light in the hearts of anyone who had or has any interest in both world wars, and shows the best that we can be.

There have been wars in the past that have undoubtedly shaped the world we live in today, and both World Wars most certainly fall into that category.

Small decisions make big differences in this world. If Serbian freedom fighter Gavrilo Princip had known that his decision to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria would lead to a domino effect chain of events leading to WW1, would he have carried it through? And should the Allies have known their strict controls over Germany after WW1 would ultimately lead to directly impacting to the rise in popularity of Adolf Hitler, would they have been so harsh? I would like to think not.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and we can umm and ahh over what has been, but ultimately we cannot change the past. We can however learn from history, with the sole intention of improving the future.